Our First $37,800 in Annual Recurring Revenue
churnbuster.io
churnbuster.io
With that being said, I love the idea of the product as it's a pain point for me. Unfortunately, I only have a handful of customers, so even the $20/m doesn't really make sense. It would be great to see a free plan for "up to" X customers, once you pass that threshold send me an email to upgrade my account.
As of right now I see it, I like it, I want it, but I can't justify it so it will be long forgotten by the time I'm ready to sign up. If I was able to sign up for a free plan today I would in a heartbeat, and would be happy to upgrade if I got an email remainder once I passed 25 customers.
We made this mistake on our last startup, we got a ton of feedback saying, oh it's too expensive, I'd never use it.. make something cheaper/free.
The truth is... until those businesses are making more money that justifies $20 a month, you probably don't want them as customers... they will take up a TON of time, with adding little to no value and will have no problem jumping ship when you say, hey, you reached the size you said you were interested in paying $20 and we would like you to upgrade.
People want the world... focus on customers that find $20/month to be a huge value to them.
Right now I have to trust myself that I'll remember this service in six months with all the other stuff that goes on in running a startup. If I DO remember, I will pay $20-100/month easily and will save thousands. But I also have to remember that about 300 other things, too.
EDIT: Maybe a mailing list would be helpful, too.
I would focus on the businesses that can pay $20/month (even for 1 month) to test something to see if it's for them than worry about someone who may need it in 4-6 months down the road, if there product doesn't go under before they "roll out major client work".
I am not trying to sound harsh but my guess is his money and time is better spent acquiring users who can pay $20 from the start. It's just basic marketing: How much would this cost to acquire a customer from. If he pays the girl $30 an hour to call delinquent accounts and she can call 10 an hour then that's a cost of $3 per delinquent customer of yours that it costs him and you are asking for a free tier that is incredibly low of ONLY 10 customers which actually = $30 of free value he is giving away. My guess is a Google Adwords campaign could get him paying users for less than that easily.
It's just not worth it to go after customers like you... yet..is my guess and I have been in his shoes... the people wanting free shit scream the loudest but bring in the least value.
I agree. And yet, that is not who I am. If you knew the first thing about my business and my yearly revenue, you wouldn't say that. Your assumptions are baseless, rude, and truthfully told, idiotic.
For now I'm just sending emails on failed payments, but it's incomplete, obviously.
Product is Email It In: https://www.emailitin.com/
Building a SaaS company that pays the bills normally takes much longer than you think[1]. Well done Andrew and keep going!
[1] Watch the slow ramp of death: http://businessofsoftware.org/2013/02/gail-goodman-constant-...
This is the single biggest piece of advice I wish I'd known before I made my failed attempts at products. It takes a long time. When you build your product, make sure you have an income or savings plan for the next 12 - 18 months.
Have you considered teaming up with Stripe? They're nice guys and it looks as if you contribute considerable value to their product.
Full disclosure: I worked on this project (as a consultant) when it was just getting off the ground.
As someone else said, though, a free plan that is limited to a very small number of people might be helpful. I'd sign up for that with our small group of clients right now just to test and trust the service. 10-20 users or something would be enough for testing purposes but obviously not nearly enough that you are cannibalizing your product. Something to think about - since now I have to bookmark your site, remember that I need it in six months, and come back and sign up. Even though I KNOW it's something that will save me thousands of dollars per year.
Spreedly works with Stripe and 70+ other payment providers.
People in general do not like to be charged for a service after the card expires and they have not explicitly authorized further payment. So better make sure this is written into your terms and conditions and that your merchant agreement actually allows you to do this.
Most businesses don't know about this possibility and very very few end users do. Technically you can basically fantasize any expiry date as long as it is in the future the charge will (likely) go through but to do this unauthorized is not smart. (Adding 3 or 5 years to the previous expiry is likely going to be on the money.)
In dispute situations you will possibly also have less recourse.
Then you have some services where you can go either month to month or commit to a year long agreement and get a different price. Lastly, who enjoys losing a card and having to restart auto billing at their 10 favorite/required services?
I agree a lot of people by default think that if their card expires they're off to hook for paying for services and would be surprised that their service provider got an updated card from networks vs you. I'm just not sure it holds up though under closer thought/examination.
Normally you'd expect Churn Buster to implement this background behind-the-scenes card account updating itself, but the reason we don't is that the trend and expectation in the industry is, or is becoming, that the actual payment gateway themselves provide this service, because they're by far in the best position to do it at scale. For example, Braintree already does this and I think you'll see more and more payment providers doing it down the road, including Stripe. (I could be wrong, but I don't think so.)
p.s. I remember originally hearing about ChurnBuster on Our Own Little Accelerator. Why'd that show die?
UPDATE: I probably got the wrong first impression - I thought the service was kind of last resort if the user did not respond to the normal notifications that he will lose his service; I missed that you can completely outsource this.
Let's assume you're happy not thinking about Pingdom when nothing is going wrong, and happy with their service when something does happen. Would you appreciate Pingdom silently ending your service when your credit card expires? Would you consider that good customer service? If they do contact you, would you consider it "sales" to get a gentle reminder?
There was this analytics tool called get.gaug.es that i really liked looking at for $6/month. In addition to my existing mission critical analytics apps like mixpanel and google analytics.
I would never have cancelled guag.es but since my credit card switched, i just didn't like it enough to be bothered to update it. A phone call is probably the only thing that would have gotten me to update it. Probably not, but it increases the odds from 0% to greater than 0%