So, I earned $15,354 on AppSumo.
Here are 3 reasons why I won't ever do that again ๐ย
(tap to see ๐)
1/3 Crazy commission.
I wasnโt able to find out the exact amount of the commission because they made it shady. But people say it is 70%.
Don't get me wrong! Iโm OK with giving a cut for having new clients. My affiliate programs have always been ~50% more generous than the average market.
But hey. They just took all my money lol ๐
2/3 Low-quality clients.
People come to AppSumo NOT for products.
They come for bargains. For the emotions of buying something crazy cheap ๐ค
These people are not product guys. They are gamblers.
If you are making SaaS you want to avoid this audience AT ALL COST. These people wonโt contribute good to your community.
They will ask you for more and more features and integrations because they want to have a cheap 1000-in-1 tool to pay less.
They will complain a lot because they feel like you are obliged to them.
They will ask a lot of questions and never read guides.
The most important, they will distract you from what your real audience need.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not blaming these people or calling them bad. I'm blaming AppSumo which was designed to encourage this behavior.
3/3 Crazy churn.
Out of 210 sales, 71 people asked for a refund.
33%! ๐ฌ
It means people bought it because they were under heavy emotions or misled. They did not want it really.
Or they just wanted to trick me. All this sounds unhealthy.
I need people who are genuinely interested in my product. People who want it to become better. The ones who will support me and my work. These people are the foundation of my SaaS.
AppSumo gives you gelatin instead of concrete for your foundation ๐ซค
About LTDs in general:
Although I disliked my AppSumo experience, I adore the idea of selling SaaS LTD and I will do that again for @paracast_io. It is a great way to build an initial audience around your product and get a cash injection.
If I sell an LTD today, Iโd do it in a standalone format: on my own page with my own rules. Yes, it is harder, but if you sell it properly, you will get enough cash and a healthy user base.
I will make another tweet about running a standalone LTD if this thread gets at least 50k views. So support my content by liking it if you want to see more. Thanks.
โข โข โข
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i went a little crazy and created 6 (six) sideprojects over this weekend ๐ ๐
Here they are: (tap see them and learn why and how I built it)
1/6
It is a single-page web app that uploads your file and gives you a direct URL. Thatโs all! ๐
I often need this tool when I work: to embed an image to @producthunt or @indiehackers (both require a direct link) or to embed a video on a web page.
I will use this app to solve the problem of hosting videos online for the clients of @paracast_io as well. So I hope to earn money from it indirectly, by helping the users of .
Problems:
It is a super risky project. I know that the file hosting business is hard for 2 reasons:
1) costs 2) malice
I solved problem 1) (costs) by hosting the files on Cloudflare R2 which offers generous $0 traffic costs. But I know that Cloudflare can turn into a bitch anytime and force me to pay (). This is why I moved the project to a separate Cloudflare to protect my other projects.
I charge users nothing because I do not want to have full responsibility for the files' uptime. I will keep the service alive and pay for the storage costs, but if it begins to cost me thousands I will just shut it down.
The 2) problem is more tricky. Some odd ones may want to upload DMCA-protected files or pictures of naked persons or viruses. It may nuke the project overnight as well. I supplied a captcha, a nude pictures/video detector (try it!) and a virus detector to protect the project. Letโs see how it will go.
A single page app that removes background from an image.
The purpose of this side project is to drive traffic from SEO.
Code: I forked the repository of another maker: I was doubting a lot because it feels unfair. Technically, I just stole the code. It is not what I used to do. I create, not steal.
But I did this intentionally. I want to become less artist and more businessman. I want to have less emotion-driven decisions in my makerโs career.
I found a keyword opportunity. I found an open-source code. I made it work for me, strictly following the license agreements. Sounds fine.
Here are 6 SaaS ideas I toyed with until I decided to stick to Paracast.
๐ Feel free to steal:
1/6 Copybrain. AI co-writer. It stores your past experiences and helps with content creation.
The project has potential because content creation is hard. And it is a big market.
I will give it another try after llms will become a little better.
2/6 Uploadfile click. Upload files and give direct access links to them.
I constantly have this problem. When I post on Product Hunt and Indie Hackers, there is no โupload imageโ button but you can use img tags. Although you need to host an image somewhere. Google Drive/Dropbox/iCloud do not give a direct link.
Cool simple idea. But Iโm not sure about the market size.
I'd make it for myself if I had more free time.
According to my research, 69.8% of makers prefer starting a B2C product instead of B2B:ย
I had 100s of conversations with makers. I can clearly understand the main reason behind this decision: it is easy to come up with an idea. You just solve your own problem.
As an individual, you have many problems: finance tracking, habit tracking, note taking, gym/yoga routines journaling, making screenshots, and time tracking.
Plenty of sweet ideas to choose from! ๐
But building startups is tricky. There is much more besides the idea. Moreover, after reading this post you will understand that the idea is secondary.
You thought of stealing an idea. But you see lots of people making clones. Even clones of clones! The competition is crazy. And the whole game seems justโฆ pointless?
Let me give you a hope today ๐๐ (tap)
The simple idea:
Take any currently rising SaaS trend.
Sell it in a non-english speaking country.
All new SaaS trends are born in the English speaking bubble. Mostly the US.
What you do, is NOT joining the race like all the others. Instead, you choose a product and launch it in one non-english speaking country ONLY. Full focus on it.
Forget about the sweet US market. Yes it's a big pie. The biggest one. But the problem is that everyone wants this pie. Let them fight. You find a smaller pie and eat it all alone.