Sorry Michael your answer is either diplomatic or you are not entirely sure what is gonna be. On the other hand you have a price set. If you don't mind me saying that is bit confusing for me, Sorry.

>It's still not really a particular goal to necessarily replace any other software that is being used, the main goal is more about being able to get certain kinds of things done really quickly.

Well by adding dwg or Product Documentation support It does not mean that you trying to replace Autocad or Rhino...

Hi Yannada, well the truth is that I do not have anything firmly set.

re: Product Documentation - I expect to have stuff in this area, but it will be likely to be targeted towards more informal things. For example probably not a huge list of arrowhead styles and spacing controls for gaps between arrows and leaders, and ANSI compliant stuff, like the stuff you would expect from a full drafting table type mechanism.

So I guess it depends a bit on what your specific definition of "Product Documentation" is.

- Michael

Ok I am not expecting MoI to become a full drafting app. But basic dimensioning tools will help to push the envelop. Also a Dwg support I think is necessary even if I hate this format with passion.

thanks for you reply.

Michael

In marketing there is a popular belief that, by keeping prices low, and thus increasing the volume of sales (internationally?), one can then get resulting higher end net profits.

I would hope that I have been trying to suggest this--I appear to be mis-interpreted!

Brian

(It worked for me when I was the Managing Director of a large National Aussie company)

Hi yannada, unfortunately DWG is a fairly difficult format to work with, I basically have to license some libraries to deal with it but those are fairly expensive so I'm not quite sure when that will happen. Probably DXF is more feasible to happen before that.

- Michael

Hi Brian, yup that can work well if you have a marketing department that is focused on reaching a large number of people.

Maybe this has not been clear to you, but I am the only person that works on MoI, there are not teams of marketing people or teams of documentation people working on shortcut key cards, etc... for it - it's all just 1 person doing everything.

If I were to pursue a heavy marketing campaign to try and promote a low cost version I would basically have to interrupt any work on the actual development of new features in the software.

Is that what you are saying you would like for me to do? I mean to stop working so much on developing new features and instead put all my time into marketing work?

- Michael

I think Rhino has "teams of people" and "Sdk's and Third party millions" and would venture to say a fairly substantial marketing campaign....

But they dont have a MoI Mesher!

Hi Michael.

Regarding your price structure, many of us would agree the price was quite low for such a rock-solid modeling program. But then when you consider it's just the first version, limited to more basic modeling functions, etc I would not say it's "under-priced" exactly. Currently MoI is something of a no-brainer in the "bang for the buck" department at just $195. At some point (perhaps V4) when your price nears the $500 mark, then it won't be such an easy decision for many people anymore. MoI then becomes a "main" package for many people instead of a "support" package. So the concerns of Yannada become even more important issue for new purchasers. At that price, they'll be comparing it to other apps with very extensive functionality and 3rd party plugins...

@ Brian, karma rarely exists on individual level, and never in the world of business. And you can't compare MoI to other apps in similar price range, because it doesn't share the same development path. Think about some of them, and why they are/were as cheap as you mentioned. It wasn't from the kindness of the developer's heart. I paid around $169 for Hex 1.0 Buying 2.0 for just $34 was something of a compensation for the fact that I was unknowingly buying deadware... ;)

jonah

PS... Michael, you have at least least one other person working unofficially on Triple Squid staff. I see Brian plugging MoI EVERYWHERE...

Hi jonah - when I wrote "underpriced", I was mostly referring not to just any particular user's outlook on it but rather to overall business.

There are quite a few people who would have been willing to pay more than $195 for v1, and each one of those is basically money left on the table from a business perspective.

Additionally it is difficult to get resellers excited about supporting and selling software at this price because they don't get much of a margin on it.

So those factors together pretty much indicate that I should have put a bit higher price for v1, even with the factors you mention like being limited in some areas to more basic functions. Although for example MoI version 1 still has the best meshing function in the industry, including the n-gon meshing capability which cannot be found anywhere else regardless of price, so it is sort of a mixture of advanced and basic together in different areas. It is incorrect to consider it to be just "basic" completely across the board.

Even at the $500 level, it should be pretty easy to justify purchasing MoI as a companion to other software if it saves you time with some of your professional work, and particularly if it offers you unique capabilities that can't be found elsewhere.

It will be a lot more difficult decision for hobbyists certainly. That's one reason why I have thought about still having MoI v1 available at that time as a kind of "lite" version.

- Michael

Hi. It wasn't my intention to imply that MoI is basic across the board. Just that you included the most elemental modeling tools first, in favor of jamming in everything at the first go. And yes, I know that when it comes to buying tools for getting work done, $500 is not a huge investment. Any decent render engine cost at least that much (if not double that), and I have more render engines than i have years involved with 3D. It seems we never have enough tools, or at least not just one to handle everything as we wish it would... :)

jonah

Going by what has been posted in this thread and the rest of the forums past threads, if MoI was a standalone 'mesher' (world class that is) and translator only, $195 would still be a bargain!

Using a so called 'high end' CAD package at work, we only have an iges translator, Oh! you want Step translation ? that's an extra cost. Ahh, you want DWG\DXF translator as well? that's another cost. STL yep! more again.

Stay on this path Michael, IMO it leads to a good place :)

my 2c

Sorry if my "been there, done that" experience does not seem to be grasped.

As with a couple of "?basic" things for "average" user customers on other threads.

It's nothing to do with "one man band" approaches--I really have done that also---is a "philosophy"

Anyway, I try

Brian

Hi Brian, I have already given a low price a try and it did not automatically result in a huge volume of sales.

So I'm sure your experiences were great for the fields and situations that you were in, but they don't seem to apply well to my current situation though.

I am really kind of confused by your comments actually - I mean you gave a list of various free programs and one priced at one dollar and 99 cents. Do you seriously believe that I would be able to make a living pricing my software in that same way?


Anyway, I am sorry that v2 will be too expensive for you! I'm glad that you have had fun using v1 though.

- Michael

That's the reply from Phil from Headus about uvlayout price ... I think he's facing the same problem somehow, and it makes a lot of sence :)

" Doesn't the price put a lot of people off ? "
Probably. If I halve the price and sell three as much, its only 50% more $$$'s but 300% more support work. I'd be answering email all day and not getting any real work done!

Only having to pay the difference between each version is really fair.

Hi PaQ, yup that sounds like the same kind of situation as me.

It is kind of better for me to have a somewhat smaller sized audience to keep support manageable, a kind of "mass market" low cost but high volume type thing just does not fit well with what I like to do. It needs a different kind of company setup to handle that.

Then the other tricky thing is that there is no kind of guarantee that just halving the price of something automatically generates more sales. Halving the price and then selling the same amount for example is not a really great situation for the business! :)

- Michael

Well this is a can of worms ;-)


>>Currently my plan is to increase the price of v2 by US $100 to a total of $295 for a full license, or $100 for a v1 to v2 upgrade license.

So the intended upgrade price is always going to be the difference between the versions?
This works for me today as I had budgeted $100 for upgrading - though in real terms this has now increased due to the financial mess :-(



>>Basically I did end up pricing version 1.0 too low. I mean there were some reasons I did this, I wanted to make it easy for people to get MoI
>> and also having a low price tends to make it easier to justify missing functions.

This worked in my case - I had looked at Rhino and it was way out of my (non-professional) price range. Plus they charged more just because I wasn't in the States. ($1.00 does not equal 1 euro). Then I heard about MoI. At $500.00 I probably would not have bought though. After playing with the demo and at $195.00, no problem. Turned out rather well so far :-)



>>'s not really something I enjoy doing a whole bunch, so that basically leads me more towards
>>focusing on more professional level users who can more easily afford anything in the $500 range if it helps them get their work done.

This might be a problem for me (non-pro) in the future if the upgrade price goes too high.



It seems to me that your initial pricing has given you three customer groups - pro, semi pro/small business and non pro. The question is, if you completely focus on pro will it hurt your future business? Only you can decide, but I think it might. My main problem with all software is what happens if I change OS or hardware and the version I'm using doesn't work. What then? Understandably old versions are not usually supported with updates, it would become a nightmare for any business.

So I was wondering, can you change the lite version every so often to be 2 or 3 versions back rather than just remain at version 1? That way the non/semi-pro can eventually upgrade to a version that is compatible with later OS or hardware but still with a reduced tool set compared to the current version. Though if they want the latest tool set, then will have to pay the upgrade price to get to the latest version.


Having said all that - $500.00 is still half that of Rhino and I will be upgrading to V2.0 and, as long as I can afford it, V3 and beyond :-)

There is propably a robust work around and tha is .DNG. Please take a look it may may prove to be very useful.
Autodesk and Bentley to Advance AEC Software Interoperability http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Corporate/News/Interoperability+Agreement/Autodesk+Bentley+Agreement.htm
OpenDGN http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Products/MicroStation/OpenDGN/

Hi Michael,

>>Currently my plan is to increase the price of v2 by US $100 to a total of $295 for a full license, or $100 for a v1 to v2 upgrade license.

Ah right, sorry, my misinterpretation of your comment.

It was just you had commented on the price before on another thread with a probable price and thought you where going to increase that initial price. But the price is the same, so no problem.


- Steve

>Additionally it is difficult to get resellers excited about supporting and selling software at this price because they don't get much of a margin on it.

Well is a fact that MoI has a very small user base, also I don't think resellers will change that, bare in mind they will still promote Autodesk, Dassault... products, the reason more profit for them.
There are better ways to promote a product, a) publications ( you been doing well up to now but you need to push more towards design blogs etc.). b)The Education Sector (Promote you product to Design Universities that will generate sales few year later).

From personal experience publications generate hype and sales not the resellers...IMO.

Hi Michael,

I meant to comment on this:-

>>One idea that I have had is that in the future I could still offer version 1.0 at its same current price as a kind of "lite" version for someone who was looking for just an essential modeling tool that is easy for them to use. I'm not completely sure about that yet, but that is one idea.<<

In its current state?

I ask because there have been many reports concerning what are seen as bugs in V1, which are fixed or being fixed in V2 and for a new user who may purchase V1 (after V2 is released) to make a bug report, to then be told it is fixed in V2 and a need to upgrade to get a fix could not be taken well.


- Steve