When to monetize? I built a free screen recorder that got 4k upvotes on reddit.
Christopher Lee
9 replies
It's in a super raw state (hence no PH launch yet), but my reddit post got 4k upvotes and I've got a flood of people coming in. It's a screen recorder that lets you rewind & re-record over mistakes so you don't have to keep restarting the whole thing.
MVP of my product: https://vento.so/
On the one hand I'm worried that monetizing too early will handicap growth (I can cover hosting costs for now), but on the other hand I'm worried if I monetize too late it I'll make people angry and/or it will be slower.
Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Interne...
Replies
Eric Beans@happhi
Whenever you feel comfortable it can scale and you have your pricing built in, try the freemium model and see if people are willing to pay.
Obviously your product struck some kind of nerve if it got 4k upvotes. Good luck!
Share
Great product.
From reading the site I would say the current proposed free tier is very generous. Do you have sufficient logging that you can work out just how much each user is using it? You can then work out what proportion will fall into paid use.
You'll also be able to build up some segments / user personas. Before introducing paid I would look at the data and then potentially reach out to those different user groups to find out what's important to them / whether they (claim they) would pay.
One thing on the free tier - I wouldn't sacrifice product quality by dropping it to 720p, but instead consider a watermark - that will spread the word a bit for you too.
Timing wise, see what you can learn first from data / speaking to users and work what sort of proportion you think would fall into your paid category. Then divide that number by 10 and work out if it's worth introducing paid and slowing down your growth rate in exchange for that cash.
@matt_harbord Yea I don't want to sacrifice product quality! I love the formula, maybe some math will actually help me determine how much free growth I'll sacrifice for paid growth..
Can he zoom in and out partially on the page?
This is a great indication of user engagement and demand for your product, and could be a good time to consider monetizing it.
There are several ways to monetize a screen recorder, such as offering premium features for a fee, adding advertising, or selling enterprise licenses to businesses. The approach you choose will depend on your specific goals and the needs of your users.
You could consider offering a free basic version of the screen recorder and charge for advanced features that provide additional value to users.
This is a great opportunity for you and I wish you all the best in your journey of monetizing your screen recorder!