[DHaldane]

We are certainly focused on the professional market for monetization -- turns out this software is hard to build and we need to pay smart people to work on it.

Not to say we won't have an open free/freemium offering soon. Hobbyists needed the new layout tool we just shipped last Tuesday, so it's much closer now.

[blagie]

My advice would be to have two versions:

- Paid, which supports private designs.

- Free, where every design is open-licensed and discoverable.

There are approximately zero companies which will want their IP open. On the other hand, this makes this available to approximately 100% of the university and hobbyist market.

Don't cripple the free version in any way beyond that.

The one lesson I learned watching CAD and other professional markets for decades: You want your tool used in university classes. Heck, if there weren't conflicts-of-interest, it'd be worth paying universities to adopt your tool.

Hobbyists are less important (although there have been many examples of hobbyist projects turning into major companies).

[javajosh]

That's a fantastic suggestion, blagie! I really like how requiring open licenses increases the marketing reach of the tool.

[DHaldane]

This is the classic SaaS CAD tool approach. But JITX runs locally - all design data stays local and we're not holding it hostage in our cloud.

Definitely agree with a free version though - we want to help those just starting out as well! But they needed the support from the router we just shipped so earlier offerings would have fallen a bit flat. In the cards now though...

[blagie]

shurg Make a free version which keeps all data locally AND uploads a copy to your cloud (at least for internet-connected machines). Upsides:

- Marketing / visibility: You're a repository of free designs

- Network effects: If people want to reuse designs, they will standardize on your tool

- Training data. Want to know a pin on a given chip is SCK or 3.3V? Or which pins, by default, to connect between a USB chip to program a microcontroller? That's in your library.

- Component library. If I make a footprint, Spice model, and 3d model for some part, you can get it for free for use by paying customers.

- ...

Yes, it can be circumvented. But the truth is 75% of businesses won't break your license anyway. Some will (and there's an obsession with dongles and what not), but those are mostly tiny fly-by-night operations which aren't likely to buy a $12k license anyway.

It is a lot of work, and I'm not advocating for where this should fit on your priority list, or how much is needed in an MVP. Just that you should consider this as perhaps the right long-term model.

[nyanpasu64]

Does this create a problem if schools prevent students from posting their projects publicly (because it would allow other students to "cheat" and look at previous students' solutions), and such projects are no longer considered open-licensed here?

[themoonisachees]

I'm pretty sure the product is already "paid" if you have a .edu email.

[mistercow]

I’m not in your target market at this point, but in the 3D CAD space, I’ve noticed that several companies have gone with free licensing for non-commercial use, and those tools end up getting practically all of the of exposure in the maker niches on YouTube.

It seems like a smart — if long term — strategy, since today’s young hobbyists are likely going to be a significant number of tomorrow’s founders, choosing the software their companies use.

It is admittedly a little different. Hobbyists getting into 3D printing are surely more common than hobbyists designing and ordering PCBs. But the latter is more accessible to low volume customers than it’s ever been.

[aleph_minus_one]

> It seems like a smart — if long term — strategy, since today’s young hobbyists are likely going to be a significant number of tomorrow’s founders, choosing the software their companies use.

The same argument is made for student licenses.

My life experience is different: people who love to learn about topics where such expensive software is commonly used very commonly don't get a job in the respective industry, or at least don't get a position where they can choose the software that the company uses. To put it somewhat polemically: people who love to learn all the time are often nerds; these people typically don't end in management positions where they can buy software for the company.

Also, highly smart people often learn about very different things (e.g. software for 3D graphics and PCB design), but there is hardly any industry/departmentment where software from very different areas is used.

In other words: the whole argument "today’s hobbyists/students will in the future choosing the software their companies use" does in my opinion not hold. Better respect that hobbyists/students form a very passionate user base that is typically rather disjoint with the (less passionate) commercial customers.

[blagie]

I would split hobbyists and students.

Students become professionals and DO make choices. I've seen more than one CAD company succeed primarily by courting universities. Indeed, Apple for a long time dominated graphic design mostly due to its education programs.

Within hobbyists / nerds, there are also two general categories:

- Ones who do this on the side

- Ones who do this as part of a job, but in a different industry

For example, a biologist might tinker in writing medical software or designing some kind of lab instrumentation. Those often do turn into commercial products. The PCB is often almost incidental, but if it's in a particular tool, it's very unlikely to ever be ported out.

Of course, that leads to O(1) license, whereas an EE shop will have O(n) licenses with the number of people they employ. But it does lead to sales.

Joel had a nice article on pricing:

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-...

The basic upside is giving your stuff away to students and hobbyists costs O(nothing), if you can differentiate in a way which doesn't let paid users not pay.

[aleph_minus_one]

> Students become professionals and DO make choices.

Counterexample: me. :-)

As a student, I had access to some specialized mathematical software. I would like to use them at work, but I now work in a very different industry.

[Workaccount2]

The management types, if they are even mildly competent, will look at what software the skilled employees they want are using, and then go with that.

[aleph_minus_one]

It depends. Often very skilled software developers have a somewhat unusual "taste" regarding the software that they prefer to use ...

[romwell]

>turns out this software is hard to build and we need to pay smart people to work on it.

Well, I'm reasonably smart (math PhD, FAANG experience, etc), and I interviewed with you a couple of years ago.

Went through all technical rounds, didn't get the job.

I've spent some time with Meta since then, and made enough money that pay isn't a priority for me now. Especially for a project like this that I both believe in, and see as a great fit for my background.

I'm looking for the next move now, and I still would love to be with JITX.

Pay me less. Let me help you being your vision to reality.

[wrs]

The pricing page does list a free educational (“and open source”) offering. The application form only talks about educational, though. Can you say more about what that is?

[DHaldane]

Good catch - we can add some clarification to that form.

Today JITX is for professional EEs mainly, and we don't have a lot of resources to help people learn electronics from scratch. (Still want to help the students though - this company was inspired by my grad school robotics struggles).

However a code-based approach boosts reusability enough make open-source hardware a whole lot more meaningful. So we selectively grant access to people able to use the tool effectively today who are also going to contribute to open source.

Overall, we're opening up more and more as the tech moves from special purpose to general purpose.

[midnightclubbed]

Concentrating on the professional market is a perfectly valid business model. I would assume you either need a completely compelling and unique product that is a no-brainer for those companies, or a good marketing team to break you into businesses with existing and entrenched tooling.

[vasco]

> turns out this software is hard to build and we need to pay smart people to work on it.

This makes no sense, plenty of very hard things target B2C / freemium. It's perfectly fine if that isn't your business model, but explaining it like this is not useful. Look at OpenAI for example, are they only paying cheap salaries since their plans are either free or $20?