I got cooked
We experimented with a free pilot for our SaaS. 37 people signed up, but only 8 actually used our tool. Out of those, only 2 eventually converted to paying customers.
We have a high monthly cost in scraping and AI credits per user ($21/mo). I’m thankful that we have enough growth to eat up the loss, but damn, this free pilot round is rough.
Send thoughts and prayers.
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PS: I started moving over to X/Twitter. I'll post more there in the future. Feel free to follow along if you're curious about me building in public.
https://x.com/Matt___Bauer
Hi Matt,
that drop-off (37 to 2) is really an activation problem, not a pilot failure the fact that people signed up but didn't use it usually means the value isn't landing before the "aha" moment, not that the product itself is weak. Worth digging into what the 8 who used it did differently in their first session versus the 29 who didn't.
Also I think, with $21/mo in scraping/AI cost per user, your free-to-paid conversion rate matters way more than signup volume right now. I'd almost rather see 10 signups and 4 conversions than 37 and 2, since every unconverted free user is pure cost. Might be worth gating the free tier tighter or adding a short onboarding nudge before they hit the expensive part of the tool.
Anyways, this is exactly the kind of activation/conversion gap I work on.
I run NORSE, we embed BD and customer growth execution into SaaS/startups hitting this wall, and I believe this is something we can solve. Happy to trade notes if useful, even just informally.
O
Ive seen quite slow growth on my own project, but still trying to get the word out there which seems to be the most difficult part, trying to get strangers to give it a shot is a challenge. so its good to see than others are gaining some momentum with their even if its a gradual increase. Good luck