The Exchanges

Q Got it. So what did, so what did you, this is, look, an affiliate program on day one is really compelling. How you structure it is even more interesting. How did you structure it? What did they earn in terms of percent commission?

A Uh, they earned it. Well, it was a two tier affiliate program. So we just paid two tiers. First tier was around 30%. Other tier was around 10% of, of commissionable volume. Uh, we also have bonus pools. So quarterly bonus sales pools based upon the gross sales of all, of all tiers, um, in there. What we did for Amy social is we did was, uh, we, we put on over 300 people within 72 hours, 300 customers within 72 hours using a prelaunch strategy. Uh, for, so four months before we launched Amy social in January of this year, we drove people into a Facebook group and we promoted the value of the product and educated them and got them really excited about it.

AI assessment note: “First tier was around 30%. Other tier was around 10% of, of commissionable volume.”

Q What did you, in 2017, when you say you launched that, was that the early version of Amy social just advanced over the last four years?

A Yeah. So we launched, we launched prebuilt marketing, which was the first version of the app was desktop app only. That was at the end of 2018. Um, and between 20 18 and 20 19, we did almost 700,000 in revenue in that, in that year with those thousand customers. Yeah. They were all paying 127 dollars a month. So somewhere in there, I don't have the number. But we realized that we, you know, you made it, you know, you make a great point. There's a lot of people playing in the space. They all do You know, little bits and pieces. We tried to bring it all together under one roof. And so we knew that we, to do that, we need to go back into the lab. And that's what we did at all of twenty-twenty. Literally just, you know, allowed our, allowed our salespeople to sell the original app. Didn't do any marketing of our own. Went back in the lab with our team and created Amy social. And that's what we're going to mass market with. That's what we're, we're pushing hard out there.

AI assessment note: “we launched prebuilt marketing, which was the first version of the app”

Q What were the other eight, what were the other seven 50 paying or were they free users?

A They were free because we had a freemium model. So they were on the free plan, and, you know, obviously, you know, the SaaS game is a fickle business, right? You never know where somebody is, but, you know, our, our, our, at that time, our core market was the solopreneurs, these individuals, one to three man shops, you know, who have a lot of trouble with social media marketing or content creation in general, who are looking for, you know, something that really took all the heavy lifting and the guesswork out of keeping, you know, consistency of Posts and marketing their business, educating their audiences where they don't have to sit there and get into the canvas and figure out what to say. Am I a writer? Am I not a writer? Am I a designer? What should be my, you know, how many posts per day? What should I say? What should I do? And so that's what our product does. It's artificial intelligence that really creates the complete social media marketing strategies.

AI assessment note: “They were free because we had a freemium model.”

Q Any of these working best, better than the others?

A Um, you know, it depends. You know, I'm finding that with, with Facebook, even with some advanced targeting, it's a little difficult because, you know, we're finding that we need to be a little more vertical specific. You know, our app is customized for over 30 verticals, but it's hard to pinpoint verticals specifically. Um, you know, if you're selling a wellness product, a shake or something like that, it's a little easier on Facebook because you can have a broader audience. But if you're looking for a house cleaning company, a B to B play, finding a little difficult. Um, we're starting to understand and dive deeper. I've always been a part of LinkedIn. I have LinkedIn connections, things like that, but diving into more of the ads on LinkedIn, how we can leverage that to be a little more targeted. I think we're going to find more value over there, but I don't really have any results yet to, to share with you as far as that. It's still just kind of going.

AI assessment note: “I don't really have any results yet to, to share with you”

Q What's the secret to building an effective affiliate program? You know, a lot of people can sign up affiliates, but to get them to actually promote and drive a sale is a whole other animal. It sounds like this is, like, sort of your special sauce here in terms of distribution.

A It's about building community. You have to, people have to believe in you and your vision of your app, right? Because I've built many software products already, and they always start with a vision, and then they grow. Things work, don't work, You know, people, you have to have people that believe in where you're going to be so that when you give them the app, they have an understanding of understanding that, yeah, there's going to be bugs. There's going to be issues. There's going to be UX issues and UI issues and things that you just didn't account for. And they have to have that belief and they have to have that. So it's about building community and trust and really articulating your vision and then sharing that. It's a lot of communication. There's a lot of handholding. You have to communicate. You have to do meetings. You have to, you know, Present. You have to keep driving that community. Some will fall off. Some will come in and go, you know what? I really love the concept, the idea of the product, but it's not for me. Right. I don't know how to sell it. I'm good at selling this, but not necessarily tech just because you sold this doesn't mean you're going to be good at selling technology. Right. Even though, you know, some business owners, you may have some, some enterprise people, you know, it's, it's a different art. And so, so you're going to have to go through that. …

AI assessment note: “It's about building community. You have to, people have to believe in you”

Q And so how, I guess, again, the reason I asked is because this is part of the founder journey, right? Everyone's exposing their own capital at some point. It can be nerve wracking. How much person have you put into six figures? You're saying a hundred grand, 200 grand more.

A Yeah. I like to not discuss that. You know what I mean? I'm not going to, because I don't, I just don't want to, you know, I don't want to discuss, you know, personal investments on a podcast, but I'll tell you that this has not been an easy journey. And if anybody thinks that being a SaaS founder is an easy journey, then, you know, yeah, there are those few stories where somebody creates a product and within two years, you know, has a billion dollar valuation. Yes, they do happen. But if you look at the majority of them and you know, cause you've interviewed a lot of them, they have a lot of failures. They have a lot of tough points. They had to go through a lot to finally Figure out either the product, the white way of distribute, distributing it in the position to finally get there. So if any of your viewers are watching this, it isn't easy, but it's, it's fun and you got to have the fortitude, uh, to keep sometimes to, to brush yourself off, you know, after a bad month and, um, and keep going and keep innovating and keep figuring out what's working and not working.

AI assessment note: “I don't want to discuss personal investments on a podcast, but I'll tell you”