1DayLater - The Blog

The WonDayLater Golden Ticket

A common problem faced by many software companies using a freemium pricing approach is:

“How do I show the value of our premium features without simply giving them away”

The answer for most (and the majority of our competitors) is to simply use a good old 30-day trial. Great, easy, badabing, badabong - yes?

Well although this might be straightforward, we realised that the 30 day trial method actually presents the customers (and therefore the company) with a second problem:

(customer)

• Signs up to service

• forgets about it for 30 days or more (or is too busy to take a proper look) - easy to do

• returns - to find out their trial has now expired

• loses interest / becomes annoyed

• goes elsewhere

For a customer-orientated service based company like ours this really is no good. We want to impress our users from the outset, not alienate them!

So we sat down and put our heads together for an epic brotherly brainstorm. Some cups of tea and wonderfully obtuse ideas later, we finally hit upon a nice elegant solution…the 1DayLater ‘test-drive’ pass!

A photo of what the free pass might look in the real world, if it were conceiled in a chocolate bar.

Now each of our customers will get 3 passes as soon as they sign up with us. They can be activated when one of the premium features is clicked (currently invoicing, export and mileage claims)

The passes themselves last 30 minutes (just long enough to have a good play around with the premium features we think). However they can be used at any time - whether a user has just signed up or has been signed up for 6 months. Returning customer problem solved!

— Next week should mark the start of our paid-for subscription services. Once this is underway we hope to get some feedback as to how the free-pass system is working out.

And if anyone has any feedback now - please get in touch:

feedback@1daylater.com

Paul

oh. ps. phone and desktop app development are going very well - more info to come soon!

Bonding with Bond Solutions

I have 8 ambitions for this year. 4 are related to 1DayLater, 2 lifestyle, and 2 personal/professional development. I pin the list to the wall behind my desk helping me instill each point into my day-to-day efforts as I repeatedly mull them over.

Here’s a little peek at the first 4:

1. Get world wide recognition for 1DayLater
2. Become market leader for activity tracking software.
3. Integrate 1DayLater with Sage
4. Host a charity based event
5. ……..

Being featured in Lifehacker last week let me cross off no.1 and now I can happily say that 3 is officially underway too. The brains of 1DayLater met this week with the brains of local Sage reseller - Bond Solutions to work out how to best integrate with, and compliment their popular Sage offerings.

As far as business alliances go we really couldn’t have asked for better. The 8-year-old company is headed up by Derek Curtis, one of the most likeable guys you’re likely to meet. And as the biggest Sage reseller in the North-East and North-West of England they really know their onions.

My bro David King (1DayLater), Derek Curtis (Bond Solutions) and me

It looks likely that we should be able to integrate 1DayLater with the popular Sage CRM system - Sales Logix and Sage Accounts as a useful add-on, which will then be available throughout the Sage reseller network. If all goes to plan it should make entering data into these complex systems easier while out ‘on the go’, greatly saving admin time later. More on that to come soon.

Lastly big congrats to Derek and his new family unit, as he’s just taken on some foster kids. Great stuff

Take it easy

Paul

2600 hits and 915 new users - in 1 day

Words cannot describe what has happened here at 1DayLater yesterday. Here’s a clue..

But first,

This is what happened the day before

• woke up
• Had my cereal (Weetabix)
• Made cuppa (Yorkshire tea)
• Went to office
• Discovered this nice little article on Webworkerweekly
• Checked the site stats

I THOUGHT- “Oh 60 signups this morning - cool”

I SAID - “Here David, check this out man, 60 signups not bad. Nice article too, the editor really seems to have done her homework”

The next day

• Woke up
• Had some toast
• Made a cuppa (No Yorkshire so chose second rate Typhoo)
• Went to office
• Read my emails
• Checked the site stats

I THOUGHT “pnaaarrf?!”

I SAID “Davrnod….pnaaarf?!”

Turns out this is what happens when you get noticed by lifehacker. Lifehacker are one of the worlds most influential sites giving daily tips on how to ‘get things done’. They currently rank in the top 1000 sites worldwide, very cool indeed

And don’t be fooled, those other ‘little blips’ were actually also epic days including when we were featured on Techcrunch Europe. They’ve just been dwarfed by Lifehacker!

So a big welcome to all our new users. Please get in touch if you have any questions or just want to say hello :)

Take care,

Paul and David King

Surround yourself with skilled people

Some advice I was given recently was “Don’t do it all yourself”, a great piece of advice I think every business owner should take to heart. Which is why when it comes to dealing with law or accounts it’s wise to enlist the help of a pro.

As brothers, David and I are generally very trusting with a shared optimistic outlook on life and people. We find life is just nicer that way.

But with the occasional unscrupulous shark about and a service that can be used anywhere in the world it’s time to call in the legal team. And lovely local lawyers Mincoffs have stepped up to the mark.

Paul King (1DayLater), Antony Hall (Mincoffs) and David King (1DayLater)

So this past week we’ve been making sure that the 1DayLater terms and conditions, privacy policy and reseller agreements are all top notch. Legal banter has been flying around like you wouldn’t believe.

Why go to so much trouble and expense? Well the way that we collect and protect our users data is very important to us, as you might imagine. We take every possible care to make sure that information remains private and secure at all times. So these documents are just as much for our customers benefit as they are for ours!

Antony Hall, Mathew Foster and the rest of the Mincoffs team come highly recommended.