You talk to a friend, "hey, wanna memorize some scripture with me, I have this cool app that makes it easy to learn, and it keeps us connected online so we can be accountable to each other". They reply sure, how much is it" "$5" They reply about how that's really expensive, or they don't have the money (even if it's $1, many people may not want to even pay that. I used to be like that. But if you had a version where it was paid by adds, then maybe more people could go for it. I understand if this isn't possible, but I thought I mention it for a try. This is a quality app.
Guest
Steven, that's a solid suggestion. The interaction you just described is happening all the time and we want to figure out a way to make it easier to get started. And you're astute to base a feature suggestion on a real world scenario instead of only a good idea without a situation to support it.
Unfortunately ads are not an option we're willing to consider at this point - part of the power of Verses is drawing someone into the process of memorizing Scripture when they're struggling to be disciplined to do so. To that end we put much or our product design time into figuring out a user experience and interface that is smooth and uninterrupted. If we introduce ads in a free version in order to help people get started with a purpose of attracting skeptical folks, then we will dilute the power of the app experience at the very time it needs to be strongest (convincing a skeptic).
That being said, we're trying to figure out some potential other revenue models that would allow us to make the entire app free without ads. To help us out, could you tell me, would you consider buying a subscription, maybe as high as $5/mo, for a powerful memorization assistant that learns your memorization abilities and habits, then helps you memorize what you want to learn? E.g., you could create a list of passages then tell Verses that you want to learn it in 8 weeks. Then the memorization assistant would help keep you on track, show you your overall progress, how much time per day you spent memorizing, and other useful information. Then, as you learn over time, it would learn you and help optimize your memorization. Eventually it will even be able to tell you how your ability to memorize and recall Scripture has improved over time.
If more active users like yourself would consider something like that valuable (and worth a subscription) then we could open up the app itself as a free download to everyone. Even though only a very small portion of the downloaders would choose to use the subscription we might be able to make enough revenue to support ourselves from the subscriptions. That way users like yourself could invite friends knowing that it will be immediately free and full featured, and they would only have to pay if they wanted to add an entirely optional additional feature to their Verses app.
Does that make sense? Any thoughts?
Instead of using ads, you could ask for donations. You could explain that is cost money to Acces the verses (which I don't understand why because other apps like this I use are able to get it for free) and I bet many people would donate
Martin - thanks for the feedback! Sorry for our slow reply. I'm glad to hear you voice those thoughts. You're spot on re: a recurring subscription at that price point really opening up possibilities for us to build more into Verses. And that's very much something we'd like to do. Since we launched almost 1,000,000 memory games have been played to memorize Scripture, we really want to see that explode (and expand into more varied ways of learning God's Word).
You're also exactly right that we need some sort of recurring revenue to make that happen. We've noted your thoughts and added your willingness to pay for a recurring subscription to our notes on pricing strategies. Thanks again for taking the time to note your thoughts!
I think a "Pro" subscription would be an excellent fit for this app! In light of the importance of Scripture, $5/mon is a small price.
I could see this working great. I could also see Christian Schools and homeschooling parents being interested in something like this.
My input would be that $5/mon might be too steep for some casual users that would spring for something at say $2.99/mon. That said, you guys would have the contacts to find out where the sweet spot in pricing would be.
The very thought of a subscription model is exciting to me. It would open up a revenue stream that would give you the possibility of doing some very cool things!
Awesome, that's really helpful. Thank you for the honest feedback. We definitely agree re: Android and Web. We'd like Verses to be available in as many formats as possible and you hit on exactly the sort of concern we want to address - if you invest your time, energy, and money into Verses you need to be able to be confident that it is going to be around for a while, continuing to get better, and available on whatever device you end up using. It will take us a few months (maybe even half a year) to get there, but we want to get that level with Verses.
Good thought re: Kickstarter, too. We may do that, but the difficulty with Kickstarter is you have to market a Kickstarter campaign just as much as an actual product - so we would rather build the product and then market it instead of spending the money on a Kickstarter campaign. :)
Thanks again for taking the time to offer your feedback. Super helpful.
Also, you might want to make A KickStarter project. This will allow you to get the commitment to the new features that your willing to make.
They can at least pay for the first mouth on the kickstarter , or you could even have discounts for those who back your project early on.
You could just give a code to download the app for free, since they are paying for the service.
Normally I wouldn't, but I would be intersted in this. Those features sound nice and would be beneficial. I would want it to be on the android device also though (or a garentee of it of it in the future) becuase if I switch to android, I will not be able to use this app anymore.
Not only that, but I feel that this app would be worth supporting, unlike other apps, this one seems to be getting better very quickly compared to other apps, and it doesn't seem like it will go out of date like many other apps on the market.
There is a few out there that are ok, but I think this app will be better and more effective as time goes on.
Also, eventually online acces would be great to