Pricing Experiments You Might Not Know, But Can Learn From

Lots of entrepreneurs struggle with pricing. How much to charge? It’s clear that the right price can make all the difference – too low and you miss out on profit; too high and you miss out on sales. Don’t ask, can’t tell Asking people what they’d pay for and how much rarely works. [Tweet It!] For one thing people will tell you what they WANT to pay—which is obviously much less than what your product or service is actually WORTH. When it comes to money, people are unable to predict accurately whether they’d pay or not. Also it’s worth remembering that people really don’t know how much things are worth, what’s a fair price (which is the reason TV-shows like “The Price is Right” can actually exist). William Poundstone, the author Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value says this: “People tend to be clueless about prices. People are weird and irrational, and there’s much we don’t understand. Why does removing dollar signs from prices (24 instead of $24) increase sales? The Economist and decoy pricing

An Autopsy of a Dead Social Network Friendster is a social network that was founded in 2002, a year before Myspace and two years before Facebook. Consequently, it is often thought of as the grand-daddy of social networks. At its peak, the network had well over 100 million users, many in south east Asia. In July 2009, following some technical problems and a redesign, the site experienced a catastrophic decline in traffic as users fled to other networks such as Facebook. This is the company that famously turned down a $30m buyout offer from Google in 2003. (Friendster has since been rebranded as a social gaming platform and still enjoys some success in south east Asia.) The question, of course, is what went wrong. They say that when the costs–the time and effort–associated with being a member of a social network outweigh the benefits, then the conditions are ripe for a general exodus. But Garcia and co point out that the topology of the network provides some resilience against this.

100 Best DIY Sites on the Web 100 Best DIY Sites on the Web Saturday, February 26, 2011 at 6:06pm by Site Administrator DIY offers a great way to take on personal projects and make things your own. Home Improvement In these sites, you’ll find fun and useful projects to take on at home. Arts & Crafts Whether you want to learn how to make your own macro lens, or just find a knitting pattern, these sites will have what you’re looking for. Tech Find everything you want to know about hacking gadgets, electronics, and more from these sites. Makezine: Learn how to make your own fun electronic and tech toys with this site.Freedom to Tinker: Check out this site to learn how to modify and repair tech devices.Hack This Site! Lifehacking These sites present great ways to apply the DIY principle to everyday life. General Check out these sites to find anything and everything DIY. If you enjoyed this article, please bookmark it at del.icio.us »

IO - How LinkedIn Just Made 10 Million People Feel Special M. Wetzler wrote this post on February 07, 2013 I’m rarely impressed by email spam, but LinkedIn is doing something brilliant right now. I just got an email telling me that I have one of the top 5% most viewed profiles in 2012. Of course I clicked that bright yellow Read More button. This took me to a lovely interface with interesting analytics content, and very easy way to tweet about how special I am.

20 Thoughts That Will Lead You To Great Success | Lifehack It’s never too late to get started on a successful life, and I’ve listed 20 thoughts that will help you achieve great success today. Take a moment and internalize these thoughts, and you’ll be on your way to a better tomorrow. 1. Dale Carnegie once stated, “It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. 2. Doing what you like will help you find purpose and fulfillment in your life. 3. In a world of advertisements, promising opportunities, and addicting apps, distraction is only a click away. 4. Being in the right place at the right time isn’t always a coincidence; the harder you work, the more likely it will be that you’ll end up in “the right place.” 5. John Maxwell, author of countless NYT bestsellers, recently wrote a book called Everyone Communicates, Few Connect. 6. Even the most successful people have bad days, but ONLY successful people bounce back. 7. Copycatting isn’t the only form of imitation. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

My history of (mostly failed) side projects and startups This HN thread by the founder of Github on side projects got me thinking. You could make a strong argument that my most successful projects--NamesDatabase (my last startup) and DuckDuckGo (my current startup)--essentially started as side projects and, perhaps more interestingly, evolved from other failed side projects and startups. I thought it would be illustrative to enumerate my projects. I'm limiting the list to projects that I started (as opposed to consulting/affiliate gigs) and ones that I spent a significant amount of time on (as opposed to just a few weeks/weekends). BBS (1993-1995). Update: more great comments on HN.