I launched ClarifyPDF a week ago. Some numbers and learnings.
7 days ago, I launched my new SaaS, ClarifyPDF. You upload a PDF for $1.99 and then chat with it. No signups or subscription. Just a one-time payment.
Here are some stats since launch.
- Visits: 870
- Average time on site: 1 min.
- Conversion: 4.8% (42 purchases)
- Abandoned carts: 260 (30% - ouch)
- Revenue: $44.45
- Refunds: 1
- Disputes: 1
- User feedback: 10
- Mailing list signups: 92
- Picked up by listing sites: 8
- Approach from "influencers": 5
What I've learned:
- The AI hype has slowed down, but is still alive. Launching anything in this space will still give you good visibility.
- AI influencers will charge you A LOT of money just to send you some traffic.
- Aggregators are your friend. They will send you a lot of traffic for free.
- You don't need analytics at launch. You do need a chatbot at launch (or whatever will make it easy for your users to give you feedback with).
- Launch with discount codes, and use different ones for different communities. It helps people test out your product, and you can see which communities are more engaged.
- Purchase disputes are expensive! Make it really easy for customers to ask for a full refund.
Where I "launched": a Twitter post, Hacker news "Show HN" post, Indie Hackers post.
It wasn't a "big launch", as the goal right now is to learn. Looking at doing a weekly "launch" to new and existing viewers, as I keep improving the product.
I am sure you have already done, but just in case you have not, you should submit it to directories: https://shorturl.at/eqCY2
I've been meaning to! Thanks for the reminder.
It's very nice concept I can see college students using it... is that your primary target ... also perhaps considering monthly subscription model on the side would help it would really go side on side with how much you would save. Congrats on the launch hope to see more updates!
Hey thanks for the comment. Students were not my primary target, but they have been using it and I have been getting good feedback from them. So they are now!
Did you worry about an LLC/terms privacy, all that... Or just go for it? Not sure if those things are trivial now under some platform.
Just went for it. But I have put up a usage terms and privacy policy, now that people are asking about them. And customers will have to accept them before uploading a PDF.
nice, congrats on the paying customers
Thank you!
Do you have any preferred chat Ops/ boys that worked for your launch?
If you mean which chatbot I used at launch, it's crisp.chat. I still use it now. Highly recommend it.
Well done , step by step you will get there
Thank you!
Simple explanation of how you did that? Good job btw! From 0 to something!
Thank you! And sure, which part would you like me to explain?
How you made the text of a PDF conversational, do you keep history of conversation or is it a one-time question, so no history is preserved? Did you use vector database?
Sound like you already know the basics of how it works :)
I wrote up an outline of it here: https://farez.me/how-to-create-a-chatbot-with-openais-api-a-general-architecture/
Feel free to ask if you need more details.
Thanks for sharing!
I wonder if there's any way to chat with the abandoned carts? I wonder if there's a pop up or chat option on leaving intent. Maybe even offer some free credits for a chat?
Welcome!
At the moment, I'm just sending them an automated email and offering them a 50% discount. Just implemented a couple of days ago so I haven't checked how effective that is yet.
Single-purchases are new to me! Still learning how to handle these things.
Have you seen/tried anything that works?
I don't get it, I might have missed something:
How does 42 purchases - 2 (the refund + the dispute) = 40 * $1.99 translates to not almost $80 but Revenue: $44.45 ? What am I missing here? I assume there are transactional fees for the payment processor but that can't be half?
I think your product/idea is good, I actually like it and might use it. I don't like the pricing. While $2 is a low amount of money, it becomes really expensive when I want to use multiple documents. Why pay $20 for 10 documents when I can subscribe for $20 and have unlimited access with infinite documents or a set amount max docs like 1000? Why would I go with a typical SaaS subscription model? Well, your product is not something a person would use once, I can see people using this as a daily tool, so a subscription would be best here.
Just my 2 cents, hopefully it did not sound rude. Good luck in your endeavors!
Ah sorry, I forgot to include the discounted purchases! I gave out a bunch of early discounts so I can get people to try and get quick feedback. So yes, slightly less than half of that were discounted/free purchases, mostly on the first couple of days.
Yes, pricing is totally focused on single-uploads at the moment. I will be adding better pricing for bulk/multiple uploads. Currently considering one of these:
Thanks for your feedback!