To Pay Or Not to Pay: When to Move Beyond Free

via WebWorkerDaily by Aliza Sherman on 4/29/09

Written by Aliza Sherman.

The other day I noticed that someone had posted a quick poll on LinkedIn. I thought a poll like that might be a good tool to use for informal market research, so I clicked on the link to create my own. However, I was met with a message saying that I needed to upgrade my account to access the polling feature. I perused the prices, then quickly determined I wasn't going to upgrade.

This isn't the first time I've considered upgrading my LinkedIn account and decided against it, which led me to start thinking about all of the "freemium" apps — basically free apps with premium upgrades — I've been using. I started feeling guilty about taking advantage of the "free" in freemium services, especially because I've had the opportunity to interview founders of these companies, many of whom confess to struggling over pricing. So what makes us decide to pay for an app?

My decision process works something like this:

1. Is it mission critical? Not every app or tool I use is critical to the well-being of my company, but some are. Our project management system? Critical. Our internal social networking system? Not so critical, because we've not all adopted it yet, but this could change.

2. How useful is the free version? In my WWD review, I was impressed that Deskaway's free version had more features than Basecamp's. That could have won me over, but its interface just didn't work for me.

3. Can I live without more functionality? I used Basecamp for quite a while without ever thinking about the reporting available with a paid plan. I was getting my reports from Freshbooks, and Basecamp was just a way for me to manage client information when I was working solo. I only upgraded to the $24 per month plan when I needed to manage more projects. Payment made sense because I had so much more new work to cover the expense.

4. Should I upgrade and pay or seek out a different app? Once I began adding more team members to my company, Basecamp's inadequacies for deeper project management became obvious. So instead of upgrading a notch or two further — and still not having the functionality we needed — we moved over to 5pm at $4/month more. Again, the cost was palatable because more team members meant greater productivity and more moving parts to manage, so it made good business sense.

5. Do the fee levels hit my sweet spot? I realize I have two tiers of apps that I am willing to pay for, each with its own sweet spot in terms of pricing. For apps that benefit the overall smooth functioning of my business and provide real value that I can quantify, I'll pay around $25 per month. I feel comfortable having four of these. The second tier contains apps that are useful in some aspect of my work, and I'll subscribe to up to five of these at $10 per month. That's about my limit. Right now, I don't have a real method for deciding how much I will pay — it's all from the gut. But we're working to measure the costs of doing business and the impact our apps have on our bottom line, so eventually I should have some real numbers to work with.

6. How entrenched am I? In some cases, I begin to feel "trapped" by the choice I made initially when I started with an app. If I need to upgrade and the next level is out of my price range, what then? When I left Basecamp, I couldn't easily figure out how to migrate information over to 5pm, so I just downgraded my membership to a free plan, and now cannot figure out how to access my data so it just sits there. Over time, those assets will be outdated and no longer as valuable as they were the first months of the migration, but I still feel a sense of my data being trapped. Avoiding this trapped feeling — as well as avoiding a huge learning curve of a new app — are two big factors when deciding whether to move to another service.

7. Can I afford not to pay? If an app I'm using has a positive effect on my business' bottom line–or moving away from it has a significant negative impact–then I'm much more likely to dish out the cash.

Back to the case of LinkedIn. The lowest monthly upgrade is $24.95. Per month. For me, that hits a sour note. I get so much benefit out of LinkedIn at the free level and have for years that there is no incentive for me to pay. Just missing out on that Quick Poll feature isn't enough to entice me over to a paid plan.

All LinkedIn could do right now to win my paying business — possibly — is to remove the free level altogether. But by doing that, their entire business foundation would crumble as many people migrate quickly away.

How do you decide whether an app is worth paying for? Which services do you consider well worth paying for?

Image by stock.xchng user jana_koll

Looking to Hire an Engineer? 3 reasons to Forgo the Phone Screening

You can think about replacing the word Engineer with "Project Manager" - Andy

If Sergey Brin applied for an engineering position at Google today, would he pass the requisite phone screening? Don't be so sure: While he might look good on paper, he'd probably have to brush up on his Python programming skills first. Even if he passed, would it tell his potential employer anything useful about the value he could bring to the company?

Most engineers are familiar with the initial phone interview: a short, technical interview prepared by the prospective employer, and used to verify that the programmer meets the minimum technical qualifications of the job. Lots of employers think these screenings are a quick way to weed out bad engineers, but personally, I refuse to do them. Here are three reasons those looking to hire the best engineers should reconsider the "phone screen" interview altogether and jump right to a full-length phone or in-person interview:

1. Recruiters and other non-technical people typically don't understand the questions they ask, and that leads to a one-way conversation. In addition, questions are often stated incorrectly, or without the originally intended context and as such suffer from lost-in-translation syndrome. Correctly evaluating a candidate over the phone takes longer than a typical "screening" interview, and should be done by equally tech-savvy individuals on the employer's side.

2. From the perspective of an engineer, if an employer asks a lot of trivial coding or algorithm questions, it usually means the job they're hiring for isn't going to be that interesting (activate the big-company-coding-job radar). Phone interviewers do occasionally ask deeper questions, but given the limited time of a screening interview, and the inability of a candidate to present code or design diagrams, they are often forced to ask trivial ones.

3. Intelligence assessments can be a good indicator of talent, but don't waste time asking them to solve puzzles pulled off the Internet: Look at SAT or GRE scores, school transcripts, or some other substantial proof of intelligence (or lack thereof). This kind of background on a candidate can usually be found without the need for a phone interview.

Only good engineers can accurately measure the skills of other good engineers, and it takes a lot of probing in an in-person, back-and-forth conversation to get there. A meaningful engineering interview has to be conducted in person, with multiple engineers, and over the course of several hours (if not an entire day). It's worth the effort.

VIA [gigaom]

The Five Deadly Sins of Project Management

Bernhard Kappe, Monday, April 27, 2009 @ 9:08 pm

There's a list of deadly sins out there for just about anything related to information technology. Some have seven items, some have five, some even have nine. I haven't seen one with 21 deadly sins yet, but I won't be surprised if I do. Some focus on IT departments, some on unused software, some on agile software development, and quite a few on whatever they're trying to sell you.

We've seen a lot in our ten years of developing software at Pathfinder, and the list that rings truest is the shortest and pithiest, from the Standish Group:

• Ambition
• Arrogance
• Ignorance
• Fraudulence
• Abstinence

Each of these is best illustrated by example:

Ambition (or Overambition)

Example: Trying to build something too fast with too many people and designed to be all things to all users.  This is also known as boiling the ocean.  It's something we see a lot from prospects.  We've got a saying at Pathfinder:  "If the business plan is based on replicating the best features of Google, Facebook and Amazon, the agile thing to do is to run away."

Arrogance

Example: "A prime executive who overrides user input and forces implementation of his or her mistaken perception of how things should work"

Ignorance

Example: If the requirements document states that the new system must "do everything that the old system did,"  that's usually a cop out for not knowing the details of what the old system does and doesn't do, and how that's applicable to the business problem you're trying to solve.

Fraudulence

This one certainly gets your attention, doesn't it?

Example: The most common form is underestimation of costs in order to get a project approved, or giving a dead certain estimate for something that is too undefined.  Wishful thinking is a milder form of this.  (I don't want to peek too far ahead to next week's post, but agile has some great tools for guarding against this.)

Abstinence

Example:  When key people do not participate in the project.  In an agile project, when the key decision makers  do not provide feedback and decisions, the project slows down, can get off track, and money and time is wasted.   (Hint on the solution:  Designate and empower project managers.)

Keeping this little list in mind throughout a project lifecycle, and knowing how to deal with them when they occur will help keep your project on track to success.

Next time:  Patterns and Antipatterns: The Ten Factors of Successful Software Development

Topics: Agile Development, Best Practices, project management, standish

Via [www.pathf.com] http://www.pathf.com/blogs/2009/04/the-five-deadly-sins-of-project-management/

Hire a Career Coach to Jumpstart Your Job Search [Career]

by Adam Pash

Times are tough, but sometimes the silver lining to a bad economy is that it can be a perfect time to switch up your career. Blogger Marci Alboher suggests hiring a career coach.

Photo by bionicteaching.

It's tough to say what a career coach can do for you if you've never had one; lucky Alboher has, and she's here to share her experience:

When I changed careers nearly 10 years ago, hiring a coach completely jumpstarted my process. Career changes and job searches take a long time and I'm impatient. I also had a lot of fear and anxiety about the process and I didn't want to overburden supportive friends and family with my constant need to talk about my process. I figured that working with a professional who'd seen hundreds of others through transitions was a way to speed things up. And it did. I used my coach for about 8 sessions to come up with a plan and a strategy; after that, I called her for advice now and then, but mostly felt comfortable on my own.

Pulling from her experience, Alboher walks through how to go about finding and hiring a career coach. It may seem like quite an extravagance to hire a career coach right now, but if a little coaching may mean the difference between finding a job you love and the unemployment line, it could be worth a try. If you've got any experience with a career coach, let's hear how you found your coach—and whether or not you found the experience worthwhile—in the comments. If you really don't feel like you've got the cash but would love to get a little of what a career coach might offer, you can always try to be your own career coach.

How to hire a career coach [Manage Your Life]

Side Businesses You Can Start in Your Spare Time [Money]

via Lifehacker by Adam Pash on 4/13/09

We've encouraged you to start a side business to turn something you love into extra income, but if you're not sure what might make for a good side gig, The Simple Dollar has 50 suggestions.

Photo by Scoro.

From antique refurbishment to web site design, the list offers a ton of side business ideas that don't require all that much from you in terms of start-up cost and commitment. Instead, they're jobs you can work on in your spare time as much or as little as you want. For example, here's a side gig that The Simple Dollar's Trent has tackled himself, and one that most Lifehacker readers could probably take on with relative ease:

Computer troubleshooting: I had some success with this in the past, though I've largely moved away from it now. If you have a knack for fixing computers, this is a good place to start.

Already got a healthy side business bringing in a little extra income in tough times? Let's hear about it in the comments. If all goes really well and your side job looks like it could turn into a viable business on its own, then you may want to take a look at how your fellow readers have successfully turned their side business into a full-time job.

50 Side Businesses You Can Start On Your Own [The Simple Dollar]

The Importance of Monitoring Your Online Reputation [Reputation]

via Lifehacker by Adam Pash on 4/13/09

These days, if you want to know more about someone, the first thing most of us do is Google them. It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, that monitoring your online reputation is extraordinarily important.

Photo by Jan Tik.

Whether you're tracking your personal reputation or your business' reputation, it's important to know what's being said—especially so that you can address reputation dings as soon as possible. To this end, we've already detailed how to track your ego online, so give it a quick look if you're interested in setting up a reputation monitoring system. In a post-Twitter world, you can also use something like previously mentioned TweetDeck to create a persistent Twitter search to keep track of what's being said about you online. (For example, we keep a fairly close eye on what people are saying about Lifehacker this way, so that if people are having issues with the site or complaints with a post, we can address them as necessary.)

Still, one of the best ways to take an active approach to your online reputation is to have a say in what Google says about you. We've been down this road before, but weblog Freelance Folder takes their own approach to your online reputation, detailing what you can learn from your online rep as well as a few of their own suggestions for what you can do if your reputation is in trouble. Got a few tips of your own? Let's hear them in the comments.

Why You Need to Monitor Your Online Reputation [Freelance Folder]

Find the Best Part-Time Work for Your Time [Money]

via Lifehacker by Kevin Purdy on 4/14/09

We posted yesterday about 50 side businesses you can start in spare time, but it's not always apparent which sideline works best for your time, or career. Marci Alboher offers some advice on that front.

Career writer Alboher writes at Manage Your Life that your part-time job, or freelance gig, or even casual pick-up work should benefit you in more ways than just bolstering your bank account. Find work that doesn't conflict with your main revenue earner, and hopefully find it in a growing field. She also advises:

• Keep in mind that part-time work doesn't have to be a "job." Working as a freelancer or consultant will likely give you more flexibility than will a position that has fixed hours and a fixed location.
• Recognize that not all jobs are advertised. Often, positions are created when a person shows up with the right set of skills and the moxie to propose herself for the position (see Jennifer Bergeram's story in this post.)

What part-time job or freelance work have you found that meshed well with your career goals? Give us all a bit of inspiration in the comments.

Finding the perfect part-time work [Manage Your Life/Shine]