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The first time we launched Aryel’s deal on AppSumo Marketplace was in November 2020 – we were still a tiny crew working hard to keep up with new updates and features, with no dedicated customer service or community management. 🥲
When AppSumo contacted us to run a new 2-month deal as a Select Deal in 2021, we knew it was a “go big or go home” situation. 💪 The team had grown, and we were ready to launch a fantastic deal, backed by a new Customer Success team and even better features for the Sumo-lings community.
If you don’t know AppSumo, it’s essentially a group buying service for businesses. Aiming to level the playing field, it enables smaller players to afford enterprise-grade tools and software at a reduced price by leveraging the purchasing power of many. Each month, they promote eight tools to their community of over 800,000 entrepreneurs and startups.
The idea of offering a lifetime membership for SaaS products might sound a little crazy (if not risky) at first. But, from a long-term point of view, it’s a worthy strategy to showcase a platform to a broad community of tech-savvy users and get a chance to hear honest feedback from them.
Was it a crazy ride? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely! 😎 Even though some Sumo-lings asked awkward questions, we knew we had to answer them all while collecting priceless feedback and reviews on the platform. We responded to 160+ questions, published a transparent public roadmap, and made tweaks to the deal to offer our community what they needed and asked for.
This resulted in a total payout of $36,000+, with more than 2,100 codes sold worldwide. Meanwhile, we listened to our users, enhancing our knowledge base with FAQs, tutorials, and demos to showcase what Aryel can do and improve their experience on the platform.
Enough chit-chat; here’s our story on how we landed (and treaded water) on AppSumo!
The question arises: Could running a deal on AppSumo potentially devalue the product? It’s clear that AppSumo customers won’t buy anything from Aryel in the future since they already have a rich lifetime deal. However, we realized this wasn’t necessarily about the money but rather the exposure and feedback it could bring.
As soon as we were selected for an AppSumo lifetime deal, we knew we had to prepare our platform with ad-hoc features like code redemption and ticket management in-platform. 🚀 We also enhanced our features based on feedback from AppSumo tests, as their team asked a bunch of Sumo-lings to test the platform and provide feedback. We needed to score high on several parameters to get featured.
Negotiating the deal was challenging as AppSumo’s revenue split is strict, between 25%-75%. The tricky part was structuring the lifetime deal to be appealing to new users without overwhelming them with too many features and benefits. ⚡️
We generated 10,000 stackable codes, filled thousands of documents, and our Customer Success team improved the Help Center with over 100 articles and FAQs. We created both video and written tutorials and added a customer support chat. Once these crucial steps were completed, we were ready to launch on AppSumo! Yay! 🔥
This is where the fun began! Our Customer Success Team worked closely with Developers & Sales to answer every question and review, collect feedback, and even convert free users into paying LTDs. 👀 We fixed bugs based on user reports and stayed in touch with the AppSumo team via a dedicated Slack channel.
We followed a kindness-over-all approach when dealing with users and potential ones, especially when Sumo-lings got too… passionate. 😇
Once our deal launched, we quickly discovered that Sumo-lings know no sleep. If there’s a weak point on your platform, they’ll find it and ask about it. 🤯 Our customer success team worked day and night to track all questions, provide detailed answers, and kill them with kindness – while also managing tickets on our Help Center. We noticed an immediate traffic spike on our website and a surge of interest in our deal. 📈
Our deal started in mid-November, which meant we caught AppSumo Black Friday—making our offer even more attractive. Some users even refunded codes to re-buy them at a more convenient Black Friday price! 😳
Time flew, and by early January, thanks to 65+ excellent reviews (with an average of 5 🌮), we earned a spot in the FOMO newsletter – notifying all AppSumo subscribers that our deal was ending. This spurred another sales peak.
Ok, let’s talk numbers…
Jumping on the AppSumo train might seem scary, and it’s no picnic: you need to cover all bases and prepare for (sometimes harsh) opinions from users online. You must be ready to answer questions at any time, revisit your roadmap, and practice self-criticism.
However, it’s worth the effort. You can showcase your platform to a broader audience, build customer loyalty, and gain users’ trust by transparently answering their questions. Plus, you can’t ignore the sales. 💰
Launching on AppSumo requires a dedicated team, consistency, and patience. It can be challenging for startups that are new to the market, but it’s a fantastic opportunity to get noticed worldwide! 💜 So will we do it again in the future? Definitely yes!
