Dragan Babic enables design.

Recap from funnel feature on Product Hunt

We launched Funnel, this is how it went.

Some numbers:

  • we ended up being number 5 in the featured list for April 30 2015 with 302 votes, and 7 comments
  • 4222 unique visitors on this day, the vast majority of them being from Product Hunt
  • over 400 sign ups
  • 0 sales so far
  • many tweets and retweets about Funnel
  • a couple of features on blogs and startup websites

Despite the fact that we didn’t get any sales, I am overwhelmed by the success of this feature. We got tons of feedback, people seem to like the product, and most importantly we got the word out. We’re even fast-tracking a couple of new features since we found out they are most likely more important than we initially thought.

No sales… Why?

I honestly don’t think this was a flop just because we didn’t get any sales, the reason being is that all these new accounts are still in trial. And since we have a different kind of trial, it might take a while before we see any financial gain from it.

We also gave out a 50% discount for people that came through Product Hunt, and we got tons of people that claimed that discount.

Weird trial, thy 10 cases instead of 30 days?

This was also asked in the PH comments section, and we understand that it’s an unconventional way to go about it. The reason we chose to set the trial to 10 cases instead of 30 days (it was actually implemented as 30 days at one point), is because we believe that it is a much better way for the users to get to know, and grow into the service.

For example, for someone who gets contacted through their website on a daily/weekly basis 30 days would be enough for a trial. But most of the people — who don’t get contacted so frequently — wouldn’t get a chance to familiarize themselves with Funnel, and would waste their trial.

So, our logic was:

  1. get people to sign up,
  2. give them enough time to grow into using Funnel, and experience the benefits,
  3. once committed, there is a higher chance of converting to a paid subscription plan.

Going forward

Getting validation that Funnel may after all have a chance of becoming a stand-alone business is an awesome feeling. We’ve been working on it for so long that we’ve kind of almost been putting off the official launch. This Product Hunt feature gave us a lift off, and just getting the word out there is a major weight off our backs.

All in all, we’re already working on some improvements, as well as some long-awaited new features we’re really excited about.

Looking forward to see where this takes us next.

Created
2015-05-07

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Dragan Babic is a design consultant enabling creatively challenged organizations to nurture design, and work with design professionals in productive ways.

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