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0 pointsfiveSpeedManual5y ago0 comments

Great question!

I believe this is a good problem to have, and perhaps one day I'll be lucky enough to face this.

I've spent some time thinking of how to monetize Pantry - perhaps a private tier, something that is more feature-rich?

0 comments

I shared a free JSON API with parse.com with a bunch of friends to develop a set of FOSS CLI apps we communicated over.

It was all open and fun and funny.

Then parse.com shutdown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parse_(platform) -- What started out as fun project for several developers turned into a dead project for us all, which by then had hundreds of users around the world, who were now getting errors instead of fun.

We all used different programming languages, nobody was able to re-engineer all of our clients into a new endpoint/api. My takeaway -- any one of us could have hosted the JSON api, but we made the mistake in thinking we would use a free 3rd party service. That decision killed the project.

ocdtrekkie5y ago

One thing I'd express, is many people launch cool things without a monetization plan, become popular largely because their free, and then lose everything they built when they realize to monetize effectively they have to "alter the deal".

Beware of Vadering your project: Figure out what you can charge for early, and never offer it for free.

fiveSpeedManualOP5y ago

Duly noted, this was an eye-opener. I suppose I should prioritize this while I still have time.

Time to step away from the keyboard and think about the business side of this project.

Oh, I did add a "BuyMeCoffee" button on the About page, but its more of a donation. - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/imRohan

conductr5y ago

I’d say don’t over think it and don’t quit your day job. But I also assume you’re not pouring money into this. Stay free as long as you can, it gives you data so build out some usage stats, talk to the highest volume users. Figure out what threshold they become willing to pay and how much. Then, ask them to pay because they might have just lied to you.

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