You are running a business and you have the time to create your own version of this app?
That's excellent. For me however, there is hardly time to comment on Hacker News :), let alone code my own CRM when I can get one for $30/month/user (at least for now).
Cost/Benefit I guess. Its not worth my time to code this up myself, but in your business, It might be.
I love your pricing. Or what I initially thought it was
One plan every feature - (correctly) gives me the impression that if I pay $30/month, I'll get everything your app has to offer.
Extend your reach for less(or Need Less, Pay Less) - I initially thought that this was a feature-limited lower priced tier of your app (for small startups or freelancers for example)
This made it seem as though your "One Plan" was cleverly pushing the plan you want most people to join, whilst still making lesser plans available for those who cant afford the "one plan".
This is a great because it makes me feel comfortable paying for the "one plan" (the most expensive plan) without feeling as if I'm paying too much or missing out on any key features (by choosing the lower plan). I feel you are charging me fairly for what I'll use.
And because you have your needs-based up-sells, you left room to increase revenue from heavy users.
This is excellent and I will definitely split-test this in my business against the traditional pricing grid.
Sky and TalkTalk both rather like having customers, and would be unhappy if any significant number of customers perceived Sky or Talktalk's service as being poor, and chose to move to a different ISP because of it.
UK ISPs do/have used streaming video and buffering (or the absence of it) as a battleground of quality - you see companies making claims of fastest or "most reliable" broadband, and it gets them customers as a result.
Mucking up people's ability to access Netflix would bring no benefit - people would just choose a different ISP.
At least in the UK, where people have that choice. This situation may not apply in other countries.
This is a cool project. But don't let the fact that you are building an app distract from the main goal (building a community).
I would suggest you first go to as many universities as you can, get their computer science students on-board, and then connect to their alumni network.
And start organising meetups, hackathons and other events. You need to start a small fire and it will kindle.
A simple website is good enough and you can start today. http://www.hackcampus.io/ is doing something similar in the UK.
A directory might not be so useful at this point.
I would also love to see the Tech space in Africa mature. I expect great things to come out of that continent, and building a community Is definitely a great place to start.
Failing that, 2Checkout and http://www.fastspring.com/ are really good and 2Checkout works in many countries.
The other option would be to just get your own merchant account and use something like WorldPay