Hi Kevin, all
Welcome to the Rhino community. Thereās another surfacing plugin coming out called Xirus, did you know that? Xirus.XNurbs.Xirus.XNurbs. Very very confusing. One of you guys should seriously consider changing the name of your Rhino plugin.
A lot of the feedback I would give you is the same we gave to those guys, link here: Xirus for Rhino: Subdivision, NURBS, polygons & augmented CAD
Also useful feedback to another of your competitors, specifically regarding trials: Clayoo - Organic Modeling
Whatās working against all of you is the fact that we users know that most plugins are not financially viable, so you might not be around for too long, or after some initial push in development your continuation or progress of the product, or how you support it, might stall. This has happened with many plugins like PowerSolids, Tsplines, VSR surfacing, ā¦and in Clayoo where the jury is still out if it will make it, especially now that they have a new owner that demands bigger a ROI. Peopel will want to know whatās your funding model" do you have research grants? self-funded? VC money?
Regarding price anywhere is the hundreds of dollars makes sense. Your job is to figure out if itās $200 or $900. For me the mental block happens past the $600 price for 1 license, or $400/license for 4 licences. It depends if we decide to try it on one user or if a few of us get on it.
I see a plugin as disposable, because of the uncertainty that I stated earlier. So if you release something thatās stable. and works in Rhino 6 we have basically a few years of subscription if you decide to stop developing or get acquired by Autodesk or another large software company (which has proven to be about the only viable biz. models for past peers of yours).
I really think that you guys (same goes for @Daniel_Schmitter of Xirus and @Xavi_Marrodan of Clayoo ) should consider giving your software for unrestricted use for 3-6 months. Your biggest threat right now is non-consumption. Your second biggest threat is justifying your price (whatever that price is in each case) reflecting your value. Only usage in production will prove/disprove your value. Look no further than Fusion360: They are giving it out for a song āas a trialā . We all know the $30/month ($15 if you get a special) is not sustainable and prices WILL go up, but that will happen once they have enough users finding true value at using it. So itās all goodā¦ except for the communists here that will crucify me for making such statements, but they are lousy customers anyway.
One more thought: Resellers. What they think is irrelevant for the market. What prices THEY need to exist is also irrelevant for the market. We are in 2017, all software purchases are a few clicks and minutes away. If your stuff is good people will know. If it isnāt resellers wonāt help you no matter how hard they push sales channels. In other words if you believe them that your products is worth thousands of dollars you are already screwed.
People here buy on value, reliability, and trust. Technology is not that important.
Last thought: Iāll tell you the same thing I tell every group of math geeks trying to make a product for designers, go hire a designers and let her/him make the examples of what your technology can really do. This particular example you posted looks terrible, even if itās curvature continuous mathematically, visually is abrupt and very ugly, most likely you donāt see it, because thatās not your expertise:
I hope this helps,
G
PS: bonus points for whoever embraces the Rhino Accounts licensing model. For me at least that wins half of the sale. Iām not sure I will continue to use any other plugins that donāt use their common licensing. Talk to @aj1 about it. He can tell you more.