| At the end. Find some method for disabling future data entry at the end of the test drive but make it freely available in its frozen state and easily exportable. If the user likes your service and wants to continue, the request for a credit card will be welcomed. If the user doesn't want your service anymore, you will generate good will by allowing export of the data. The person either will export data and delete the account, just delete the account, or walk away and leave the data to rot on your servers. Basecamp does it NEARLY right. Except they lock the user data behind the wall and won't let you export it. I have two Basecamp accounts right now for two different businesses. One is the unlimited $150/month account. The other one expired at the end of 60 days. It is much smaller. I will become a paying customer for the second but the fact that they locked me out of my own data adds just a smidgen of hate in my heart for Basecamp. Add that to the fact that my employees are not terribly thrilled with Basecamp (they find it hard to use for the types and numbers of projects we have) means it is probably that Basecamp has pointed me toward a competing product over the semi-near term -- for both businesses. That's one user's anecdote about Basecamp. I suggest you attempt to go through life trying to piss people off as little as possible. That's a reasonable business model to pursue. |