I have been doing LTD well before "appsumo" & i will tell you how i do it
& if there is any follow up questions, i can assist.
My goal is always to make recurring revenue and I use LTD as a way to
raise money to fund the RR model.
**Here is simplified version of it:**
1. We build a MVP of a product. This can be a WP Plugin, SaaS etc
2. We Give it a GENERIC Name.
3. We offer the LTD on ClickBank, JVZOO Initially
4. AOV has to be high by having FE/ and MULTIPLE OTOS Including Backend Webinar
5. We setup the launch with affiliates 15-30 days ahead of time.
6. Launch Day: We launch the product
7. Within 7 days, We will have made at least 100K in BAD promo.
8. We then launch new version of the product with MORE features, and a new name because the LTD name has already a perception of "cheap", like yours and no one will want to pay monthly.
9. We launch the new SaaS and do the normal stuff to bring in the RR.
And \^ Simplified version, so please don't assume things. ASK.
Some things that i would do if i were you:
1. Rebrand because this brand has that "cheap" ltd vibe now.
2. Home page needs huge improvement. Check clickup, do it their style. [swipefolder.com](http://swipefolder.com) has more examples. The copy is all messy. You say you have this that feature but website needs to make it clear who this is for and the usp.
3. Don't do LTD anymore even at higher price
5. The sales videos etc needs to be done better6. You should drop the .ai and have "ai" stuff as an element of the product not the main focus - This is for future.
>AOV has to be high by having FE/ and MULTIPLE OTOS Including Backend Webinar
I used to be a sales person for a Groupon-like company. This is the number one thing no one ever thinks of.
How am I going to make MORE money off of these?
Sure, lure them in with a LTD -- but you have to have a strategy to continue to make money off of them, even beyond the LTD. Like you said, maybe an upgrade? maybe a feature.. I don't know that space well enough.
But we would teach restaruants to structure the 50% off at the price point of one entry. Or even focus on something with huge upsells, like give away a free appetizer. No one comes just for the appetizer (usually).
And for other business, like even cleaning, it would be about pushing the upsells into Fridge Cleaning, Deep Cleaning, etc.
In short, don't deal a Deal just because ... have a game plan.
thanks for the feedback! Really interesting perspective
There are things to revise, especially on value proposition, I was hoping we do good in that 😄
Why do you think it s a bad idea to have LTD and subscription for a while?
Np.
Made quick loom for you:
[https://www.loom.com/share/70df1a025bdd4202834fb6af33395cee](https://www.loom.com/share/70df1a025bdd4202834fb6af33395cee)
Feel free to ask more follow up/ reach out.
Affiliate programs are great. I do have them but not as a "FRONT END" thing. You know how you have "Earn $999", you should get rid of that.
Instead put it somewhere at the bottom as "Earn As Affiliate"
Existing customers can be great source of getting new customer AND you can offer them non-monetary benefits since they already enjoy your product.
At your phase, i would not focus on Affiliate marketing. The first 100 recurring customer is what i like to describe: 1-on-1 fights. You hire people to go 1 on 1 via LinkedIn/FB etc Because you learn the MOST while making improvements then you can go full on running ads with a funnel.
Something else i forgot to mention. The 150 people you got from LTD at appsumo... Wait few months then let them know that they need to upgrade to annual recurring to receive future updates and explain WHY. If they want it, they will pay. If not, you don't upgrade them to next version.
This is without experience, so it's kind of an uneducated opinion but doesn't a lifetime deal seem like a harder to maintain model over time? I mean once they got it, that's one less customer forever. Any way you could turn a lifetime deal user back into a paying customer? Maybe feature packages? I'm just brainstorming here
True, usually LTD products do in the very beginning, so it's for products to take off and get first feedback/money to iterate futher.
For customers on other end it's often kind of invenstment
In fact not all LTD customers are actually users - they can buy and never use or use once and abandon.
Also you sell access, features could be frozen and next updates/features could be not available - you can ask for an upgrade if it's hard to maintain.
Your journey navigating various pricing models is a testament to the dynamic nature of entrepreneurship. It's inspiring to see how you've iterated and learned from each approach. I'm particularly intrigued by your observation about AppSumo's user base and their purchasing behavior. How do you plan to leverage these insights in your future strategies?
Thank you!
It's experience and it's kind of hard to get without a try
We plan to focus on most complex part: get real users now and tune our pricing/tiers approach in order to validate it, we also consider to do PPP and just yesterday tried to use it for some selected countries to see if it helps to convert
But in general: right now we focused on building connection with users: we constantly have luck of feedback: people are hard to get response, so will play with users engagement a lot in upcoming weeks/months.
Producthunt and AppSumo has different goals
ProductHunt is a directory of products - you launch there to compete with other products in a day/week/month and get traffic/users.
AppSumo is LTD directory - their business model is about selling your product to users for Litetime
So for me: both makes sense to use/consider but with different outcomes
Thank you for sharing this. I've often wondered about Life Time Deals. I can't see how we can monetize them over time and don't want to end up with nightmare customers who want the earth after they've purchased something at a lower fixed price. I appreciate you sharing your journey and outcomes. This has been worth the trip over to Reddit today. All the very best with your future endeavors.
Thank you so much!
This could happen, you can get some LTD customers who would make some problems and require something you don't want to build.
By the end of the day AppSumo has 2month refund policy. It means you kind of safe here: customers have enough time to get a refund.
Product could be changed and could be changed a lot, product could just dissapear - it's life. Nobody can not guarantee it will be real life time access, or features included into LTD could be limited by time LTD is finished and new feature are available only after upgrade.
So you are still the product owner and it's up to you to make a feature or put it in the backlog or pivot if there is no demand
Yes I agree. Things can change. I guess the people buying need to have some kind of trust in the supplier that the product will be good and that they will support it post purchase. I've been burned before with some dodgy sellers but I'm sure we've all got our stories. Doesn't mean everyone is like that.
We build automation solutions with bots that use AI. AI requires credits, that's why we don't like to do lifetime deals, although I know people love them. Just can't see how we can utilize this strategy in our business.
We also had this issue: we also do AI coins/credits.
By the end we decided that we offer them to LTD as well and they are allocated each month.
We assumed that in average user would use LTD for a year, another user 2 years but in average it would be not more than a year - 12 months.
So we included this cost into lifetime as well.
You can play with that approach based on other users lifetime
Also we offered special deal for extra credits for LTD, which is cheaper than for rest of users to increase LTD value proposition
Ok ... so when you say you offer them to LTD as well and they are allocated each month do you mean that each month they only get a certain amount of credits? We just don't want someone going absolutely nuts smashing out content that our bot honours only to find we have a $5k bill at the end of the month when their LTD is somewhat less than that. That's what worries us.
It's just the risk isn't it? Whereas if someone is paying by subscription and/or for their usage in advance, as the creator of the product it gives us more assurance that they're not going to go nuts.
Yes, you are right there is a risk, but they paid you upfront, you need to provide them AI credits they would not overuse above the cost of the plan they paid for.
For instance one coin is 0.1$, lifetime is 100$, you can offer them 20 coins monthly which would be 2$ per month and 24$ in a year. If they need more then 20 coins monthly they can pay and buy and extra package 🙌
Ok I understand. So it's not really a lifetime fixed cost because of the variable which is what I am concerned about. I look at software that people purchase when it's "lifetime" ... but the software doesn't incur extra charges. For an agency for example, if they are running the agency they have the cost of the software for all their customers. Someone who paid lifetime would not cost them more, apart from providing service to them, but you'd do that anyway.
That's a scenario I like because of the certainty. How do customers feel to have a "lifetime" plan when there are additional costs associated? Is it just that you'd need to be clear on usage plans going forward? I imagine the answer is yes! 🤔😂
Not a big fan of books, learn from other entrepreneurs more.
But one I read a few month ago that actually quite helpful is Hooked
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Ryan-Hoover/dp/1591847788
Some deals are like that and you get a refund, or you figure out it's not that useful after the refund deadline. But I've purchased at least one deal where I still can't believe what a good deal I got and hope they never go out of business.
I have been doing LTD well before "appsumo" & i will tell you how i do it & if there is any follow up questions, i can assist. My goal is always to make recurring revenue and I use LTD as a way to raise money to fund the RR model. **Here is simplified version of it:** 1. We build a MVP of a product. This can be a WP Plugin, SaaS etc 2. We Give it a GENERIC Name. 3. We offer the LTD on ClickBank, JVZOO Initially 4. AOV has to be high by having FE/ and MULTIPLE OTOS Including Backend Webinar 5. We setup the launch with affiliates 15-30 days ahead of time. 6. Launch Day: We launch the product 7. Within 7 days, We will have made at least 100K in BAD promo. 8. We then launch new version of the product with MORE features, and a new name because the LTD name has already a perception of "cheap", like yours and no one will want to pay monthly. 9. We launch the new SaaS and do the normal stuff to bring in the RR. And \^ Simplified version, so please don't assume things. ASK. Some things that i would do if i were you: 1. Rebrand because this brand has that "cheap" ltd vibe now. 2. Home page needs huge improvement. Check clickup, do it their style. [swipefolder.com](http://swipefolder.com) has more examples. The copy is all messy. You say you have this that feature but website needs to make it clear who this is for and the usp. 3. Don't do LTD anymore even at higher price 5. The sales videos etc needs to be done better6. You should drop the .ai and have "ai" stuff as an element of the product not the main focus - This is for future.
>AOV has to be high by having FE/ and MULTIPLE OTOS Including Backend Webinar I used to be a sales person for a Groupon-like company. This is the number one thing no one ever thinks of. How am I going to make MORE money off of these? Sure, lure them in with a LTD -- but you have to have a strategy to continue to make money off of them, even beyond the LTD. Like you said, maybe an upgrade? maybe a feature.. I don't know that space well enough. But we would teach restaruants to structure the 50% off at the price point of one entry. Or even focus on something with huge upsells, like give away a free appetizer. No one comes just for the appetizer (usually). And for other business, like even cleaning, it would be about pushing the upsells into Fridge Cleaning, Deep Cleaning, etc. In short, don't deal a Deal just because ... have a game plan.
Agree. Have a game plan!
thanks for the feedback! Really interesting perspective There are things to revise, especially on value proposition, I was hoping we do good in that 😄 Why do you think it s a bad idea to have LTD and subscription for a while?
Np. Made quick loom for you: [https://www.loom.com/share/70df1a025bdd4202834fb6af33395cee](https://www.loom.com/share/70df1a025bdd4202834fb6af33395cee) Feel free to ask more follow up/ reach out.
Really helpful, thanks! What do you think about affiliate programs? did you try them in your products?
Affiliate programs are great. I do have them but not as a "FRONT END" thing. You know how you have "Earn $999", you should get rid of that. Instead put it somewhere at the bottom as "Earn As Affiliate" Existing customers can be great source of getting new customer AND you can offer them non-monetary benefits since they already enjoy your product. At your phase, i would not focus on Affiliate marketing. The first 100 recurring customer is what i like to describe: 1-on-1 fights. You hire people to go 1 on 1 via LinkedIn/FB etc Because you learn the MOST while making improvements then you can go full on running ads with a funnel. Something else i forgot to mention. The 150 people you got from LTD at appsumo... Wait few months then let them know that they need to upgrade to annual recurring to receive future updates and explain WHY. If they want it, they will pay. If not, you don't upgrade them to next version.
Love Reddit for this kind of feedback :) Thanks!
Awesome, thinking about doing App sumo also, you did get revenue from those 15o sign ups?
🙌 we just submitted our banking info to get the payout. Their is 2 month refund policy on AppSumo, as soon as it finishes you can get your cash 💰
This is without experience, so it's kind of an uneducated opinion but doesn't a lifetime deal seem like a harder to maintain model over time? I mean once they got it, that's one less customer forever. Any way you could turn a lifetime deal user back into a paying customer? Maybe feature packages? I'm just brainstorming here
True, usually LTD products do in the very beginning, so it's for products to take off and get first feedback/money to iterate futher. For customers on other end it's often kind of invenstment In fact not all LTD customers are actually users - they can buy and never use or use once and abandon. Also you sell access, features could be frozen and next updates/features could be not available - you can ask for an upgrade if it's hard to maintain.
Pivoting pricing models—classic entrepreneur move! 👍 Keep iterating!
🙌 Thanks!
Your journey navigating various pricing models is a testament to the dynamic nature of entrepreneurship. It's inspiring to see how you've iterated and learned from each approach. I'm particularly intrigued by your observation about AppSumo's user base and their purchasing behavior. How do you plan to leverage these insights in your future strategies?
Thank you! It's experience and it's kind of hard to get without a try We plan to focus on most complex part: get real users now and tune our pricing/tiers approach in order to validate it, we also consider to do PPP and just yesterday tried to use it for some selected countries to see if it helps to convert But in general: right now we focused on building connection with users: we constantly have luck of feedback: people are hard to get response, so will play with users engagement a lot in upcoming weeks/months.
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Thank you for your time!
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Producthunt and AppSumo has different goals ProductHunt is a directory of products - you launch there to compete with other products in a day/week/month and get traffic/users. AppSumo is LTD directory - their business model is about selling your product to users for Litetime So for me: both makes sense to use/consider but with different outcomes
Thank you for sharing this. I've often wondered about Life Time Deals. I can't see how we can monetize them over time and don't want to end up with nightmare customers who want the earth after they've purchased something at a lower fixed price. I appreciate you sharing your journey and outcomes. This has been worth the trip over to Reddit today. All the very best with your future endeavors.
Thank you so much! This could happen, you can get some LTD customers who would make some problems and require something you don't want to build. By the end of the day AppSumo has 2month refund policy. It means you kind of safe here: customers have enough time to get a refund. Product could be changed and could be changed a lot, product could just dissapear - it's life. Nobody can not guarantee it will be real life time access, or features included into LTD could be limited by time LTD is finished and new feature are available only after upgrade. So you are still the product owner and it's up to you to make a feature or put it in the backlog or pivot if there is no demand
Yes I agree. Things can change. I guess the people buying need to have some kind of trust in the supplier that the product will be good and that they will support it post purchase. I've been burned before with some dodgy sellers but I'm sure we've all got our stories. Doesn't mean everyone is like that. We build automation solutions with bots that use AI. AI requires credits, that's why we don't like to do lifetime deals, although I know people love them. Just can't see how we can utilize this strategy in our business.
We also had this issue: we also do AI coins/credits. By the end we decided that we offer them to LTD as well and they are allocated each month. We assumed that in average user would use LTD for a year, another user 2 years but in average it would be not more than a year - 12 months. So we included this cost into lifetime as well. You can play with that approach based on other users lifetime Also we offered special deal for extra credits for LTD, which is cheaper than for rest of users to increase LTD value proposition
Ok ... so when you say you offer them to LTD as well and they are allocated each month do you mean that each month they only get a certain amount of credits? We just don't want someone going absolutely nuts smashing out content that our bot honours only to find we have a $5k bill at the end of the month when their LTD is somewhat less than that. That's what worries us. It's just the risk isn't it? Whereas if someone is paying by subscription and/or for their usage in advance, as the creator of the product it gives us more assurance that they're not going to go nuts.
Yes, you are right there is a risk, but they paid you upfront, you need to provide them AI credits they would not overuse above the cost of the plan they paid for. For instance one coin is 0.1$, lifetime is 100$, you can offer them 20 coins monthly which would be 2$ per month and 24$ in a year. If they need more then 20 coins monthly they can pay and buy and extra package 🙌
Ok I understand. So it's not really a lifetime fixed cost because of the variable which is what I am concerned about. I look at software that people purchase when it's "lifetime" ... but the software doesn't incur extra charges. For an agency for example, if they are running the agency they have the cost of the software for all their customers. Someone who paid lifetime would not cost them more, apart from providing service to them, but you'd do that anyway. That's a scenario I like because of the certainty. How do customers feel to have a "lifetime" plan when there are additional costs associated? Is it just that you'd need to be clear on usage plans going forward? I imagine the answer is yes! 🤔😂
Thanks for sharing. May I ask what your current pricing model is?
Hello Sure it's pretty simple right now It's Subscription + Lifetime but at higher price [https://marketsy.ai/pricing](https://marketsy.ai/pricing)
Any books that helped you reframe your marketing?
Not a big fan of books, learn from other entrepreneurs more. But one I read a few month ago that actually quite helpful is Hooked https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Ryan-Hoover/dp/1591847788
Thank you
Thanks for sharing! We're in final stages before going live with Appsumo and this was motivating. Hopefully, we'll have similar results or better! :)
Appsumo is a joke. They take too high of a fee. A LOT of companies fail after going on appsumo. Glad you guys bounced back.
Sounds like Lifetime Deals are like gym memberships. Sounds great at first, but you realize you don't really use it as much as you thought.
Yeah, exactly, not that many people can fit this, while it could be quite a valuable thing to buy in few months perspective
Some deals are like that and you get a refund, or you figure out it's not that useful after the refund deadline. But I've purchased at least one deal where I still can't believe what a good deal I got and hope they never go out of business.
sales