For the future, we're looking at web-based version with real-time collaboration. But for now, we decided to start with desktop. We were also influenced by the "file over app" philosophy of Obsidian's founder: https://stephango.com/file-over-app.
Thank you for your feedback. I'm thinking of the paid version. I would like to offer it much cheaper than balsamiq, probably. Additionally, we'll be offering strong discounts for early users.
You should consider a one time, lifetime payment. As a solo dev working on occasional side projects I just wouldn't even consider something on a subscription, and $140 (balsamiq's one time fee) is about $100 more than I'd pay. My alternative is a graphics app I already own.
Follow what Affinity did (cheap and one-time) and you'll sell to a lot of people like me who would otherwise give it a miss. Save your subscription tiers for businesses needing more collaboration, SSO, etc.
With that strategy as well you'll build brand awareness which will probably ultimately lead to more sales as those solo devs advocate for its use in teams in their day jobs.
Balsamiq is already so cheap. We use it for our business and every time it renews I just think they could be getting 5-10x what they are. That in turn helps drive a better business and product.
Balsamiq is a per month subscrtiption isn't it? Personally, I need a tool like this once per year or sometimes even less. So if Konty was a one off payment of $20-30 I'd be more inclined to purchase.
I think you have a project with a massive undertaking. You need a team of people to work on this. Have you been looking at this site: https://github.com/jgraph/drawio?
The first features I see that are missing is the ability to define objects using text markups. Properties of the objects would also be defined this way. Dynamic constraints would be defined.
The other feature that is missing or just shown wierd: rounded corners. I put a hexagon down and made the corners round max. It looked like a wierd circle.
Keyboard shortcuts should be configurable. I don't like draw io's keyboard commands. I don't like excalidraw's keyboard commands either. They seem to borrow the concept from the mac or some obscure program. (I use visio.)
Get rid of the pricing thing for now. Also get rid of the online storage scheme.
Add multi user feature using shared link (webrtc?).
I'm a solopreneur. Thank you for seeing it as a massive project :) I don't have a plan to do that, but I want to form and run a small community.
I started this project using Excalidraw, but I started it because it was uncomfortable to draw professional diagrams. I'm the developer who created StarUML and I have experience with commercial diagram software.
