Major Update and Changes

We’ve recently made some major decisions in terms of our business model, and want to give you insight into what decisions we’ve made, why we made them, and how it affects you.

We’re a bootstrapped company, and have opted to not raise outside funding because we feel it’s in the best interest of our product. We’re focused on making a great product, and we want to be accountable to our users, not our investors. By bootstrapping we are able to focus on making decisions that lead to the best product possible, and avoid the pressure of making decisions based on a return on capital investment.

Just as you understand the importance of strategic decision-making in business https://vigilantwm.com/ is committed to guiding clients in managing their wealth according to their unique needs. The conscious choice to bootstrap for any company, foregoing external funding and prioritizing the development of a superior product. By doing so, you remain solely accountable to your users, allowing you to focus on creating the best possible wealth management solutions without being swayed by investor demands.

Bootstrapping though requires generating enough revenue to support ourselves as we continue to build and unfortunately we’ve determined that our current business model will not be scalable enough in the future to allow us to grow and compete with competitors who have raised outside funding.

So what’s changing?

We are no longer going to offer the individual teacher subscriptions to GoSoapBox. Instead we are introducing an alternative model that keeps GoSoapBox totally free for educators.

Here’s how it works…

  • Instructors can ask or require students to use GoSoapBox in their class, just like they do with textbooks and clickers.
  • Students purchase a GoSoapBox subscription at a very low cost ($10 per year). This subscription entitles them to use GoSoapBox with any class.
  • Each student will now receive their own account to sign in with.
  • Instructors will have access to use GoSoapBox for free

Integrating student accounts also opens the door for improving student performance tracking and analytics in the future. We have some exciting ideas on how to innovate this aspect of the product.

What this change means to you…

1. If you are a GoSoapBox user you can choose to upgrade to the ‘student account’ model. Each of your students will create their own account, and you will be eligible for the additional benefits in the future (Text message response integration, student performance tracking, etc.)

2. If you signed up for a trial of GoSoapBox before August 1st you are eligible to continue with the original subscription model as promised ($90 / year)

3. We will continue to offer volume discount pricing & pilots for Schools, Universities, and Districts. For more information please email john@gosoapbox.com

4. We will also continue to offer free trials for new users, and students are not required to create accounts during the free trial period.

Thank you for all of your support along the way. It’s been an exciting few months since our initial launch and we really appreciate all of our users’ help.

We have some exciting new features that are ready to be rolled out so stay tuned for those!

5 thoughts on “Major Update and Changes

  1. Doug Johnson

    John, the state of Minnesota’s constitution requires that children receive a “free” education, meaning we cannot charge for specific materials or resources. Your model is not practical for our district. A district license would be.
    Doug

    Reply
    1. John Pytel Post author

      Doug,

      Thanks for the note. We realize that the ‘students pay’ model is not feasible for most K-12 schools and districts and that is why we do offer school / district licensing. Licensing purchases are paid for by the institution or district, not by the students. Licensing purchases also include additional benefits such as a custom log-in URL with white label branding, dedicated support, etc.

      John

      Reply
  2. Andrew

    John, wondering why the shift from charging the teacher to charging the student? Was it a push from investors? Cheers.

    Reply
    1. John Pytel Post author

      Andrew,

      We are a bootstrapped company and have not taken any outside investment. Our original model was simply not scalable enough for us to grow our company and product to compete in the market.

      The change in models allows us to generate higher revenues per classroom, while keeping the cost very affordable for students, and allowing instructors free access.

      Reply
  3. Shane

    Hi John,

    I was wondering what the licensing costs are and if you are considering making Gosoapbox free to post secondary institutions as well.

    Thanks,
    Shane

    Reply

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