Want to meet people, try charging them for it?

[rpastuszak]

OK, this is a very interesting post for me because in the past 5 years I've met 200+ people via my Say Hi page:

https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/say-hi/

and many of my speakers suggested that I should charge for the calls.

Many of my calls involve tech/product advice (often from people with a ton of experience in other areas, e.g. ex FAANG managers, already accomplished founders, designers). Many of the people who message me with concrete questions, asking for my expertise are often already well-off, established and happy to pay.

The thing is:

1. I often get calls from students or people struggling financially 2. I enjoy serendipitous interactions with beautifully weird people

I can probably solve 1. by adding two call lines. But I worry that adding a commercial aspect will prevent 2. from reaching out. I don't live in London any more, and most of my nerdy/artsy/techy/hacker friends live allover the world.

Ah, and:

3. I genuinely love speaking with people in this manner, and personally, I'm getting so much of my Say Hi calls. I just finished a call with a very clever engineer setting their first steps as a solo-founder. They're not "indie hackers", they're people with genuine curiosity, talent and will to help people. It feels amazing to be able to help someone like that, and even better -- to become infected with that enthusiasm!

I am very much aware that I'm rationalising this and perhaps even preventing myself from letting people pay for my work. Whether it's impostor syndrome or the fact that this is such a precious subject to me is a question that I'm trying to answer.

[noname120]

Paying ⇒ customer ⇒ expectations

[gwbas1c]

> I enjoy serendipitous interactions with beautifully weird people

Gosh, I wish I could articulate that into words when I was younger. I remember having a fun conversation with a batshit insane lady who walked into a porch party, and one of my friends thought that I actually thought she was sane.

[card_zero]

The symbolist doodle illustrating that is great. The freaked-out worm in the top hat is being followed by a black cloud of anxiety, and it wants to eat him for dinner. The other worm, in a bowler and dark glasses (probably indicating modesty and chill), is supplying support and a pat on the back.

[kimjune01]

you can simply make another page that is commercially oriented

[wodenokoto]

This reminds me of video that went simi viral a decade or so back.

Not sure how much of it was staged, but the creators went to a public place and stood next to some “free hugs”-people and then put up a sign “Premium hugs $1” and apparently collected more hugs to the chargrin of the free-huggers.

[HPsquared]

If it's free, people are suspicious and judge the cost to be something implicit, generally with a higher expected cost than $1. On the other hand if you make the cost explicit, people are more comfortable.

It ties in with the story in Freakonomics about the daycare that started to charge a small "fine" to discourage parents picking up the child late, with the effect that these incidents happened more often. Because the cost went from implicit (shame, etc) to explicit (it's only $10).

[dotBen]

The best way to get rid of junk is not to put it outside your house with “free” on it. It’s to put “$10” on it. Someone will steal it.

[bee_rider]

I get the whole “people are skeptical of free stuff” thing. But, I suspect in this case it is more that people are “in on the joke” for the premium hugs.

[em3rgent0rdr]

Similarly, people think FOSS software must not be as good as proprietary software because it's free.

[gametorch]

This is also known as "Lamborghini Economics"

Higher price => higher demand, seemingly paradoxically

[KolibriFly]

Funny how slapping a price tag on something can instantly change how people perceive its value

[m463]

Free hugs can be well funded by building biometric profiles.

hmmm.. but would private premium hugs attract unexpected customers/demographics?

[Chris2048]

I'd personally pay to witness the chargrin

[BlackFly]

Author notes that there is still a standing offer to answer questions for free "if time allows" but doesn't get any inquiries. I believe this shows that it isn't due to fame or the payment making the author seem more legitimate.

Instead I think that the payment creates the expectation that the inquiry will be answered and when someone expects an answer they are more willing to inquire. When the consultation is free or "time permitting", then it might simply be refused but making the inquiry itself isn't zero cost for the individual and their mental calculus makes it not worth asking. The mental calculus is, "What is the person getting out of this interaction and why would they choose to answer me but not someone else?" When it is financial you can see that you are equal to everyone else and you see exactly what the consultant is getting out of it.

[KolibriFly]

When there's a clear transaction, people feel entitled (in a good way) to your time

[Davidzheng]

This makes the most sense to me too

[jpalomaki]

It's a similar as described in Freakonomics book.

Daycare was annoyed with parents picking up their kids late. They introduced a fee for this. As a result, late pick ups increased.

Something that was not considered to be socially acceptable, became more acceptable when you put a price tag for it.

[verbify]

Clearly the fine wasn't high enough.

[guappa]

What they should have done is call the cops and report abandoned children :)

[poisonborz]

Title is a bit misleading, he became a popular academic/author and the proceedings are for charity. Once you are well known, you can charge for a lot of things, especially if it's for a good cause.

[Cthulhu_]

The weird part is that when he was well known, nobody reached out to get the "lot of things". I think it's because a lot of free stuff comes with a catch - free internet for one month, catch is you're stuck on a year long contract. Free consult but the catch is you're in their systems now, agreed to something in the small print, and you now get cold calls to sell you stuff. Free social network but the catch is your data and personal photos are used for marketing and training AI.

But charge $100 and that's it, that's all the strings attached. Straightforward transaction.

[trainerxr50]

The title is ridiculously misleading when people are donating to charity.

[Almondsetat]

It's a peculiar turn of events I must admit, but I don't think that having those viewership numbers and an easibly reachable email and not getting contacted is actually common.

[thenthenthen]

I just did a workshop at a small non profit. There were 3 people who came there to meet me to chat about other non related opportunities and projects. We charged a small amount, 5$. It was not advertised or told (not by me or leaked through the topic of the workshop) that I would be there, nor am I famous. They came specifically for me, not the workshop (but did participate in a good way). Not sure what to take away from this, other than that it was really nice!

[Thorrez]

How did they know you would be there? Did you ask them how they knew?

[KolibriFly]

Sometimes the "signal" we put out is way more visible to the right people than we think

[Unit327]

This sounds like the same behaviour from introducing fines for overdue library books or being late picking up children from day-care. It goes from a social olbigation or question ("Do I want to bother the day-care people by arriving late?" / "Do I want to bother this blogger and ask for their time?") to a financial transaction.

[ericmcer]

I have been on the other end of this. I have a few Spanish tutors I pay ~$10 to chat with for 30m sessions. It is nice creating a dynamic where you can shamelessly talk about yourself without worry, because you are paying.

In the rest of life I usually am the captive audience (kids, wife, etc.) and put my own stuff on the back burner. The author is questioning why people would pay, but it is nice to curate a conversation that is intentionally one-sided, otherwise if you contact him the onus is on you to make it worth his time.

[landgenoot]

My experience with blogging and being easily reachable is that you mostly get people with very specific questions/problems. Not someone who is interested in meeting you.

[amelius]

Maybe try video blogging about fitness or fashion and cosmetics.

[daedrdev]

If you charge money successfully it signals you are legit enough to get others to pay.

[volemo]

Also when I see a cool person, I think my stuff is not good enough to waste their time, but if they charge for it, then it’s a deal.

[llm_nerd]

The corollary of this is that some people lie and claim that people are paying to shortcut to credibility or legitimacy.

And to be clear, I am not talking about this submission (which I didn't read, and from other comments is charity-driven regardless), but this industry is absolutely rife with Fake It Till You Make It people who claim they can barely contain the hordes clamouring to give them money and super high-paying consulting gigs. But then it's coupled with a beg that makes everything previously said look super questionable, yet somehow people buy it.

It's the supermodel girlfriend that lives in Canada.

[KolibriFly]

It's like a shortcut to perceived credibility

[KolibriFly]

There's something oddly liberating about making the implicit social cost explicit; it gives both parties a clear structure

[11235813213455]

I also had this idea when wanting to sell my apartment directly (because real estate agency are a total ripoff), I thought about proposing a price 2k lower and charging 50 per visit, that way only really interested people would show off

[mmarian]

Hmm, interesting. I launched a blog a few months' back; one of the reasons was to talk to people about things I care about which, in my case, involves the struggles of launching a bootstrapped startup.

I put a link to my linkedin and a contact form, just for that. No one contacted me. But funnily enough, when I speak to people they often tell me they've read my blog. And I'd like to think that I'm pretty good at giving startup advice - mostly thanks to my failures and a podcast that I've been listening to.

Might end up trying this.

[rorylaitila]

I've found the number of people that read my work vs interact is greater than 100 to 1. Similarly to you I get a lot of feedback IRL. Some people consider me 'prolific' within my small network, even though it feels like there is often no engagement at all. It's not easy to measure the true effect you have!

[lewantmontreal]

LLMs made things a lot easier but before them I wished there was a stackoverflow but paid, so you could pay someone for an answer if they happened to have specific information.

You could kind of emulate it by buying stackoverflow upvotes, then placing that as a bounty. Its not exactly money but it made it more comfortable (and successful) than hoping someone answers for free.

[moffkalast]

SO bounties were kind of useless though weren't they? Timespans far too short for anyone with the right knowledge to notice besides professional bounty hunters, in the end you had to either give the sum to someone who didn't do the job or take the loss.

[CharlieDigital]

Wasnt that how Experts Exchange worked?

[avipars]

There was a site called earn.com which charged to email notable people (VCs, etc). They got acquired by coinbase and the site has since shutdown.