Implemented/shipped
[2021-11-29 05:48:04 AM] : Implemented/shipped PPP tonight and marketing it later this morning :smile: Going to fight reinvent for space on twitter, but I'm just happy to have it out because I've been getting questions about it.
1 Reply
[2021-11-29 09:02:12 AM] : how did you accomplish ppp, from a tooling perspective?
[2021-11-29 09:02:22 AM] : it’s on my to-do list as well
[2021-11-29 11:21:20 AM] : Stripe discount codes and netlify geo based redirects mostly
[2021-11-29 11:22:22 AM] : ah interesting
[2021-11-29 11:27:02 AM] : I use stripe checkout, so can add the coupons in the serverless function that instantiates the checkout flow and it "just works". Was a bit of a pain to create all the coupons but worth it
[2021-11-29 11:34:24 AM] : i was hoping for some sort of off-the-shelf tool
[2021-11-29 11:34:35 AM] : haven’t done any of my own research yet though
[2021-11-29 11:36:32 AM] : Yeah unfortunately I didn't find anything that was generically drop in that I was happy with
[2021-11-29 04:12:35 PM] : One of the challenges with drop-in is that many people also lock PPP purchases to the country they were purchased in to avoid abuse, and most drop-in tools don't do well with this. If that doesn't concern you, https://paritybar.com/ is a simple "just works" kinda solution to get started. You can also do something fairly similar on your own using a few JS lines (like https://github.com/rwieruch/purchasing-power-parity/blob/master/src/index.js) and some custom discount codes. Probably really easy to fake with VPN though :man-shrugging:
[2021-11-29 04:15:43 PM] : Personally, I have found that handling it manually works okay for a while, but you will definitely have some annoying edge cases from time to time. For instance, people who asked for PPP weirdly were much more likely to download all the videos then request a refund all within ~48hours of purchasing. I tried to ignore this, but when you visibly see it happening and go through the effort of manually creating discount codes for them it can be frustrating. You also are likely to miss out on a few sales that would have happened if you advertisied PPP, since not everyone will reach out.
[2021-11-29 04:16:50 PM] : If starting from scratch, I'd likely advise myself to consider PPP when I was making enough from sales to do it full time, and just apologize and say I don't offer PPP before then. But that is based on my experience which may be an outlier.
[2021-11-29 04:18:45 PM] : Should have started with this - congrats on launching this Chris! I am also working on PPP now and its always nice to see how others achieve it.
[2021-11-29 04:19:31 PM] : ok, paritybar looks like exactly what i wanted
[2021-11-29 04:19:37 PM] : thanks
[2021-11-29 04:31:12 PM] : no stress jon, appreciate you sharing your experience. fwiw, I am making enough from product sales to justify going full time on it and it additionally brought in some reasonably priced consulting that I'm engaging with 1-2 days a week (my rate at the moment is $2k/day), so doing just fine revenue wise between product revenue and some consulting padding it out.
[2021-11-29 04:44:32 PM] : :+1: I kinda figured you were at a point where it was enough to justify it. I've also seen people trying to add it at like $2k in total sales and personally I don't think that's the right time. Better to spend the effort growing your audience with higher paying customers so you can go more full time.
[2021-11-29 04:47:16 PM] : > Better to spend the effort growing your audience with higher paying customers so you can go more full time.
isn’t it only a very small amount of one-time effort to implement PPP using e.g. paritybar though?
[2021-11-29 05:37:02 PM] : More customers = more support. Assuming all customers are equal, 10 customers at _$10 are harder to support than 1 at $_100, and this takes away from time doing things like building products, making ebombs, etc.
For whatever reason, I have found that students who request PPP discounts also tend to be students who value my time less and are harder to support. Not all, but statistically I expect it to take a bit more effort on my part. I can give examples of this if you'd like, but it often just feels like they value my time less.
[2021-11-29 05:38:17 PM] : i see, that makes sense
[2021-11-29 05:38:56 PM] : I have spoken with others who have had similar experiences. I even know one person who has a cheaper course (~$10) _t_hat he opts to give away for free rather than offering PPP because that means he can opt out of supporting those customers.
[2021-11-29 05:41:43 PM] : Lastly, I'd say that every time you consider implementing PPP, you have the choice of, "Do I spend this time on an ebomb", or "Do I spend this time implementing PPP?" You are always sacrificing something to implement something else because you have limited time. That's why you will often hear advice about not optimizing things too early, because a 10% optimization isn't very important when you get 2 sales per month, but a flat increase of 2 sales per month from an ebomb is huge at that point. The numbers change later when you have 50 sales per month and 10% can mean 5 new sales.
[2021-11-29 05:43:21 PM] : in my case it’s a choice between “perform a one-off PPP every time someone asks” (which is more than never) and “automate PPP”. the latter seems like a lower net cost to me
[2021-11-29 05:44:25 PM] : Yeah, if you are doing it manually and it gets to that point you may be right. I also think everyone is different and handles things like support differently. I can let support drain me more than others, especially because I can let myself get caught up helping with something for hours going way deeper than any reasonable student would expect. It is great at times, and some students are die-hard fans as a result, but it also means I'm bad at supporting a large number of people all at once while also being productive with new content.
[2021-11-29 05:46:13 PM] : If I was starting from scratch, I'd probably advise myself to pick a number - say $1k/mo - and before I hit that number I would tell customers who ask about PPP that unfortunately I don't quite earn enough to confidently offer it at this time b/c I fear it would hinder my ability to support everyone, but once I am further along I will definitely be implementing it.
[2021-11-29 05:47:13 PM] : my current policy is just to give people whatever discount they want. no problems so far. that may well just be a result of luck though.
[2021-11-29 05:50:18 PM] : If it works well for you, then by all means continue to do what is working. I did something similar and it worked well for a while, but at some point it got challenging. Not sure if that is a function of having more sales and inevitably running into some of those issues, or if I just was unlucky.
[2021-11-29 05:53:17 PM] : I definitely don't want to discourage you from doing it if you are eager to. I just don't think it is always sunshine and rainbows - there are potential downsides.
[2021-11-30 04:37:30 AM] : Good work on the PPP Chris Biscardi. I adopted PPP but do it all manually. I have received some nice comments when you remind people about it during a launch - even if it is not helping them directly.
[2021-11-30 11:21:49 AM] : That's a good note (for me) to remember Samir . I had a number of people buy full regular price even while I was launching PPP and nothing else.
[2021-11-30 12:17:54 PM] : Yes same. It's why I always want people to put the coupon in themselves so they have the choice. My podia checkout experience this weekend meant I had to go away from that.
[2021-11-30 12:28:22 PM] : That is one of the struggles I've had with integrating - I use coupons (automatically applied) for sales with my current workflow, and that doesn't work well with PPP coupons. Gumroad doesn't have a "use 2 coupons" option to my knowledge. It isn't unfixable, but it just isn't as easy as I'd prefer.