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SheetPlanner Future Features
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Posted by SheetPlanner
Aug 17, 2018 at 04:32 AM
All,
I wanted to put this out there and get your feedback.
Our current status is that we expect to release beta 4 by the end of next week. We may reach beta 8 or 9 before we submit to the App Store, so we are still a few weeks away from launch.
We have the feature set for 1.1, 1.2 and a Pro version lined up and will commence development of 1.1 as soon as we release 1.0.
Ok, with that said. Here is an idea I have been thinking about.
There are many people on this board who are orphans from multiple legacy products from days gone by and swear by certain features from various products they used in their past.
With a 1.1, 1.2 and Pro version roadmap published, were a user to have a specific feature they wanted added but for which there was not enough demand to warrant me funding development I am thinking of opening up the option of having people pay to add a specific feature.
If a specific feature request fell outside of the published product plan but made sense within the overall design of the product, I would make available the option to pay to have that specific feature added.
I fear that some people are going to think this is a good idea and many are going to jump right down my throat, so please bear in mind its just an idea to fund development of features that may have a very limited audience but might make all the difference to specific users.
Anybody have any thoughts on this, ever seen something like this done before?
Peter
Posted by Paul Korm
Aug 17, 2018 at 12:48 PM
It’s an interesting proposal, Peter, but hard to react to because we don’t know the key element: “pay how much”?
I suspect you don’t know the answer, which is fine, But I think most readers will think “sure, I’ll pay $20 for it” when you might be thinking a price orders of magnitude higher,
And then, does that mean all the other users would not have access if they didn’t fund the development? I don’t think that’s your intent, because you would end up with lots of different classes of users with access to a disparate set of features, which could be a support nightmare.
Anyway, more info needed please.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Aug 17, 2018 at 01:31 PM
I concur with what Paul said. It’s an interesting concept, but hard to react to without further details.
Worth pursuing, I think.
Steve Z.
Posted by SheetPlanner
Aug 17, 2018 at 02:17 PM
Paul,
Thanks for the feedback. Couple of thoughts.
What I would probably do is publish the roadmap and identify the items that are funded in the roadmap.
Create a mechanism for people to submit feature request which I would either incorporate into the roadmap and fund as any develop would or alternatively for items where the demand is very small but really important to a user or small group of users and where it does not make sense to me offer to have the feature added but for a fee. In these cases it would not be for profit and I would only add the feature if it fit with the overall product.
An example might be a very specific filter operator and the cost might be $300. Something like that.
Yes any features incorporated in that way would be available to all.
We have a lot of cool features coming in 1.1 and 1.2 let alone the pro version, so this concept won’t be an option for a while even if we decide to do it.
Thanks,
Peter
Paul Korm wrote:
It’s an interesting proposal, Peter, but hard to react to because we
>don’t know the key element: “pay how much”?
>
>I suspect you don’t know the answer, which is fine, But I think most
>readers will think “sure, I’ll pay $20 for it” when you might be
>thinking a price orders of magnitude higher,
>
>And then, does that mean all the other users would not have access if
>they didn’t fund the development? I don’t think that’s your intent,
>because you would end up with lots of different classes of users with
>access to a disparate set of features, which could be a support
>nightmare.
>
>Anyway, more info needed please.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Aug 17, 2018 at 02:27 PM
The recent iA Writer Kickstarter campaign for porting to Windows should provide an indication of what individuals are willing to pay. Of course, that was for the full programme, not just one feature.
It might make sense to run a poll where prospective users can pledge a certain amount in return for one or more additional features, to be selected from a list. If a person selects, say, three features, their pledge would be divided to those three. Then you can see which features represent the most money.
Most importantly, as this kind of tool is not just aimed at individuals, there may be some good funding opportunities from interested businesses.