and many of my speakers suggested that I should charge for the calls.
Many of my calls involve tech/product advice (often from people with a ton of experience in other areas, e.g. ex FAANG managers, already accomplished founders, designers). Many of the people who message me with concrete questions, asking for my expertise are often already well-off, established and happy to pay.
The thing is:
1. I often get calls from students or people struggling financially
2. I enjoy serendipitous interactions with beautifully weird people
I can probably solve 1. by adding two call lines. But I worry that adding a commercial aspect will prevent 2. from reaching out. I don't live in London any more, and most of my nerdy/artsy/techy/hacker friends live allover the world.
Ah, and:
3. I genuinely love speaking with people in this manner, and personally, I'm getting so much of my Say Hi calls. I just finished a call with a very clever engineer setting their first steps as a solo-founder. They're not "indie hackers", they're people with genuine curiosity, talent and will to help people. It feels amazing to be able to help someone like that, and even better -- to become infected with that enthusiasm!
I am very much aware that I'm rationalising this and perhaps even preventing myself from letting people pay for my work. Whether it's impostor syndrome or the fact that this is such a precious subject to me is a question that I'm trying to answer.
> I enjoy serendipitous interactions with beautifully weird people
Gosh, I wish I could articulate that into words when I was younger. I remember having a fun conversation with a batshit insane lady who walked into a porch party, and one of my friends thought that I actually thought she was sane.
The symbolist doodle illustrating that is great. The freaked-out worm in the top hat is being followed by a black cloud of anxiety, and it wants to eat him for dinner. The other worm, in a bowler and dark glasses (probably indicating modesty and chill), is supplying support and a pat on the back.
This reminds me of video that went simi viral a decade or so back.
Not sure how much of it was staged, but the creators went to a public place and stood next to some “free hugs”-people and then put up a sign “Premium hugs $1” and apparently collected more hugs to the chargrin of the free-huggers.
If it's free, people are suspicious and judge the cost to be something implicit, generally with a higher expected cost than $1. On the other hand if you make the cost explicit, people are more comfortable.
It ties in with the story in Freakonomics about the daycare that started to charge a small "fine" to discourage parents picking up the child late, with the effect that these incidents happened more often. Because the cost went from implicit (shame, etc) to explicit (it's only $10).
> If it's free, people are suspicious and judge the cost to be something implicit, generally with a higher expected cost than $1. On the other hand if you make the cost explicit, people are more comfortable.
To address your point explicitly, if someone believes the cost of a hug is higher than $1 ("higher than expected cost"), then offering one for $1 should trigger a similar suspicion in your head.
Think about it, if a stranger offered you a free Porsche, you'd rightly be suspicious. Would you be less suspicious if they offered that same car for $500?
One time my daughter fell (OK she did something silly and jumped) and hit her head on a metal pole at a science center (she's fine, it was just a couple of stitches). My wife took her to the hospital, and (mislead by the confusing signage) accidentally parked in the ambulance parking area directly out front. Later we collected the car and saw a parking ticket. On seeing that the fine was $40, I've immediately joked "oh, OK so premium parking is $40, nice."
Although, given this is in an area where streetside parking can be $20-$30 for a couple of hours...
Counter to Freakononics, my friend’s daycare in SF right now charges parents $2/minute for being late. So it seems to work for them. (Or it works because the cost is relatively high?)
I wish this model worked for the internet so we were stuck with the current shitty ad model. Charging money is the fastest way to tank engagement with your content.
Not in my experience. I put a free item on Craigslist once and it was like a feeding frenzy. The first person who emailed me got it, but between their email and them getting to my house to pick it up, I got at least 40 other emails. It was very overwhelming.
I get the whole “people are skeptical of free stuff” thing. But, I suspect in this case it is more that people are “in on the joke” for the premium hugs.
Author notes that there is still a standing offer to answer questions for free "if time allows" but doesn't get any inquiries. I believe this shows that it isn't due to fame or the payment making the author seem more legitimate.
Instead I think that the payment creates the expectation that the inquiry will be answered and when someone expects an answer they are more willing to inquire. When the consultation is free or "time permitting", then it might simply be refused but making the inquiry itself isn't zero cost for the individual and their mental calculus makes it not worth asking. The mental calculus is, "What is the person getting out of this interaction and why would they choose to answer me but not someone else?" When it is financial you can see that you are equal to everyone else and you see exactly what the consultant is getting out of it.
Title is a bit misleading, he became a popular academic/author and the proceedings are for charity. Once you are well known, you can charge for a lot of things, especially if it's for a good cause.
The weird part is that when he was well known, nobody reached out to get the "lot of things". I think it's because a lot of free stuff comes with a catch - free internet for one month, catch is you're stuck on a year long contract. Free consult but the catch is you're in their systems now, agreed to something in the small print, and you now get cold calls to sell you stuff. Free social network but the catch is your data and personal photos are used for marketing and training AI.
But charge $100 and that's it, that's all the strings attached. Straightforward transaction.
That’s how it used to be but there’s a trend of more companies double dipping now and justifying it by saying they would charge MORE if they weren’t allowed to attach all those strings.
It's a peculiar turn of events I must admit, but I don't think that having those viewership numbers and an easibly reachable email and not getting contacted is actually common.
I just did a workshop at a small non profit. There were 3 people who came there to meet me to chat about other non related opportunities and projects. We charged a small amount, 5$. It was not advertised or told (not by me or leaked through the topic of the workshop) that I would be there, nor am I famous. They came specifically for me, not the workshop (but did participate in a good way). Not sure what to take away from this, other than that it was really nice!
This sounds like the same behaviour from introducing fines for overdue library books or being late picking up children from day-care. It goes from a social olbigation or question ("Do I want to bother the day-care people by arriving late?" / "Do I want to bother this blogger and ask for their time?") to a financial transaction.
Readit News
https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/say-hi/
and many of my speakers suggested that I should charge for the calls.
Many of my calls involve tech/product advice (often from people with a ton of experience in other areas, e.g. ex FAANG managers, already accomplished founders, designers). Many of the people who message me with concrete questions, asking for my expertise are often already well-off, established and happy to pay.
The thing is:
1. I often get calls from students or people struggling financially 2. I enjoy serendipitous interactions with beautifully weird people
I can probably solve 1. by adding two call lines. But I worry that adding a commercial aspect will prevent 2. from reaching out. I don't live in London any more, and most of my nerdy/artsy/techy/hacker friends live allover the world.
Ah, and:
3. I genuinely love speaking with people in this manner, and personally, I'm getting so much of my Say Hi calls. I just finished a call with a very clever engineer setting their first steps as a solo-founder. They're not "indie hackers", they're people with genuine curiosity, talent and will to help people. It feels amazing to be able to help someone like that, and even better -- to become infected with that enthusiasm!
I am very much aware that I'm rationalising this and perhaps even preventing myself from letting people pay for my work. Whether it's impostor syndrome or the fact that this is such a precious subject to me is a question that I'm trying to answer.
Gosh, I wish I could articulate that into words when I was younger. I remember having a fun conversation with a batshit insane lady who walked into a porch party, and one of my friends thought that I actually thought she was sane.
Not sure how much of it was staged, but the creators went to a public place and stood next to some “free hugs”-people and then put up a sign “Premium hugs $1” and apparently collected more hugs to the chargrin of the free-huggers.
It ties in with the story in Freakonomics about the daycare that started to charge a small "fine" to discourage parents picking up the child late, with the effect that these incidents happened more often. Because the cost went from implicit (shame, etc) to explicit (it's only $10).
> If it's free, people are suspicious and judge the cost to be something implicit, generally with a higher expected cost than $1. On the other hand if you make the cost explicit, people are more comfortable.
To address your point explicitly, if someone believes the cost of a hug is higher than $1 ("higher than expected cost"), then offering one for $1 should trigger a similar suspicion in your head.
Think about it, if a stranger offered you a free Porsche, you'd rightly be suspicious. Would you be less suspicious if they offered that same car for $500?
Although, given this is in an area where streetside parking can be $20-$30 for a couple of hours...
Deleted Comment
Higher price => higher demand, seemingly paradoxically
hmmm.. but would private premium hugs attract unexpected customers/demographics?
Instead I think that the payment creates the expectation that the inquiry will be answered and when someone expects an answer they are more willing to inquire. When the consultation is free or "time permitting", then it might simply be refused but making the inquiry itself isn't zero cost for the individual and their mental calculus makes it not worth asking. The mental calculus is, "What is the person getting out of this interaction and why would they choose to answer me but not someone else?" When it is financial you can see that you are equal to everyone else and you see exactly what the consultant is getting out of it.
Daycare was annoyed with parents picking up their kids late. They introduced a fee for this. As a result, late pick ups increased.
Something that was not considered to be socially acceptable, became more acceptable when you put a price tag for it.
But charge $100 and that's it, that's all the strings attached. Straightforward transaction.