Why we love paying for Trello

http://codetunes.com/2013/why-we-love-paying-for-trello

49 26 13 years ago

harshal• 13 years ago

Trello is a great product. Its great that you find it useful and worth paying for. But you lost me right here..

>it’s paid and it won’t disappear overnight.

Thats a gross simplification. Perhaps your company paying for trello, and you blogging about it, makes it a little bit more likely that Trello will stick around and will "succeed". But it certainly does not do much to _guarantee_ that they will hang around for however long you want to use it. Much larger paid-for services have disappeared. The best that they can guarantee you is that they will try to make your data available to you in some form if they ever go away.

bartoszpietrzak3• 13 years ago

That's correct! I made a quick update.

RobAley3• 13 years ago

Do also bear in mind that Fogcreek haven't always stuck to their word on how they will keep their systems up and running (see thread [1] in story [2]).

No company, or service/facility that a company states will stick around, is guaranteed to stick around. Trawl back through the archives on HN and you'll find tale after tale of (previously) reputable companies backtracking, cancelling projects, going bust etc.

Make sure you always keep hold of your data!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4722056 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4721028

arkitaip2• 13 years ago

At $200/year/org it's still incredibly affordable.

kayoone2• 13 years ago

Fogcreek stated that Trello will not go away and i guess its a pretty safe bet as they are making their money (and plenty of it) elsewhere. Of course you can pay for it to feel better about it, but i dont think the success of Trello impacts Fogcreek a whole lot.

ishansharma2• 13 years ago

Supporting a product that you use regularly feels good. Personally, I can afford to live without Evernote Premium as I don't upload much and don't use premium features as much. But still I'm a premium customer because they are doing a great job!

kayoone2• 13 years ago

I am not saying that paying for it isnt a good thing. But it wont make much difference to the creator of Trello and wont impact the lifespan of Trello all that much. They can afford to shut it down whenever they want or to keep it running for as long as they want.

fredley• 13 years ago

Subtle effects when you scroll can be fun, but this is over the top and distracting.

encima• 13 years ago

I honestly cannot understand why a post that is essentially saying, 'look, we spent money, because we are awesome'. This is not why I come to HN.

arkitaip2• 13 years ago

Actually, lots of people here on HN have been inquiring about Trello's business model because they, presumptive consumers, are running businesses and don't want to use a service that's free today and might be gone tomorrow. The fact that Trello now offers a business plan increases the perception of stability.

ScottWhigham• 13 years ago

So a guy has to blog about in answer to those "lots of people" asking? Or could he have just replied to them in the discussion of HN? I don't know - seems a bit self-serving and like an utter waste of time for me. I like/use {Services A, B, C...Z} as well but I don't need to blog about every one of them. I suppose his next post is something anti what this post is - something like, "Why I use Gmail and am not paying for it" or whatever. Meh.

dodger3• 13 years ago

Hi! Trello Dev here! Could you change the Business Class link to point to https://trello.com/c/2A9OEGta for now? That would allow people to sign up for the beta, and the current link doesn't work unless you're already approved for the beta.

(I'm currently changing the business-class route to redirect you to that card if you don't have access.)

Thanks for the kind words about Trello, we're glad you like it!

bartoszpietrzak3• 13 years ago

I just updated the sentence. Thanks!

dodger3• 13 years ago

Thanks so much!

jonathanjaeger2• 13 years ago

"We don’t need the pro features. We simply appreciate the safety and want to support the product."

This sentiment is great for businesses but often doesn't translate well to consumer apps. However, some companies are great at having consumers pay because they love a product. Evernote CEO Phil Libin said how they want to make the free option almost all-encompassing with a small percentage upgrading to premium because they love the product so much. If a product can get to that point with their users, then that's the holy grail in my opinion (rather than feeling like you have to coerce or "force" your users to pay for something by trickery, manipulation, or harsh constraints).

soneca• 13 years ago

I like to think of the freemium model as two different products. The first one, free, must be enough to attend the user's needs. And, without forcing anything, you use the free environment to showcase your second product, which is the paid one, that have different features (not just better ones).

When you frame like this you have both happy paid and happy free users. I imagine it like doing tourism on a city. You may just walk, doing your own sightseeing, with the free city's touristic brochure in your hands. Or you can look for a paid, professional, touristic sightseeing bus. Tourists don't see it as coercive, or even upselling. They are two different products that you choose between.

jonathanjaeger2• 13 years ago

Yes I agree with all your points. But features aside, sometimes I think it's great if not only do you give extra utility with your premium features but users like to pay because they want to support you.

Why we love paying for Trello

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