xm1994

Made this a few months ago (http://reportsoup.com).

Think of it as a bootstrap for Microsoft's SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reporting tool. Lets you share styles/fonts/elements across reports. I also included a few report templates to get you started.

This is my first run at a digital product and I tried to pick something I'm somewhat familiar with and saw a need for myself. Honestly though I'm just happy to have shipped something! While I never had the courage to actually "launch" it... what I actually did is run an adwords campaign for a few days, but paying almost $1 CPC with a conversion rate of 1% seems like a good way to lose money.

I started working on some other projects, then last week 4 sales came in (with the adwords campaign off) and I started getting a little excited.. and couldn't stop thinking of some things I could do to keep it alive:

1. Launch a more efficient adwords campaign.

2. Write some quality content: General tips on designing/creating business reports e.g. color selection, fonts, etc. and get some nice (free!) organic traffic.

3. Hire a designer and build some great looking report templates.

4. Offer a free trial. (I know patio11 would jump all over this one, I was worried about people stealing the templates and sql tables, but I realize now it doesn't really matter).

Or... perhaps I should just opensource it.

Suggestions or comments on any of the above would be appreciated. And don't pull any punches HN!

Don't know which way to go on this one, client needs a work order + inventory app. I was about to simply quote a price for a bespoke app, then thought why not charge them nothing... build the app ourselves and have them subscribe to it as the first customer. I would ask that they pre-pay a year on sign up.

One possible issue arises if they decide they don't need it after I've already paid to build it.

There has been a lot of discussion on project/value based pricing vs hourly, but how about we throw subscription based pricing in as a third option?

Thoughts or suggestions?