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Wavve: making $76k a month turning podcasts into videos

failory.com

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Re: Wavve: making $76k a month turning podcasts into videos

#43

God that's impressive. takeaway: make products for people that use computers but don't know how to use suites of tools.

Maybe your takeaway is right but there's also a huge piece that wasn't captured in your one-liner

"We lost about 2 years of our time and $30k of my savings (which was most of it). "

"Getting those first 10/100+ customers was really hard. We relied primarily on direct outreach via cold email and social media messaging to obtain those first customers. Taking the time to reach out directly to customers for a $7/month plan was painful"

Re: Wavve: making $76k a month turning podcasts into videos

#44
post #38

Semi-rhetorical question: why do customers accept something like this delivered in SaaS form? It seems so antithetical to customer obsession when this is the exact type of problem that lends itself well to a locally running application. Why not deliver this as a desktop application that users download and pay for one-time? There’s absolutely no need for an ongoing subscription to a backend service here. Outside of re…

The explanation is that this is probably the best offering they're aware of, and whatever the price is, it's less than the value they receive.

Re: Wavve: making $76k a month turning podcasts into videos

#45
post #38

Semi-rhetorical question: why do customers accept something like this delivered in SaaS form? It seems so antithetical to customer obsession when this is the exact type of problem that lends itself well to a locally running application. Why not deliver this as a desktop application that users download and pay for one-time? There’s absolutely no need for an ongoing subscription to a backend service here. Outside of re…

Maybe you can do it and compete with them?

Re: Wavve: making $76k a month turning podcasts into videos

#46
post #38

Semi-rhetorical question: why do customers accept something like this delivered in SaaS form? It seems so antithetical to customer obsession when this is the exact type of problem that lends itself well to a locally running application. Why not deliver this as a desktop application that users download and pay for one-time? There’s absolutely no need for an ongoing subscription to a backend service here. Outside of re…

> Why not deliver this as a desktop application that users download and pay for one-time?

Because when given the option, sellers usually choose more money than less money.

Anyone is welcome to create a competing product and take their margins.

Re: Wavve: making $76k a month turning podcasts into videos

#47
post #38

Semi-rhetorical question: why do customers accept something like this delivered in SaaS form? It seems so antithetical to customer obsession when this is the exact type of problem that lends itself well to a locally running application. Why not deliver this as a desktop application that users download and pay for one-time? There’s absolutely no need for an ongoing subscription to a backend service here. Outside of re…

Semi-rhetorical answer:

1. It still provides more value than the monthly subscription.

2. People have shown a greater willingness to pay for ongoing features and support in a SAAS model than in other formats.

3. It better aligns with the costs of support and maintenance that the provider needs to provide.

4. It's less risky for the consumer to get started.

5. There's no piracy or people decompiling your app and putting it out under their own name.

6. No updates to fiddle with and works across machines.

Not all answers above directly apply to the podcast->video service here but these are the general reasons.

Re: Wavve: making $76k a month turning podcasts into videos

#48
post #38

Semi-rhetorical question: why do customers accept something like this delivered in SaaS form? It seems so antithetical to customer obsession when this is the exact type of problem that lends itself well to a locally running application. Why not deliver this as a desktop application that users download and pay for one-time? There’s absolutely no need for an ongoing subscription to a backend service here. Outside of re…

Cash flow? If it was a one time purchase they'd have to charge more upfront.

Also maybe there could be automation with this service that saves time?

Re: Wavve: making $76k a month turning podcasts into videos

#49
post #38

Semi-rhetorical question: why do customers accept something like this delivered in SaaS form? It seems so antithetical to customer obsession when this is the exact type of problem that lends itself well to a locally running application. Why not deliver this as a desktop application that users download and pay for one-time? There’s absolutely no need for an ongoing subscription to a backend service here. Outside of re…

The main point people make about differentiating your digital product is to not compete on price. A lower price means less money for advertising and marketing, so a losing proposition.

What you're proposing with the one-time upfront fee model is to compete on price, so smart entrepreneurs steer clear of that model.

Re: Wavve: making $76k a month turning podcasts into videos

#50
post #38

Semi-rhetorical question: why do customers accept something like this delivered in SaaS form? It seems so antithetical to customer obsession when this is the exact type of problem that lends itself well to a locally running application. Why not deliver this as a desktop application that users download and pay for one-time? There’s absolutely no need for an ongoing subscription to a backend service here. Outside of re…

With this specific product, I would argue that being OS and desktop independent is actually a feature. I can imagine that a significant amount of the users might even upload the videos to their social media profiles from their phone.

The choice is between maintaining 2 mobile apps + a desktop app that is compatible with macOS and Windows and maintaining a single webapp.

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