8 ms·

Agreed. $50 for a license it too high. Lowering it to $15 for a license would put it in impulse buy territory for most people, and you'd likely get a lot more b

by 7rurl 14y ago

Agreed. $50 for a license it too high. Lowering it to $15 for a license would put it in impulse buy territory for most people, and you'd likely get a lot more backers and receive more money. Personally, I don't know you at all, so I have no reason to trust that you will produce something good, and so I don't want to gamble $50 on it. But, I would gamble $15 on it. The other software kickstarters I've backed have included a copy of the product for the lowest tier (usually $15), and then added swag like t-shirts at the higher tiers. Something like this: $15: Light Table license $30: Light Table license and included in the list of contributors $50: Light Table license, included in list of contributors, and early access to beta $100: Light Table license, included in list of contributors, early access to betas, and t-shirt Lowering the early access will get you more beta testers, and raising the t-shirt higher will make you have to ship less t-shirts.

james33 14y ago
That would be absolutely perfect. Plus, let's face it, this won't be a success in the long run if a lot of people aren't using it and there isn't a community behind it. The goal right now needs to build a large user base, not squeeze every last dime you can get in the fundraising portion. This is ultimately supposed to be a platform right? The profits will come from the long tail with upgrades to a large number of users and add-ons like new language support, etc.
- kamaal 14y ago
  According to me tools have practically zero chances of survival without communities rallying behind them. This looks like such a cool idea. I think their primary concern must be to release a basic thing out first and then iterate over it. This way they will get both contributions and the product going. Decide what your design goals are, define what code and quality goes in and out of your repo. Build something basic, release it and then iterate. Contributions and donations will follow. But if you are expecting mass adoption for a tool designed primarily for Clojure then, Clojure itself is in low adoption stage now. On top of that people who use clojure wanting to use will be fewer(Emacs + Slime really works well). So the initial payment model with only Clojure support may not bring them much money. This definitely has to be a platform like Emacs. And then the money can come from upgrades, major revisions. Also it would have been nice if language used to extend this was Clojure itself. We desperately need some modern GUI candy on an Emacs like editor which can be extensible by Lisp.
Mariel 14y ago
Out of curiosity, could you give an example of the software kickstarters you're talking about? While in an ideal world, things like this could be free, in reality, the amount of time, effort, and people involved to build it in the time frame we're all wanting this means they need money and I'm not sure having rewards for $15 is going to accomplish that. That's the unfortunate reality of what is wanted, and what it takes to actually get there. :\
- 7rurl 14y ago
  I'm talking about the recent PC game kickstarters that have been wildly successful such as: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2 I know that a game and IDE are not directly comparable, but they do have some things in common: 0 marginal cost and expensive to implement due to skilled labor requirement.
ibdknox 14y ago
I couldn't change them even if I wanted to now that money is involved. But I think looking at this as buying something is also inaccurate. Ultimately kickstarter is a way of helping things turn into a reality - not a place to shop. It's basically a form of donation, that just happens to have some reward associated to it.
- SatvikBeri 14y ago
  I love how the top-voted comments on HN are always "the price is too high!" And yet, Light Table has already raised $22k in 4 hours-not a bad start.
  - fuzzythinker 14y ago
    I actually think the amount would be much higher had the $50 included beta.
    - SatvikBeri 14y ago
      What data are you basing this off of? Have you ever tried selling products at significantly different prices and measuring revenue/profit? I have-as one example, I've sold the same PDFs at $.99, $9.99, and $49.99. The $.99 and $9.99 price points got about the same revenue, with $9.99 getting much higher profit due to transaction costs. But $49.99 got much, much more revenue and profit than either of the lower-priced options. And I've seen this over and over again, with a variety of products.
      - fuzzythinker 14y ago
        What you said is confirmation of my guessing. I'm saying if $50 includes beta (currently only $100 [EDIT: just saw $50 for beta added, thanks for listening to HNers ibdnox! Oh, wait, that access is much later than the $100 price point..]), then the amount he may be getting may be higher than the current amount. FYI, no data to base off, just guessing, hence the words "think", "would" in my post you're replying to.
  - 14y ago
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
stevewilhelm 14y ago
Textmate is 39 Euros or approximately $53.
- james33 14y ago
  Yes, and it is a trusted piece of software that has been around for ages and I can start using it right now.
  - shepbook 14y ago
    Textmate is certainly cool. Then again, I've tweaked my Gedit to work like Textmate (and it's Free-as-in-Beer, and I can use it right now). However, neither do what Light Table does. I'm also certain that there will be plugins for practically every language with a REPL, given enough time and the fact that it's open source.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
radicalbyte 14y ago
You've hit the nail on the head. I'll back for $15, but not for $50. Kickstarters are a bet: I expect 50% of them to succeed, so I have to be able to extract double the backing value per project for it to be worth backing. I'm obviously not the only one, which is why the $15 price point is so effective..

by 7rurl 14y ago

james33 14y ago

That would be absolutely perfect. Plus, let's face it, this won't be a success in the long run if a lot of people aren't using it and there isn't a community behind it. The goal right now needs to build a large user base, not squeeze every last dime you can get in the fundraising portion. This is ultimately supposed to be a platform right? The profits will come from the long tail with upgrades to a large number of users and add-ons like new language support, etc.

kamaal 14y ago
According to me tools have practically zero chances of survival without communities rallying behind them. This looks like such a cool idea. I think their primary concern must be to release a basic thing out first and then iterate over it. This way they will get both contributions and the product going. Decide what your design goals are, define what code and quality goes in and out of your repo. Build something basic, release it and then iterate. Contributions and donations will follow. But if you are expecting mass adoption for a tool designed primarily for Clojure then, Clojure itself is in low adoption stage now. On top of that people who use clojure wanting to use will be fewer(Emacs + Slime really works well). So the initial payment model with only Clojure support may not bring them much money. This definitely has to be a platform like Emacs. And then the money can come from upgrades, major revisions. Also it would have been nice if language used to extend this was Clojure itself. We desperately need some modern GUI candy on an Emacs like editor which can be extensible by Lisp.

Mariel 14y ago

Out of curiosity, could you give an example of the software kickstarters you're talking about? While in an ideal world, things like this could be free, in reality, the amount of time, effort, and people involved to build it in the time frame we're all wanting this means they need money and I'm not sure having rewards for $15 is going to accomplish that. That's the unfortunate reality of what is wanted, and what it takes to actually get there. :\

7rurl 14y ago
I'm talking about the recent PC game kickstarters that have been wildly successful such as: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2 I know that a game and IDE are not directly comparable, but they do have some things in common: 0 marginal cost and expensive to implement due to skilled labor requirement.

ibdknox 14y ago

I couldn't change them even if I wanted to now that money is involved. But I think looking at this as buying something is also inaccurate. Ultimately kickstarter is a way of helping things turn into a reality - not a place to shop. It's basically a form of donation, that just happens to have some reward associated to it.

SatvikBeri 14y ago
I love how the top-voted comments on HN are always "the price is too high!" And yet, Light Table has already raised $22k in 4 hours-not a bad start.
- fuzzythinker 14y ago
  I actually think the amount would be much higher had the $50 included beta.
  - SatvikBeri 14y ago
    What data are you basing this off of? Have you ever tried selling products at significantly different prices and measuring revenue/profit? I have-as one example, I've sold the same PDFs at $.99, $9.99, and $49.99. The $.99 and $9.99 price points got about the same revenue, with $9.99 getting much higher profit due to transaction costs. But $49.99 got much, much more revenue and profit than either of the lower-priced options. And I've seen this over and over again, with a variety of products.
    - fuzzythinker 14y ago
      What you said is confirmation of my guessing. I'm saying if $50 includes beta (currently only $100 [EDIT: just saw $50 for beta added, thanks for listening to HNers ibdnox! Oh, wait, that access is much later than the $100 price point..]), then the amount he may be getting may be higher than the current amount. FYI, no data to base off, just guessing, hence the words "think", "would" in my post you're replying to.
- 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

stevewilhelm 14y ago

Textmate is 39 Euros or approximately $53.

james33 14y ago
Yes, and it is a trusted piece of software that has been around for ages and I can start using it right now.
- shepbook 14y ago
  Textmate is certainly cool. Then again, I've tweaked my Gedit to work like Textmate (and it's Free-as-in-Beer, and I can use it right now). However, neither do what Light Table does. I'm also certain that there will be plugins for practically every language with a REPL, given enough time and the fact that it's open source.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

radicalbyte 14y ago

You've hit the nail on the head. I'll back for $15, but not for $50. Kickstarters are a bet: I expect 50% of them to succeed, so I have to be able to extract double the backing value per project for it to be worth backing. I'm obviously not the only one, which is why the $15 price point is so effective..