An Introduction to Lifecycle Email
training.kalzumeus.com
training.kalzumeus.com
Then I realised it is just a duplicate of https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/lifecycle....
Its almost the exact same content - just a slightly newer version with 2-3 small typo changes, and is a couple of years old
Lots of people signed up for it when it was new, and even though Patrick specifically asked that it not be submitted here, every mail was. Now we get the occasional repost from people who are just now working their way through the course.
That it is occasionally updated and has no date stamp should therefore not come as a surprise.
Otherwise a large part of the uninterested segment will end up revoking their email permission, i.e. Unsubscribing from your permission base entirely.
> What If WP Engine Were Your WordPress Hosting Company?
> 0% faster total page-load time!
> Using the techniques detailed below, moving your blog to
> WP Engine would shave 0.0 seconds off your page-load time..
This is the perfect opposite of e.g. the A/B testing company that will show a statistically significant improvement from no change at all -- if I see that you aren't overstating the case, I care about the results and trust they are valid.
1. You could be on us already so we'd say "Hey, can't be faster than us, on us" 2. The speed test API could have gotten wonky and not returned a result. 3. Could be a bug
I'll check on if any of those are true and thanks for the heads up.
Whether that's a win would seem to depend on other variables never discussed, for example what your cost of cash is from other sources, and whether the year-prepay has other benefits (like preventing mid-year lapses due to payment problems or customer second thoughts).
1) The typical SaaS company has no meaningful ability to raise capital at cheaper terms than pre-pays offer. If you could get a bank loan for 5% a year, then you actually have to do math here, but you can't get a bank loan for 5% a year as a SaaS company. It's virtually impossible. Not only can my business not get a bank loan, large, successful SaaS companies find it difficult to raise meaningful amounts of money on the terms that e.g. a restaurant would get if they pledged the real estate as collateral.
If you speak to more specialized lenders, you can get them to loan you money based on your existing revenue, but the cost is typically > 10% on an APR basis. If you speak to less-specialized alternative small business lenders, you can easily end up in the 30% region. (OnDeck, for example.) Or you could do merchant cash advantages, which are up their with payday loans, except company-sized.
2) A rule-of-thumb for churn rates on month-to-month SaaS is +/- 5% before you start really working on it, 3% after you've done significant work on that, and 2% if you're among the most successful in the industry. This implies that you expect to lose between ~22% and ~46% of customers in the first 12 months. The yearly discount costs you ~8% and locks in those first 12 months of revenue. Assuming people willing to accept that deal are not a-prior wildly better customers than the median customer at the best month-to-month SaaS companies, it's net-beneficial virtually every time.
20% of $200 - quite possible. That translates to $40/email, which is still quite significant.
But still not $200.
Toy setup matching the post's parameters:
STARTING SITUATION:
10 customers at $200/month
= $2,000 cash this month and next 11 months
over 12 months = $24,000 expected revenue
BUT INSTEAD:
send 10 emails, 1 customer prepays $2200 (instead of $200)
= $4,000 cash this month
then $1800/month next 11 months
over 12 months = $23,800 revenue
But of course it's just pulling revenue forward (borrowing from customers). And, it's at a rather steep effective interest rate: over 17% per year.
So while it's cash-flow positive, it's only profitable if there's some combination of (1) productive places to invest that money; and (2) improved mid-year retention of the prepaid customers – that together return more than the ~17% cost.
No Yearly Discount Offer: Month 1: $2,000 Month 2: $1,900 Month 3: $1,805 Month 4: $1,714 Month 5: $1,629 Month 6: $1,547 Month 7: $1,470 Month 8: $1,396 Month 9: $1,326 Month 10: $1,260 Month 11: $1,197 Month 12: $1,137 Total: $18,385
Yearly Discount Offer Month 1: $1,800 Month 2: $1,710 Month 3: $1,624 Month 4: $1,543 Month 5: $1,466 Month 6: $1,392 Month 7: $1,323 Month 8: $1,257 Month 9: $1,194 Month 10: $1,134 Month 11: $1,077 Month 12: $1,023 Total: $18,747
This works for churn = 2% and churn = 3% as well, but the difference is smaller (still favors the yearly discount, though). If you have a churn of 1%, then the yearly discount costs you money, but you still get the cash immediately, which is so useful I'd do still do it.
EDIT: It should be noted that the churn rate you care about here is the churn rate of people who would be willing to make a year-long precommit (more loyal customers in general), but I don't see them as being 1% churn level, as 'patio11 alluded to above.
yours
Also, 'patio11 is one of HN's most valued contributors (as evidenced by his position on the leaderboard). That doesn't mean that he should be exempted from any criticism, but I think in any healthy community it would at least merit a level of respect that your comment lacks.
I'm guessing "kalzumeus.com" and/or "zeeshanm" is "'patio11", but I'm not plugged into the community enough to recognize this august citizen. The article reads like a sleazy, low-grade sales pitch, so I don't see why it deserves any particular respect.
This is a great way to get a feel for the site and its members: https://news.ycombinator.com/lists
You're not being down voted because of "groupthink", by the way. You're being down voted because you haven't said anything of substance.
No. Being a person is what should afford him due respect, but being a celebrity (or “most valued contributor”) should emphatically not grant him any privileges.
EDIT: Please note that I am agreeing with the fact that patio11 deserves more respect, and that username223 was disrespectful. (I am merely disagreeing with napoleond’s stated reasons for why username223 should have been more respectful.)
In theory, HN allows a short-cut past all the social stuff by requiring disagreements to be stated in terms of facts. Of course it doesn't always work out that way in practice, but this is not such an instance because the comment that started this sub-thread didn't provide any substance at all behind its assertions and basically amounted to name-calling.
EDIT to add: Of course I agree that there is a basic level of respect that every person deserves. I'm just pointing out that it's possible to "level up" on that.
From the TV series Kung Fu, episode Sun and Cloud Shadow (season 1, episode 8, 1972):
Master Po: “In the pond there are some lotuses which stand above the water. And though their roots feed, they are themselves untouched by it. Some others have risen only to the water's level. And others, are still under water.”
Young Caine: “Shall I seek to measure these differences, Master, that I may treat them differently, each according to his growth?”
Master Po: “Examine the flower. Is not the flower, in each position, yet a flower?”
Young Caine: “Shall I then treat each man the same?”
Master Po: “As far as possible, without surrender. Be on good terms with all.”