The easiest thing to do of course, is just throw out a paywall of some kind and just see who pays. But that takes engineering resources which you don’t want to waste by building upgrade paths unless you’re certain that folks with their credit cards are standing by. You could create an “Upgrade” link in the software and track how many people click on it, and when they do it just pops up with a “coming soon” message…
As expected from a book geared towards a mainstream audience, Free is not as practical as it could be. Most of the book are company stories and economy history. Although they were interesting, I was looking for more detailed data on free business models.
Nevertheless, there were some bits I loved to read like the “How can X be free?” sections (example: “How can everything in a store be free?” about the SampleLab stores), or the list 50 business models built on free. An entertaining book, but don’t expect to create a business model only around its concepts.
I bought the paperback version, but you can read it or hear it for free online.
After reading some hackernews posts about hacking music, I decided to share some bands I recomend to everyone. They’re mainly around the post-rock genre a.k.a. instrumental rock. Non-distracting, but motivating. Give them a try or share your own.
One of the principles of lean startups is ferocious customer-centric rapid iteration. To validate assumptions, data must be collected from users interacting with the product, a fact frequently forgotten by opinionated developers.
Here are two good presentations about metrics, one about business metrics for startups, and other specifically about web applications design metrics.
"SlideShare’s existing customers had needs that the company’s new product—along with its pricing and positioning—simply weren’t solving. Realizing it had taken a wrong turn, SlideShare rethought its approach to premium accounts and ultimately performed what we’d call a value capture pivot, one where the company changes the way it collects revenue from customers."
Finished reading The Art of Start and it’s really good. I’m lending it to my partner in crime, since it’s full of valuable pragmatic instructions.
Although some advices apply to large venture capital funding, most are universal to any startup. I specially liked the pitching tips (the 10/20/30 rule, take notes…) and the The Art of Schmoozing:
I decided to give MongoDB a try on a brand new rails project. It was also a change to get a bit familiar with the upcoming Rails 3 (there’s a release candidate now \o/).
I found two MongoDB adapters for rails: MongoMapper and Mongoid. Here’s an article with a comparison (thanks Tomé Duarte). After trying out the two on a really simple use case, I preferred working with Mongoid for 3 reasons:
I also used MongoHQ to try out their free plan for cloud hosting service. It’s very easy to use, but I’m still waiting for a good MongoDB front-end for inspecting my databases.
Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath, is a book on how to promote your ideas so they “stick” on people’s heads. The authors analyse why some ideas are catchy while others quickly forgotten, and present the key features an idea must have to be “sticky”. Those features, coined under the acronym SUCCESs, are:
Simple Find the core of your message and focus on transmitting only the really important part.
Unexpected Break patterns to get attention and use teasers to hold attention.
Concrete Real examples triumph over abstract concepts, if you want to spread an idea.
Credible Use life examples. Take advantage of both authorities and anti-authorities.
Emotional Make people care: switch their brains from the analytical side to the emotional side.
Stories Stories can inspire, get people to act, and stay much longer in everyones heads.
The best value from the book comes from the concrete suggestions on how to solve specific problems like “Everyone nods their heads when I’m speaking, but I can’t get them to act on it.” An important resource for anyone doing marketing or trying to change to world.
