The Poirot app went live at the beginning of March of this year. Being a developer with little to no marketing skills I haven't worked on detailed launch plans and only did what most developers do, publish an announcement on IndieHackers, ProductHunt, Facebook, BetaList, some Reddit groups, and similar sites. I got some initial traffic to my website and few visitors created a free account and started using my app.
In those first days, I tracked usage of the app and although the free account users have a small number of lookup credits available, they were hard to convert to paying customers after the free credits were spent and were complaining about the high monthly price of $49 for the lowest plan. When I initially set the pricing tiers, I compared a number of tools providing similar services and determined pricing based on Poirot features and quality of results. Because I needed a larger initial userbase, there were a few things I could try to get them without an advertising budget.
Instead, I applied for the AppSumo marketplace and added Poirot there with the one-year access for the low one-time payment. This was a bad idea because the AppSumo userbase is almost completely looking for lifetime deals and although I got few customers paying for a yearly license this number was insignificant.
About that time I was approached by the guys from SaasMantra (the AppSumo contender) and asked whether I want to do an LTD with them. Now, as a solo developer and requiring some financial return from the project I spent so much time on, I started looking on at LTD's as a way to sell your product as a software used to sell before the monthly/yearly subscription model emerged. You sell a license to your software for a fixed price and proceed to the next customer.
The team from SaasMantra performed flawlessly, we figured out the way the coupon stacking works, determined required changes, and agreed on a 50/50 profit split for customers they onboard. The launch date was set to June the 2nd, and everything was prepared accordingly. I was a bit skeptical at first but fast forward to today it was the best decision I made for the product.
More than 500 customers created the free account, 300+ coupons were sold which generated a revenue of $12.000 in only a little bit more than 2 and half months. The users started asking for features and upgrades quickly and I managed to shortlist what is really important to be done next. Also, some UX-related problems and bugs emerged I had to resolve quickly.
Poirot got its initial userbase, I received a decent income from the app, and what's more important a proof of concept that someone is really going to pay for the service. Also, the feedback is great and the application got excellent reviews on the SassMantra deals page. https://saasmantra.com/deals/poirot#discussions
The room for improvement is huge. I'm releasing a bulk usage feature in the upcoming days (I completely reworked bulk code twice...). Chrome extension is in the works. I need to work on some additional posts and materials for the website and do some SEO-related work (I haven't done any). Some advertising-related stuff is also planned in near future.
After all, the SaasMantra LTD is still active and I'm very pleased with how it's still performing.
Wow congrats on the launch and early traction! I'm also a solo developer with no marketing experience trying to get my product off the ground. This is exactly the kind of info I'm looking for. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, and I wish you all the best with your launch!
Congratulations on your launch 🚀, will check out your deal in SaaSMantra .
Thanks 😊
AppSumo: they take 70% you take 30%?
What's saasMantra like?
With SaasMantra it’s 50/50 split.