from Hacker News

Stormpulse: What Happens After A Site Goes From Free to Fee?

by cd34 on 4/26/12, 2:10 AM with 13 comments

• by patio11 on 4/26/12, 7:20 AM

  For those of you on the fence about watching this one: how interested are you in "Bootstrapped company produces a software product which is used in the Situation Room at the White House?"

  Edit: This is my new favorite Mixergy video.

  1) Calling a customer back while eating Cheerios and getting the response "Situation Room. Dan speaking."

  2) Raising prices by 100x and how it made the business/customers happier. (p.s. I personally think Stormpulse is still underpriced. The Situation Room uses it. NASA uses it. Charge them DoD prices for a hammer, at least. ;) )

  3) How he played news media outlets against each other, using their herd mentality, to get widespread distribution (but not revenue at the time).

  4) Practical experience with setting up charging credit cards. How that evolved into the current paywall. What changes helped conversion.

  5) How it was funded with a combination of bootstrapping by working a day job, getting friends&family money, a not too successful fundraising campaign (and the low point there), etc.

• by wensing on 4/26/12, 2:49 AM

  Paywall just went up about an hour ago as a matter of fact.

• by connor on 4/26/12, 7:03 AM

  A better summary is needed. I quit out when the beginning ad-speak didn't wrap up in 2 minutes.

• by ricksta on 4/26/12, 6:49 AM

  Video is kind've long. can anyone summarize please?

• by mikegreenberg on 4/26/12, 4:54 AM

  Congratulations Matt! Another South Florida success story in the making!

• by aresant on 4/26/12, 3:34 AM

  I've had the pleasure of watching the behind-the-scenes insanity leading up to this decision and huge congrats to Matt & his team for pulling the trigger.

  Matt is a pure, pure hardcore entrepreneur - years and years of building and incredible product supported by ramen-revenue and then following the data, and taking a leap off the cliff.

  Good luck buddy!