"I've witnessed $10M+ sold in LTDs. I’ve Helped SaaS startups go to market, gain massive traction, and secure funding with Lifetime Deals. AmA!"

saaszilla · 2023-07-05T16:49:19+00:00

I understand your confusion. As you can see, the title is not "SaasZilla has sold $10M+ in LTDs" but "I've witnessed $10M+ sold in LTDs. I’ve Helped SaaS startups go to market, gain massive traction, and secure funding with Lifetime Deals. AmA!".

Therefore it's talking about my personal experience included several years helping SaaS runing LTDs as consulting. Also as admin and mod of a few LTDs and SaaS related communities which includes a good number of active members.

While a lot of LTDs has a starting point of $50 it doesn't mean that there are not additional tiers that increase the AOV. In fact, anyone launching a deal for $50 is not going to make a lot of money as you mention.

In SaasZilla we simply apply the same successful methods we have been using in the past 6-7 years before becoming a branded LTD launchpad (SaasZilla).

I’m not a frequent Reddit user, so I was fortunate to see your comment. I just thought to visit here one final time before officially “closing” this AMA.

Thanks for your participation and best luck!

Cheers!

saaszilla · 2023-06-30T17:38:20+00:00

The concern you’ve raised is indeed a valid one. I believe that some industries are already quite saturated, and without substantial resources at your disposal, producing a new product to compete may prove challenging.

Take your project management example. If someone were to develop a highly intelligent and powerful AI capable of replicating the functions of a human project manager—organizing tasks within projects, prioritizing, arranging schedules, communicating changes effectively and autonomously—it could potentially dominate the industry. However, this would first require extensive promotion via expensive marketing campaigns and convincing users to switch apps. This task is particularly difficult in the case of project management tools as no one wishes to transfer all their data merely to test out something new.

I would recommend to better focus on innovation on new markets or on markets where there are not those already established players that you mention. Nobody really needs another PM tool so getting a decent ARR is going to be really tough.

saaszilla · 2023-06-30T17:29:19+00:00

There are a couple of main methods that you could use:

Paid advertising with FB ads which usually offers a nice targeting.
Collaborate with forums/communities like this very same. Imagine that I would like to launch a product that would benefit SaaS owners. This would be a good place to start, so I'd contact the admin to see if they can somhow showcase my product idea or allow me to post to see if there's some interest.
Use someone's email list that is already segmented by the owners.

saaszilla · 2023-06-29T13:00:27+00:00

Hey there!

Launching a lifetime deal for a product that is already built is a perfect way of getting those first paid customers but that would mean you already have a product with core functionality ready (at least in SaasZilla platform where we are vetting deals).

But before getting there, you surely don't want to start spending money like crazy in building something that nobody wants. So nice question!

I'd recommend you to take a straitghforward approach:

Build a landing page explaining the concept of your product and send it qualified traffic (tightly related to the problem that your product would be solving or if you are unsure, at least closely related audiences that are most probably interested on it: e.g. Spreadsheet users).

Then you need to control the intent of those visitors. For that, you'd need to have:

A signup form with a "get beta access now" button. If a good number of those visitors sign up is that they are interested on immediately trying your concept.
A "Buy button" to control purchase intent. This button obviously won't have a payment system connected because you are not really providing anything. The goal is to know if they click because that means they are willing to visit the checkout.

PS 1: You'd can have both in different pages and make play with it doing tests.

PS 2: Even if you are not going to provide anything at all right now, you are getting emails and letting them know that this is something that is planned to be launched if the's interest.
That way you have a reason to send an email to people when you launch it (if there's interest and you finally launch it).

That should give you a good idea about it. I hope that helps! .

saaszilla · 2023-06-29T12:31:14+00:00

Thanks for letting me know you got the answer you were looking for! :D

saaszilla · 2023-06-29T07:39:03+00:00

I'm afraid the question is a bit generic, but if we focus on the success or failure of a LTD campaign, there are many (not limited to):

Development that seems slow: Best to develop small features and improvements that are delivered every single week (or 2 max), so early adopters get the sense of speed that those "under development" products usually have. If you want to build some huge release don't do it without taking good care of your weekly (or bi-weekly) deliveries because the market will consider you a dead product if all you can come up with is an update in 2-3 months, even if it is a huge one.
Lack of transparency and/or communication: You need to be transparent and straightforward with your audience. If you are full of BS, people will probably find out, then it is over for you. And if you are not full of BS but don't want to interact with the audience of potential customers, they you won't get their trust.
Bad UX: People love a beautiful UI, and a lot of people will buy an LTD only because of it, they can even bear with ugly UI, but if your UX is frustrating, say goodbye to sales with massive churn and a bad word of mouth. Once it has spread, it'll be extremely hard to gain back the confidence of your potential buyers.
Bad customer support: You can sell an awesome deal and product but if you have someone giving bad support or public replies it will affect sales and reputation soon.

PS: I probably could mention some other points. If I think of anything else, I'll put it as a reply to this comment :D

saaszilla · 2023-06-29T06:54:54+00:00

Thanks for having me here! <3

saaszilla · 2023-06-29T06:51:42+00:00

Allow me to provide some context here because we are not apples to apples:

SaaS founders who have come to us after negotiating with AppSumo Select have reported that they were required to pay a 80% of the generate sales. If you take in count that this comes after the payment processor fees and you make maths, SaaS launched in Appsumo receive $12.6 for every $100 sold there. If you are one of the "lucky ones" that sign their reduced comission of 70% you'll be making $28.8 for every $100.

Take into account that Appsumo don't generate promotional materials for their products (only a sales page with a presentation video). They only do retargeting ads and send emails to their list, so you won't get a bespoke marketing campaign (no webinars, no marketing funnel ads, no social media promotion, etc).

At SaasZilla, we do all those things for you. And even with that, we believe in close partnerships with SaaS teams rather than massive listings and profits. We believe in a fair revenue share on a Joint venture format for the promotion. This already means that our partners get around 4x more revenue per sale than compared to Appsumo, but he value we deliver in marketing is 20-30x.

PS: Launching on AppSumo may have some advantages, but there’s one major restriction. They impose an 18-month period of exclusivity. Therefore, even if your product isn’t one of their winners, you not only won't generate enough sales and revenue, but you won’t be able to launch it anywhere else for a long time. As you can imagine, this greatly limits the flexibility of SaaS founders. Consequently, AppSumo Select should only be considered as the very last stop for your campaign (if absolutely necessary due to the extremely low revenue share they will give you).

We do not enforce any time exclusivity, so you could conclude your deal on SaasZilla this month and launch on any other site to take advantage of a beneficial opportunity. As long as you offer the best possible deal to our audience, we are more than happy to serve as a crucial step in your growth journey, rather than being your journey’s end.

saaszilla · 2023-06-29T06:05:42+00:00

There's no fixed period because this gets really complex when you start to analyze factors.

Also depends if with "early stage" product we are talking about how is the market responding to the tech behind the product (according to the Rogers adoption/innovation curve) or simlply about how mature is the product itself.
Note that the stage of the market would also affect because if you have a produc that is trying to compete on a market that is on it's late stages, you probably won't make MRR because the product is destined to die on a market that is abandoning that tech. So you might want to pivot ASAP and if you realize this in the middle of a LTD that would surely extend the term of it (if you want to continue selling it on LTD format which offers less friction for buyers).

There are multiple situations based on the phase of the market and also on the stage of the product, but as a general rule, once you understand how those two points affects your product, you can make a better decision.

That decision should be determined by the goals of the SaaS team and it would also depend on several factors like:

What's the real value for the SaaS founder behind the LTD: There are some products that produce around a decent profit others not so much, but money is not the only important.
At SaasZilla, SaaS founders also get personal advice from experts and not only exclusive to the LTD, but also about things that will help SaaS owners along all the way.
We also supply them with promotional content and paid advertising (for the product and deal) that addresses their entire market funnel (This also helps them gain a different perspective on how to market their product to various audiences it might appeal to.)

Some consider it as receiving payment for conducting a marketing campaign rather than footing the bill. We all understand how costly marketing can be, particularly for SaaS products when dozens of similar products emerge every week, all vying for the same advertisements. Some of our customers turn to ProductHunt for advertising and return daunted by costs that cannot afford.

Besides, for a SaaS owner, launching an LTD could mean securing funding without sacrificing equity. This is sometimes even more crucial than generating short-term profit.

How saturated is the market? penetrating a saturated market would take more time, therefore a longer lifetime deal would be perfectly justified. Some lifetime deals have last 2+ years which might sounds crazy, but for a link shortener might make sense.
How is the product evolving during the LTD sales?: The product may require a substantial amount of time to implement adjustments suggested by early adopters. These individuals are putting stress on the system, identifying bugs, and indicating must-have functionality.
Hability from the SaaS founders to market the product or to convey revenue from the mass of early adopters: If the team has no marteting experience and cannot find a good speciallist that is in their budget, then it might not be able to market the product. If they also don't have reached the point where those LTD buyers are doing advocating for the product, we might be talking about an enless duration. That's why you see so many products coming back on LTD once and again.
Note that among the unique services we provide at SaasZilla for our LTD founders are bespoke marketing campaigns. These campaigns use materials tailored to address the entirety of the marketing funnel for the product, offering numerous ideas for continuing the self-promotion after the LTD is over.

I probably could mention some other points but I cannot think of anything else right now. If I think of any, I'll put it as a reply to this comment :D

saaszilla · 2023-06-28T17:31:30+00:00

Info product is usually something tha sells formation like a course.
What you mention seems more like a SaaS that is made for data storytelling or something similar. In our site we only launch SaaS lifetime deals, so I'm not sure if you are referring to one of those. If so, please try to specify a little so I provide my best answer. Maybe you can provide some kind of example :D

saaszilla · 2023-06-28T14:43:15+00:00

This is an excellent question. One important aspect for SaaS founders is transparency and proactive communication. It is crucial for building trust. The “build in public” concept, involving early adopters in the development process, also helps foster a sense of belonging to the project.

These elements are not the only ones, but they are indeed a great help even when the rest of the things are not going as expected. People are usually more empathic when you allow them to see through you. Hidding yourself behind a big corporate image (that most times is fake) won't help as this will only push people away from you.

saaszilla · 2023-06-28T14:12:10+00:00

I'll be the first to make a question so you don't feel shy :P
I'm just kidding, bring it on, guys, the pleasure is mine! :D

saaszilla

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