tnash,
part of smart business is first NOT to say “that just isn’t going to happen”. You have to respond to what the market wants, and the market determines what you will make, not you.
When you have an unproven product, you must find a way to convince folks to use it. If your product is the bees knees, as you’ve been flooding the forums telling everyone how great it is, then you should have no trouble or problem giving folks a free trial of a month or a couple of weeks–long enough for newbies to implement your system and really take it for a ride.
The fact is, your product is unproven, or you wouldn’t be doing most of your marketing in the forums. And there are many who spend at least the first year giving the product away. You don’t force people to pay for something that doesn’t even have decent screenshots simply because of man-hours. That’s a risk and a task you chose to undertake with the hopes of profiting. Refuse to let people sample your product and chances are your profits will still be small.
Right now, I spend $170/month for a membership management service. And yet, I will not just buy your product because you say it rocks. I may spend yet another $170 next month–but I know exactly what I’m getting for it. Yanking that service to buy yours for $50, while a very reasonable price, is too risky when you have paying customers who would want to know why they aren’t being advertised as promised. :o)
By the way, they gave me a 30-day free trial, and it netted them about $1500 thus far. Without that, they would not have made that off of me.
I strongly suggest that you do more than simply shout how great your product is; you need to show people. They need to feel it, work it, see it. That said, I would happily try it, and if it worked, I would happily buy it.
Wishing you success.