Ash Maurya is the Founder of WiredReach, which is behind the bootstrapped startup Cloudfire. This post originally appeared on Venture Hacks; it is republished here with permission.
What you charge for your product is simultaneously one of the most complicated and most important things to get right. Not only does your pricing model keep you in business, it also signals your branding and positioning. And it%u2019s harder to iterate on pricing than other elements of your business. Once you set a price, coming down is usually easier than going up.
Should I charge for my MVP?
Most people choose to defer the %u201Cpricing question%u201D because they don%u2019t think they (or the product) are ready. Something I hear a lot is that a minimum viable product is by definition (embarrassingly) minimal. How can you possibly charge for it?
A minimal product is not synonymous with a half-baked or buggy product. If you%u2019ve followed a customer development process, your MVP should address the top 3 problems customers have identified as important and it should do it well. You can ensure that by dedicating 80% of your efforts to improving existing features versus cranking out new ones.
Some good insights into pricing structure and how this one SaaS evolved their pricing. If you haven’t run into Ash Maurya before, I would recommend reading more of his posts.
