Artificial Limitations in PlanHQ
Recently PlanHQ have done a bunch of updates to their service which are making it a lot more usable. I think they are still missing the money in some respects and they persist in providing an interface which seems to remove all familiarity and context driven knowlege from the process of business decision making. Workflow should not be ignored, yet the updates are exciting. Now it works in most browsers quite acceptably.
One aspect of their product which they are yet to change is the minimisation model. Currently the do not offer a free product, though next week they are opening one aspect of the product to free accounts, which in its self is not a bad thing but I think most costumers they could get are turned away buy the fact they have to pay even on the lowest level. My real gripe with this model is that it often inspires companies to create really lame lowest level products. In the case of PlanHQ it is not too different, their lowest level model includes a number of serious hindrances that are completely artificial to the system. There is no complexity involved just convenience on the customers part, for updating to the higher services. The limitation in this software are things like the number of users, which is 3, and the number of (presumably) concurrent goals, which is 10. There are a few other more legitimate limitations like higher security and customisation, but really, for $9 a month, you can only have 3 users. I think that is really lame.
So in protest, perhaps, I have been using the software on a trial plan for 30 days. On Monday I think I am going to start paying for it but I am still really annoyed that I would have to pay $49 just to get more than a few users.
Ok so I hate artificial limitations, especially ones you have to pay for. But all this ranted, I think that the limitations in something like twitter really make the product. Without such a thing it would be quite a different, and presumably less desirable service.
Just is my last utterances I think PlanHQ should set up a contractor account system. That could be really nice, almost like a CMS service. Perhaps this is a distorted dream that would never work as well as Sugar or Highrise with companion services.
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Hi Mark,
ReplyDeleteSome interesting thoughts in here, we're doing a few things on pricing over the next month or so, we don't want to limit people getting more team members and goals in the system as this is what its all about, but at the same time we're trying to build a sustainable business so need people to pay something that its easily worth to them, and gives us enough to keep PlanHQ happening.
Keep in touch, we're a moving beast,
Cheers,
Tim
PlanHQ
Hey Tim,
ReplyDeleteI am aware that it is a necessity; I think it is essentially the perception of an artificial limitation that I am most opposed to. Obviously, in reality, money has to be made in order for business to go forth, but I think in some cases there are better and worse ways to make money around the same service. I think a service I would be really interested in paying for is one in which a human would skim over the planning that is going forth in a given PlanHQ account and offer small amounts of guidance and wisdom on improving operations, from a planning perspective. Perhaps this could cost more than the premium service you currently offer but I think this is an area people fall short. I think they are simply not familiar enough with the methods, and it is just too hard for them to give a really effective appraisal of their plan structure.
Thanks,
Mark Whiting