Article

From Refusing to Charge for His Products to Making $500k+ ARR

Indie Hackers Free Beginner

A founder's story of clinging to free, then flipping to paid and reaching real revenue. It is concrete and relatable if you are scared that a price will kill your early traction. It shows the fear is usually worse than the reality.

  • Refusing to charge can stall an otherwise good product for years.
  • The first price is scarier in your head than it is to your customers.
  • Paying users clarify who your product is actually for.
Open on indiehackers.com ↗

The question it answers

  1. Should I charge my very first customers or give it away free to get traction?

Read with it

  1. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick
  2. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  3. The customer-development originator's clearest statement on scoping the minimum feature set to reach your earliest believers.... steveblank.com Article · ~8 min read Perfection by Subtraction, The Minimum Feature Set Steve Blank
  4. Patrick Campbell built ProfitWell on pricing data from thousands of companies, and this is the single best free deep-dive on... lennysnewsletter.com Article · long-form guide Pricing Your SaaS Product Patrick Campbell (ProfitWell), via Lenny's Newsletter
  5. This is Indian investors and operators talking, at length, about which global trends actually translate to India and which... Prime Venture Partners Podcast Prime Venture Partners Podcast Prime Venture Partners
  6. Video Startup Pricing 101 Kevin Hale
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →