My first reaction was “Ridiculous!”. Here we are trying hard to get great content, top speakers and initiate healthy discussions and how can someone just negate everything and say that content is diluted as the price is low. I earlier wrote on “Conference Pricing” and why we choose to keep it low priced. However this post has got me thinking. Does cost really matter so much? Would people prefer the conference to be expensive? Would the content be appreciated better if it burnt a hole in the pocket?

The conference is a business venture and we do not claim to be doing any charity by keeping our fees low. We charge what we think is a great & a fair price. However we hadn’t really factored in that potential delegates will not register because they would think that Rs. X was not a good enough entry barrier.

Laws of economics will apply to all businesses, so people wont value a pricey watch or an obscenely expensive car if everyone else around them could afford it. But would everyone think an iPhone was cool even if it was cheap or free? Or think that Google search was super even though it was free? How does one position the conference such that participation is valued while it is also perceived as  cool & educational; irrespective of the price?

I definitely do not buy the argument that low entry barrier leads to content dilution as I believe that only the really keen would spend their hard-earned money & precious time to be at the conference. Also if we price it high, we would pretty much cut out the small companies and go against the core philosophy of the conference. So although I continue to believe that our pricing structure is correct, I do wonder how we should go about convincing those who think the conference is not super only because it is not expensive.

Over the years, have learned that pricing a product right is one the toughest decisions that an enterprise has to make. Such experiences only highlight how complex and unpredictable the reactions to a product’s price can be.

I recently was at proto.in, an event for startups in India, and one of the discussions there centered around how one should price a product. You essentially have three options.

1. Price it really cheap so as to make it easily accessible and capable of opening the market. The Tata Nano car is obviously the first example that comes to mind.
2. Price it at the normally accepted rate. A glucose biscuit pack forRs 4 or 5 would be accepted without any discussion.
3. Price it really high such that it seems like a niche & elite product. Branded perfumes, watches, etc.

Although this isn’t really new gyan, listing the options does simplify decision making.

Ok, so while deciding the pricing for the conference, we considered the three alternatives and here’s how we came up with the pricing that you see. Option 3 was quickly ruled out as it goes against the the core philosoply of the conference. We want as many developers participating, discussing and debating on new technologies as we possibly can. We want the conference to be such that a developer can choose to register by paying money from his own pocket rather than that of his employer.

The conference is now in it’s fourth year and one of the things that I am a bit bothered by, is the fact that except for a select few, all others register with company money. I don’t know if this is an India specific phenomenon, but it does seem like investing in learning, networking and innovation isn’t common in our industry. The early bird rate this year is such that anyone in the software industry can easily afford it on his/her personal money. I am very curious to see if we do get lots of personal registrations this year, as we have pretty much eliminated cost as a reason for not participating. Ask your boss to give you Fri – Sat off for the conference, but why wait for your company to fund your learning?

So we feel that conference 09 is priced such that it is in ‘Option1′ in the early bird stage and almost touches ‘Option 2′ by the time we come to “At The Venue” registrations.