I believe that if you can distribute it you can sell anything. But it take effort and resource which not much are willing to sacrifice so they drifting from one idea to another.
I pivoted to SaaS from a physical industry because I saw a big void that I come to fill w getMentio.com and I was stumbled that digital entrepreneurship community has a huge flaw...You ever met someone who got the bag by juggling selling tees, day trading/investing, developing software and wholesaling all at once? Yeah, me neither.How many biz. does it take to make a millionaire? One. Is it...
I built an AI bot to scrape app recommendations from entrepreneurs and techies like Alex Hormozi, Noah Kagan, Tim Ferriss, Neil Patel, Pieter Levels, etc.,by analyzing their podcast transcripts and blogs.I liked the list so I tought I can share it w reddit :Productivity Tools:FocusMate: Partnered productivity sessions. BearApp: Note-taking and planning. Zapier: Automating repetitive...
If you created a subscription based service (gym, saas, agency etc.), you know that the best way to get more clients is offering free service. But the trick is you feel stuck between offering a free tier or a free trial. I've been there. I tried both so let me share how we nearly doubled our sales by making the leap from free tier to free trial.
Our Starting Point: We had a free tier with limited features at mentio. Lots of sign-ups, but conversions? Crickets. Users were comfy in freemium-land, with little motivation to upgrade.
The Switch: About 2 months ago, we took the plunge. We introduced a 30-day free trial of our basic tier, complete with all the bells and whistles. Why? So many possible clients were turned off by how little the free trial offering at mentio and lots of our subscribers suggested that users needed to taste the full experience to see the real value.
How We Made It Happen:
- Changed our marketing/outreach to showcase full-access perks - Created a no-fuss cancellation policy (trust is key!) - Set up friendly trial-end reminders (no sneaky auto-renewals here!)
The Results: Everybody was happier.
- Customers could see the real product and assess the matter better. - Our sales faced less resistance, as prospects were already familiar with the full feature set. - Product development became more focused, as we received higher quality feedback from users who had experienced all aspects of Mentio’s offering.
Full access = clear value = more subscriptions. User engagement went higher than I expected.
The Big Lesson: Users will pay when they see real, tangible benefits. Clear communication about the trial terms is crucial to avoid headaches later. So, free tier or free trial? I ain’t saying there's one-size-fits-all answer, but understanding your users and being transparent can guide you to the right choice.
Has anyone else here made a similar switch? I'd love to hear your stories and insights.
We don't yet started to help people at Hacker News. But for example you created a post that asking how to promote your AI Startup on HN.
Mentio creates a thoughtful reply (eg. Listing : SEO, Social media accounts, Affiliates, Directories..) and namedrops an AI directory that you can submit your product at the end. I tought this was very useful and people don't generally realize/care if this is an automated response as long as it was very helpful.
It's not a bug it is the feature.
About a month ago, with fewer than 500 followers on my account, my posts on X barely got noticed. Curious about the potential of X ads, I decided to invest $100 to see what could happen. The setup process was straightforward and user-friendly (they made very big improvements compared to pre-musk era), leading to 310,000 impressions and about 1100 clicks at just $0.3 per click. However, this didn't create the value I expected just eking out a profit.
My Conclusion: Despite the lack of direct sales, the visibility I gained was comparable to well-known influencers in startup niche like @ levelsio, was impressive given the modest investment. Although direct sales were limited, the exposure was valuable.
Would I Recommend X Ads? As a developer rather than an ad expert, my perspective might differ, but I understand the challenges to market SaaS in today's saturated market. Despite the traditional marketing often feels forced, and consumers are increasingly skeptical of paid ads, if you're tight on ad budget, X ads are worth considering.
An Interesting Pivot: : I knew there are thousands of potential customers out there actively discussing problems that my product (SaaSquare) could solve – but how could I find the convos and engage with them authentically?
So post-experiment to address the issue, I tried to create an AI bot that crawls the conversations on X/Reddit and posts an insightful reply that addresses the conversations and plugs the product naturally without spammy or bot like behaviors. I aimed to overcome ad skepticism by raising awareness in a more organic manner. The results were rolled in and even surpassed my expectations that prompted me to formalize the solution as Mentio. I launched it just two weeks ago, and it has already attract over 100 clients without any complaints.
Moving Forward: I've seen better ROI with Twitter ads compared to Meta and other SMPs and plan to continue using them for future product launches/promotions.