Interesting week.

IQTell calls it quits. http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/5983/0/iqtell-shutting-down

Wuala calls it quits . http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/5981/0/wuala-shutting-down

Workflowy gives the premium product away. http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/5982/0/workflowy-pro-for-1-year-free

More?

These aren't consolidations. The first two are exits. The last is maybe the classic last gasp?

Like many, I've wondered at just how much "productivity" the market can bear. It's a relatively easy space to enter (lots of APIs); difficult to differentiate; and thus difficult to sustain when the growth curve of new accounts flattens and dives. And, maybe the market is tiring of fees-for-everything?

Paul Korm wrote:

Interesting week.

IQTell calls it quits.
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/5983/0/iqtell-shutting-down

Wuala calls it quits .
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/5981/0/wuala-shutting-down

Workflowy gives the premium product away.
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/5982/0/workflowy-pro-for-1-year-free

More?

These aren't consolidations. The first two are exits. The last is
maybe the classic last gasp?

Like many, I've wondered at just how much "productivity" the market can
bear. It's a relatively easy space to enter (lots of APIs); difficult
to differentiate; and thus difficult to sustain when the growth curve of
new accounts flattens and dives. And, maybe the market is tiring of
fees-for-everything?

I've wondered much the same thing. Microsoft's decision to practically giveaway Office 365 (the free years and trials are ending shortly) has apparently been a huge success. As for our CRIMPing desires, many of us are still looking and comparing while a great many more have grabbed OneNote and run with it. They had a hidden gem that they never promoted, began to *give* away and the bundle giveaways showed many that OneNote is one of Microsoft's truly great products. It's taken a hit on Evernote and I can imagine it has hurt others.

The Wuala thing appears to be a business decision by Lacie to step away from the storage space and concentrate on their core business.

I think Workflowy and Gingko both blew it when they failed to produce desktop apps.

There are some things that only work well as web apps. Stuff like Asana and other collaborative tools (and even many of those, such as Slack, have excellent desktop clients).

But Workflowy and Gingko are crying out for desktop versions. It's really annoying to have to go online to access them, especially for those of us who've uninstalled Chrome and all Chrome apps.

Gingko in particular I regard as one of the moments of genius in the self-organisation world. But many of you also use Workflowy, too. And they've been promising a desktop app since 2011.

Sadly, I don't think either of them will be around in 2017. And that's a crying shame.

Are there other signs that Workflowy is having issues? I thought this give-away was just a promotional to drum up more customers, but perhaps it may be a last ditch effort?

--Ken

There has also been consolidation. Fetchnotes was bought out. Wunderlist was bought out. Hackpad was bought out. Don't know if that means anything.

Steve Z.

MadaboutDana wrote:

I think Workflowy and Gingko both blew it when they failed to produce
desktop apps.

I'm not so sure about that. An alternative interpretation is that they are ahead of the curve as the world moves toward cloud services and 'dumb' terminals like Chromebooks.

Both seem to be small businesses (at least in terms of number of staff), so their resources are limited as to where they put their attention. As sales of classical desktops and laptops are declining, there would be increasingly fewer reasons to invest into desktop apps (not to mention that the first thing people tend to launch on their desktops is a browser, and WorkFlowy works just great in let's say Firefox, where it can be even enhanced by all kinds of Firefox add-ons, which couldn't be done in a standalone app).

So maybe they're just better of focusing on recruiting more online customers (and keeping the existing ones happy).

Ken wrote:

Are there other signs that Workflowy is having issues? I thought this
give-away was just a promotional to drum up more customers, but perhaps
it may be a last ditch effort?

I certainly hope not. It does makes sense as a marketing tactic. It takes time to get attached to WorkFlowy, and prolonged use of it is more likely to lock in new customers.

Having said that, I always thought that their free version was far too generous already. I've decided to become a paying customer a while ago because I can't imagine my life without it and I desperately want them to survive.

I feel like a 1-year Premium giveaway is more of a promotional effort than last ditch attempt to save the company, as they're basically sacrificing a lot of revenue.

Had they done a '90% OFF' sale, that might smack of desperation more, hoping that greater unit sales would make up for the reduced price. Although I guess the other possibility is that they're trying to generate a fast boost in user base, to try to secure more funding.

So either they're doing great, or they're throwing a Hail Mary pass to prevent going belly up. Ha!

IIRC they're running a pretty tight ship, so I am guessing they are doing okay-

Ken wrote:

Are there other signs that Workflowy is having issues? I thought this
give-away was just a promotional to drum up more customers, but perhaps
it may be a last ditch effort?

--Ken

Is workflowy in trouble? I was under the impression their revenue was pretty good, however the pace of development has slowed (again). But they've had bouts of slow and fast development alternating for their entire five years. In 2014 they added a number of nifty things, such as an android app, bold & italic, and multiple select. On the other hand, for a long time (years?), their help/support has said the following features are coming: Dates & reminders, Image attachments, Advanced tagging options, Collaboration improvements, API. No sign of any of that.

I've been paying for workflowy but I'll probably stop paying soon and just go back to the free mode. I would pay in a heartbeat for a windows desktop app though, it's one of my favorites.

It's easy to understand why developers favor subscription revenue models, and why they favor online apps. But I don't like online apps. They're generally just too slow and don't scale well and don't have power-user features. I consider workflowy an exception to the rule.

Off-topic, but I'm also disenchanted with ipads and android tablets and now that small windows laptops are getting HD screens and powerful processors I think I'm going back to windows (7), desktop apps, and dropbox-etc sync.

It must be very tough out there for smaller companies to market their products/systems to the diverse landscape of large & small companies, individual freelancers, and academic/nonprofit users.

I've repeatedly read that the ultimate cost-benefit analysis is revenue vs. support for each class of user. Users who pay less (or nothing) tend to become money LOSERS for a company, even if they are evangelical. An article I read about the death of free-tier software said that free users do recruit more users; the only problem is that they recruit more FREE users. And they all need lots of hand-holding, which costs the company lots of time, money and manpower.

Conversely, larger enterprise customers are more likely to stay on the conservative side and stick to Outlook, Sharepoint, and other tested enterprise-level software, for all its faults. Even Evernote can't really sell itself as a secure or reliable enough platform to be dependable for a sizeable corporation to depend on.

And as for us users, I find myself routinely circling back around to open-source software, plaintext files, and highly-portable non-database systems. I'm tired of fleeing sinking ship after sinking ship...

zoe wrote:

It must be very tough out there for smaller companies to market their
products/systems to the diverse landscape of large & small companies,
individual freelancers, and academic/nonprofit users.

I've repeatedly read that the ultimate cost-benefit analysis is revenue
vs. support for each class of user. Users who pay less (or nothing) tend
to become money LOSERS for a company, even if they are evangelical. An
article I read about the death of free-tier software said that free
users do recruit more users; the only problem is that they recruit more
FREE users. And they all need lots of hand-holding, which costs the
company lots of time, money and manpower.

Conversely, larger enterprise customers are more likely to stay on the
conservative side and stick to Outlook, Sharepoint, and other tested
enterprise-level software, for all its faults. Even Evernote can't
really sell itself as a secure or reliable enough platform to be
dependable for a sizeable corporation to depend on.

And as for us users, I find myself routinely circling back around to
open-source software, plaintext files, and highly-portable non-database
systems. I'm tired of fleeing sinking ship after sinking ship...

A timely post for me. I wanted to subscribe to Wrike, but their free version was missing some features that was hoping to access. I do not mind paying for software, whether as a purchase or annual payment, but the jump in cost to the next levels was not a small amount. Nonetheless, I called them to ask if there was some middle ground, knowing that it was a long shot. The gentleman that I spoke with seemed very helpful, and did state that the enterprise version of the software ran $1,500USD/yr for 10 users, and that he might be able to work up a price for me. Now, I do not expect good software to be free, but if Adobe can offer their Creative Cloud package (Photoshop and Liightroom) for $120USD/yr, I was hoping that a simpler software package like Wrike could initially be priced at a more competitive rate. I did not want to discuss rates with the rep until I really knew that this was the program that I wanted, so he was kind enough to let me know that I could trial any of the versions when I wished. I realize that the enterprise market is where the money is, but is it really that hard to offer up something in the middle ground? I do not want to be a drain, but I do not have the resources of a company to expense my software. While I was treated very well, I did feel a bit as if I were asking to use the facilities in the first class cabin while riding in coach. It also made me wonder how all of these independent developers who sell their products for $25-75USD survive in the long run, but that is a topic for another discussion and thread.

--Ken

steveylang wrote:

Although I guess the other possibility is that they're trying to
generate a fast boost in user base, to try to secure more funding.

That is my guess, too.
One of my customers is a German startup that is funded by some institutions and private investors. And the "currency" there is user base.
Moreover, it's not unlikely that a considerable amount of Workflowy users who got the Pro edition for free now will continue to use it on a subscription base next year.

It’s easy to understand why developers favor subscription revenue models, and why they favor online apps. But I don’t like online apps.

There are plusses and minuses to desktop/pay once and SaaS/subscription. If you are interested wrote about it from a developer point of view here:
http://successfulsoftware.net/2013/10/28/is-desktop-software-dead/

zoe wrote:

It must be very tough out there for smaller companies to market their
products/systems to the diverse landscape of large & small companies,
individual freelancers, and academic/nonprofit users.

It's certainly a challenge to be noticed in such a crowded space.

I've repeatedly read that the ultimate cost-benefit analysis is revenue
vs. support for each class of user. Users who pay less (or nothing) tend
to become money LOSERS for a company, even if they are evangelical. An
article I read about the death of free-tier software said that free
users do recruit more users; the only problem is that they recruit more
FREE users. And they all need lots of hand-holding, which costs the
company lots of time, money and manpower.

Only large companies have any chance to make a 'freemium' model work. Even then, most of them seem to be running at a loss (including Evernote, last I heard).

It is simply not economical for a small company like mine to support thousands of free users. The support burden would kill me. Especially as free users often seem to be the least skilled at using a computer.

--
Andy Brice
http://www.hyperplan.com

I have to admit that cloud apps came out with exiting new pieces of software.
Nevertheless, I absolutely don't trust in cloud services. Besides that company rules interdict to store information outside I don't want my private data to hang around.
Another reason is that I don't have a n online connection all the day. So, I can't access data in a browser when I need to.