“Building a product to fit an existing market, is better than finding a market to fit an existing product.” - Unfortunately not my quote!

Charging a one-off fee, per project, is a great idea.

And if I was you, I would much rather make enough money to pay the bills, than play the freemium lottery.

And Taskmessenger is all about adding value to a project - something that you should be proud to charge for.

Thanks for the feedback. We're really focused on facilitating teamwork. It's normally something intangible and we're trying to make it visible which will hopefully in turn make it contagious.

I will take a look into how a one-off fee model would work.

Please don't listen to the idiots telling you to charge a one-off fee for SaaS.

You're not 37signals and unless you have a couple of million burning a hole in your pocket, you should be charging reasonable subscription fees.

I once had a "potential investor" (worth $80m) who wanted a meeting with my patent attorney. So, I made the arranged for us to meet him at our usual meeting place - the coffee shop.

We walked in and the "potential investor" said: "we haven't got time for a coffee", I replied: "well, this is where we are having the meeting"... "what HERE? doesn't he have an office? This is a very bad start."

In walked my patent attorney wearing a cagoule and a rucksack. The "potential investor" made it perfectly clear that he was not impressed (he did not even get up to shake his hand). He interrogated him for half an hour before saying: "good, you can now drink your coffee".

I realised that day, that money, is only a small part of being a great VC.

This happens a lot and tech is not without its elitists, but that doesn't excuse rude behaviour. I have found this happens a lot, but a lot less than in England. Fortunately we have people like Zuck in a hoodie and Brin on the subway, both with more money than god to thank for leveling the playing field a little.

Next time, don't wait for the VC to let you drink your coffee. You could be American about it and pander to his/her ego, or you could be British (since you use both word forms I am assuming you're also a transplant) about it and tell him to go fuck himself.