The closer I get on this @darknoise subscription update the more terrified I am to release it. I feel like there’s so many little things I could get wrong that will bring down the fury of thousands of angry customers and it’s really hard to test (though I understand much easier now than it used to be)

@charliemchapman stay strong. When I took GuideGuide to subscriptions, I weathered angry emails for a few weeks, and then people got it out of their system and moved on. The people that stuck around are the good kind of customers, not the ones that are there because it’s cheap.

You’re going to be glad you did it.

Also, resist the urge to argue/defend. Have a stock response and maybe a blog post with validation you can link to, but going back and forth is just wasting your billable time.

@charliemchapman my user numbers dropped significantly, but my revenue increased significantly.

Free GuideGuide: millions of installs, zero revenue
One time purchase GuideGuide: ~10k customers, ok revenue
Subscriptions: ~1.5k customers with 10x the lifetime value of the one-time-purchase customers

@cameronmcefee that’s great advice! And yeah I’m curious what the new customer sizes will be going from paid up front to free with sub. Presumably the paying users will go down but the overall users will be way bigger?
@charliemchapman that’s the hope. You lose the impulse purchasers but keep the die-hards. Depending on how you price it, it might take a few months or years until “lifetime” value becomes apparent, but it’ll get there.