{"id":20192,"date":"2018-01-15T14:58:09","date_gmt":"2018-01-15T19:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=20192"},"modified":"2018-01-15T14:58:09","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T19:58:09","slug":"agendas-feature-unlocking-business-model","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/15\/agendas-feature-unlocking-business-model\/","title":{"rendered":"Agenda&rsquo;s Feature Unlocking Business Model"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@drewmccormack\/a-cash-cow-is-on-the-agenda-138a11995595\">Drew McCormack<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/drewmccormack\/status\/952914757161574400\">tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@drewmccormack\/a-cash-cow-is-on-the-agenda-138a11995595\"><p>I&rsquo;ll no doubt have more to tell about <a href=\"http:\/\/agenda.com\">Agenda<\/a> itself after the launch, but right now, I wanted to introduce the sales model we have settled on, because it is quite unique.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>The app itself is free, with no time limits, but there are extra premium features that require an In App Purchase (IAP) to unlock. When an upgrade pack is purchased, all current features are permanently unlocked across all of the user&rsquo;s Macs (&#8230;and iOS devices, when the iOS app becomes available). In addition, any features added to Agenda in the twelve months following the purchase are included, and permanently unlocked as well.<\/p>\n<p>Only after the twelve month pack has expired can new premium features begin to appear that require a new purchase. The user can choose to buy a new pack, unlocking twelve more months of new features, or be content with what they already have until features are added which tempt them to purchase again.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>Agenda&rsquo;s sales model is inspired by Framer and Sketch, but there is a fundamental difference&#x200A;&mdash;&#x200A;we never leave a customer behind. We felt it was important to always be able to offer customers the latest build of Agenda, so that they get all of the bug fixes, even if they haven&rsquo;t paid or their year of features is up. For this reason, cash cow is about unlocking features, rather than unlocking updates.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Pros:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This seems very customer-friendly. For example, all bug fixes and compatibility updates are free.<\/li>\n<li>A freemium &ldquo;trial&rdquo; really makes sense for an app like Agenda that you &ldquo;live in.&rdquo; From the customer side, you can make sure it really works for you. From the developer side, you don&rsquo;t have an arbitrary number of days to make the conversion.<\/li>\n<li>Customers can pay more to get more but are never forced.<\/li>\n<li>New features can roll out as they are ready.<\/li>\n<li>The developer has a fair and clearly defined way of getting recurring revenue.<\/li>\n<li>Licensing is handled on the server, so you can switch between the Mac App Store and direct versions and also activate the app on different platforms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>Cons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There&rsquo;s (presumably) no way to trial the premium features.<\/li>\n<li>The basic 1.0 features are essentially free for everyone, forever. This will only work for certain types of apps.<\/li>\n<li>There&rsquo;s the potential for the code and testing to get unwieldy over time, as the app essentially contains multiple separate apps with different feature sets.<\/li>\n<li>What happens if the app needs a big update that&rsquo;s not about features, e.g. a redesign of the interface or the architecture?<\/li>\n<li>How many exciting new features can be added? (Of course, this is also an issue for other business models.)<\/li>\n<li>Will paying for features&mdash;as opposed to holistic new versions&mdash;eventually lead to bloat?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>Also interesting is that you can pre-order the app (for $0) so you don&rsquo;t forget to try it when it&rsquo;s released.<\/p>\n\n<p>Previously: <a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/tag\/app-subscriptions\/\">App Subscriptions<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2016\/06\/08\/new-sketch-4-0-licensing-model\/\">New Sketch 4.0 Licensing Model<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/15\/app-store-introductory-pricing\/\">App Store Introductory Pricing<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drew McCormack (tweet): I&rsquo;ll no doubt have more to tell about Agenda itself after the launch, but right now, I wanted to introduce the sales model we have settled on, because it is quite unique. [&#8230;] The app itself is free, with no time limits, but there are extra premium features that require an In [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1615,101,522,30,32,39,1529,1597],"class_list":["post-20192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-agenda","tag-business","tag-inapppurchase","tag-mac","tag-macapp","tag-macappstore","tag-macos-10-13","tag-paddle"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20193,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20192\/revisions\/20193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}