Idea to profitable software product in 5 days: Hieu Nguyen on MVPs and LTDs

I wanted to view the results quickly, so I planned 3 months schedule. I thought it seemed quick enough. But just 5 days? It's super ridiculous! I will follow this point of view.

Thanks to you I've discovered many other LTD market places on top of AppSumo

It's an interesting take on using LTDs and existing libraries to get things going quickly and to start making revenue. Couple of questions:

1. Are there any good lists of libraries people use to get things up and running?
2. What do you think of stopping LTDs eventually or is there always a place for them to entice the types of customers who don't like recurring payments?

wow! it is an interesting new pressure in our world to have the next big million dollar idea. why not just do something small and have actionable small wins too?!

Being a coder helps a lot indeed!

I work with a lot of founders to help them validate their ideas before putting money and time, without any coding skills. But being a coder makes things easier.

I think the life time deal aspect of this product makes a lot of sense. It’s not costing you anything extra as everything runs on the client machine. Nothing stops you from focusing on the web experience now so you can slowly bring those desktop users into the subscription fold. (Which you could probably release through the desktop client!)

I’m sure you’re more than aware of this, but judging by the comments I feel some are missing the point

I'm a web developer and I always turn to writing games when I have spare time. I should really concentrate on Saas products like these so I can become a real Indie Hacker.

On my opinion, before making LTD deals, one should estimate:

1. The term when your business will be profitable enough to cover these LTD expenditures (for example 2 years)
2. The quantity limit of LTD clients which you can support before the term 1) will pass (for example 100)
3. Slightly adjust the calculations so that there is a reserve
   This will help not to bankrupt in middle term.

The problem with LTD is sustainability. Sure, right now you can earn some extra buck (also rather quickly).

But once you get above a certain level of usage, the LTD can come back to bit you in the butt.

How would you deal with that?

Nice

The thing is I see some web based software that offer LTDs I don't know how they are profitable in the long run.

I really like your point about the importance of speed in the business world.

Entrepreneurs undoubtedly face an intense challenge in aiming for success in their applications. It is essential to act fast, discard the superfluous and focus on the essentials.

This is key advice for any entrepreneur.

It's fascinating to see how you capitalized on the concept of MVPs and the strategy of offering lifetime deals to quickly monetize and validate your idea. The speed at which you were able to develop, market, and then profit from your product is commendable and offers a valuable lesson on lean product development and the power of leveraging existing platforms and communities.

Question:
How do you plan to balance the incoming feedback from early users with your own vision for the product's long-term development?

Great article!

Speed is very important in any business and it is very true if you are indieprenuer who want to get to profitability and escape you 9-5 job to focus on your business.

The reason is simple. Any idea how well validated or researched it is have a very good chance of not working out. There is so much factor that is hard for you to control. You might make a time travel machine and try to sell it but people will not believe in you. The list of things that can go wrong is endless.

Thats why speed solve this thing.

Indieprenuer essentially was called app gambler. You make app and hope it work.

So if you have speed by cut every bullshit that you want to make and make things that need to be made, and make sure whatever you are building should be running within 1 day, you will have better chance of success.

Here is How to master speed in business

Great read. We're currently running LTDs on 6 different platforms for one of our newest Products. LTDs can give you a quick cash injection, as with us, but long-term it definitely wouldn't be sustainable if we didn't focus more on the RR side of things. Thanks for sharing!

Really interesting, you need any validation when you build something that you're gonna end up using.

Really interesting, you need any validation when you build something that you're gonna end up using

Useful! Thank you sharing this awesome Idea! I really like it.

I wonder how he went about validating the idea before making the MVP

Very nice article, I was trying to come up with a list of websites for LTD.

So far I have:

• AppSumo
• Stacksocial
• pitchground
• DealMirror
• DealFuel
• Dealify
• InkyDeals
• Dealjumbo
• SaaS Pirate
• SaaSWiz
• Rebeliance
• SaaSMantra
• GrabLTD
• Lifetimo

Feel free to add any LTD websites as well as experiences! :)

What communities did you use to market on Reddit?

What's with the name ishim?

New to this, had an idea a few days ago for a subscription based social media service where a founder/marketing rep can pay one flat rate for complete turn key social media marketing. Including content creation (photo, video, design. Ideal target market being e-commerce stores).

Leveraging my currently existing media agencies processes i've been able to streamline the onboarding process to make things really simple for busy founders.

To incentivize further and get the first few sales i've even tried including unlimited post requests on top of a pre-scheduled social calendar and allowing customers to receive the finished post within two days of requesting it.

Can i make my SaaS project Open Source ?

I've seen a few indie hackers offering LTD for their saas at the launching week/month.

I think is a good strategy to get an initial kick specially if you are new in the industry you are targeting but definitely is something that you have to think wisely, because as you say not all products are a good fit for the LTD.

You can get in big troubles if your product scale and the LTD eats all your profit.

I feel there are only certain types of products that can be monetised quickly. Others take longer to build and sell. How do you spot ones that are quick to make money?

Hey James,
I believe LTD can kill the product in the long run as the support cost overshadows the price paid for LTD, I'm open to learning more about it. Did you opt for some agencies to sell those deals?

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Thanks for sharing this fantastic article and I also start my small business.
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I think LTDs for microSaas is a great idea. I hav e been considering pitchground or app sumo off late for my saas, but third party costs are super high.

Great insights, thanks for sharing. I'm going to adopt this approach in my next project.

Great insights on building profitable software in 5 days! MVPs, reusing code, marketing on social media, and leveraging lifetime deals for fast sales. Impressive!

Just twitter and reddit marketing, wow?

Thank you for sharing this informative and inspiring piece of information.

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A bias towards action is so important. Great read, thanks for sharing.

Nice

this is awesome, you showed us the importance of taking action quick

this is awesome, you showed us the importance of taking action quick

I really love your idea
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thanks for sharing! Lately i see a lot of posts that lifetime deals are better than subscriptions and I'm thinking in making such project.

Informative and inspiring. Thanks for sharing

Good work!

First dollar from Hacker News (tough crowd to please) must've felt great! congrats

Nice!

Thanks for sharing, its true that web based app have cost that are hard to estimate in the long run but still if you overshoot it you could add a LTD to that kind of app also

thanks!

Thanks for sharing. Valuable ideas.

Great stuff! I wonder how the quality in user feedback varies between your LTD customers and subscription customers.

Love the idea, building small and specific product is more suitable for indie developers. Thanks for your sharing!

I always heard bad things about LTD, but this is a really useful, nuanced approach!

Thanks for sharing!

I like the references, thanks a lot. Not sure if I can make it profitable though...

Now i know about AppSumo. Thanks

Eh I think for a micro-saas built within a week where you don't have to use a lot of 3rd-party paid APIs LTD isn't a terrible idea. If you can get quick sales for LTDs, you can always swap to monthly later on for new customers.

And if your initial traction customers would pay for LTDs but not monthly subscription, then I don't think it's really 'trading future revenue' for short-term gains, because you would have grossed $0 from those customers anyway.

The main downside of LTDs as I see it is that you can't really ever upgrade or polish the product to leverage paid 3rd-party APIs, which could be fine if you intend for it to stay as a micro-SaaS. The other major downside of LTDs is I feel it wouldn't be super secure in terms of monthly revenue. Subscriptions churn, yes, but LTDs are really saying every single customers that has bought has also just churned. You have to market infinitely in order for it to keep scaling (unless the product is so good and has such a wide appeal people can WOM it and it grows forever). But something about not having repeat customers seem scary to me.

Thanks for the amazing article!

Great work! Love to see an article on something that's very important and knowledgeable.

Nice work...keep it up

Awesome article,
Love the concept of LTD's. How would that work for an app that is free anyways?

The great thing about this project is that he built only two features, that enabled to get it to market in a few days.

Does LTD in this context mean "limited liability company"?

LTDs have always been a controversial topic. While they can provide a quick boost in revenue, they may also limit potential income in the long-term. However, when implemented strategically and with the goal of obtaining capital quickly, LTDs can be a viable option for some products. It's important to weigh the pros and cons and consider the long-term potential of the product before implementing a lifetime deal strategy.

I am surprised to see that customers will trust that a LTD will actually last. I would have imagined that the modern world of frequent corporate failures would erode trust in LTDs actually lasting a lifetime. I realize there is some recognition that it really means lifetime of the company, not the buyer, but still.

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Thanks for sharing !

Thanks!

Thanks for sharing your story.

I always have this skepticism in mind that people who buy LTDs are not the real customers but the ones who like to buy every shiny object out there in the market.

What is your experience so far?

Thanks for sharing this, provides a lot of insight towards LTD!
Do you guys know other similar sites to AppSumo?

LTDs can be great if you can upsell... Or if you have no ongoing costs... but the trade off is also you have to handle the deal and CS. Contemplating it myself actually...

So... 2 months later. Is the product still going? Have you managed to upsell any of the lifetime deals?

Reading this made me realize that there are so many undiscovered ideas out there, thanks!

awesome article. very interesting

Very informative post. Great one!

I see selling LTD is not just to get fast money, but a marketplace like Appsumo and Stacksocial have huge userbase for you to use it as an accelerator to boost your brand presence. The short term effect is surely the funds for you to further develop your product, but you can use these new customers as validation to your product as a long-term effect. I have seen startups use LTD to gather ideas for their roadmap, get testimonials or even raise funds because investors want to see traction and growth.

Can I comment?

That may sound a bit pessimistic but I, as a customer, try to avoid products what aggressively sell "lifetime" subscriptions to me. I might be wrong but it feels like they're just going to get the money from the market and stop supporting the product after a year or two. Not because they want to play shady games, but just because of the pure nature of the business and marketing. When the market is full, the amount of sales drops, and the revenue simply won't be enough for the founders to maintain the product.

Can you talk about early adopters a little bit more? I'm still not sure about this phase.

How do you continue to bring traffic to the website?

Great way to frame another lever to get some early customers and validation!

It's great to do this with software as it reminded me of the story about the American Airlines unlimited lifetime 1st class passes that ended up costing them millions haha. Link to the airline story if interested: https://thehustle.co/aairpass-american-airlines-250k-lifetime-ticket/

From my own experience, platforms like Appsumo and Stacksocial are both great for bootstrapped projects, cause you can raise some funds for your ongoing dev process or pay for your server. But, if we talk about the value of customers who came from these deals - they are mostly useless.

Launching with LTDs is a good strategy - but we should then figure out how to upsell them into other products/services later on. This way LTD could be a good way of bring in future recurring revenue customers. Nice write up.

Real people, real stories. Thanks for sharing.

Inspiring, thank you for sharing this. I was wodering if AppSumo helps in attracting the right customers? What is your take on this.

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I tried AppSumo, but it attracts very low quality customers, many refund (even though their policy says no refunds), and in general they take too big of a cut and it doesn't lead to sustainable income.

I sell my product Affiliate Corner for lifetime deals only. No subscriptions.

I take all my LTV value upfront.

Recently crossed $25k in revenue in 6 months of starting out.

LTD works. But it depends on what type of product it is.

What is an LTD? Life time deal?

That's pretty inspiring. Kudos @hieunc!

I've always been on the fence with LTDs. Seems like a quick win at the cost of future revenue. But I feel like it's probably a good idea if you do it strategically and you need capital fast.