$12,000 in 4 months with zero marketing
spend
Our podcast-transcription and content-repurposing tool Podnotes recently crossed $12,000 in revenue in just 4 months with zero marketing spend.
Amazing, isn't it?
It is, but also a bit misleading.
We made $12,000 by selling Lifetime Deals (LTDs) on AppSumo.
Podnotes is a spin-off of Audionotes — our note-taking tool. We observed that a good number of people were using Audionotes to transcribe podcasts/videos so we tweaked Audionotes a little bit and built out Podnotes. We wanted to try out AppSumo so we reached out to them and were onboarded after aligning on the deal.
Here's the good, the bad and the ugly
Why did we list Podnotes on AppSumo?
- AppSumo solves distribution for SaaS companies and in return offers great deals on lifetime plans for users
- We wanted to improve the product and generate some initial capita, AppSumo fit in perfectly
The good
- We got our early users who have been instrumental in helping us improve the app to an extent that we can now target the biggies in our space
- Generating $12,000 in revenue without any marketing spend would have been extremely difficult
- AppSumo customers are tough, we can now service all and any kind of customers :)
The bad
- We offer an LTD for $49 (Plan 1), $98 (Plan 2), and $147 (Plan 3) whereas our competitors charge ~$15/mo. On top of this, we pay 30% in commissions to Appsumo and also fund any additional discounts that are run by them.
- Users can refund their purchase within 60 days. We did find a % of users misusing the refund policy.
- AppSumo payouts take 60 days, which isn't exactly that great
Lifetime deals is a indirect (and an expensive) way of paying for CAC.
Reasons to do an AppSumo launch
- Early Users to build out a better product
- Some initial capital that you use later to grow your recurring revenue or improve the product
- Working with some really tough customers so that you are sorted for the future
Tips for selling on AppSumo
- Collect reviews from customers without violating Appsumo guidelines
- Make sure your customer support is great
- Answer customer questions on your product page
- Ask the AppSumo team for features when you hit review milestones
What's next for us?
- We will continue our campaign on AppSumo for another month or so to capitalise on the black Friday sale
- Move to a recurring revenue model early next year
We have been fairly happy with AppSumo, even though we feel we could have done a lot more in terms of sales.
Thanks for sharing this story! Looks like AppSumo would be somewhat useful for getting started. Do you think you'd use them again for future projects? Maybe for validation or getting early capital?
Congrats! AppSumo seems like a nice marketplace, and Noah’s (founder of AppSumo) newsletter is cool. Though, personally, as a customer, I didn’t find any interesting products on AppSumo.
congrats! i hope so i will rank my site in the same similar way custompatchesbymj
Congrats! Please share how it comes in AppSumo
Congratulations!
Congratulation!
When you have some time, can you please share how AppSumo customers are tough?
Awesome. Thanks for sharing!
How do you stand out from the high competition?
Thanks for sharing the experience! I didn't know about such service like app sumo, it's great opportunity for brand new apps that want to get first users relatively fast, awesome! :)
I have also another questions that how do you cover the operation costs of the services (like transcription and other API costs) when a lifetime deal user uses for a long time? Thanks for sharing!
We do not make much money on LTDs in the longer run but the margins from a successful MRR business will offset it
I find that when I search "podnotes" in google, the first result is an ad linked to the AppSumo product page. Do you run this ad?
No, we do not run any ads. Appsumo does it I think
It was great hearing the behind the scenes processes of LTDs and Appsumo - thanks for sharing!
So distribution was tackled via App Sumo's large network.
Thank you!
Awesome. Good lessons here! Thanks for that
great way to boost sales in short time with feedback!
Thank you for sharing your experience! i would like to try Appsumo to earn some commission as a testing purpose.
Congrats and hope get more users.
Need to ask just how to list on Appsumo 😅 they rejected me and have options not for saas
Thanks
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Congrats on the success you got on appsumo. I just wanna ask Looking beyond AppSumo, what other channels or tactics are you considering for acquiring customers.
Thanks, revenue seems low for AppSumo ( we don't mind the negatives, yet have not pulled trigger on AppSumo, in fear of too much activity in a short window. Although they chase us to list with them)
Congrats on the success of Podnotes! It makes sense to use AppSumo to get user input and early traction in order to expand later on.
Thanks!
This is gold, thanks for sharing. So did you make $8.4k after appsumo commission? Also, as a bit of a hack could you have increased your pricing by 30% to cover appsumo commission? Or would that have made the product to expensive for people to buy?
You are Right
So, this $12K is our net earnings. We have now increased pricing by 20% on AppSumo - will see how the sales hold up.
looking forward to the results of this increase.
Thanks for sharing. I never knew AppSumo before and this is very illuminating. I usually am not a big fan of lifetime offer as a customer. It does not give me enough confidence about the company financial situation, but offering a lifetime deal to acquire early users can be a way to go!
Yes, agree on the financial implications of an LTD but I think there are ways to make it work.
Thank you for sharing the experience, specially with AppSumo.
Glad you found this valuable :)
Sounds great, It's a one time $12K, but a good start to get some traction and build up some reviews.
Yep, that's the plan. Thanks!
Love the grind!
🙌