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So strange that your survey basically tells me I'm not a good fit if I'm not willing to consider paying for your product after a 14 day trial. How about let me try the product first and then I can make that assessment?


It is also weird that I cannot see the prices right away. Sunsama could be great, but if the asking price is too much, I won't even bother.


I go looking for the price first in just about every SaaS I use. If it can't be transparent about the price then it's probably not the service for me.


I enjoyed the survey and how well it ties into the onboarding flow. There's probably better word choice for "are you willing to pay" but this does filter out users that just want the next free thing. Better word choice might be "assuming you f*cking love it would you pay $20/mo for a Daily Planner"

I'd guess as a newly launched product they care most about getting some power users evangelizing it while they iterate on the packaging. It might not even be "delightful" yet but that doesn't mean users that need it won't pay for it to just work.


Thanks for that feedback. We put that in place so that folks weren't surprised after using it that Sunsama doesn't have a free tier since people assume that all productivity tools have a free version. If you just change your answer, you can proceed!


Yes, but the sale shouldn't end because I just said no. There should be room left for me to be delighted by the product, such that I convert into a paying user. Instead, I feel alienated and not at all interested in trying it in the future.


This is confusing, you said in your original comment that you were filtered out because you said you wouldn't consider paying for the product, now you say you might if the product delighted you.

So which is it? Why are you alienated by a product that says "we're not for you" if you have no interest in being a paying customer?


Not OP but I had a similar emotional reaction when getting to that point of the survey. It's not logical... on reflection I think it has to do with the sense of los of autonomy. The survey wants me to say that I'd be willing to spend money on it before I can try it, but I want to try it before I decide if I'm willing to spend money.

I think it could be solved for stubborn people like me if the survey got to that point and said "okay, if you're sure, you can still click here to request access but after 14 days you won't be able to continue to use it without signing up. We think you'll be persuaded!" -- or whatnot.

Seems fair enough that people should be able to try the free trial without having to agree that they're theoretically willing to pay 20/mo


I guess the other way to explicitly force people to sign up with a credit card. I would guess this mechanism, asking you if you are willing to pay is better that asking you to PROVE you are willing to pay by starting a free trial with a credit card.


Thanks for bringing this up. In fact, we also chose a "opt in" upgrade, where you pay after your trial is up. I'm of the opinion that "opt out" trials are a dark pattern. That being said, we realize the wording in the survey can be off putting but we think it's the right way to communicate expectations from the beginning and in the long run.


Not the OP either, but I'm not going to commit that I'm willing to pay before even trying the service, and I do pay for a bunch productivity tools (Notion, Forest, + others).

I agree that the "opt-out" is not great, but I would change it to just a warning "This is paid software, after the trial you will need to subscribe".


Why even have this survey? Just make it a 14 day free trial but say upfront that it's paid afterwards, and let people try the product themselves, which is how most paid with free trial apps are currently. Adding an additional filter in the form of a survey just removes potential customers.


Indeed, this should have been incredibly obvious and is the whole reason free trials exist.


You still have to pay a minimum of $800 a year to the franchise tax board for operating a non-Californian business.


Word. California always gets its cut. If you're in California, or have customers there, going to other states only increases your potential obligations.


Exactly. Which is why I just recommend forming a California LLC directly if you live in California (like I do).


Yeah. I understand the advantages of a Delaware C corporation if you need a C corporation. But I don't see the advantages of a Delaware LLC if you will be operating in California.


If you own the LLC but don't take a salary, do you still have to pay the fee?


Yes.


NYS was the same way. It was irrelevant whether the company made money or not.


As a non-US citizen, California taxes and fees seem ridiculous.


They are. There's little-to-no benefit derived from these arbitrary fees, especially amongst all the other high taxes in the state.


Nice! I did this too[0], I highly recommend the exercise.

[0] https://github.com/levi/hackassembler


I've followed this curriculum for the past two years and I can report back that it will rid yourself of those insecurities. But I don't recommend following it to the letter. I used it as a starting point for each topic and then found multiple text books, university curriculums and hands on projects that fit my style of learning. For example, everyone recommends SICP, but I had a hard time staying with the original text book. Both Berkley and MIT have great video lectures based on the book and updated lectures based on Python. Watching both of these gave me a good understanding of the core of what SCIP really was trying to communicate. I later went back and went through the book, but used Racket as the scheme flavor and became familiar with that world.


> 420 often refers to the police code for cannabis possession

Hah, this journalist is so out of touch with the joke. 420 is the time to blaze it!


420 was the California Bill for medical marijuana legalization (and of course the time to blaze it).


> 420 was the California Bill for medical marijuana legalization

“420” was established term for weed before SB 420 of 2003 was introduced; the slang didn't come from the bill but the bill was introduced on a timing to exploit the slang.

Also, Medical Marijuana was legalized by Prop 215 of 1996, SB 420 of 2003 was a measure to revise some provisions of the regulatory regime.


420 was the price Musk planned to turn Tesla private "funding secured" Musk lied.


Yet the stock is now $421.


Which means to go private he would have to secure funding quite a bit higher than that


All FB employees have a phone provided by Facebook with MDM software.



Would highly recommend photos. Browsing gaming chairs, for instance, I immediately bounced from the page because I couldn’t visually browse the content.


Amazon has an affiliate program that allows you to generate banners with embedded images.

This seems like an appropriate license since he's linking to amazon anyways.


Maybe rights issues?


He probably just wants you to click to activate the affiliate link.

EDIT: Doesn't seem like the Amazon links are affiliate links, even though he makes a statement on the page that he's trying to make money.


Showing photos would fall under fair use.


Citation needed.

Any case, fair use is a defense, not a license or permission.


Clearly a fair use situation.

"the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."


This is commerce, though.

And again, Fair Use is a defense. It only kicks in after you have been sued and are in court.


Word on the street was that they were planning on including both TouchID and FaceID in the X, but scrapped it earlier this year due to low yields during mass production[0].

[0] https://www.macrumors.com/2017/04/12/apple-struggling-with-t...


Which is contradicted by this interview as well as discussions John Gruber has had with some of his sources.


Back pay would be signicantly higher than $20m.


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