I wish to sell my App [link] but I do not have any idea of how to prize it.
Start hi and then go down?
I was thinking 500~200$ Usd and then move the price down to 20$ Usd
Here is a video for a draft game prize estimation and how prize are going down.
What do you think?
If you plan on lowering the price to $20, why would anyone pay… more than that?
Thanks, @Murgilod if you can vote, helps me and others reading this thread.
Is a good point. I read some start-up engineer books: Lowering the prize long years workes well if is a hi quality product. If the product is draft and with bad finish quality the technic is to start low and push the prize up, specially where there is more competition.
I need some external feedback on the starting price. Thanks you so much
I actually voted for $200 because this is clearly software designed with a pretty niche market in mind and that market can probably serve to pay a little bit more. It looks to be very in depth and with very particular use cases in mind. While a lower price might bring in some sales, odds are that a $200 price tag will bring you the best return.
Whats the target audience? I can’t see this being of interest to commercial entities who use stuff like Altair HyperWorks:
BUT it could be interesting for model making community. I have a connect in this industry (owner of multiple shops and websites), please reach out via PM and I’ll see if I can get you in touch with them.
An interesting thought was mentioned in another thread a while back. Businesses tend to avoid software and services that are unusually inexpensive compared to the competition. Udemy, for example, typically sells their tutorials for an affordable price but then proceed to list a much larger price that is slashed out.
That price, according to the theory in the post, is what a business would see when looking at Udemy courses.
If there is any accuracy to this theory then driving the cost of your product from a normal price (for the competition) down to a ridiculously low price (way lower than your competition) may very well drive businesses away from you rather than to you.
You are really asking in the wrong place. Try out an aerospace engineering forum or similar.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there is no market for this tool at all.
This.
What problem are you solving? Who is it a problem for? What is your solution worth to them?
Without that info all anyone can do is make a generic guess.
Yee… Rc, Soaring and popular aviation, in general, is in agony dying slowly.
These are nice questions! it keeps me focused. So happy that you have asked them.
Actually, Xfoil is very complex to use, unstable and difficult for the creation of a new airfoil or modification of the existing one. Especially if you are a new user the Xfoil interface has a slow learning curve via repeating console inputs. Other 2D CFD tools are full of useful tools but with a slow UI when the operator tries to modify the airfoil shape and compare the results. Some software let you only build the airfoil shape and other only inspect the aerodynamic characteristics. Was missing an airfoil editor tool that allows the designer to build and modify on the fly the airfoil searching for the aerodynamic characteristics in real-time.
DAD is for making Sails and hydrofoils, fins and foils for windsurfing, surf and kite. For general experimental aviation, ultralight and soaring LD efficiency. For RC and free-flight modellers trying to reduce drag at low Reynolds number (Re). For professionals prototyping of airfoils before testing in a real expensive wind tunnel. For industrial designers searching new airfoils for fan blades. Ailerons, wing and spoilers for car industry can improve downforce lift by searching for a better airfoil. For new aspiring aeronautical engineers and novice Xfoil users that do not want to deal with that complex console intercase hard to understand with poor visual feedback.
DAD is an airfoil editor tool that allowed the foil designer to move control points using the mouse of a bézier curve to modify wing section, launch the Xfoil 2D CFD solver with one click and look to the result all in the same window. So that in less than a second the designer can obtain the coefficients results of the new shape. If there is no improvement, is simple to rever the airfoil shape to the best previous result. And, when the research is finished, is possible to convert, save or fast export the airfoil shape in a standard “.DAT” format. It is possible to make a screenshot and use it in a presentation.
Thanks @Ryiah ! Usually I tend to give for free but in this case, I will keep that in mind!! I wish to keep this up in businesses.
Your answer to “who is it a problem for?” is given in a different context to the other two questions.
The problem you’re solving is “existing tools have poor user interfaces”. But when you said who it’s a problem for, you just generically listed people who design aerofoils. Among people who design aerofoils, who finds the UI of their existing software to be a problem?
This whole conversation should have happened before the development cycle. The who is this for, what kind of features they need, how much they tend to pay for such features are planning questions, not sales questions.
Yes, In general, I do and follow marketing development guide.
But in this case, when you know what is missing in your workflow, you create tools fast, by instinct, that fills that gap and resolve those particular problems. And then, marketing ask you a lot of explanations!!! LOL
This tool came out naturally in the process of making a new Soaring Simulator as a plugin that was missing out there. I’m elaborating the answers right now thanks to you, useful to push them later into the website page. thanks!
@angrypenguin a second attempt very bad draft answer can be:
Who is it a problem for?
Aspiring aeronautical engineers and aerodynamic novice users that do not want to deal with complex “Xfoil” console interface. And instead, wish for smart visual feedback in one simple clean interface. For those who believe that current existing software UIs have complex interfaces that are rich but incomprehensible, complex to learn, slow or simply inefficient.
Who is this for?
For Engineers or Industrial Designers in the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic field that needs more speed in the production workflow and often compare and search for better airfoil characteristics in a fast working environment.
For those who need to draw a particular smooth profile curve and converter it to .dat before importing them into the traditional software.
For those professionals that are looking for a less expensive airfoil prototyping tool before testing them in a real expensive wind tunnel. Useful for how wants to jump wind tunnel iterations or how do not have an access to a real wind tunnel.
What kind of features do they need?
None of which hang out here. I’m the closest thing we have to a traditional engineer, and I work in chemical manufacturing. Literally the only advice we can offer is to google similar software, and show you the prices for that.
So, how much is a solution to that problem worth to those people?
This is a pretty nebulous question. Two broad ways to approach it are:
Past that super generic advice… as @Kiwasi says, I’m not your audience so can’t provide any specific feedback.
You’re asking the wrong people. Generally speaking, we only know about games, which this is not. The people who will want this tool probably think very differently from the average gamer, both in terms of the way they evaluate the product and what they will pay for it.
I would ask this kind of question on RC aircraft forums, hobby aeronautical forums, sailing dinghy racing forums, alternative energy (wind) forums, and so on. Anywhere where the people there might be dabbling in creating something involving airfoils.
I used to work at The MathWorks (maker of MATLAB) and I just did some checking. So an aerospace toolbox set, plus MATLAB and Simulink (and needed toolboxes like Optimization) is going to run you abou 20K per year. I did find a few very specific third party MATLAB airfoil design tools that run from free to a few hundred dollars. I know nothing about those other tools you mention above, but I I think the pricing spectrum you face is that range: 0 for something from some guy hawking software on the web (in this case on the MATLAB Exchange web site) hoping to I make money off of consulting, up to an industry standard solution (like The Mathworks tool set).
The challenge for you is credentials I think. If someone buys a tool/toolset from The Mathworks, for example, the credentials of the company and its well known engineers in the field are standing behind the product. The random guy on the internet may have a good tool, but not the credentials necessarily to back it up. And it would seem to me (the ignorant guys who knows nothing about aerospace or airfoils) that a slick user interface alone, probably won’t win you any business unless you have the credentials to back up the program behind the interface so that people can trust the output.
So, I would suggest you answer the question of where your credentials put you on that pricing spectrum and go from there.
This is something that I am struggling with myself. My project is in a niche area and is a bit unique so there are not direct comparables.
After looking at your video, I just realized that your program is just the interface for Xfoil, correct? That makes a difference in pricing. Also xfoil is GPL licensed software. Your program looks like a combined program with Xfoil which may mean it needs to be GPL licensed as well. This is not possible if you developed your program in Unity. I don’t know the technicalities of this but you will want to make sure that you are compliant with the xfoil license.
Yes
No: Xfoil is GPL licensed → Yes. Read Drela and GPL licenses.
Anyway, you can do what you want with Drela code if is good for humanity. DAD contains a [RUN Digital Wind Tunnel] button that is the actual interface to Xfoil. All that is in subfolder Assets/StreamingAssets/GPL software folder as for example Xfoil contain the GPL license. In other subfolders, there is other software with different licenses. And the Drela, later GPL licenses allowed a lot of things. And the jurisdiction for each license covers that particular folder where it seats and same software subfolders. No way up. If you think that the license is tree up then, all the software in the world has multiple licenses. Internet>OS-Windows>Programs>Installer>Updater>Unity>DAD>Xfoil
Your answer suggests that you do not understand the GPL. The folder that the software is in does not matter.
GPL does allow non GPL software to interact with GPL software, as long as they are treated as separate programs. Technically there is no reason why this can’t be done with unity developed software as well. You can’t integrate GPL software into Unity software. But you can allow them to talk to one another.
One would assume this is the approach that the OP has taken.