If it cost $1,000 to do it in-house and $5 to outsource it then that would definitely increase my trust and comfort level regardless of whether I was a customer or an investor.
I agree. I should have added the caveat that "if an investor or if a customer knew how you were handling this aspect of your business".
Fact of the matter is that customers and investors only see these kinds of expenses in very summary form if at all. So it's generally impossible for them to make a decision based on this kind of information.
On the other hand the total expense picture is always a factor in pricing and investment decisions and this one would play a small part in that.
However, a manager that was spending $1,000 for a launch page he/she could have deployed for free or maybe even $5 a month that manager is probably having problems with other aspects of expense management and this would show up in the final pricing and investment picture.
I'm bootstrapping my current startup, and putting up a splash page would have taken me a couple of hours to set up a slicehost server, install a simple php script, or web framework du jour, and then code and design the splash page with the "put your email in here" form.
At this point, on my day job, my time is worth $75 an hour. So, if I can save 6 minutes, I've saved myself $7.50. By spending $5 a month on launchsplash, I've saved myself about $250 worth of my time.
It's not a matter of having to use the service. It's a matter of expediency. The quickest/cheapest way to get from point a to point b for me is to outsource my splash page and email collection right now. It's not a core competency, why not outsource it?
OK. OK. I got a little carried away with my cost estimates.
But, you have to understand some of the developers I've worked with over the years. No question they would have that much into before the darn thing worked right.
