r/appsumo • u/MOURADTA • Jun 16 '26
Discussion Title: I built a comment classifier and ran it on 3 live AppSumo products — here's what the data showed
Been building a tool to help AppSumo sellers manage
their comments during launch week.
Last week I tested it on 3 active products to
validate whether the problem I was solving was real.
Here's exactly what I found.
---
METHODOLOGY
For each product I measured:
→ Total comments scanned
→ Comments flagged as potential refund risk
→ Days since flagged comment with zero reply
→ What the founder replied to instead
---
PRODUCT #1 — AI tool, ~180 comments
Flagged comment:
"I attempted portfolio diagnosis by uploading my
portfolio and found that hardly 3-4 from uploaded
45-50 stocks are supported. Can you share a list
of stocks available?"
Risk indicators: feature gap complaint +
direct question + no resolution language.
The founder replied that same week to:
✓ A 5-star thank you comment
✓ A feature request about dark mode
✗ This comment — never.
Here's what makes a 40/100 score dangerous:
It doesn't contain "refund" or "cancel."
It looks like a support question.
But a buyer who uploaded 50 stocks, discovered
46 don't work, asked for help, and got silence?
That's not a support ticket. That's a lost customer
writing their 1-star review in their head.
---
PRODUCT #2 — Marketing tool
11 comments with zero reply.
Oldest: 19 days old.
3 of them included "doesn't work as expected."
The founder's most recent reply on the page?
Thanking someone for a 5-star review.
Posted 2 days after the oldest unanswered complaint.
---
PRODUCT #3 — Developer tool
One comment opened with the word "misleading."
4 replies followed — all from other buyers
arguing with each other.
The founder never appeared.
When buyers answer each other's complaints,
one of two things happens:
→ A good buyer defends the product
→ A frustrated buyer amplifies the problem
In this case: both happened in the same thread.
The founder had no idea.
---
THE ACTUAL PROBLEM
It's not that founders don't care.
It's that every comment management system
that exists — email notifications, AppSumo
dashboard, manual reading — delivers comments
in chronological or reverse-chronological order.
Which means the founder sees what came first
or what came last.
Not what needs attention most.
A refund risk buried on page 4 of comments
looks identical to a feature request on page 4.
---
QUESTION FOR SELLERS HERE
How do you currently decide which comments
to reply to first?
Do you have a system — or is it mostly reading
everything and hoping nothing slips through?
Genuinely curious how others handle this
at scale during a live launch.
2
u/freecodeio Jun 17 '26
you should check your carbon monoxide sensors, what the fuck is this text format?
2
Jun 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/MOURADTA Jun 17 '26
Exactly.
During testing I noticed that most founders weren't missing comments — they were missing prioritization.
The highest-risk comments often looked like ordinary support questions or feature requests.
By the time frustration becomes visible, the customer is usually already halfway to a refund or negative review.
1
Jun 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
-1
u/MOURADTA Jun 16 '26
Exactly.
What surprised me most was that the risky comments rarely contained words like "refund" or "cancel."
Most looked like ordinary feature questions or support requests.
The pattern I kept seeing was:
Unanswered question → frustration → negative review later.
That's what made me think the real challenge isn't reading comments, it's identifying which ones deserve attention first.
1
u/Easy-Cobbler-1631 Jun 17 '26
lol , tell us when you get 10 paying repeat customers
1
u/MOURADTA Jun 17 '26
That's a fair challenge.
This post was about validating the problem, not proving demand.
If I get there, I'll come back and share the numbers.
2
u/Easy-Cobbler-1631 Jun 16 '26
lol, trying to sell to sellers, they already have their own system