I feel like 5-10% revenue is way more sustainable than a flat fee AND probably would make them more money, seeing as more tools like yours would survive.

Yes.

When they dropped the hammer on us, we developers banded together and literally petitioned Elon Musk to implement pay-as-you-go pricing, where they would charge us based on usage.

The big companies will end up paying them way more than $42k/mo, and the smaller apps get to survive.

But no dice, they were adamant, "either pay up or f*ck off" was the message from Elon, there was no room for negotiation whatsoever.

When my API access was cut off (mid-May this year), my inbox blew up with tons of angry emails from angry customers who had no idea was an API was or why I couldn't honor my end of the bargain anymore. They didn't give a f*ck whatever explanation I provided.

They just knew their app ain't working anymore, and they put the blame on me.

Tons of cancellations, tons of chargebacks, tons of angry 1-star reviews.

I underwent a period of depression during that time (which was a particularly-difficult time for me), because these were all hard-won customers, and I wasn't used to disappointing my paying customers at all.

But there was nothing I could do, it's not like I was doing it to them on purpose, and it also threw a wrench into my own personal life, as you can imagine, since my sole income source was suddenly cut off just like that.

Anyway, it's all water under the bridge now, I'm slowly recovering, and I'm already building Zylvie now, which may or may not succeed (let alone reach the heights of my previous business) -- I don't know yet.

But I'll give it my best shot.

It means you're building your audience by collecting email addresses instead of garnering social media followers.

If Facebook or Instagram bans you, you lose all your followers.

Nobody can ban you if you have their email addresses.

I have been "coding" since I was 12, building HTML sites while peppering in JavaScript.

In college, I freelanced in PHP, and I also built a SaaS that I ran successfully for 3 years. I actually dropped out of college to run that business. No regrets there. It gave me the confidence that I could just create my own job anytime by starting a SaaS. If I could do it once, I could do it twice (and I was right, I did it twice).

So to answer your question, it has been 20 years.

I took a huge hiatus from 2014-2020 though, during which I did a bunch of non-coding jobs.

I also got the expensive lesson of platform risk. Never will get caught again.

What happened, if I may ask?

And yes, owning the audience is so important.

This is why I don't like social logins and such, my apps all require email verification.

That way I can send my audience offers and updates directly without going through an intermediary who can deplatform me for no reason.

Yes, Zlappo at its peak was probably Top 3 in the Twitter tool category (TweetHunter, Hypefury, Zlappo).

I did consider selling it, but I decided to parlay it into a "bring your own API key" model, and I managed to retain some of my customers.

I was in negotiations with Hypefury and TweetHunter to buy me out, but ultimately they decided not to (they themselves had to suddenly accommodate a $42k/mo expense too).

AppSumo is great for revenue.

Think about it, it's passive income and free marketing. The 2-month refund strategy is a great conversion booster, and in my experience, if your product is halfway good, it will not be abused.

You have to understand that a lot of customers buy your AppSumo deal "just in case," not everyone redeems it, and not everyone who redeems it actually uses it, and not everyone who uses it actually still uses it in 6 months.

Use churn is very high in AppSumo users, and that's quite natural. So you won't have to worry about supporting a large number of non-paying customers, because it won't happen.

If you read AppSumo reviews on sites like TrustPilot, etc., you'll also realize that AppSumo puts up a good fight against users who ask for refunds excessively. So AppSumo is on your side when it comes to retaining revenue.

I always found a platform risk in almost everything i've tried building.

This is damn true.

During this period, plenty of indie hackers were building AI tools on top of OpenAI/ChatGPT.

I can't stress how dangerous that is.

And most of these products are just connected to 1 payment processor, Stripe.

And they're usually marketed exclusively on Twitter.

So it's like a single dependency, built upon another dependency, which is built on yet another dependency.

That's a very dangerous game to play.

For my new product, I'm integrating a minimum of 2 payment gateways, and even more to come.

For revenue, I'll integrate Stripe for commissions but probably use Paddle for monthly plans.

That way I can spread out the risk at least, if something happens somewhere.

He offered a $5k/mo plan long after most of us have moved on and lost most of our users.

Like 2 months late.

Plus it's no guarantee that he won't hike the price again or change the terms or cut off API access altogether.

I can't hitch my own future and livelihood to the capricious and unpredictable whims of an eccentric billionaire any longer.

I want to sleep peacefully at night.

Nah, that would be throwing good money after bad.

Twitter had become a completely-unpredictable platform to build on.

I've lost trust in it, who knows if they'll raise the price again tomorrow or completely just turn off the API spigot?

Either case is just as likely.

I was better off just moving on and not be too attached to a good business gone bad.

Yup.

If there's one thing I know after running multiple businesses, is to never "guess" what features you need to build.

You should primarily build features based on user request, and even then only the most-requested features.

Appreciate your comment, Nick.

Thank you man.

I have a few tips:

1. Have as many plans as possible, so lifetime users on lower plans can "upgrade" and grow into higher plans over time. Try 5 plans to start.

2. Have your cheapest plan at $99. That's the highest AppSumo would typically accept. And you'll fight tooth and nail if you want to increase your pricing in the future. They hate their vendors trying to increase pricing, and they'll threaten you with delisting.

3. NEVER map your lifetime plans directly to your monthly-paying plans. Your lifetime plans are supposed to be way more restrictive than your monthly plans due to their lifetime nature.

4. Be super-clear about the feature set for each lifetime plan. You're NOT obligated to extend every new feature to all lifetime plans. You can limit it to just the higher plans to encourage your lifetime users to upgrade to higher lifetime plans. That way you ensure that your lifetime users are a continuous cash cow, not once-and-done and you're on the hook to support them forever.

I'm on the road now, but these are the ones that come to mind now.

I'll add on if I think of more.

All of us tried.

No dice.

You got it. 👍

Not long, that was end of 2022.

I have some pretty solid savings, yes.

I was lucky I didn't spend frivolously or increased my commitments just because my business was growing.

I stayed in the same apartment, drove the same car, ate the same food, kept the same girlfriend. 🤣

It's a bit of a weird life story.

I started out coding as a teen and also freelance in college.

Then I took a break to try acting.

As an aspiring actor in LA, it's common to have a flexible gig like waiting tables/bartending that allows you to go to auditions as and when they crop up.

I never appeared in anything major, but I did a bunch of commercials, music videos, short films, TV shows, etc. as an extra.

When the pandemic hit, all these things came to a halt, and there was nothing to do except jobs from my computer, so I thought okay, time to rekindle my coding.

Damn, why would people use Firebase then?

What benefits does it offer that would make up for this vendor lock-in?

Thanks for the suggestion on seeking out counselling.

I'm actually feeling a lot better these days.

But I'll seek professional help if I'm ever feeling depressed again.

How does Firebase work?

Does it allow you to port over your app/data to your own server or somewhere else like Heroku?

There were plenty of mistakes that I made, but here were the main ones:

1. The lack of product-led growth/baked-in virality made my marketing efforts more difficult that it had to be.

I underestimated how apps don't just market themselves, even with solid word-of-mouth marketing from happy users. This literally doubled my working hours (and slowed my progress down x2) when it could have been automated by software from the very start.

IMO solo founders have NO BUSINESS working on ideas without a baked-in viral component. People literally give away 50% equity to marketing co-founders because they never started with virality in mind. It's an enormous strategic error most founders are too proud to admit.

What I mean by "baked-in virality" is when a product is front-facing and the user has to share their personalized page in order to get value out of the product. Think of Jotform, Tally, Linktree, OnlyFans, Gumroad, etc., where they share a personalized URL hosted on the platform's domain, and the platform gets to plaster a "Powered by" link at the bottom of that page, essentially putting your users to work by inadvertently marketing your platform whenever they use your platform.

2. I had low self-confidence and priced my plans too low.

My pricing started at $9.99/mo, simply because my closest competitor started at $14/mo, and I didn't think my product was better. In retrospect, it was an unfounded fear. Many users switched over from my competitor to my product, because my product was faster and had a much cleaner UI.

On hingsight, I should have priced it starting at $19.99/mo, and go up from there. It was such a waste to have a user go through the entire gauntlet of my funnel (discovering my product, reading my landing page, become convinced enough to sign up, actually use the product, and actually upgrade to a paid plan) only to have it add less than $10 to my MRR.

3. When I ran lifetime deals, I made a mistake in mis-structuring my lifetime plans.

I learned very quickly that lifetime plans must be done right to be profitable and sustainable.

Now, my principle is this:

• Cheap
• Pay once
• All future updates

PICK TWO.

I'm willing to provide all future updates and capture upfront your entire LTV if you pay a reasonable premium to justify it. I'm also willing to give you cheap limited access for a one-time payment, so long as you pay for optional upgrades in the future.

What I won't do is to offer heavily-discounted one-time payments for all features, present and future. That's just giving the store away, and I won't do that... anymore. Also, no more "unlimited" anything. "Unlimited" anything under any plan is a terrible, terrible idea.

-

Strategically, these were the main mistakes that I made.

With Zylvie, I've rectified the first one, since my product needs to be shared in order to be used. I host online stores for small creators to sell their products/IP, and they need to share their online stores to their audience in order to get sales. Win-win.

And down the line, I'll also make sure to price my monthly and lifetime plans a lot more sensibly and with confidence.

Hope this answers your question! 😁

Hey there, thanks a lot for your kind words of support. 🙏

This was exactly why I never hopped on the OpenAI/GPT bandwagon.

Even though everyone else around me was doing so (to varying degrees of success).

I simply didn't have the appetite for yet another platform-dependent business.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

That's what I thought, that's for Select deals, which they give massive priority to in their marketing.

Like seriously, I've heard of apps doing $300-500k just from a couple of weeks of doing Select.

I've never been chosen for Select, just Marketplace, which is easier to get into.

We built the product and the software company was acquired by a PE firm with different opinions and direction.

Damn, and this is what's so scary about business.

The unexpected can and will happen out of the blue sometimes.

Then it just completely changes the trajectory of your business (and indeed life), and you're just forced to adapt on short notice.

That's... not the point.

The point is there's already a loss of trust.

Who's to say they won't hike the price up again next month? Double it, triple it?

Or even completely cut off API access to all 3rd-party developers?

How can anyone build a sustainable business in peace if the sands keep shifting?

Surely some people will continue to, but I won't, I'm moving on.

You're welcome.

It is though.

It's important to call a spade a spade. 🤷‍♂️

What do you mean you don't have enough courage to handle that?

What are you going to do, off yourself?

If you don't mind sharing, what happened when you made an exception to this rule?

I'm not sure if they have a 1% acceptance rate, where did you see this?

I submitted my deal back in 2020 though, and it has been up ever since (until very recently).

I just list my app and engage with the questions that Sumo-lings post.

They advertise your app for you using paid ads ( in their email newsletter), you don't have to move a muscle, but they take about 35% for Marketplace deals, more if it's a Select deal.

Ah, that makes sense!

Good luck to you, bro!

💪💪💪

I really admire how you have turned it around and now building another tool. 🙌

Thanks man.

I mean, there's no other choice.

I can take a day off, maybe even a week off, to be sad.

And then what?

I'll still need to pick up the pieces and strategize my next game plan.

Ain't nobody coming to rescue me.

AppSumo lifetime deals can go awry fast if you do it the wrong way.

I posted tips on how to do it the right way in another comment, look up this thread.

There's a way to do it sustainably and come out on top, instead of feeling fleeced by AppSumo and "deadweight" lifetime users.

For affiliate, I used Rewardful, which cost $79/mo. In the future, I'll roll out my own. That's just nuts paying that much for something easy to build yourself.

I'm surprised that your free license converted better than free trials.

Why didn't the trials work?

1/70 isn't a good conversion by any means.

No, I just made individual payouts via PayPal.

And then I claimed their payments as a business expense on my personal income tax form.

Glad you find it useful.

Thanks, bro.

Thank you for reading!

It's more like how did I go from coding to bartending, really.

Because I was a freelance programmer in college turned bartender.

Yeah, I wish I had a better answer for you.

Appreciate your words of support. 💪

It doesn't sound like you were in debt when operations ceased.

Thank god I wasn't, in fact, I saved up quite aggressively when the going was good.

Appreciate all your kind words of support and encouragement, Kelvin!

I did market to them.

And a lot of them have offered me feedback to start.

8,000 emails in total, out of 10,000 users (a few have unsubscribed).

Mobile app, sure.

Web app, not really.

Have you talked to any models/creators yet if they would pay for your solution?

It did.

But most of us indie devs who lived off our Twitter apps have already pivoted, and some are doing quite well indeed.

That's what's inspiring to me.

Like I said, it's a personal preference.

I prefer not to pull the wool over my eyes and double-down on a flawed business model.

That's a scarcity mindset; there are plenty of business opportunities everywhere.

Why get so hung up on one that's obviously bad and indeed has been showed to be bad?

I prefer to sleep soundly at night.

In my opinion, affiliate program works best when it's your users who are your affiliates.

That's because they know you, they trust you, they have experience dealing with you, and thus they have confidence promoting you to their audience.

Otherwise random marketers are just not going to be interested or incentivized to promote random products/apps that they don't know.

So yeah, not every product is made for an affiliate program, you'll have to be the judge of it.

It's also not free to run an affiliate program, I myself paid $79/mo to Rewardful just to keep the program running.

Thanks, glad it resonated.

Hope people can learn from my mistakes, and also my strategies/tactics that worked for me.

Of course, in hindsight, selling it would be the right thing to do.

Basically playing hot potato, offloading it to the next person to deal with it.

Eh, reminds me of my days deep in the trenches trading crypto altcoins. 🙃

What is your product?

Share it here, or at least describe it, I can offer my input on it if you'd like, especially on whether your platform risk is actually great or if you're just overworrying.

And do you mean copywriting?

Yeah sure, take what you need, you have my permission. 😁

Thank you for your honest comment.

This is actually what I've gathered from most Gumroad sellers.

Everyone complains about Gumroad, but their actions are never aligned with their words -- they go on and on about alternatives like LemonSqueezy, etc., but nobody uses them.

If I may pick your brain, what would you think would radically improve your experience on Gumroad, or are you 100% satisfied?

Thanks a lot for your kind word, Simon.

I really hope so!