[jakejake]

This is possibly the most interesting fumblebrag that I've read in a while. It has a few issues which have been hot on HN recently as well as some age-old problems.

The dependence on third-party services like maps, messaging, flight data, etc. is an interesting topic. Services that help you to get up and running in a couple of clicks are awesome at first. But they can become a burden when your usage goes up beyond a trivial amount. This is a great lesson about thinking ahead when choosing third-party providers - either by passing the expense along to your customers or having a roadmap to phase them out when you hit a certain volume.

Another point is the one-time pricing which, in my mind, is somewhat of a ponzi scheme for a business model. I always cringe a little when I see a cool new app with a "one time payment for life!" pricing. You just can't support customers forever with a single lifetime payment unless you are earning revenue in some other way (i.e. advertising). It's easy to think that you'll continue to gain more customers forever, but you're setting yourself up to be crushed by your own success. Unless you're planning on regularly releasing new apps and/or in-app purchases for your customers to purchase, it's not a long-term business model.

Sorry to see the Just Landed go - it looked like a cool app. I think there is a lot to learn from this post so thanks to the author for posting.

[morgante]

In theory, you can charge your average lifetime value upfront.

In practice, for a good app the lifetime benefit to users vastly exceeds what anyone would reasonably pay upfront. For example, I've paid hundreds of dollars to Dropbox over the years (and feel like I've gotten well over $1,000 of value)—but I would have totally balked at paying even $200 on signup.

[jakejake]

That is true, and to make matters worse it's probably near impossible to figure the right amount out when you've just started the company. You don't always know how people will wind up using your app.