Don't sell the app: If it's self-sustaining without taking up much of your time, charge for it!
For support-related tasks, find someone that will do the support for a percentage of the new revenue you realize with some version of the suggestion below.
Tell all your existing, un-paying customers that in 30 days, you're going to start charging $19.99/month for it, but if they sign up before the pricing starts, they're in for $9.99 (or $12.99--whatever floats your boat). Leave all your existing customers happy by not charging them more.
You could also consider an annual subscription model where they pay either $240 a whole year, or $199 if they sign up before the date of the price change.
A lot of your customers will say no and leave, but some will likely say yes and contribute to your top-line. Either way, you'll make more money than you're making now. Be sure to explain why you're charging: E.g.: I think the service is valuable and in order to keep it running, I need to charge something for it.
THEN, once you have more paying customers, you can either sell the app and charge more for it or sit back and have a pssive revenue stream.
UPDATE: @ barmstrong, If you're not interested in the above and decide you DO want to sell it, contact me and we can talk about me buying it from you.
This is poor advice. Powering RSS-to-email is a losing proposition unless it's destined to bring more value than the FREE Feedburner. Also, forcing users to switch from free to paid (or else) with 30 days' notice is a jerk move, especially with an RSS product.
Your product is promising, but isn't easily differentiated from Feedburner and thus it's difficult to charge anything for it. I'm surprised you have any paying customers actually.
However, if the guts of the application are as solid as they seem, then you have a gem on your hands that just needs the right business touch to position the product for the right market.
I think there is a market position for this service. If you are currently a non-savvy blogger, then the current feedburner homepage:
http://feedburner.google.com/
is practically indecipherable and unlikely to result in a lot of conversions.
I also believe that a smaller operator who concentrates on adding value to a product such as this would have a high chance of success versus Google where a product such as this can, and probably will, be easily lost in terms of internal development priorities and management attention.
>Tell all your existing, un-paying customers that in 30 days, you're going to start charging $19.99/month for it, but if they sign up before the pricing starts, they're in for $9.99 (or $12.99--whatever floats your boat). Leave all your existing customers happy by not charging them more.
This sounds a bit like pulling the rug out from under his current users. Perhaps a better idea, if the OP has the time, would be to implement new features in order to try and convert some of the free users. And every time a new feature comes out, announce it to all the users, reminding them how much better the paid experience is. That's how freemium works isn't it?
For support-related tasks, find someone that will do the support for a percentage of the new revenue you realize with some version of the suggestion below.
Tell all your existing, un-paying customers that in 30 days, you're going to start charging $19.99/month for it, but if they sign up before the pricing starts, they're in for $9.99 (or $12.99--whatever floats your boat). Leave all your existing customers happy by not charging them more.
You could also consider an annual subscription model where they pay either $240 a whole year, or $199 if they sign up before the date of the price change.
A lot of your customers will say no and leave, but some will likely say yes and contribute to your top-line. Either way, you'll make more money than you're making now. Be sure to explain why you're charging: E.g.: I think the service is valuable and in order to keep it running, I need to charge something for it.
THEN, once you have more paying customers, you can either sell the app and charge more for it or sit back and have a pssive revenue stream.
UPDATE: @ barmstrong, If you're not interested in the above and decide you DO want to sell it, contact me and we can talk about me buying it from you.