CulturedCode is going to make
a ton of money next week

And I’m glad.

Things is launching at next week at MacWorld, and my predection is that they are going to make a killing. I wanted to note a few reasons why, outside of the fact that it’s a really great app.

At the Eye of the Storm

Jason, Dave, and I had a conversation at the end of the day today at IndyHall (where I’d estimate nearly 1/3rd to 1/2 of our regulars utilize Things) about the price point. I’m a firm believer in setting a price and sticking to it, but I have to think that without all of the smart moves I listed above, that $50 price tag would scare quite a few people away.

CulturedCode COULD have run a more traditional development cycle, still come out with a decent app, and charged $25 for the desktop and $10 for the iPhone companion (maybe a $30 combo deal?), put some cash into traditional marketing, and it would have flown off the shelf  and into the hands of every man, woman, and child who needed to get their shit together.

But they didn’t.

They built a great app, spent a year actively working with their customers-to-be, and are going to sell the daylights out of it at $50 a click.

Well done, CulturedCode. If you have any interest, I’d love to speak with you and write up a more formal case study about slow-marketing your application. I’m very impressed.

December 30, 2008 | Filed Under business, community, consulting, creative, development | Tags: , , ,

Comments 

Comments

  • I really like the app, but it's unusable for GTD.

    Things assumes that all projects are non-linear -- that the items in the project can be completed in any order. For instance, say I have Step 1 (a phone item), Step 2 (a computer item), and Step 3 (an errand). If I set it to display one project step, and then view my "computer" tag, I'll see Step 2, which isn't doable until Step 1 is done.

    The whole point of GTD is to "do" according to your available contexts. Things has no way of showing you all of your "next actions" for a specific context. They need to introduce the concept of linear projects, and offer a view that only shows you "available" actions -- actions that are either in a non-linear project, or are the next action for a project. I'd probably switch from Omnifocus if they did that.
  • It's an interesting approach to offer the beta for free, and charge for the official release candidate. In the case of Things, I'm firmly hooked, and when they announced the imminent launch (and a 20% discount to those on the mailing list), I bought it right away. Versions did the same thing with their svn app, but in that case I just wasn't hooked enough to plunk down the cash.

    I love Things, and I hope Cultured Code makes a killing and continues to make killer products.
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