Meet the Makers May 2021: Blooming Marketplace Success Stories

How’s it going, Sumo-lings?! Welcome back to our Meet the Makers series, where we round up our favorite Marketplace success stories and talk to the brilliant founders behind some of your favorite tools.

If you don’t know much about AppSumo Marketplace, here’s the inside scoop. Marketplace is a hustling, bustling, collaborative community where creators seamlessly launch and sell their best digital downloads, courses, and apps to fellow entrepreneurs.

Want in on the action? Submit your product here!

It’s May, which means spring is in the air and we all want to bloom and grow.

Scroll down to read some of the best Marketplace Case Study stories, hear about their launches, and learn their tips for success!

1. PDFBear

PDFBear is an all-in-one PDF SaaS tool that handles all your PDF needs, allowing you to split, converge, merge and compress any of your PDF files.

Compared to other platforms that seem to take, take, take, AppSumo favors the SaaS business.

Meet Henrick

I’m Henrick and I’m the Director of PDFBear.

We have been doing business on the Internet for the past 20 years. We are currently a team of 15 people, all self-funded, no VC or external parties involved, developing this product that we want to see succeed.

Our goal is to become a household name for all PDF requirements. We constantly develop our product with the users in mind. We take all the suggestions we get and add them to our roadmap.

How did you find out about AppSumo Marketplace?

Good old Google!

Tell us about your launch! Any challenges?

It was pretty straightforward once we were discovered and reviewed after we submitted our application. Because our product is so universal and necessary, we didn’t really need to adopt a particular marketing strategy. Since people need to use PDFs daily, they’ll purchase our lifetime deal, which is significantly more affordable than our competitors’ products.

What value did you receive from your promotion?

The best value is that our end-users are satisfied. The biggest reason we know that? We’re seeing their daily use!

What advice would you give to anyone interested in Marketplace, so they can get the most of their launch?

The most important thing you should do is answer people’s questions. It really helps give clarity and also helps you improve upon your tool.

What’s been your favorite thing about launching with us?

Honestly, the profit-share has been incredibly fair. Compared to other platforms that seem to take, take, take, AppSumo favors the SaaS business.

What’s your company vision? Tell us what’s next for you!

We have big things around the corner! We are rounding off our features, launching on Android/iOS and Desktop, and selling B2B.

2. LeadScripts

LeadScripts is a fill-in-the-blank copywriting engine that helps you finish your funnels in minutes with fewer brain-freezes and ruts.

The Sumo-ling community has been amazing—very friendly, helpful, and respectful.

Meet Craig:

I’m Craig and I’m the Founder of LeadScripts.

As a solopreneur for a few SaaS applications, I design each system to be as much on auto-pilot as possible. I also have a few dedicated freelancers that assist me. I’m always on the lookout for great people to add to the team. I automate as much as possible and focus on what matters the most for our users. LeadScripts launched in 2020.

How did you find out about AppSumo Marketplace?

I was browsing a deal on AppSumo one day and noticed the link at the bottom. I submitted my app immediately. I honestly didn’t know the process to get into the AppSumo marketplace. I was stoked when we went live!

Tell us about your launch! Any challenges?

The process for me was easy. The instructions were clear and it was a super smooth launch. I was and still am extremely grateful to be in such a solid Marketplace.

What value did you receive from your promotion?

LeadScripts has undergone a huge transformation. Everything we added has been based on user feedback from Sumo-lings. The users appreciate the quick turnaround and that we’re actually listening. We’re real people you can reach out to and that care if you succeed

What advice would you give to anyone interested in Marketplace, so they can get the most of their launch?

The biggest advice I would offer is to remember your position: to help others. Your product needs to solve a problem for your user. Sumo-lings will give you feedback. Don’t ignore it. Use it to shape your product into something great.

What’s been your favorite thing about launching with us?

The user feedback, without a doubt. The Sumo-ling community has been amazing—very friendly, helpful, and respectful.

What’s your company vision? Tell us what’s next for you!

Since numerous users have requested it, we’ll definitely be adding AI to LeadScripts. It will be unlike all of the other current AI offerings. Our application is more than just a copywriting engine. LeadScripts offers the complete package for funnel builders. And as we grow, I’ll continue to look for more amazing copywriters and developers.

3. Word of Mouth BOT

Word of Mouth BOT funnels in new customers ready to buy from your business effortlessly, so you can get more online reviews than ever for your business or your clients.

Word of Mouth BOT also lets you automate a big portion of SEO! You can even resell the included three white-labeled locations to make recurring revenue running your own reputation management SEO agency.

AppSumo is absolutely a great example of guerilla marketing and a terrific win/win distribution platform.

Meet Mike:

I’m Mike and I’m the founder and creator of Word of Mouth BOT.

I am a bootstrapped solo founder and I’ve always been a “marketing nerd,” reading about guerilla marketing as a teenager. The low-cost/high-impact tactics and strategies have always been the foundation of my perspective on effective marketing.

With this in mind, I created the first version of the software about 6 years ago. The goal was to make the most powerful marketing tool available to small businesses and I know I have succeeded!

I decided to learn as much as I could about coding and Google SEO and ended up hiring a great team of developers who have been with me for nearly six years now.

As a business owner, I understand the marketing challenges that local businesses face. Word of Mouth BOT enables thousands of businesses to take control of their online reputation and SEO by turning their happy customers into content-creating machines. That means better keywords, higher rankings, great ratings, and a ton of reviews all on auto-pilot!

How did you find out about AppSumo Marketplace?

As a marketing nerd (see above), I’ve been aware of AppSumo and Noah for years. It is quite amazing they’ve been created! In my opinion, AppSumo is absolutely a great example of guerilla marketing and a terrific win/win distribution platform.

Tell us about your launch! Any challenges?

The biggest challenge for me was creating the content, it’s just not my thing, unfortunately. Conveying the real value of Word of Mouth BOT as a marketing tool and as a business opportunity wasn’t easy. Luckily, I work with a great marketing guy, David Dubbs, who was an absolute asset through the initial process. Another challenge was to figure out how not to cannibalize my monthly recurring revenue business model while providing an awesome LTD for Sumo-lings. So far, my strategy is working well for us and for Sumo-lings!

What value did you receive from your promotion?

We are on our way to signing up thousands of partners through AppSumo. The real value to Word of Mouth BOT as a business is to be able to get these partners profitable and want more locations and features to resell and upgrade to our monthly plan. With this LTD, you can make $1,000 or more per month, every month— if that’s enough, great!

But if you want more, we offer upgraded plans for $199 per month that empower you to make over $20,000 per month. Through AppSumo, you can simply try before you buy. This is our business strategy: get thousands of partners to be successful and making money. The hope is they’ll want to upgrade, so they can make even more!

What advice would you give to anyone interested in Marketplace, so they can get the most of their launch?

I would say to think through your pricing strategy so that it only adds to your users, instead of taking away from your core business. AppSumo is a powerful distribution platform for any tool or piece of content that interests marketing professionals.

What’s been your favorite thing about launching with us?

Hands down, AppSumo’s willingness to work with us and get through the growing pains.

What’s your company vision? Tell us what’s next for you!

My goal is to have over 1,000 partners making over $10,000 per month each. At that point, I will have done my job and it’ll be on to the next project!

4. Watermarkup

Watermarkup is a quick watermarking application that is suitable for all businesses and professionals. It helps users watermark photos in batches without losing image quality.

Launching on AppSumo is one of the best ways to market your product.

Meet Jerry:

I’m Jerry and I’m the founder of Watermarkup.

Watermarkup is a small team and we often work remotely. Some members of our team live in Europe and Asia. We launched Watermarkup in December of 2019.

How did you find out about AppSumo Marketplace?

I am a frequent user of AppSumo. One day I received an email from your team about AppSumo Marketplace. After one or two months, I decided to apply to list Watermarkup on your Marketplace.

Tell us about your launch! Any challenges?

Actually, in our experience, the process of launching on Marketplace was very easy. We didn’t run into any problems.

What value did you receive from your promotion?

The biggest value is that we have more connections with other people and partners. Some partners have even contacted us to collaborate. It’s incredible!

What advice would you give to anyone interested in Marketplace, so they can get the most of their launch?

Prepare for the launch carefully and always support users as soon as possible. I recommend that makers always focus on answering questions from their users.

What’s been your favorite thing about launching with us?

We really enjoyed the smooth and easy process and the help from the entire AppSumo team! It’s been a great experience. Launching on AppSumo is one of the best ways to market your product.

What’s your company vision? Tell us what’s next for you!

We plan to release the next version of Watermarkup in the near future. We’re also creating other SaaS products and will launch them soon.

5. Studiocart

Studiocart is a simple, powerful plugin that has everything you need to build funnels directly on your WordPress site.

My business would not be where it is right now if I had not launched on AppSumo.

Meet Nicole

My launch started with AppSumo in late 2020. Studiocart is my first ever plugin/software commercial product. It’s mainly myself plus three contract developers.

How did you find out about AppSumo Marketplace?

I found out about AppSumo from an article on Freemius, my plugin distributor.

Tell us about your launch! Any challenges?

It was nerve-wracking because this is my first product and I had no idea what to expect as far as providing support.

My biggest challenge was getting people to trust me. I would go into Facebook groups and community forums asking people to beta-test my product. I had this thing that people said they needed and wanted but people were turning me down. It was hard to get anyone to say yes, and it was incredibly frustrating.

Launching on AppSumo gave my product a huge credibility boost and opened the door for me to gain the trust I needed from the community.

What value did you receive from your promotion?

Definitely the user feedback. Without that feedback, I wouldn’t be able to improve the plugin as quickly and I wouldn’t know which new features to prioritize.

My business would not be where it is right now if I had not launched on AppSumo. The amount of exposure, sales, customers, and feedback I got from the platform enabled me to not only launch my business successfully but continue to grow it.

What advice would you give to anyone interested in Marketplace, so they can get the most of their launch?

You definitely need to engage as much as possible. You should answer questions and ask for reviews wherever you can. I’d recommend AppSumo Marketplace to anyone who’s trying to launch a new software business and struggling to make any traction on their own.

What’s been your favorite thing about launching with us?

Launching with AppSumo jumpstarted my WordPress plugin business. It’s literally the reason my business exists! AppSumo has been a godsend— it provided instant credibility for my product to potential customers.

What’s your company vision? Tell us what’s next for you!

I’m really excited to create additional resources for my community that will help them show off their skills and knowledge and hopefully increase their visibility. The plan is to continue to enhance Studiocart and implement feature requests. I’m also working on building our community and creating more community-based resources. The goal is to have training/mini-courses and an experts directory, so our users can showcase and highlight their expertise.

Sell on AppSumo Marketplace today

Thank you to all the awesome creators and founders for taking the time to catch up with us and sharing your journeys! We’re thrilled to watch your businesses prosper and flourish!

Inspired to create a product of your own? Want to help users troubleshoot some age-old problem?

Our community of hustlers, entrepreneurs, and leaders can’t wait to see what you come up with. Submit your product to AppSumo Marketplace today!

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