Price Tempter

We are running a sweepstakes (https://pricetempter.com/account.html) that has really helped accelerate signups. We are now tracking the prices of over 1000 lists and growing quickly. It has also given us some great feedback on what we need to do next to make the experience even better for customers.

We have rebranded When to Buy to be Price Tempter. We have an MVP up and going where customers can share their wishlist with us, subscribe to interest lists, and be notified when there are great prices. Things always take so much longer than expected, but I have started partnering with two other ex-Amazonians and that has really sped things up. Much more to come on the look/appearance, functionality (search, browse) etc. but at least the basic functionality is up and going.

I have achieved full automation! Well, nothing is ever 100% automated, but all of the major processes are now automated. One of the ways I launched quickly was to punt the things I didn't know how to do and some of the edge cases. Instead, I just did them manually. There were several backend FTP processes that I could not figure out. Thankfully, a friend helped me through the details and it is now automated! This frees up my time to focus on growth and product improvements. It also means I could mostly walk away from it and have it grow organically as a source of passive income. Whew! What a weight off my shoulders.

Looking back, I think I would do it the same way again. Get the happy path working, get it in front of customers quickly, don't be afraid of manual processes, but then come back and automate it quickly.

I now have over 100 subscribers and tracking 263 lists (up over 100 lists from the last report on November 21st). So far, I have only done social media posts on my own network. Now, I need to figure out how to really put the gas on this. I am planning to do some reddit posts, invite personal email to friends and family, and submit to Hacker News. Anything else I should be doing? I am also thinking of adding a feature where anyone can subscribe to someone else's list, which handles both the influencer use case (like our favorite games: https://alittlefamilyfun.com/whentobuy/3DHQ6J8EPBWXZ.html) and the birthday/holiday/gifting use case. It would then also help to spread the news. My kids have been going crazy of their when to buy lists and making sure we are getting great deals on their list. They know we have a set budget and they will get more if they help us find deals. :)

In addition to getting alerts on "Great time to Buy" items from their wish list, subscribers now have a list they can go to (here is mine: https://alittlefamilyfun.com/whentobuy/115R51ROXCS1Z.html) That has all of the items on their wish list categorized into great, good, okay, or bad time to buy. The list is pretty bare bones and will need a UI/UX update soon, but it should be a value add feature I have not really seen anywhere else. Also, I am not a trained programmer, so if this takes off, I will need to hire someone to build it the right way. :)

I am excited to let you know the MVP for When to Buy has launched and you can sign up here if you are interested: https://alittlefamilyfun.com/when-to-buy/

Here is a scaled back version of what I posted on social media:
How can you save time and money so that you can put that toward more family fun? I am excited to let you all know that I have launched the first phase of a much larger vision around personalized shopping!

Do you love saving money, but hate having to comb through deal sites, wait in line and fight the crowds for holiday deals, or wonder if you are getting a good price when you buy online? During my 10 years working for Amazon, I was always surprised at how hard it was to find great deals on items I actually cared about. I think I have now created the hands down easiest way to find good deals and know when to buy items you care about through When to Buy alerts, powered by A Little Family Fun (https://www.alittlefamilyfun.com/).

Instructions to sign up are here: https://alittlefamilyfun.com/when-to-buy/, but basically, just share your Amazon List with me and I will monitor it several times a day and let you know if any of your items meet my criteria for being a great time to buy. The service is FREE and you can always unsubscribe if you don’t find it helpful.

Prices fluctuate like crazy online and if you have just a little patience, you can save 20-50% on items by just knowing when to buy. I hope you love the service and save a ton of money.

Enjoy! Justin

After deciding to make another go at the Wish List Alerts idea, I met with another friend of mine who had been working on another side gig with me called Motivation Fund. He had made some great progress and we could see a quick path to an MVP, so I decided to pause this idea temporarily to get an MVP up for that idea. However, I need to have this idea up and going before holidays. That will be the best time to prove out the concept.

After 10 years at Amazon, I have left to start my own ventures. One of the side gigs a friend and I built several years ago was called Wish List Alerts. After getting a working prototype and getting to over 100 lists we were monitoring, we shut it down. Several reasons for this:

1. We had three failed attempts at getting approved for Amazon Associates (yes, ironic given I worked there), putting a big hole in our monetization strategy.
2. Keeping up the maintenance of the data gathering was more than I wanted for a side gig
3. I started a new role at Amazon that I loved and I wanted to give that my full focus
4. We were able to sell some of the code for several thousand dollars, which made us feel better about exiting.

Looking back, I wish we would have hired a free lancer to help keep it going, dug deeper into what we needed to do to get approved for Amazon associates, and made incremental improvements with time permitting, even if it was for learning only. We had received really great feedback (e.g. "I loved those alerts, I used them to buy everything for Christmas."). Oh well, water under the bridge.

Now, I am pursuing my own ventures full time and decided to brush this off and make a go at it again. I will be using Keepa for my data, which takes a huge load off the data needs. I will also be using our family blog to get approval for associates: https://alittlefamilyfun.com/. In fact, I could see this growing to be a service for bloggers and influencers, like a WordPress plugin where they can have their followers subscribe to a list of items they recommend.