Fundraising and the Development Fund.

[Halla Rempt]

On woensdag 3 november 2021 06:30:09 CET Emmet O'Neill wrote:
> Hey all.
> 
> Unfortunately Eoin and I had a conflict with today's rescheduled meeting,
> but after discussing the funding situation for a while today I wanted to
> share some of our thoughts and opinions on the topics of fundraising and
> the development fund.
> 
> *1. While I'm not against adjusting store prices, it is not guaranteed to
> have a positive effect on revenue.*
> 
> Given that Krita has had the same, relatively low price on stores for
> years, and also taking the effects of inflation into consideration,
> it can certainly be argued that Krita is overdue for a price adjustment. I
> agree that it is probably worth more than we are asking for.
> 
> However, it's really important that we don't rely on the flawed assumption
> that revenue will scale proportionally with price.

Yes, that's a given. Sales will drop, and if they drop by more than 50% we will have to backtrack.


<...>

> *2. We've failed to create compelling incentives for Dev Fund members.*
> 
> We're creative people, so we have to apply that creativity to coming up
> with better incentives.
> We also need to work with KDE to figure out how we can allow users to opt
> in to limited data-sharing with Krita and KA to that end.

I haven't been able to figure that out, and all I've seen were endless round-robin arguments about yes/no integration with krita-artists. I don't think we'll figure this out in time.

> 
> *3. Bringing Krita to Android for free probably isn't consistent with our
> goals.*
> 
> It doesn't make a lot of sense for the Android platform (potentially our
> biggest platform in the future) to live off subsidies from desktop revenue.
> We should remember that FOSS doesn't mean free of charge, and if we are
> going to charge users on PC stores for the convenience of getting Krita
> through a store,
> then it only makes sense to do the same for Android, especially considering
> the resources that we're using to make it happen.

There are two reasons it's free on android/chromeos:

* it's the only way normal people can install Krita on their devices
* it's still in beta

Downloads aren't spectacular in any case, and it's giving a lot of support headaches. Instead of working on an improved mobile UI, Sharaf is basically spending all his time working around platform issues..

> 
> Bottom line: we are spending money to make Krita on Android a thing, and so
> it needs to bring in some revenue or it will just be a drain on our very
> limited resources.
> 
> *4. We need to constantly remind people about our development and funding
> model in our public messaging.*
> 
> Our rivals have marketing teams, advertising budgets, and well-understood
> business models. We don't.
> 
> It's important that the messages that we put out reinforce our users'
> understanding of how Krita works and how their relationship to Krita is
> different than most of the other software that they use.
> We need to get people involved in the development process and conversations
> around Krita, even if they aren't necessarily technical.
> We need to get people emotionally invested in the success of Krita and help
> them to understand that Krita is an asset to the art community at large.
> And of course, we need to take every opportunity to plug our development
> fund, and to show users how their support translates to a better tool for
> everyone.
> 
> None of us are in the business of marketing, and I don't think any of us
> really want to be.
> But we need to have a clear and *consistent* message to our users about
> what makes Krita different, why they want to support us, and how they can
> best do that.
>

I think we've been doing that, but it's a fact that I'm, outside of the steam store, pretty the only one who really does any messaging, and I don't feel like I'm getting a lot of support in getting the message out.

> -----
> 
> Anyway, we have some other thoughts, but I know nobody wants to read a wall
> of text so I'll leave it there.
> Please let us know what you think.
> Emmet and Eoin.
> 

The bottom line is that I probably will have to ask some people to on hiatus starting with December. I'm going to hate doing that. I've kept going with the reserves we had, but I've spent half of what I'm going to need to pay the 2020 taxes already, which really is a problem.