Doing a Lifetime Deal: What are the pros and cons?

Question

Hey guys!
We are thinking about doing a lifetime deal for our Saas Joonbot.

Here is what we are thinking about the pros and cons.

Pros:
Having a community quickly around your product that shares feedback

Cons:
We sell cheap and give X% to the organizer. So a lot of work for almost nothing

What's your experience in LTD?

Thks,
Cam

Elen Udovichenko · Accepted Answer

If you're an early-stage startup looking to get your first customers - you should totally do it. 
Just make sure your product is ready for the load and offer as much value as you can at a minimum cost (otherwise prepare to deal with a lot of hate :D)
Yet, you should prepare for some hate regardless of how generous your deal is - considering the feedback on dozens of tools I've seen on Appsumo, you can never please everyone.

If you're a more mature product better steer clear from this kind of deals. 
The short-term revenue you will get won't be worth the effort preparing the deal, handling the community questions, onboarding new users, and supporting those who actually stay for a lifetime. Plus, even if your operating costs increase in a year or two, you will need to provide service to those LTD users at your own expense.

Jasper Ruys · Answer

Dear Camille,

Instead of doing a lifetime deal, you could give the first year free for the first 100 sign-up. Don't forget the clause, though, that you don't ask for credit card numbers.

You would still build a fast community without losing money in the process.

Ananay Batra · Answer

I think I qualify to answer this question, we launched a LTD for Listnr (https://listnr.tech/) with Pitchground for a month and are now on AppSumo.

Pro's - Initial Revenues + Beta users that give good feedback

Cons - Getting those early revenues and users might give you some false confidence, getting Subscribers is 10x harder.
Also you have to entertain those users forever.

Camille Franceschi · Answer

@ananay_batra Hey! thanks for your answer! I have a few questions for you :)
Why do you do two LTDs?
What do you mean by entertain those users forever?

Elen Udovichenko · Answer

@camille_franceschi1 yes, we did one just several month ago. And our product is already pretty mature (5+ years on the market), so we couldn't give away too much of it basically for free. Needless to say it didn't really go well :) However, we didn't do it for the profit - the whole point of the LTD was to offer some help to those who needed it during the dowturn earlier this years and there were many people who appreciated it!

Peter Pezaris · Answer

Most important thing is to get a group of customers willing to engage you w/actionable feedback.

Camille Franceschi · Answer

@camille_franceschi1 @elen_u Good to know! Thanks a lot for your feedback :) I see you chose Appsumo!

Ananay Batra · Answer

@camille_franceschi1 Two LTDs wasn't the plan initially,  we made the mistake of going with the wrong LTD partner, so had to end the deal with them.

So any LTD users you on board will use the LTD for at least 3-4 years. Ps - they don't like upselling.

Depending on your product, having too many LTD users can be bad.

Camille Franceschi · Answer

Thnks @jas801!

Camille Franceschi · Answer

@camille_franceschi1 @ananay_batra Thanks for your feedback.

Camille Franceschi · Answer

@elen_u thks a lot Elen for your reply. Yeah, this is crazy, some people want a mature product for some dols, the expectation for LTDs are huge. Did you do a LTD for Reply.io? If yes, at which stage of your product?

Camille Franceschi · Answer

Thanks @peter_pezaris for your answer. Yes, a group you can have easily with the right LTD organizer :)

Daeshawn Ballard · Answer

@elen_u I was bummed I missed that one. Sorry it didn't go well for you all.

Elen Udovichenko · Answer

@imdaeshawn thank you! Sorry, we didn't really promote our LTD through our own channels :(

Doing a Lifetime Deal: What are the pros and cons?

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