When we launched Haiku Deck in 2012, our goal was to make it 10x faster and easier for users to build presentations that are 10x better. In our quest to reach this goal over the past 4 years, our product has evolved and so has our business. During this time we’ve made several changes to the business to ensure a bright future for Haiku Deck and the members of our community who rely upon us. This means that we are increasingly asking users to support our efforts by becoming subscribers.
One recent change to our business is that we are now asking Haiku Deck Basic users with more than 1 deck to become paying subscribers (3 decks if you’re a teacher or student).
Why start limiting decks now?
Over the past year we have eased reluctantly towards this decision. In July 2015 we introduced paid Haiku Deck accounts for users who wanted advanced privacy, deck download, custom branding, and access to Zuru Beta. At the same time, we added ‘unlimited cloud storage’ to the list of paid features. We didn’t ask existing users to pay for unlimited storage at first because we hoped to support our costs without putting a limit on the number of decks users create. After a year of trying this approach we have to ask a little bit more from users who use the app regularly, but have not become paying subscribers.
Does this mean you’re going to delete my decks if I don’t pay?
No. It means that when you go to create a new deck, we’re going to ask you to pay. Your existing decks will remain exactly as you left them. You’ll still be able to view, edit, and share existing decks. If you like what we’ve built and want us to be there for you in the future, we hope you’ll decide to upgrade. If you don’t upgrade, we hope you’ll stay with us as a free Haiku Deck Basic user.
Why subscription instead of a one-time fee?
Most cloud-based and mobile productivity tools, from Evernote to Microsoft Office, are subscription-based businesses. This industry-wide shift is a function of the costs involved with continuously creating, maintaining, and servicing cloud-based software. The cost of creating and maintaining great software is high. Software engineers are expensive. Storing data and providing customer service are expensive. To ensure that we’re here for our users when they need us and to remain competitive, we had to move to this model.
The Future of Haiku Deck
In 4 years of having Haiku Deck on the market, we have earned over 5M downloads on iTunes and grown to over 2M+ registered users. This is an achievement reached by very few startups and one that we couldn’t have dreamed of when we began. We do not take the support of our community for granted and remain committed to delivering on our mission. We regret that with this change we may lose committed members of our community, but we hope that many more will join us as subscribers. If you’re a student or educator, we offer a 50% price break for you to help ease the cost of upgrading.
Your feedback means the world to us, so please drop us a line if you have questions or concerns. We read and respond to every email.
Thanks,
Team Haiku Deck