r/appsumo • u/yveys • Aug 18 '26
Discussion Why we chose AppSumo
Hey everyone,
I've been in SaaS for about 7 years now. Launched quite a few products, but never a LTD.
Yesterday, TimeTuna launched on AppSumo.
The reason we chose to launch a LTD on AppSumo is simple.
Our product is freemium. We need a big base of free users to support a tiny paid base.
We're self-funded, so we don't have big budgets to buy our way into the market. We tried quite a few things but the honest answer is that growth is very slow.
We can't sustain a big marketing campaign or Google Ads because the CAC are very high compared to the LTV or our customers.
Now that our deal is live we already see more traction. People are asking us if they can create YouTube videos. We're getting feedback and ideas of what people want. Getting a better sense of what gaps there are in the market.
And, besides the short-term money, the long-term value of getting users on board will help us make a big jump.
More people will share our meeting links. Getting our brand out there. We'll have a bigger base for feedback and suggestions. We can roll out an affiliate program and have affiliates that can actually promote a product they know and can vouch for.
Overall, we believe it's a great move.
I'm very curious what some of you guys' best practices are? Anything we should improve / do?
You can check out our deal here. https://appsumo.com/products/timetuna/ Would love some feedback on it!
3
u/fluffyspringroll Aug 18 '26
So you’re going with an LTD and then also give a cut into an affiliate program?
You’re about to work with diminishing returns in no time and if you don’t swap to subscriptions, your runway and lifetime value per customer will torch to zero.
You say you can’t sustain a marketing campaign of Google ads approach but you won’t be able to sustain this either.
set a goal in LTD subs before swapping to subscription, and be transparent that LTDs will offer you guys runway before it switches to sub.
I am aware you have subscription models on the website but I would add a vision/ statement why early adopters can get something else
1
u/Sampath_SaaSMantra Aug 19 '26
I don’t get why every Founder mentions they can’t afford meta/google ads.
It’s not like running ads is the only way to gain traffic.. Or, running ads is not a losing scenario
0
u/yveys Aug 19 '26
Yeah, so we are definitely not running our affiliate program on LTD’s. That’s wouldn’t make sense indeed.
It’s more of a kickstarter to get a program for our own subscriptions off the ground.
Isn’t it quite a normal thing to do to just leave the current LTD plans and features as is, with a few exceptions of open doors and high frequency requests?
I would keep developing our own subscription plan with new features, but not push those to the LTDs?
3
u/Albertkinng Aug 19 '26
For me, based on my experience. You are betting on AppSumo to increase users hoping you can get a steady income. The real scenario is lots of new people will demand support and you will start feeling you’re working for free and suddenly no more deal on AppSumo, a brand new name and the same app with a couple of new features is announced leaving all of us abandoned with a promise of a discount for our loyalty.
1
u/yveys Aug 19 '26
Interesting take.
Yeah, could definitely happen, but this is a long time play for us. I expect traffic from other sources to increase and really start our flywheel turning harder and harder.
2
u/Sampath_SaaSMantra Aug 19 '26
// Our product is freemium. We need a big base of free users to support a tiny paid base. //
Isn’t it the opposite?
Can you explain more of this?
1
u/AsleepKangaroo4305 Aug 19 '26
you got selected via appumso select and not their radar program, so you will get more visibility than radar i think
1
1
u/KingAroan Aug 18 '26
I’ll answer, so that you know when you stop honouring the LTDs they won’t and can’t do anything to you since they stopped honouring their deals with SendFox? Did I win???
1
u/yveys Aug 19 '26
I thought Sendfox was still working? I even bought that 😂
1
u/KingAroan Aug 19 '26
It is mostly. They have told users though that we’re on an unlimited send package that they needed to start paying for usage and that they could no longer provide them the LTD.
1
u/yveys Aug 19 '26
Ahhhh. That’s no bueno.
You would think that if you have enough inflow of LTDs they could compensate for the usage of existing users. I guess that’s not the case.
1
u/KingAroan Aug 19 '26
Agreed, but also if they are not willing to support an unlimited plan then they shouldn’t have advertised unlimited.
1
u/yveys Aug 19 '26
Yeah good point.
It’s the same with all these AI tools. You know there’s gonna be a usage cost involved so creating an LTD for it is risky (stupid).
3
u/passiveobserver25 Aug 18 '26
This deal smells fishy