business

Thoughts And Articles On Pricing | Software Indie Nice roundup of articles of software pricing.

Camels and Rubber Duckies – Joel on Software The answer is really complicated. I’m going to start with a little economic theory, then I’m going to tear the theory to bits, and when I’m finished, you’ll know a lot more about pricing and you still won’t know how much to charge for your software, but that’s just the nature of pricing.

Customer Self Service Achieving significant revenue at a low price point naturally entails driving complexity and cost out of the purchase to clear the floodgates for high volume. **Transactional Sales ** As price increases, customers become less willing to part with their cash without at least knowing there are actual trustworthy human beings behind your website URL. **Enterprise Sales ** While most SaaS startups gravitate toward transactional sales or customer self-service, some SaaS startups have products that provide so much value per customer and are so complex to buy that their natural starting point is traditional enterprise sales....

Chuck Blakeman / Why Our Favorite Questions Keep Us On The Treadmill If you only ask the first four questions, you are likely to only make enough money to pay your mortgage. If you ask the last two, “when” and “why”, every time you ask the others, you are likely to build a business a real that makes money when you’re not around. Get off the treadmill. Ask when and why all the time....

Eliminate an old activity before you add a new one. Greg McKeown (in The Disciplined Pursuit of Less – Harvard Business Review ) This simple rule ensures that you don’t add an activity that is less valuable than something you are already doing.

Instead of asking, “How much do I value this item?” we should ask “If I did not own this item, how much would I pay to obtain it?” Greg McKeown (in The Disciplined Pursuit of Less – Harvard Business Review ) … and the same goes for career opportunities, business projects, etc.

The math of SaaS revenue growth A conversation with the CEO of a SaaS company today reminded me of the importance of the rule of 78s. What is this “rule”, you ask. If you run a recurring revenue business, it is the most important number you have never heard of. Incremental revenue added in January will produce revenue for 12 months; incremental revenue added in February will produce revenue for 11 months; …; incremental revenue added in December will produce revenue for 1 month....

Technology giants at war: Another game of thrones | The Economist (via Charted Territory – Tao of Mac )

What retail is hired to do: Apple vs. IKEA | asymco However, there is one major thing they have in common: a clear formula for positioning your retail operations. Both operations are positioned around a job-to-be-done that has a high priority in people’s life. Apple offers a place where people can discover and get answers about technology without the pressure of making a purchase. The job is to simplify that which is complex for a price premium....

(via Chart: Apple’s Astonishing Profit in Context | Statista ) Wow!