Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Gather Now Available

[Tom Smyth (tom]

Sharon and all, finally getting around to replying to this. Thanks for your
supportive words! Some comments below.

I’ve asked Tom if he could set up a sandbox which would make it easier for
> an individual to look at and become familiar with to decide whether to
> recommend it to their community. Asking him to set up a site for a
> community just to look at feels like a big ask.
>

Thanks for the consideration, but actually it's not hard at all to setup a
new community. I have it pretty much automated at this point. So come one,
come all!

Using $5 because it is an easier number, that would be $60 a month for a
> community of 12 households. $215 a month for a community of 43. That seems
> high.
>

Thanks for the input here. Figuring out how to price Gather is going to be
an experiment. Our goal is to try to get enough money coming in so that we
can:

   1. pay for hosting
   2. give folks the support they need
   3. have time left over to fix bugs and build new features

One thing that has been suggested is that communities themselves can help
with supporting the software for members, so that could reduce cost #2.
Cost #3 has mostly been borne to date by me in my spare time, which has
worked, but it would be nice to move faster.

As we continue to talk with folks and find out their needs, we'll continue
tackling this question and try to come up with something that works for
people.

Our main mission is for cohousing to have great software so that will drive
our decisions as we move forward.

Thanks again for all the thoughts and suggestions!


-- 
Tom Smyth

Worker-Owner, Sassafras Tech Collective
Specializing in innovative, usable tech for social change
sassafras.coop · @sassafrastech