Outcomes from Lifetime Deal

Few weeks ago Lifetime Deal(LTD) for BlockSurvey (https://blocksurvey.io) came to an end.

We all know AppSumo is the leader in this space. However, I have been looking for alternatives. I found Dealify, a startup based in the Netherlands, through this blog, https:/www.dealify.com/appsumo-alternatives/. I went with it. It was a great experience, and it's worth an experiment. Could be a growth hack too.

Sharing some of the key outcomes and learning from it. May be this will help someone who want to try and experiment without burning much.

Outcomes:

Increased product and brand awareness. SEO boost.
In range of 30 - 50 sign ups everyday.
Server usage up from ~50GB to ~250GB per month.
Bugs got uncovered and got fixed. These were blind spots earlier.
Created a community of over 100 people.
Made $10,000.

Key learnings:

How to support and write user guides / help docs.
How to take critical feedback and working on it.
How to build relationship with early adopters.
Shipped faster than ever before. Build for the audience. A focus shift.
Taking the road-map public helped being accountable.

P.S. I am very grateful to all the IndieHackers for sharing their experiences, and I picked up the Lifetime deal idea from the community. It was an experience to remember.

Wilson Bright

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Growth

on August 20, 2020

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Hey !

Thanks for sharing your experience ! That's something I always though "...nah" about but I'm starting to reconsider that position, especially if there are companies less agressive than appsumo.

Some questions that would make your share even more interesting :
- Is it as you expected ? More/less successful ?
- You mentioned 30-50 signups / day now. Do they convert as paying customers ? How many did you have before ?
- What was the % cut taken by Dealify ?
- Did you evaluate the cost of each LTD user in the long run ? What is their average value look like in terms of costs vs benefits ?
- Were you able to manage customer support ? Have you made changes in your process to be more efficient ? If yes, what are they ?
- Would you do it again ?
- What would you do differently in retrospect to make it even more successful ?
- Are LTD users the same as your target audience ? Does that influence product development in another direction ?
- Did you use coupon ?
- Would you say there are pre-requisites to make it work ? If yes, what are they ?
- Why did you choose Dealify vs alternatives ?
A lot of questions ah ! Feel free to share what's your comfortable with and ignore the others ;)

Cheers
Sheepp

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6 years ago
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1. 1
  Thanks for asking.
  
  Regarding the SEO. I didn't expect though. Currently, I get about 1000 clicks on Google which is a good start.
  
  Got 8 paying customer so far. Not much. Working towards conversion.
  
  Dealify takes in a range between 40 to 50%.
  
  Cost for each LTD is very minimal for BlockSurvey as it is running on the public infrastructure called Blockstack. I was worried about the support and time cost. Now it is coming down. Seeing it to be good for 3 years. Benefits are primarily brand awareness and opportunity to create a community. I see LTD could be used more of as a marketing spend.
  
  I used HelpScout for support. Some automation helps. I push the support requests from HelpScout to Slack and attend to it immediately. I also have defined workflows which helps me to reply using 'Saved replies' for similar questions. It has saved time. Also added how to use and faq's to helpcenter. (help.blocksurvey.io).
  
  I feel just once is enough for the LTD. I guess it is an experience to remember. That you have done it once.
  
  To be more successful, I would have prioritised the shaping up earlier over features. People like polished(UI/UX) products. There were refunds because of this.
  
  30% of the users are target audience / ideal customers. It does change the course of the product little bit with features as most of the users are trying to jump from another product and would request features from other products. It helped to understand what features are looked by non target audience and their willingness to pay for.
  
  I just generated a UUID as coupons. It is managed by Dealify.
  
  Pre-requisites are primarily 1. Roadmap 2. Help docs 3. Support process
  
  AppSumo mandates that you should have a runway for 12 months minimum. That led to choose an alternative.
  wilsonbright
  
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  6 years ago
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