Launch HN: Loops (YC W22) – Email for SaaS Companies • Hacker News Board

Re: Launch HN: Loops (YC W22) – Email for SaaS Companies

#131

Post by tomahony » Fri, Sep 22, 2023, 10:51 PM UTC

chrisfrantz wrote: post #129

tomahony wrote: post #125

This is a cool product, but it feels a bit confused. It seems the innovation here is making the management, editing and publishing of emails much more streamlined through your interface. That's great as it's definitely a frustration of creating emails. But in the pricing you are focusing on contacts (and therefore "number of emails sent"). First of all, it's very difficult to guess what "contacts" are when considerin…

Thanks for the detailed feedback! We find that users start their company, use us for everything then never have to think about how to contact their users. Requiring a bring your own solution is great for more mature businesses but we’re targeting early stage right now and asking someone to signup for a second service to use ours feels like it may slow things down.

Ah interesting, I understand. Definitely makes sense if you're targeting new companies that aren't worried about emails/contacts in the beginning.

Re: Launch HN: Loops (YC W22) – Email for SaaS Companies

#132

Post by chrisfrantz » Fri, Sep 22, 2023, 11:04 PM UTC

kylegalbraith wrote: post #127

We use Loops to power some of our email things for Depot [0] and Resend for other bits of it. In general, it's been a pleasure to use. I think there are some logic things to get right at the API level, like should I use events or contact properties to trigger loops? We're working on some of that and wish the guidance was a bit better/clearer. At the moment, any properties you send with an event get added to the conta…

Hey thanks Kyle!

We'll follow up on the API feedback separately, but you're welcome to trigger with either. We break down the differences here: https://loops.so/docs/loop-builder/loop-triggers#trigger-fre...

Re: Launch HN: Loops (YC W22) – Email for SaaS Companies

#133

Post by winrid » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 3:58 AM UTC

chrisfrantz wrote: post #128

selcuka wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potential SaaS customers register trial accounts all the time. Do each address count as a new contact even though they only receive, say, an activation email once and never come back?

You could remove those contacts and not be charged for them however if you only email someone once that started a trial account you’re doing your business a disservice in our experience.

bugging them constantly is a great way to get on spam lists and not be able to send emails at all.

this is just extortion in pricing. no competitor does this. good luck.

Re: Launch HN: Loops (YC W22) – Email for SaaS Companies

#134

Post by jermaustin1 » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 1:06 PM UTC

winrid wrote: post #133

chrisfrantz wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could remove those contacts and not be charged for them however if you only email someone once that started a trial account you’re doing your business a disservice in our experience.

bugging them constantly is a great way to get on spam lists and not be able to send emails at all. this is just extortion in pricing. no competitor does this. good luck.

As someone who formerly lived in email marketing, the onboarding flow for a trial signup was usually a 7-day flow, 2 emails on the first day, the first was very transactional and automatic for activating your account, the second one was still automated, but a few hours later, and from me (the developer of the product) providing my personal email for any questions. Then one email per day with a tip on how to use the product effectively with mini-case studies from customers.

This converted at 9-15% depending on time of year and product. We built a lot of micro-SaaS offerings.

Our conversion before we did this onboarding multi-touch email approach was closer to 1-2%. These onboarding emails really do work with get a customer engaged and using the trial instead of signing up, and forgetting about it because it was free.

After that, if they converted, they would be moved into a different flow with a less frequent emails (weekly or monthly depending on the product). If they didn't convert, we had a second flow that would lead to an extended trial or discount which would convert another 3-5%.

Effective trial marketing is very important to sign ups. Our "marked as spam" and unsubs never went above 2% because we were providing value in our emails for a customer who signed up for a trial for a reason.

Re: Launch HN: Loops (YC W22) – Email for SaaS Companies

#135

Post by winrid » Sat, Sep 23, 2023, 10:33 PM UTC

jermaustin1 wrote: post #134

winrid wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bugging them constantly is a great way to get on spam lists and not be able to send emails at all. this is just extortion in pricing. no competitor does this. good luck.

As someone who formerly lived in email marketing, the onboarding flow for a trial signup was usually a 7-day flow, 2 emails on the first day, the first was very transactional and automatic for activating your account, the second one was still automated, but a few hours later, and from me (the developer of the product) providing my personal email for any questions. Then one email per day with a tip on how to use the p…

Yes, we send follow up emails to remind them to get things setup. But I don't send much mail beyond that. I do not like sending spam. Conversion is around 10%.

Re: Launch HN: Loops (YC W22) – Email for SaaS Companies

#136

Post by lerchmo » Sun, Sep 24, 2023, 1:13 AM UTC

chrisfrantz wrote: post #130

santiagobasulto wrote: post #110

Congrats on the launch. I’m currently starting my own startup, so I can give you my impressions as a potential customer. Contact-based pricing is bad. You’re trying to create an email platform for SaaS, from the features perspective (yey!) but you’re charging just as mailchimp and everybody else does (nah!). Instead, as a founder, I’d rather prefer “active user”. If someone tries my product, but they never return, I…

Yep it’s great feedback! You can pretty easily slim down your contact count to follow that active user model if you’d like already :)

In practice that is a major bummer. You can’t distinguish between a new subscriber and a re activated subscriber.

Re: Launch HN: Loops (YC W22) – Email for SaaS Companies

#137

Post by moneywoes » Sun, Sep 24, 2023, 1:26 PM UTC

jermaustin1 wrote: post #134

winrid wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bugging them constantly is a great way to get on spam lists and not be able to send emails at all. this is just extortion in pricing. no competitor does this. good luck.

As someone who formerly lived in email marketing, the onboarding flow for a trial signup was usually a 7-day flow, 2 emails on the first day, the first was very transactional and automatic for activating your account, the second one was still automated, but a few hours later, and from me (the developer of the product) providing my personal email for any questions. Then one email per day with a tip on how to use the p…

what provider did you use?

Re: Launch HN: Loops (YC W22) – Email for SaaS Companies

#138

Post by chrisfrantz » Sun, Sep 24, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

lerchmo wrote: post #136

chrisfrantz wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep it’s great feedback! You can pretty easily slim down your contact count to follow that active user model if you’d like already :)

In practice that is a major bummer. You can’t distinguish between a new subscriber and a re activated subscriber.

With filters you should be able to do it pretty easily assuming you have the data in Loops already. Always ways we could improve though!

Re: Launch HN: Loops (YC W22) – Email for SaaS Companies

#139

Post by junwen » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 7:55 AM UTC

smca wrote: post #31

Congrats, Chris!

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Re: Launch HN: Loops (YC W22) – Email for SaaS Companies

#140

Post by bwb » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 1:35 PM UTC

winrid wrote: post #126

siva7 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're targeting SaaS and SaaS means traditionally a signup is needed to be a customer which turns into a contact.

Yes, but free trials are a thing.

ya just to chime in, this is also a deal killer for me. I don't have any interest in per contact pricing. We have a ton of users who don't pay us very much.