How I hit my first $1000 day
Yesterday I hit the $1000/day milestone with PressPulse.ai.
Here's what happened and 2 big lessons I learned:
What happened
I launched in October as an AI that finds PR/backlink opportunities for you and steadily grew its MRR to $400.
Last week, my second-ever user churned. Digging deeper, he mentioned it was because he didn't have time to pursue the opportunities our AI finds for him. He'd pay 10x if we could just solve the problem for him.
So, I decided to run a totally different experiment: a fully done-for-you service, priced at $237 for a DA40+ backlink.
I put together a quick form and Stripe payment link, then sent it to 300 people who had previously tried my AI but didn't convert.
The result was astonishing; 2 people paid within 5 minutes, and 2 more shortly after.
5 hours later, I sent another email titled "One spot left," with a Stripe screenshot of the 4 payments.
I hesitated on the second email but it ended up being a great decision:
- The last spot was taken within 5 minutes.
- I got 4 more inquiries after raising the price to $347 in the email link.
- The real-time social proof gave users the confidence to trust me. Without the screenshot, some might think I was bluffing about the sale.
Overall, the 5 sales and one annual subscription (yet another experiment I ran) brought in $1365 in one day.
Lesson 1- The power of an email list
Russell Brunson often talks about the power of an email list. I didn't fully grasp it until I experienced it firsthand.
You don't own the traffic on Google Ads because you have to pay for every single click.
You don't own the traffic on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. Your reach depends on the algorithm overlord.
But you own your email list. You can email them anytime you want, and it's guaranteed to show up in their inbox.
In this case, I had a list of 300 people who had previously tried my AI SaaS. They went through the free trial but didn't sign up. However, they are problem-aware and actively seeking a solution in this space.
I was able to put together an intake form in a couple hours and sell it to these people thanks to my email list. This wouldn't have been possible without my own traffic.
Even an email list of 300 people had the purchasing power of $1000/day. Imagine 30k.
Biggest lesson today - Build an email list and nurture the people on it.
Lesson 2 - The power of stacking offers
I first heard of the idea of stacking offers in Justin Welsh's newsletter. I didn't remember the details, but the concept struck a chord with me.
Because this approach not only maximizes the lifetime value of each customer but also introduces efficiency in customer acquisition costs (CAC).
In my case, a free trial of my core product became the lead magnet for the premium, done-for-you service.
This synergy between offerings not only enhanced the appeal of our suite of solutions but also paved the way for more sustainable, cost-effective growth - I could potentially reach a much lower or even negative CAC on my core SaaS product.
I build PressPulse in public and share my learnings along the way. If you want to see more entrepreneurial lessons like this, follow my journey on twitter.
