Internet Subscription Pricing for very unique..one of a kind actually, product

What is Edmunds for cars? and where in the world are you?

I know you want to keep your cards pretty close to your chest, but so I can get a better idea of the product; its an interactive way of selling instruments?

Okay, i will divulge a little more only because i've created pretty high barrier to entry by doing something most sane people wouldn't do Imagine someone created an application where you have two musical instruments side by side and you would be able to see all their switches. You could then select any switches you wanted on each model, click from one of many different styles of music, and hit go. it would then play the music, alternating every few seconds between the two so you can hear the difference. These aren't simulations. we actually recorded with live musicians, hundreds, if not thousands of tracks. lol

The initial value for users is the dozens of models we picked for launch are the best selling models of the instruments from all the major manufacturers...marketing data that was not easy to get but was eventually acquired through web analytics, youtube research and direct corporate contacts.

It will also be great for manufacturers and retailers because it allows for people to hear the sound first and decide instead of buying and returning them, as is the model right now.

dasmodul, without telling us what you are offering its going to be too hard to gauge whether people will be happy to pay for it.

I'd suggest looking at how edmunds make most of their money and seeing if you can do something similar within the music industry; rather than charging users.

Check out the homepage and the huge image behind the search box. Notice the small text in the bottom left "Photo sponsored by Mercedes-Benz."

Also look at their affiliate page and see what actions they are paying out for. This is where their cash is coming in. LINK

Sorry, we must have posted at the same time.

Take that data to the music manufactures and show them how the data you have coupled with your website functionality will generate them more sales. I would even try to go down the route of becoming a supplier and taking an affiliate cut of new instruments sold if I were you.

Yes, its a more difficult plan to implement than "oh lets just charge users $x to listen to instruments", but IMO its much more likely to succeed.

EDIT: and i've just noticed this post
F***king amazing. Don't even think about charging consumers. Take this straight to the big boys

Offer them a free trial period until they see x amount return, then start auto-billing.

Make some sort of API access or the like so rather than them linking to your site, they can embed your functionality straight into their site as a way for musicians to compare their products. Charge them on a per usage basis. Again with some sort of free amount of requests for data per month before charging.

Right now, focus on launch and acquring users.

Once you have enough, start split testing different pricing models.

Hello there,


Keep freemium products that are free to certain extent and become paid to use advanced features. This way both types of traffic is attracted.


Regards,
Chintan

So, if I wanted to buy a $5,000.00 Gibson Les Paul but wanted to compare it to a Strat I would be able to really tell the difference on my Laptop Speakers or my $49.00 Computer Speakers?

al

Al,
Yes, you'd definitely be able to tell the difference between the $5k Les Paul and the Strat with your speakers given you play it loud enough in a quiet room. We do recommend using headphones as the isolation on those makes it way easier. Honestly, the cool thing about the site is not comparing that $5000 Gibson Les Paul to the Strat (those two actually sound very different, and you probably wouldn't even need a quiet room haha) but in comparing the $5000 Gibson Les Paul to the $1500 Les Paul...to the $500 Epiphone Les Paul to hear how much tone do those extra thousands really get you. And this is at the core of what I think the consumers will be interested in the most ! This is an ongoing thing of course but whenever we get a guitar model, we always try to acquire its high, mid-range and budget variants for compare

The other interesting thing we found was that while some models will sound super alike in one style of musik, the differences really come out in other styles. This is why we have many different styles of music being played that you can pick and tinker with :-)

I know you want to keep your cards pretty close to your chest, but so I can get a better idea of the product; its an interactive way of selling instruments?

As a (very amateur) musician myself, I can definitely see the value in your product.

But I also wonder whether a consumer-focused subscription model is going to be the right approach -- and really whether the way you see your product being used is actually how it's going to be used in the end.

As a quick illustration of what I mean, the webmail service Hotmail was started by two guys who started a business focused on creating a new database. One of the founders still had a day job and needed a way to email with his partner without running into his company's very restrictive firewalls (keep in mind this was 25 or more years ago) so he built a web-based frontend to send mail. At some point, the two founders realized that the webmail system was more interesting than the database they were building and so Hotmail was born. The database that they had originally intended on making was never built. In the startup world a shift in business models like this is called a pivot.

I bring this up because I could see your company pivoting too. For instance, while there may be some demand by consumers for a subscription-based service, it's hard to know just how big that demand will be. A casual musician such as me buys an instrument only every couple of years -- so I really wouldn't be interested in paying a fee for your service, even if it were great. I'd just go to a few music stores and compare what they have. Perhaps not as scientific as what you have on offer -- but good enough for me. On the other hand, really hardcore musicians might buy instruments more often -- and maybe the system you're talking about is exactly what they're looking for.

So in this very hypothetical example, the question is can you make enough off of the hardcore musicians to grow and operate your business? And is what you have to offer truly exactly what they're looking for?

The answer, of course, is nobody knows. We on this forum can only take rather uneducated guesses. You and your partners, knowing your business and knowing your target customers better, can make a much more educated guess -- but it's still a guess all the same. The only way to know for sure is to get your product before your customers, see how they react, and talk to them.

It may be that you can just carry on as you're planning. The subscription model works! Go you! On the other hand, it may be that it's better to offer your service for free and make money off of ads, afiliate sales, sponsored content, e-commerce, or some other monetization method. Or it may be that you need to pivot even more. For instance, I could imagine you creating a widget or a web tool that you license to various online music retailers for them to put on their websites rather than trying to sell a subscription to consumers. But is that a viable model? Are any of these models viable? Again, we just don't know.

I say all this because I see an eagerness to monetize right now and while that's understandable -- everyone wants to get paid for their hard work! -- I think you should be careful that your desire to monetize doesn't drown out your future business prospects. Keep in mind that it took Facebook about five years to get profitable!

As I see it more than monetization, your number one focus should be on product validation. Do you have the product right? And do you actually know who your customers are? Are they individuals, are they music stores or are they someone else entirely? Monetization is definitely an important part of the equation for business success, so you do need to think about and test monetization ideas -- but I wouldn't do so at the expense of building a user base. At least not yet. You still have a lot of learning to do.

Your product sounds very unique. Why only $6-$12 per year though? At first i thought you made a typo and instead wanted to say "$6-$12 per month" - but now i see that you are serious. Lol.

I hope it works, i'd increase the price on it personally.

Not clear for me, I missed something....
why not to make a monthly membership?