We sold $300k in 60 days. Fully bootstrapped.

How we stayed alive, and replaced our pre-seed with actual sales.

Two months ago, we ran a lifetime deal on AppSumo.

The outcome?

• $336,356 in gross sales (not counting our recurring revenue)

• That’s an average of $5k+ per day, consecutively, for 60 days

• Over 5,200 new customers

• 150+ reviews with a 4.88/5 ⭐ rating (“tacos,” in AppSumo language 🌮)

• Dozens of calls with users

• ~300 support tickets

• Hundreds of comments on our deal page that basically turned into our product roadmap

Lifetime deals feel scary.
How can you know what will happen to your startup when you don’t even know what you’ll have for breakfast tomorrow?

But if the definition of a founder is “staying alive,”
we did what we had to do to stay alive.

And I’m so fricking proud of what we’ve built so far.

No VCs.
No “Harvard.”
No pitch decks.

Just us, a Chrome Extension, and our customers.
People are loving Pretty Prompt. You can read the full article here: https://prettypromptai.substack.com/p/from-startup-pivot-to-300k-in-60 (it's a bit too long for IndieHackers 😅)

Now we can step back, and see the full growth of new users through AppSumo, over the two-month run:

It’s incredible to see how committed AppSumo users are. They are not just buying tools; they are buying into the vision, story, and the founders of those tools.

They are almost like your “early investors”. But instead of trading equity, you trade lifetime access. We replaced our “pre-seed round” with an AppSumo campaign.

And we’re truly thankful for all AppSumo customers (“Sumolings”). We not only got a boost in sales, but also motivated customers who are aligned with us to improve the product long-term. And we’re not going to let them down.

Why it worked

1. A simple product

You don’t need a demo. You don’t need a sales call. You install it and immediately get it. (You can even try it without logging in.)

2. A plan for everyone

We had four tiers. With meaningful gaps between them.

Those gaps helped with upgrades without negatively impacting lighter users. We made sure every user received more value than they expected for their chosen tier.

3. The value was real

We kept seeing reviews saying the product “paid for itself” within the first few days, or “The best tool I have purchased on AppSumo over the years”.

That’s the kind of user love you can’t buy with marketing.

4. Timing

We hit Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and New Year.

That really helped. Every time there was a site-wide discount, we benefited from it, plus because the product was so popular, we were featured in the AppSumo newsletter multiple times, boosting sales over and over again.

5. We showed up → The most important one

We answered every single comment. We fixed bugs fast. Sometimes we shipped features the same day someone asked for them. (And we keep doing this!)

We ran webinars with other AppSumo founders.

We added updates every week.

We took care of support and answered personally.

People noticed that. It made it clear that we care. And we’re here for the long-term.

On a personal level

This campaign not only validated that the product works, but also validated that people love it.

And on a personal level, it validated that we can deliver.

We can build. We can sell.

And most importantly, we can learn, adapt fast, and not die.

To all our users, this one’s for you. 💛

Here’s to the next 12 months, fully backed by our customers 💪