How to monetize my Chess for Slack app ?
Hello,
A few months ago I launched a Chess for Slack app.
It's been growing steadily and I've reached 1.5K games played and there are 150 active games being played at any given moment.
I'm struggling trying to monetize it. I'm offering premium features such as customizable themes (board + pieces), game export and such.
So far, zero upgrades.
I'm thinking maybe chess is so commoditized there's no hope to make a dime off of it - however, I thought that having it work within Slack could give me an angle.
In the meantime I'm collecting anonymized data such as gameplay, times, etc.
Any ideas how to turn this into dollars?
edit:
this is the app's page: http://www.chessboardapp.com/
product hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/chess-for-slack
Slack's app dir: https://slack.com/apps/ACY93NUCV-chessboard
Think about the value chain.
Each business idea is part of a larger ecosystem. Perhaps there are interesting possibilities up, or down, the value chain.
For example, let’s say someone told you they had a great idea to build a video platform for dog walkers.
There are many layers to the value chain behind this idea. Dog breeders breed the dogs, dog trainers train the dogs, dog walkers walk the dogs, streaming services stream the video, domain services handle the DNS, etc.
In your case some market segments that come to mind:
Hope this helps!
these are golden ideas.
thanks a lot!
People use slack to work and people take breaks by playing slack at work. You need to offer something they usually can't get it anywhere else and playing in slack is the only way
May be you can organise competition for the company/slack org and make it as a tournament between companies?
Instead of charging individual users, charge for a game / tournament and slowly try to get people sign up for that?
People can be super competitive when they know they can win prizes that are tangible. It could potentially be just amazon vouchers, but you can package it better and make it as a trophy at the end.
P.S Take these ideas as a grain of salt as I don't have any solid experience in making successful games. Just some product design experience :)
at the moment my offering is a single premium plan $15/year/team, which gets you all the extra features.
IS their anyway to customize your pieces? I would try to sell skins or board packages. Maybe The pieces have special abilities and can be upgraded with game play SOmewhat Like Call of Duty. In game purchases would be a unique take. Could I check this out to get a better idea of your marketing and the overall UX/UI? Do you have a link or send me some screenshots or video of gameplay. Also, you should look int your data and look for retention. This infroamtion could bust the roof on ideas for business models.
this is the app's page: http://www.chessboardapp.com/
product hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/chess-for-slack
and the entry in Slack's app dir: https://slack.com/apps/ACY93NUCV-chessboard
I did some cohort analysis and retention seems pretty steady. There are lows around holidays, which makes me think people are playing at work 😄.
I'm not sure about tweaking the game's rules, as it wouldn't be chess anymore. Definitely I could take what I learned and create a new board game native to Slack.
As I mentioned, I tried selling custom boards (tile textures, etc) and custom pieces, but so far, no dice.
thanks!
cool. I'l check it out and get back to you.
I think you have a great opportunity to pivot into something that is played by a larger market. You already know that there is a market for these games, so I think you just need to find the right one. You can also use your existing game as a marketing channel.
Remember, Rovio released 34 games between 2003 and 2009 - before they made Angry Birds.
What are you trying to sell? The chess app? I think you're right when you're saying, there's no hope.
But if you're trying to sell your skills and expertise as a Slack app developer instead, I suggest you use it as free advertising for your skills. Put some text below the board, like "Need a Slack plugin? Contact me at your@email.com".
People may not need it directly, but you can rest assured they'll remember you when it's time.
How much do you know about the people who play it and where?
Slacks can be broadly broken into:
Does it allow players in one Slack to play someone in another?
Two ideas:
Allow replay recording as a premium feature, so people can see what happened and refine their game.
i) As a consequences of this, allow "infinite undo" to roll back the game. If someone is being coached, informally or formally, it allows restarting a game from a crucial mistake.
ii) Maybe later add a coaching facility which gives coaches ability to manage these sessions and replay many variations, depending on how the earlier offering received.
Leaderboards and related playoff pyramids. For a very nominal annual subs (say $1) offer access to Leaderboards. Now you know who's willing to pay even a tiny amount.
i) From there, add pay-to-view broadcasting or replay of matches from different points on the leaderboard and
ii) prize pools contributed by watchers, where you take a reasonable percentage, to players going up a competitive pyramid.