Helping A Dungeons & Dragons Publisher Grow His Business | Ep 846

Summary

Summary of "Helping A Dungeons & Dragons Publisher Grow His Business | Ep 846"

Released on March 4, 2025, "The Game with Alex Hormozi" features entrepreneur Alex Hormozi as he delves into strategies for scaling a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) publishing business. In Episode 846, Alex converses with Brendan Jones, the founder of Night Vision Creative, a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) content publisher. This detailed summary captures their in-depth discussion on business growth, customer acquisition, advertising strategies, and overcoming operational challenges.

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1. Introduction and Business Overview

Brendan Joneservant introduces his company, Night Vision Creative, highlighting its focus on creating collaborative, high-quality content for Dungeons & Dragons enthusiasts. He explains that alongside his full-time IT consulting job, which generates $350K to $550K annually but drains his passion, he seeks to transition fully into his TTRPG business.

Notable Quote:

Brendan: "Looking to scale something. What they want on the IT side is what's in here, whereas something else that I can scale on a product like that's. That's what I'm looking at." ([00:28])

2. Financial Performance and Challenges

Brendan provides a financial snapshot from 2022 to 2024. In 2023, Night Vision Creative achieved its highest revenue with a $142K profit on $34K exposure. However, 2024 saw setbacks due to significant capital expenditures on a new Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, increased inventory costs, and higher advertising spend that failed to convert leads into customers effectively. Additionally, a strategic shift from Kickstarter to Backerkit crowdfunding platforms resulted in lower conversion rates.

Notable Quote:

Brendan: "I have an IT consulting business that's actually my full time job at present and it's grossing 350 to 550k per year and sucks a little bit of my soul with that every single day." ([00:30])

3. Product and Market Analysis

Night Vision Creative offers books, PDFs, and a recently launched SaaS called Creeds Codex, which serves as a digital library and gameplay tool for users. The TTRPG market, a subset of the $1.7 billion board game industry, is growing at approximately 12% annually, driven by both physical collectors and digital virtual tabletop (VTT) users.

Notable Quote:

Brendan: "Pretty much, yeah. Until, like, until there's a new version of Dungeons and Dragons." ([03:19])

4. Advertising Strategies and Customer Acquisition

Brendan discusses his primary customer acquisition channels: Meta (Facebook) ads, crowdfunding platforms, and influencer partnerships. Meta ads account for 50% of his customer base, crowdfunding for 30%, and influencers contribute 7%. In 2024, increased ad spend from $5K to $12K pre-campaign, along with $5K during campaigns, did not yield proportional revenue growth, leading to a reduced return on ad spend (ROAS).

Notable Quote:

Brendan: "So, this would be like all PDF. This would be like everything where you have the three hardcovers, all the PDFs, tokens, heart pack, et cetera." ([09:40])

5. Funnel Optimization and Conversion Rates

A significant portion of Brendan's challenges stem from platform switching, which disrupted customer conversions. His initial campaigns achieved a 12% conversion rate, which plummeted to 1.5% during the problematic 2024 campaign on Backerkit. Additionally, there is a discrepancy between customers who express interest (e.g., adding their names to books) and actual purchases, indicating potential issues in the funnel's final stages.

Notable Quote:

Alex: "You switched the platform from 23 to 24. That resulted in some loss in conversion..." ([02:59])

6. SaaS Integration and Its Impact

The Creeds Codex SaaS has been a modest success, with a 2% monthly churn rate and a current pricing of $19.99 per four weeks. While it generates additional revenue, Brendan notes that the SaaS's contribution is relatively small compared to book sales, with only 37% of 357 users purchasing upgraded tiers.

Notable Quote:

Brendan: "So, that's really early, and then the third one had a 1.5% conversion..." ([22:04])

7. Influencer Marketing and Whitelisting

Influencer collaborations have had mixed results. While some partnerships yielded substantial follower boosts, most required payments ranging from $900 to $5,000 for promotions that did not consistently convert into sales. However, Alex suggests leveraging whitelisting—using influencers' trusted endorsements to run ads directly on their channels—as a potentially more effective strategy.

Notable Quote:

Alex: "So, if I think about this, my thought was to be like, don’t worry about the SaaS, we need to crush this next Launch..." ([35:26])

8. Strategic Recommendations

Alex Hormozi offers actionable strategies to Brendan:

1. Revert to a Proven Platform: Return to Kickstarter, which historically provided 30% of customer conversions, rather than experimenting with less effective platforms like Backerkit or Game Found.

2. Enhance the Funnel: Implement a more robust email follow-up sequence, expanding from the current two emails to a 14-email series to nurture leads and improve conversion rates.

3. Optimize Ad Spend: Increase investment in high-ROAS channels (e.g., Meta ads targeting interests like crowdfunding and D&D) while ensuring creative content aligns with successful past campaigns.

4. Simplify Product Offerings: Reduce complexity in bundling options to prevent customer fatigue and streamline decision-making processes.

5. Leverage Influencer Whitelisting: Utilize trusted influencer endorsements to expand reach and credibility, potentially reducing reliance on inconsistent influencer marketing efforts.

6. Implement a Tripwire Funnel: Introduce a low-cost offer (e.g., a $5 add-on) to initiate customer engagement, paving the way for higher-tier purchases and maximizing lifetime value (LTV).

Notable Quote:

Alex: "I was going to say fundamentally for these, you'll know what the three kind of like tiers are. I don't think the tiers that you had are bad..." ([56:13])

9. Action Plan and Next Steps

Brendan outlines an action plan based on Alex’s recommendations:

• Immediate Actions:

  • Re-list on Kickstarter: Launch the next campaign on Kickstarter to capitalize on its higher conversion rates.
  • Expand Email Sequences: Develop a comprehensive email marketing strategy with multiple follow-ups to engage and convert leads.
  • Refine Ad Creative: Produce additional ad creatives, including those featuring influencer endorsements, to improve lead quality and reduce cost per lead (CPL).

• Long-Term Goals:

  • Scale Ad Spend: Gradually increase advertising budget on proven platforms to drive higher revenue without compromising ROAS.
  • Optimize SaaS Integration: While currently a smaller revenue stream, continue refining Creeds Codex to enhance its value proposition and encourage subscription upgrades.
  • Simplify Product Bundles: Streamline product offerings to align with customer avatars, reducing decision fatigue and improving purchase rates.

Notable Quote:

Alex: "So I think the big thing that was missed is you took a roll on something that was doing a lot more good for you than you knew." ([36:35])

10. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The episode concludes with Alex emphasizing the importance of leveraging proven strategies, optimizing customer funnels, and judiciously increasing ad spend to overcome Brendan’s scaling challenges. By focusing on high-utility actions and minimizing risk, Brendan can transition from his unfulfilling IT consulting job to fully dedicating himself to Night Vision Creative's growth.

Notable Quote:

Alex: "This is going to crush the next launch. That's the objective." ([36:35])

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This summary encapsulates the key discussions and strategic insights shared by Alex Hormozi and Brendan Joneservant, providing a comprehensive guide for TTRPG publishers aiming to scale their businesses effectively.

Transcript

[Alex]

So big picture, the theme that I would tell you is not to think of this as a special snowflake business and to just think of this as you're a publishing business which is fundamentally media. And so as somebody who is in basically the exact same position, you. I have two books.

[Brendan]

Right.

[Alex]

And I have a third one coming out. I have a lot of kind of like relevant things here that I think. I think I'll be able to help you with. What's up?

[Brendan]

Not too much, just, you know, looking to scale.

[Alex]

Yeah, let's see what we can do to help.

[Brendan]

All right, perfect. My name is Brendan joneservant and I am the founder of Night Vision Creative. It's a TTRPG publishing business. So TTRPG is tabletop role playing games and making content for Dungeons and Dragons. All right, so quick business overview. I have an IT consulting business that's actually my full time job at present and it's grossing 350 to 550k per year and sucks a little bit of my soul with that every single day.

[Alex]

So you die a little bit.

[Brendan]

Yeah, I'm just, oh man. Looking to move away from that into something I'm a bit more passionate about and that I just find more interesting and really like just trying to figure out how I can scale something. What they want on the IT side is what's in here, whereas something else that I can scale on a product like that's. That's what I'm looking at.

[Alex]

Got it.

[Brendan]

So, kind of quick business overview. We've got. Night Vision Creative is a TTRPG publishing company that collaborates with its community to create kick ass content compatible with Dungeons and Dragons. And it's primarily then just books, PDFs and then SaaS that's recently been stood up. So here's a breakdown, kind of 2022 to 2024.

[Alex]

Well, I'm going to have questions about this.

[Brendan]

I'm certain you are. So 2023 was our biggest year in revenue. 142k profit on that is 34k. And then obviously there was a few changes that happened between that year and 2024, which I'll dive in deeper, but if you've got any questions now, we can jump into those too.

[Alex]

Yeah. So what were the changes between 23 and 24?

[Brendan]

So there's three primary big drivers there. One on the profit side, I had built a SaaS system. So that was a really big capital expenditure.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

So that was stood up this past year. And then I also have a lot more inventory that I had picked up. So a lot of that revenue is tied up in that inventory that hasn't sold yet. And then there's also the increased advertising expenditures that I did. That didn't turn into leads. Well, turn into leads. Didn't turn into customers. Got it. And then on the revenue side, I switched crowdfunding platforms. So the first two were with Kickstarter, the third one was with Backerkit.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

I just did not see those leads converted into customers on that platform.

[Alex]

Do you think you're going to go back to Kickstarter?

[Brendan]

It's a good question. I original plan was doing Kickstarter, then doing Back Kit, then doing Game Found, and then determining which one I liked the best and then focusing 100% on that. Now I'm trying to decide if I should still try Game Found or if I should switch back to Kickstarter and just double down there.

[Alex]

Okay, got it. So you switched the platform from 23 to 24.

[Brendan]

Yes.

[Alex]

That resulted in some loss in conversion, which then you had losses from ads, and then you had more inventory than you. You thought you were going to sell more inventory than you did. And so you have more this inside of there. Are you ever going to be able to sell that inventory or.

[Brendan]

Yes.

[Alex]

Okay. So you can sell that inventory.

[Brendan]

Correct.

[Alex]

So are the books. Are they evergreen?

[Brendan]

Pretty much, yeah. Until, like, until there's a new version of Dungeons and Dragons.

[Alex]

How long does that take? Like, how many?

[Brendan]

Well, so that's the thing. Hasbro has recently decided that they are going to try to just maintain this edition for, in their mind, perpetuity. So they have come out with a. What they've called like a re envisioning of that same rule set, which is compatible with all the content that's been out in the last 10 years.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

And so part of the thing they don't want to do is essentially burn people who have built this library of that content.

[Alex]

If someone's brand new, like a brand new customer of yours, is the. Is your 2022 project something they can buy?

[Brendan]

Yes.

[Alex]

Okay. That's really important.

[Brendan]

Great. Yeah. I think it's really going to depend on what content they're interested in. But any of the materials they can.

[Alex]

Buy, is that just like what storylines they find interesting?

[Brendan]

Think of it more like when we'll get into this a little bit later. But if you were to play like a video game or something and there's a new character that comes out, it'd be like something more like that where this character is fully compatible with this game.

[Alex]

But if they've never bought anything from you. Aren't all of your characters new?

[Brendan]

Yes, that would be new for the game.

[Alex]

So is it like there's like, core, like canon, Right. Which is what Hasbro comes out with. And then you have like, kind of like side quests.

[Brendan]

Yeah. You've got. You've got a whole bunch of side material that's like additional options for players or for, like, dungeon Masters. So depending on, like, whether you're running the game, you'll be looking for content. Like, I want new monsters to throw at my players, or I want a new setting or adventures to run them through. If on the player side, you're like, oh, I want new spells for my wizard, or I want these new cool weapons or I want this new class to play. So instead of playing the wizard, I'm playing the summoner. That kind of stuff.

[Alex]

Okay, got it. Okay, let's, let's. We'll keep going. I'm going to probably have some more questions as we go.

[Brendan]

Absolutely. My goal, kind of like I highlighted at the beginning. I really want to leave that it business. And this. I really got a wake up call on this a few years ago where I was working on a small, like a small team. There were like six of us. And one of the guys had a meeting with him on Friday. He didn't show up to the meeting on Monday. He had a heart attack over the weekend and died. And it was like he had. He was 48. His daughter was. He was coaching her volleyball team and just like, crap.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Brendan]

And so a couple of weeks later, one of the other people passed away on the project. And it's like, holy shit. Like, I got to get off this project. And I also need to, like, start doing something I'm passionate about now before it's too late.

[Alex]

Yeah, no, I love it.

[Brendan]

So. And that's been sort of the drive. Like, I'm not passionate about this stuff. It's like, it's really hard to focus and, like, feel that drive.

[Alex]

I love this. Let's figure this out for you.

[Brendan]

Yeah. And that's kind of where this next piece is. I'm looking at the what would I need to do to bring this other business into being fully scalable? And the goal there, I think, is shooting for around 3 million in revenue, at least that first goal where if I can do that and build the processes and people in place so that I can step away and it doesn't just halt. I think that's where I'm talking. All right, so kind of breaking down that market and who I help here. The TTRPG is a subset of board games. 1.7 billion market there, about 12% growth.

[Alex]

Per year actually really surprisingly high cagrade. This is an increasingly popular thing right now. Tabletop.

[Brendan]

Yes.

[Alex]

So despite all the digital stuff that's out there, IRL is still doing well.

[Brendan]

Well, that's the thing. The digital isn't a separate, it's adjacent to this. So you have people growing both their physical collections where they want that epic thing on their bookshelf and then you also have people with virtual tabletops where they're assembling all their material there and building out automations to play their games and things like that.

[Alex]

Do most publishing studios do both?

[Brendan]

I guess it depends on the size of them. You have some companies like Hasbro who is splitting out their own vtt.

[Alex]

But the side ones that you're kind.

[Brendan]

Of talking about, the side ones usually will provide materials for their books in hardcover, in PDF and then sometimes on the vtts it's virtual table. But there's starting to be so many of those, it's getting really difficult.

[Alex]

Yeah, I think we're going to have to talk through that.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

So I, at present I haven't been looking to do that because everyone has their own and they likely will just put it in themselves if they're looking to do that.

[Alex]

Cool.

[Brendan]

So there's 50 million people that play D and D and D and D is pretty much synonymous at this point with ttrpg. Like they don't necessarily know that's a genre. And the content I make is just fully compatible with Dungeons and Dragons at this point. So like I said before, just new options for people to use in their games. And then in this market the majority of independent publishers are launching their content through crowdfunding campaigns. So that's how they're kind of bringing that out. And I kind of broke those avatars down into three different individuals based on some physical characteristics on like their time as well as on their kind of interest in what they're purchasing. So we've got cost conscious hobbyist which would be primarily picking up those PDF versions. And then you've got the just kind of timestrap professionals, parents, people who like to play the game but they want plug and play easy material. And they might pick up either whether they prefer they work all day at a computer, they want the physical book, maybe they don't care, they want the digital. And then you've got the collector who like they want that bookshelf with 400 of their books on it.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Brendan]

So the things I'm looking to do to help them is create those books, plug and play content, elevate your game immediately. You've got the SaaS option, which is Creeds Codex, and that is a kind of library of all of my content. So easily searchable and filterable. You can find what you're looking for, and then some gameplay tools that are accompanying that. And so those kind of pieces kind of tie together. And then the community aspect, where rather than having this be like a very separate sort of activity where I build a book and then try to get people to buy it, I have them involved from the beginning figuring out, I mean, basic things like what we should call characters, having them give feedback on which concept art we should move forward with, even all the way up to having their names physically in that book. And then for the pricing, the primary offer, since, like, 95% that revenue comes through the crowdfunding campaigns, at present, I'm looking at structuring that stuff to facilitate that.

[Alex]

And when you say 95, does that mean books or books? And this SaaS.

[Brendan]

Books and this SaaS. The SaaS has only been live for about two months.

[Alex]

Okay. So basically all the money you've made up at this point has been selling books.

[Brendan]

Yes.

[Alex]

Okay, got it. Yeah.

[Brendan]

So. So the books are $70 for the hardcover. So, like the one you've got there and the one I've got up here. Or you can get a digital version for $40. If you do buy the hardcover, it comes with the digital version.

[Alex]

Mm.

[Brendan]

And then we've got the. The SaaS application. So, creeds codex dot com. That's right now 1999 per four weeks. Use that pricing handbook. So. And that one is essentially, there's credits for that included in buying the books.

[Alex]

Got it.

[Brendan]

Here's just a quick example of what some of the bundling can look like on the crowdfunding campaign to increase that.

[Alex]

Yeah. What's the cost?

[Brendan]

What's the cost per book to buy?

[Alex]

Yeah, no cost to you.

[Brendan]

Cost to me. Cogs. Let's see, that's on that pricing sheet at the end. But it's about $8 to manufacture. So to print one and then the cost to make, I think I'd rounded that up to about $24 cogs for each person. So that would include. And this would be an assumption of technical, editor, artist, all that stuff. So that would decrease.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah. Question. So if you sold way more of them than that, cost per unit would drop significantly.

[Brendan]

Essentially, it'd be a limit approaching probably $4. If I could get the economies of scale kicked in, where I'm printing in say 100,000 copies at a time, then that printer is doing 100,000 is a lot of copies. It is. So I would as a bookseller. Yes. Because right now we're doing full print, but you could get to web roll or there's a few other technologies to look at if you're doing large enough print sizes.

[Alex]

Okay, so you have this, you run these bundles where you have multiple that you sell at once. Yeah, right. Okay.

[Brendan]

So this would be like all PDF. This would be like everything where you have the three hardcovers, all the PDFs, tokens, heart pack, et cetera. And then the part of the reason I was building out that SaaS was to try to supercharge these offers where like this one, it's $300 for all this stuff and then essentially on top, you get 100 or $1,000 in credits to use that thing, which would give you like years of access. How I get them primarily Meta ads is the primary driver of pulling in leads that convert into customers. So we get 50% of our customers coming through that way. 30% from the crowdfunding, 7% from influencer.

[Alex]

So the platforms themselves send you 30%?

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Pretty significant.

[Brendan]

Yeah. So they, because they have a bunch of tools set up, essentially, it's like, oh, you bought this, maybe you'd like this campaign or recommendations, that kind of stuff. And then there's word of mouth and miscellaneous searches.

[Alex]

Now the 30% that you have there, I'm just going to make an assumption that Kickstarter provided 30%, but the newer one did not provide 30%.

[Brendan]

Yeah, BackerKit did not seem to convert. It didn't have the traffic.

[Alex]

No, no. I mean, it's good. Like when platforms have fees associated with it, typically if they're well priced, they make the fees net of the, you know, the customers that they're bringing in.

[Brendan]

Yeah. And the way, the way all of the platforms that I'm aware of are structured, it's essentially you're going to pay for the processing fee. So whatever that is, 3 to 5 percentage. And then you also have a 5% flat FE.

[Alex]

That's how they make their money. Okay, so question. Does anything prevent you from doing this on multiple platforms at the same time?

[Brendan]

I know for sure. Backerkit and Kickstarter, I don't know. I haven't looked at the contract for gamefound. But most of them will. If you, you can only launch on one platform, another platform will essentially preclude you from launching there. Like, they do not want you live on multiple platforms at a time. The other thing that I've seen this might be before some of the. The legal terms were updated on this is anyone who's launched on multiple platforms doesn't seem to do very well. There are tools where I know, like indiegogo is another platform though, that's super great for my niche where you can move your campaign there once it's done to essentially have like an indefinite crowdfunding piece. And I did that on my first one and I think I got one sale in two months. Like, is not something I need to run.

[Alex]

What about. And so like a Shopify store is. Does no one run that?

[Brendan]

Uh, I have a Shopify store.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

Uh, it just doesn't have a ton of revenue coming in.

[Alex]

Okay, got it. So it lacks traffic. Okay.

[Brendan]

So yeah. And I, I haven't been able to get like a good enough like, return on ad spend outside of the campaign piece because I have attempted to send people to Shopify directly and things like that.

[Alex]

But you push them straight to when, when we get a little further, I'm going to ask for a visual of the whole thing.

[Brendan]

Okay. I actually do have a slide with the customer journey of like, add the landing page to that piece I can run you through.

[Alex]

All right, so Met Ads is half. Crowdfunding is 80. So 80% is right there. Influencers is 7%. Tell me more about the influencers.

[Brendan]

The influencers I've used so far that have been remotely successful would be like a YouTube channel that's got, let's say, 100,000 plus subs.

[Alex]

What's your incentive for them?

[Brendan]

Essentially payment. They will take like 900 to 5000 chunk of like for a promotion piece.

[Alex]

So they'll pay. You'll pay them 10 grand and then they'll promote it?

[Brendan]

No, 900 to 5,000.

[Alex]

Oh, okay. Okay. So 1 to 5k ish is what you pay them for. Like one kind of like ad inside 60 second.

[Brendan]

Like this video is sponsored by blah, blah, blah. They have killer stuff. Go check them out.

[Alex]

And are they users?

[Brendan]

Yes, this would be specific.

[Alex]

Like those. I'm saying, like those influencers use the stuff so they like, believe in it.

[Brendan]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the, the ones that I've used. Like, they want to review the materials first because they also want to make sure they're clear up that they like, this was an example timeline of just how that's structured where advertising first three months kind of build on momentum while it's live. Advertising, no advertising. The rest of the year is it's product development and delivery.

[Alex]

Got it. And so people buy, and then they go into a community where you kind of like develop it with them. So they're stoked. And then you.

[Brendan]

Exactly. Yeah. And in the advertising piece, you can already get them in there before you've launched. So ideally they've. Yeah, that community started building the project before you're kicking it off.

[Alex]

Got it.

[Brendan]

So how many I help. This is based on 2023 data, which I think is much more accurate than the last year. But this would be shooting for getting around 4,000 leads in that particular year. And obviously, you have the leads you keep picking up every year. And then total sales would be about 1800 customers. And this is kind of a breakdown of what the pricing has looked like in those customers per project per year. So we've got the 2022 project with that average purchase price around $34 kind of scaling up. And this is due to two factors. One, I have more of these books. So each project is selling whatever I produce, the first one, plus. But the prices, I've also increased each one as I go, too.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

So because I I 100% followed your playbook of what is everyone else doing, I'm going to price a little bit lower than that. I'm going to provide a little more value.

[Alex]

Like, that's not my playbook.

[Brendan]

This is not. So say it's like, all right, we got to go the other direction. Increase that value. Increase that price. So that's been the direction.

[Alex]

All right, quick question. So going back one. So 34 to 75 and then to 154, so it's like you doubled your average customer purchase each year. So despite the fact that it did poorly in 2024 because of the other stuff that went on because you changed platforms, like, what do you think? What drove the second doubling of customer revenue per customer?

[Brendan]

So there was a couple different things here. The first project I was doing, this was like a complete pilot of can I even figure out how to make book? Like, I know nothing about this. This. Let's dive in. When I made that first book, I did a print on demand because I. I didn't want any risk. It's like, if I'm going to do this, I don't want to run into the thing where it's like, there's too many unknown unknowns. And so then with that next book, it was a full print run. And so this one, it's like, you take the risk. Yeah. And so that one was like the test of can I figure out how the logistics, fulfillment side of everything.

[Alex]

So was it just that the pricing went up between year one and year two?

[Brendan]

Year one and year two, but the.

[Alex]

Product itself more or less remained the same.

[Brendan]

Yes, but the number of products purchased also increased because now I had two books on that second canvas, so a.

[Alex]

Lot of them just fall both.

[Brendan]

Yeah, it was people buying both and people paying more for both.

[Alex]

Yeah, I love that. Okay, great.

[Brendan]

So, and then the third campaign, prices went up again. And then I also have a third book.

[Alex]

Wonderful common theme. So.

[Brendan]

Yes, yes. And so the idea is kind of continue that. And the goal obviously was if I can keep increasing that customer count, my costs will keep going down. And so, yeah, so the problem, I think when I'm trying to figure out, like, what if I look at theory of constraints and I'm diving in, it's just I have tried a lot of things and had mediocre success with most of them. And I'm not sure where to focus. Like, if I'm laser focused on something, I want to make sure that's the right something so that I'm actually making progress here. And I just really struggle with that. And one of the things I looked at was on your value equation in the crowdfunding space, in particular that time constraint on the bottom half, like how long it takes you to get that product sucks. Like, you buy this.

[Alex]

So if, if someone, if someone buys. So let's say this year, right, you have three books, right? You have the two old ones that you have and you probably have some inventory that's, that's hanging out. And then you have your current book. That's the new project, right? Do they get the first two books immediately or do. Do you wait until they, like until the third one's done? They ship all three.

[Brendan]

I've been doing shipping all three at the same time.

[Alex]

So big delay there.

[Brendan]

There's a big delay.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

The thing that I've been looking at doing is since they're, since the hardcovers come with the digital copy, give them immediate access to that as digital tool set. So they can do like the search filter and find stuff that way. And more importantly, like the, the product that I'm currently working on, I give them access to like the work in progress manuscript. So like immediately they can jump in on that. But I've also spent a ton of time on trying to optimize building that book so I can make it faster. So a lot of these campaigns, you'll buy a book and it'll tell you we're going to ship it to you in a year. And then when that year gets there, like 11 months in, they're like, oh, we're going to be a little late. And that little late shifts from being like a month or two to like two years.

[Alex]

Yeah. And then everyone hates you.

[Brendan]

Yeah. And so. And then you have these comments where it's like, oh, yeah, just expect whatever they tell you to be like, at least a year after that. And like, on my projects, I've had two so far where I've delivered. I've been early. So I tell you I'm going to get you this book in a year. I get to you in less than that.

[Alex]

I really like that. Okay.

[Brendan]

And so that's. That's one of the things I've been focusing on. But it hasn't translated to revenue, I think. Customer satisfaction, sure, but not being able to sell people on.

[Alex]

Do people buy these on Amazon?

[Brendan]

So I actually was talking with a couple of people about that concept where there is a lot of people who buy the Wizards of the coast products out there. So you have the Player's Handbook and some of those ones. I mean, like, the Player's handbook has like 24,000 reviews on Amazon. Like, big, big book on there. But a lot of my competitors, I haven't seen their products on there.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

So it is definitely a route to pursue. And I actually, when I asked you that question at the last one of what should I do now? It's a suggest. And started building the listings in there.

[Alex]

Was that my suggestion? That's. I'm glad. It's the same brain making decisions.

[Brendan]

Yeah. So it was like, have you, have you listed it there? And it's like, not yet. Because it's like, will. How much effort will that take to actually have revenue generation from there? Unknown. But I started building listings in the airport on the way home, and then I found out someone else has listed mine with the same ISBN. And so I was like, well, now I'm going through the brand registry and all that crap. So. Hasn't successfully made it there, but it's. Yes, a potential target to focus on.

[Alex]

Got it.

[Brendan]

So when I was thinking about this, I had reread through the $100 million offers and that one of those lines in there where it's like, if you solve this, you solve these two problems. It's like, I feel like if I solve those two problems, that would solve my problem, at least in the short term. Not enough customers, not enough cash. Because if I have that cash, then I can deliver the kinds of experiences I want for those customers. So I think this is a good highlight of that problem where in my discord someone posted this thing, which I thought was hilarious. It's like they want to give me money and they're not sure where to put it. There's demand. I'm just not meeting it correctly. There's a challenge in my funnel somewhere. So here's the numbers we can dive into. We've got essentially those three years breakdown the two things that I think, one, we already talked about the profit a bit and then the CAC is obviously exploded because I spent more on advertising and then less of those people can converted.

[Alex]

Was there a conversion rate issue on the site? Like, do you know what the conversion metrics were from the new site that did poorly versus Kickstarter?

[Brendan]

I don't have great detail on how many people made it to the site that didn't convert versus the previous. Like the general Google Analytics will tell me like way less traffic came to the page. And I can see my email list. Project 1 and 2 converted at about 12%. So if I had their email, there's a 12% chance they would become a customer. The last product, which is super strong.

[Alex]

It'S one in eight. I mean, it's great.

[Brendan]

Well, and that's like I didn't see that being an area to focus because it's like I don't trying to get a 10% improvement there seems like way, way worse odds than 10% somewhere else. Yeah. But then maybe it's a more there. Yeah, the third project though, that was like total list, one and a half percent. Like it was. It was pretty terrible. So again, I mean anecdotally I have like people listing in my ads. Oh, it looks like it's on a different project or platform. Let me know when it's for sale and I'll just buy it then. So like I have single data set points of that. So I don't know if it's something else to do with the platform or I don't know, something. But one other data point that I think might be interesting is I did send out a survey to my full list to say if you want your name in the book, like this is the last time to do it. And I had way more people give me their name than bought the book. So I'm wondering if there's a gap with they think they bought the book and they didn't. And I also had people show up at the site and then message me On Discord. Like, oh, is this on a different site? Even though they had signed up on that site already. They signed up on Backerkit, they were ready to go by. They then got the notification to go by. They then show up and it's like, oh, I didn't realize I signed up on this site. So there's some disconnect between that platform switch. Okay, so I think the one other piece that I might call out here is the returning customers. It was 24% after that first year. I don't have great benchmarks here to know how good that is, but obviously that third year had dropped quite a bit.

[Alex]

Yeah. Okay, what was your ad spend between in 22 and 23?

[Brendan]

22 I spent about 5k. Okay, 23 I spent slightly more and I had a little bit more of a third parties run some ads as well. So there's two platforms in particular. Backer Kit being one of them that ran ads for me specifically on crowdfunding stuff. I haven't found their stuff to be.

[Alex]

But what did you spend on 23?

[Brendan]

5,000.

[Alex]

Do you spend five both years?

[Brendan]

Yeah. And then there was additional spend while it was live. Which.

[Alex]

And is that profit net profit or gross profit?

[Brendan]

That is net profit.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

So to be clear though, I don't take a salary from this one such it's your business. But the 2024 I spent 12,000 pre campaign to build up that so over double. And then I spent another 5,000 or so while it's live.

[Alex]

Okay, got it. So you spent three times the money and made one third the revenue.

[Brendan]

So like this is the inverse of the.

[Alex]

Yeah, this is not the direction because.

[Brendan]

Based on like, based on the previous two data sets, I kind of built out a financial calculator to say like this is my estimated range and yeah, obviously way undershot what I was thinking.

[Alex]

All good.

[Brendan]

All right, so SaaS, just real quick. This is the. Obviously stood this up. Most of the revenue is actually surprising. I was anticipating most people just using free credits. So getting any revenue is pretty cool. And then churn is about 2%.

[Alex]

Is churn 2% of people who are paying? Not of people using credits.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Okay. That's monthly. It's not bad. That's really good actually.

[Brendan]

So yeah.

[Alex]

And the price point is what's the price?

[Brendan]

So I had a founder tier that most of these people would have come in that was 999, essentially half.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

Using that urgency scarcity service piece where open to 100 people and limited to I don't know, like 30 days close. That feel like it was Halloween.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Brendan]

So most of the people came in through that. So they would be at 999 and then there's something that's.

[Alex]

And that's every four weeks, right?

[Brendan]

Yes. And then some people came in after that and they'd be at the 1999 for four weeks. And then technically there is another tier that's $1,000 a month.

[Alex]

A month.

[Brendan]

And that one comes with custom illustration of your voice.

[Alex]

Princess Leia. And a Princess Leia suit shows up at your.

[Brendan]

Yeah, so. And that one, I have had one person pick it up and part of it was a way for them to spend some of those free credits where if they bought that treasure hoard, it came with a thousand credits. They can then use that to essentially buy custom artwork in addition to getting access to everything on the site.

[Alex]

Okay, yeah, super interesting on this. I have some thoughts, but okay, let's go to the next one. Walk me through the customer journey. Like, how does someone find out you exist?

[Brendan]

Yeah, the main route that people are coming in right now is through like meta ads as I described. So here's an example of one. So they would see this ad. The best sort of copy I found and like illustration was one of my pictures kind of coming through the background here. And then free exclusive D and D content from our upcoming book, get it before it's gone kind of thing. This takes them to a landing page where they can opt. In this third campaign, I had a much stronger lead magnet than the previous ones because this one gave them a free PDF, which is why the decreased conversion was even more disappointing. It's like, all right, let's give away more and more free stuff. And then that conversion just didn't happen because before the call to action would be something like get notified. Now it's you can get notified, but you also get this free PDF immediately.

[Alex]

Now was the old one just like a simple opt in. And this one had more like selling associated with it.

[Brendan]

It had a very similar look, but it didn't have any. Like, you gave me your email address and all that gave you was access to like, I can send you emails to get it to Discord and stuff like that. So. And one of the things I was thinking about was in rereading one of those emails you'd sent out recently talking about the lead magnet being better than things your competitors are charging for. And so the lead magnet I have now is even better than the one I had previously, where it's like a 61 page PDF and most people are giving out like a, I don't know, 10 page. So they go from there to a discounted pre order offer offer.

[Alex]

Okay, so after the opt in.

[Brendan]

Yeah, so after you've opted in, it's like kind of become a VIP sort of piece. Pick up this add on for 80% off, put $5 down today. Okay, so ideally just the self limited. Yes. Huge selling conversion piece here. And then I can also send.

[Alex]

And so they get 80% off the price by paying $5.

[Brendan]

So yeah, they essentially would be picking this up for $5 rather than 25 when it's live.

[Alex]

But obviously when it goes live, they have other things that you're. You can. This is just 70 is the price of the books is how much now?

[Brendan]

70.

[Alex]

Okay, so then the 5. What does it get me with the $5?

[Brendan]

This is a PDF that it's not the full book PDF but it'd be like one of the supplemental ones.

[Alex]

So how many PDFs does this come with on top of the book?

[Brendan]

It's the book plus the PDF is like a base tier. So like that would be one. One thing and then there's another.

[Alex]

And that's 74.

[Brendan]

No, that'd be 70.

[Alex]

Okay. Yeah. Okay, so book plus a PDF or.

[Brendan]

One or two book plus the books PDF.

[Alex]

Okay. Yeah, it's a digital version of the book and a PDF.

[Brendan]

Exactly. Yeah. So digital plus hardcover. 70. If you were to buy one of the Standoff PDFs that are standalone PDFs where you may introduce like specific things like this is a PDF of magic items or this is a PDF of.

[Alex]

And so they just bought the PDF, they would get it for $5 rather than 25.

[Brendan]

Correct.

[Alex]

Which you have for sale. But the core offer is hardback plus the PDF and so they get. So if somebody pays $5 here and they want to get the hard copy and the PDF, what do they pay?

[Brendan]

So their total purchase would then be $75 plus shipping and handling.

[Alex]

Oh, then what discount did they. Were they able to achieve?

[Brendan]

Well, that's because it's 70 for the.

[Alex]

Book and 5 for the PDF instead of 70 plus 25.

[Brendan]

Yeah, so instead of the. Yeah, instead of 95.

[Alex]

Okay. And is this what. And this is the vast majority of people come through this process.

[Brendan]

Yes.

[Alex]

So they're getting. Got it. Okay.

[Brendan]

Yeah. So the people who have picked this up have been extremely excited about that. But the conversion on this isn't as good as I would hope. This is about 7% of people will do this.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

So essentially 7% of people gave me their email.

[Alex]

Yeah, it's not bad actually. Wait, 7% of people opt in, so 47% do the discount.

[Brendan]

Sorry. I guess. Let's jump back real quick. So season ad on meta. This is about like the last campaign was a dollar and 19 per click. So $1.19. Someone clicks here, that person, there's a 24% chance they'll give me their email. Okay, so the landing page is converting at 24, you're getting $5 leads and then that person has a 7% chance who's given me their email of also getting the add on.

[Alex]

So of the 24% that opt in.7% of them.

[Brendan]

Yes, that opt in. Or like if they do that add on, that then gets them to a page that they can follow the campaign. So this would be on that platform and this, this kind of doubles as a different lead generation tool because the platform itself will send them an email when it's launching. They'll send them an email 48 hours before it ends and then they'll send them an email when it's ending. I think there's like eight hours left. And that like if you follow it, there's a 30% conversion. Well, campaign one and two, 30% conversion of people who followed to being customers.

[Alex]

Okay, and what was the conversion of buy to follow?

[Brendan]

Interestingly, around 30ish percent as well.

[Alex]

30. So 30% of the 7% follow and 30% of hat buys.

[Brendan]

What I did was if you bought that, I also just automatically added you to essentially the survey goes out at the end to say make any changes you want to your pledge, give your address, that stuff. So I added all those people in who didn't back the campaign and that bumps that up from 30% to 45. That's right.

[Alex]

Okay, what email follow up do you have on the optin?

[Brendan]

So on the opt in for this last campaign, the way it was structured is they would get an initial email immediately that had whatever that was. So it was like a PDF that came out. Then I think there was a one day delay and then there was another email that came out inviting them to take a survey to get another free PDF. And that survey I was collecting a bunch of demographics information and the idea was if I can figure out who all of you are, then I will do better job finding more of you.

[Alex]

And that's pretty much the two emails you send.

[Brendan]

And that would be the two emails I send. And then they would be getting, at that point they just kind of get funneled into the general email list. It's not super well segmented. So it'd just be like once a week some sort of email going out about, I don't know, here's some cool value add to whatever it is that we're working on that you can get immediately and then some sort of call to action in there. This is pretty much the end of that funnel because then at that point when the campaign goes live, they then just come to the campaign.

[Alex]

Okay, how many pieces of creative do you put together for the ads campaign and do you run the ads?

[Brendan]

Yeah, at this point I pretty much do everything.

[Alex]

Okay, so how do you put the.

[Brendan]

So for this. For this third project, that was 117 different ads that I ran over the three month period. Okay. And. And by creative, it was a mixture of like text and images. So might be doing some a B testing where all the images are the same based on what performed best and changing text.

[Alex]

Yeah, I'm surprised that just purely aesthetic. I'm guessing that was your number one ad.

[Brendan]

Yes.

[Alex]

Yeah, I'm surprised that purely aesthetic, just like images from the books don't convert better than that image. That is surprising to me.

[Brendan]

Me preaching to the choir.

[Alex]

Yeah. So because it's so pretty, the first.

[Brendan]

Campaign is like, this is a killer image. Everyone in Discord loves it. I'm going to use that as the ad. This is amazing.

[Alex]

Where it says free exclusive D and D content, et cetera. Did you use that or consider using that as the headline?

[Brendan]

Yeah, I tried all kinds of variations.

[Alex]

Okay, interesting.

[Brendan]

This. This one, ironically, I had set up as one of my first ads.

[Alex]

Any videos.

[Brendan]

I had tried a couple videos especially with me, like putting the book on the shelf so you can see stuff like that. And I could. The videos always perform worse for whatever reason. And then the like this particular ad, it was running in Parallels. I keep doing all the testing for the other ones. I can never find one to beat it.

[Alex]

So if it just.

[Brendan]

But because this one I think spent about $4,000 on this one ad and that was bringing in $2 and 90 cents per lead.

[Alex]

How big is the audience?

[Brendan]

You mean the target audience on Facebook? I tried a variety of them. Smallest being like 200,000, biggest being like 38 million. Got it. And so the one that I had the most successful, successful ads with was. Must be interested in crowdfunding. So you could do a few different options there to build that down. And Dungeons and Dragons, that would obviously be the target market there. And that one performed the best. And I tried doing a variety of other things like looking at if they were into video games or pieces like custom PCs or essentially grinding through what am all the things that I'm interested in.

[Alex]

Yeah, no, I think it's smart.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Okay, cool. Now, now I feel like we can, we can tear into this guy. So these are not in order right now. We'll order them later. But I think ads machine. So basically we need to machine out even more creative for you whitelisting. I think getting permission from influencers to do that would be a massive lift. The speed of giving them an option to get something right now outside of digital, I think is interesting. The name thing that you said where a lot of people put their name in but then like didn't end up buying, I think we can fix that really easily. Okay, we're going to talk about SaaS landing page. I think there's a couple of really easy things that we can do that might, might materially increase the opt in rate.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

So I think there's a version of ads that you can also machine out there that I think will be cool.

[Brendan]

This one will probably not be like any product that has come out with AI stuff is almost 100% banned by the community.

[Alex]

Okay, I'll tell you where I'm going with that. Okay, so big picture, the theme that I would kind of like tell you is not to think of this as a special snowflake business and to just think of this as you're a publishing business, which is fundamentally media. And so as somebody who is in basically the exact same position, you. I have two books, right. And I have a third one coming out. I have a lot of kind of like relevant things here that I think I'll be able to help you with. So number one is you're actually falling into a really classic problem for small businesses, which is optimization of relative versus absolute return. And so right now, the first two years we'll throw out last year because there was a conversion issue with the platform that you're in. But I think fundamentally, if you just run the same play year three as you did year one and two on the same platforms, I'll bet that you probably would have tripled your revenue. So right now you feel probably a little beat down from last year.

[Brendan]

Right.

[Alex]

But like you might in an alternate timeline, right. You might have done 600K.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Because you had spent, you know, you know, five. The first five got you was it 50, 50,000 or something, and then the next 5,000 got you 142,000, which is absolutely absurd. Just to be like really clear like that's an absurd return. That's like 29 to 1 or something. 28 to 1. And then the next year. And that's just on return on ad spend, not including gross profit, which we'll get to. But like, if, I mean, the, the really powerful thing that you have right now is that you're getting 28 to 1. You were in 2023 on this product, which to me is like, very exciting. And then when you told me that there was, you know, massive markets in terms of there's 50 million people who are doing it, it's growing at 12%, and then there's lookalike audiences that are in the millions that you can target. I'll give you the example. So if you think about, let's say that you've got a business that has, call it, you know, $10,000 a month in total kind of expenses, right? And then let's say you have $2,000 a month in profit, right? So I made that look ugly, but that's the profit and this is the expenses, Right?

[Brendan]

Gotcha. So you're bringing 12k a month, right?

[Alex]

Exactly. And so what happens is it's like, okay, well, I'm only going to spend 2k, and then that 2k makes me just enough gross profit to like cover my 10 or cover my 12. But it's like, but if you spent like 20k, all of a sudden you get all of your fixed costs covered, but then you finally get to like, multiply on this profit part. And so like, this happens all the time because it's like, I only have $2,000 a month to spend. And that $2,000 a month is what creates the 12. And you can't get out of this. It's kind of like a rock and a hard place scenario. And so it's like you kind of need to go heavy on the spend so that you can get past basically your fixed costs. So you have this variable return that's good. The more you spend, the more you make. And you've got this fixed cost that's in the business that's like in a brick and mortar to be like, this is your rent, this is your payroll, and it's like it's not going anywhere. And so a lot of small businesses just won't spend enough despite getting really good returns, because they are like, well, I can only spend two, but they have to pony up at some point and be like, I'm going to spend 10 so that I can make. So these costs will stay the same in scenario two. But now when I spend 20, you know, it's literally off the chart in terms of what the upside is. So number one is, let's talk landing page as the thing that I'll focus on right now. Okay. So did you try a version of this where it was just headline 3 to 5 bullets image often?

[Brendan]

Yeah, like everything's above the fold. Yeah, yeah.

[Alex]

And this converted better.

[Brendan]

This one converted better.

[Alex]

Interesting. That's. So that's usually not how that works.

[Brendan]

I felt like the Rory Sutherland's like you could make it longer, you could make it shorter. Both will probably do better. That's not a way of found. But the longer one did seem to do better than the shorter one. And this would have been, let's see, data size to make that decision would have been about 500 people, 250 at each.

[Alex]

Yeah, got it. Okay, well I would, I would probably put opt in above the fold here. Yeah, go ahead.

[Brendan]

There's an A B for this particular one which obviously we're going to A. But B has the opt in as the very top thing.

[Alex]

All right, so big picture, I want to tell you that on the ads the fact that you're getting 7% of people to take your self liquidating offer is really good.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

Normally especially free front end to next it's like typically you'll get like two or three.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

So seven's actually really good. And so like honestly man, the big thing is like you have to. Okay, you're in the spot where like sure, you've already done some optimization here which is good but we need to. Here I'm just gonna. Number two is I think that we have to go to the back to Kickstarter and I wouldn't, I wouldn't try this.

[Brendan]

So I have 300 people that have gone to the game found page that's set there to launch something. Should I just launch something small and then have the next one start on Kickstarter? Should I just leave that parked and completely ignore it and go.

[Alex]

Can we like give them some sort of like, like kind of like auto enroll them into the Kickstarter so they don't feel like they lost anything. We're just like, hey, same thing. We're just using a different platform.

[Brendan]

Not I don't have control to do anything like that. Part of the reason I was pursuing each of these other platforms is they're looking to compete with Kickstarter. So they offer some pretty good tools terms on their stuff, but obviously they don't bring the traffic. Doesn't matter. So the, the one Huge advantage to game found, which it has over both Backerkit and Kickstarter, is their board game, which mine is like a subset of, is now bigger than Kickstarter's. But it is also a huge risk, obviously, because I don't. I don't know what that's going to look like.

[Alex]

If I thought there was a chance that I could go and hit 600,000 next year. Hey, guys, real quick. This podcast only grows from word of mouth, quite literally. There's no other way to grow podcasts than word of mouth. If there's some element of this that think somebody else should hear or be relevant to them, it would mean the world to me if you shared this via text, via Instagram, via dm, via whatever way you like to share stuff with people you love. Thank you. With the thing I know versus the devil I don't. I would probably go to the devil I know.

[Brendan]

Okay. So I guess what I can choose to do is just leave that parked and then kind of ignore it and change all the direction to be the new campaign.

[Alex]

Unless there's some. Well, because the thing is, is Kickstarter got you 30% of your customers. And so by switching platform, we lost a third of the business there. But that's also attributed. Whereas there's probably a bunch of unattributed and or conversion increases because it's a super trusted platform. So it's like, for example, like I have obviously a Shopify store for the books. Right. But Amazon, like my Shopify page, I think converts to like 2 or 3%, something like that.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

And my Amazon page converts at 30.

[Brendan]

Gotcha.

[Alex]

Yeah. So even with Amazon fees.

[Brendan]

Yeah. So you're looking at that 10x inclusive.

[Alex]

Yeah. And I would bet that. I don't think Kickstarter converts like Amazon, but I'll bet you it converts better than the other two platforms.

[Brendan]

Yeah, no, that's, that's a fair point.

[Alex]

So it's like there's on one. On one vector, they'll just send you customers, which is amazing. It's just free money. Right. And you just pay their fee. Like what a deal.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

The second part of that is that the conversion rate increase I would bet on their page compared to the others is materially better. And so also because we had two profitable campaigns and then one that's not. I wouldn't be rolling my dice to hope for a 20.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And I would probably go back to like, yeah, I need five or above. Like that works. Like I'll make that role. Right.

[Brendan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alex]

No, seriously, so this is because you're, you're at a point right now where this is like existential risk to the business.

[Brendan]

Oh, for sure.

[Alex]

Right. And so like if I have, if I'm betting the business, I'm not going to bet the business on an improvement. I'm going to bet a business on the thing that I already know works.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

So go ahead.

[Brendan]

I was going to say, are you familiar with the idea of decreasing your batch size and like the DevOps or like lean Manufacturing?

[Alex]

Well, lean, yes, but.

[Brendan]

Okay, so the idea on the DevOps side of essentially just being like, build the smallest pieces of code as you can, like agile something where build this, test it, get feedback, increment that. One thing I was thinking about specifically on the Kickstarter is I've been going through this conversation myself on how to kind of improve returns there and leverage. The idea that Kickstarter itself brings me a lot of customers is the idea of doing very small, like micro campaigns where it could be like a. Maybe it's a $3 PDF that's going actually end up in the final book and maybe I do a couple of those as I'm building the book to not only get people excited and use that as the platform to bring in more people and then essentially get paid to make that material a couple times where I can make it and then do. Maybe you do four a year and then you have one final big one that they all get added together into that final one and each time you're picking up more customers.

[Alex]

I like it conceptually, but execution, given the constraints that you have on capital and like risk to me feels like I wouldn't make the roll.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

So if I think about, like, what's the objective of what we're talking about right now is that we crush the next launch. That's the objective. And so I'm My whole. Everything that I'm going to go through is how do we maximize the likelihood the next Launch is a $600,000 or million dollar launch rather than anything else. Like, and we can get cute and fancy once we like make sure that our core business is working fair. Okay, so on the buy Buy, then put their name in thing, this was just like me zeroing in on that. I'm sorry, I'm getting one step ahead. Is there any reason that we just have them buy and then say on the thank you page you'll put your name in?

[Brendan]

The way that I had sent it out was they essentially got a survey put in your details here. Once that completes, I was Just using Google forms. So it has like that presentation box and that sends them to the late pledge store to pick up that product if they haven't bought it. So the idea was the call to action there after you put your name is like you can go pick this thing up. If you haven't yet, then it'll have.

[Alex]

Their name in it.

[Brendan]

And it would have their name in it when, when they bought it. Like because this is still with the crowdfunding process you have. I've backed this campaign. I then get a survey, let's say two weeks after the campaign ends that they finalized card payments, all that stuff. Now these people then fill out any additional add ons they want to buy so they can increase that pledge size, put in their address where these books are going, all those details. While that is running in parallel, you can have a late pledge store for other people that miss the campaign to kind of funnel in.

[Alex]

And so this is the late pledge.

[Brendan]

And this would be the late.

[Alex]

So this is a small percentage.

[Brendan]

And so the late pledge typically has been, well I guess two pieces here in the survey that typically will increase profits by somewhere about like 10ish percent from whatever you raised on the campaign. And then the late pledge store would be usually probably about half that. So about 5%.

[Alex]

Yeah. My only tidbit was just like is there a way that we can get them to buy and then get their, then put their name in? If there isn't then I'll just scratch it, we can move on.

[Brendan]

Yeah, I think it's because I didn't require them to put their email address to add their name. I don't know if I have a great way to contact those specific that segment.

[Alex]

Could we have them put their email address so you can contact them going forward?

[Brendan]

We could, sure.

[Alex]

Okay. So I think that's worth it. I mean if it's a light lift, if that's not hard to just add the email in and then.

[Brendan]

Yeah, I mean it would only be, it wouldn't be applicable for this book because the deadline to put your name is already passed.

[Alex]

Okay then let's not worry about that. Okay, so the SaaS, let's talk about that. So you actually have an absurd LTV on SaaS if churn stays the same. So you said. So this is the SaaS, right. So right now people are paying 10 bucks every, you know, every 28 days.

[Brendan]

Yes. There's also the annual piece where they get the 20% off or so.

[Alex]

Okay. And do you know what the split.

[Brendan]

Is there off the top of My head, I don't, I would say. Yeah, I don't even know if I could estimate. I'd have to go look.

[Alex]

Okay, that's fine. The thing that's interesting to me though is that if you have 2% monthly churn, then that means that it's 1 divided by 0.02 equals 50x, which is that times 50, which is $500 is what LTV is a lot of people who get on there.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

And that's, and I, I'm, my, my going into this, my thought was to be like, don't worry about the SaaS, we need to crush this next launch. This is really interesting though. So with the sa, like how much does it cost ongoing to maintain this software?

[Brendan]

At this point it would be, let's see, let's call it a hundred bucks a month in like paying for database, all that kind of stuff. And then a one time payment once a year of like just shy of 2000.

[Alex]

Okay, that sounds fine. And this basically just houses all the, a lot of the digital stuff.

[Brendan]

Yeah, yeah. And it's set up in a way that myself and then anyone who's working with me can put in the data into the database, automatically pulls it in.

[Alex]

All right, so let's talk about, let's talk about how we use that in the author. Because if we get this business long term, you just like, so think about like this, it's like what is the reoccurring nature of the business? Right? So obviously there's a percentage of customers that bought last book, they're going to buy the next book, that's great. And then every time you add books, every time you do a launch, more people will buy more books. And so that's just the nature of the publishing business, which is great. Which is why long term authors make more money.

[Brendan]

Great.

[Alex]

But if every time you do a launch it's like you're depositing people into this SaaS repository where, you know, 2% churn means that people stay on average four years, it's 50 months. Right. And so it's just like basically every year all of the sales that take that just basically start, you start next year with all of that is essentially profit or at least revenue to start the next year. And so the hope would be like, okay, can we get to a spot where like you have 69 on there? It's like, can we get 6900 on there? That would be more interesting, right?

[Brendan]

Yeah, yeah. And I mean there are 3,400 accounts in there, but they're all on the free side.

[Alex]

Okay, when do they, like, flip or when do they.

[Brendan]

So the way that it was structured is they've been loaded with however many free credits they've gotten for participating in stuff, and then that's subtracting then out at the lorekeeper piece. So 20 bucks every four weeks. And then depending on how many coins they have, they might be in there for years, or they might have only been in there for a month, or they might be in there for some variation in between there.

[Alex]

But the main thing is that they're getting, quote, free tokens, but they're paying for those tokens in a different way. So it's not like I'm okay with it.

[Brendan]

And that was the way I was trying to look at this value piece is there's a lot of pushback against the way Wizards of the coast has given out their similar sort of structure where you're buying digital access to, like, a book. So I pay 20 bucks, I get access to this book on that site, but that's the only way I have to access it. And if that site goes away, I don't have the book anymore. And people, like, they can also make changes to that book when you don't have any control over that. And then because you're buying all these pieces individually, like, it adds up really fast where you might be paying thousands of dollars to get all this stuff.

[Alex]

Got it you want.

[Brendan]

And I was looking at it as, like, if people, like, are only playing for, like, let's say you're playing for six months, you might want access to everything, but for that period of time. And if you're buying my hardcovers and my digital stuff, and then you get free access for a period of time if you want to keep it. Like, I want them to see value there, not just like, oh, I tricked you into getting a subscription. Like, no one was. So.

[Alex]

So do you have any idea what percentage of customers bought the SaaS bundle?

[Brendan]

Well, the SaaS was included in all purchases.

[Alex]

Right.

[Brendan]

So I want to say the PDF was $30, and they were getting $40 as part of the of credits, and then it kept scaling up. So if you bought the $70 book, maybe you're getting $80 in credits. And if you bought the $100 PDF bundle, you're getting $120 of credits, et cetera, all the way up to that top one. So 37% out of 357 people bought.

[Alex]

The $300, and is that partially responsible for the increase in average card?

[Brendan]

Yeah. Yeah. So that. That was the, well, the very first campaign I did, I did have two really high tiers. So especially considering everything else was cheaper. I had a $450 tier to custom design something with. Sure. And then I had a thousand dollar tier to custom design a subclass, which is a lot more work.

[Alex]

Sure.

[Brendan]

And I actually had three people pick up the thousand dollar tier and one person pick up the 450. But it wasn't, I didn't charge enough for it. So I would, I don't know if I'd ever do it again.

[Alex]

The question is whether or not you having those numbers made the other prices more appealing.

[Brendan]

That was always one of my thoughts. Because on the second campaign, I don't know if you're familiar with the econ experiment with the decoy pricing.

[Alex]

Oh, decoy, yeah.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

I wrote about it in the book.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

Oh, in the book that's not out yet.

[Brendan]

I essentially felt like this is like that exact experiment. I have a digital version, I have a hardcover, and then I have a digital and a hardcover. So what if I sold the hardcover and the digital and hardcover exact same price. So I had three tiers and I had a surprising number of people buy just the hardcover.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

And so it was like. I don't know if the experiment succeeded because based on like the data that he had provided, I would expect like that to be a shift of like, I don't know, 70ish percent buying the package. And it didn't manifest that way.

[Alex]

Okay, we're going to spend more on ads. You're going to run to Kickstarter. The next thing is on the opt in. So despite the fact that you're getting, you know, 24% is not bad. So that's like, that's like a decent benchmark. You're not doing poorly there. I think you need to beef up your follow up. So we did this with a portfolio company and we took them from. They had a three email sequence to a 14 email sequence.

[Brendan]

Oh, interesting.

[Alex]

And I can't remember what the increase was, but I remember it being enough that I remember it. And so I think we go from the two that you have.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

To 14. And I think what I might offer them is in that first email, if they didn't buy, it's the first one's just going to be the reminder. Right. Like, hey, you want this thing? It's awesome. With here's a couple other, you know, bonuses or benefits around buying this thing that you might not have. They might have missed it. They might not have seen a second.

[Brendan]

Pass at the add on for like 80%.

[Alex]

Yes. And I think you can also, because you have the other books add in the other PDF, they should be like, hey, you didn't buy one. How about if I just give you an extra one?

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

And so second offer of PDF and then I would be the next like 12ish is Zoom, what I'll call zoom in, pull out, which is essentially you zoom in on one aspect. Like you, let's say, hey, like, you didn't, you didn't, you didn't grab the book. But let me tell you about urgency. So urgency's in this chapter on this page. And here's a little anecdote of how it would help you play the game. So for you to be like, hey, let me pull out this, you know, character as an example and be like, this is some of the stuff that's inside. And they might be like, oh, shit, I really want that. And so I think you just showing a couple of the things be like, well, here's a spell that's in the book. Here's two spells that are.

[Brendan]

And so this is a PDF or just a screenshot?

[Alex]

Like, no, I would describe it. I wouldn't even, I wouldn't even have it as a screenshot or a PDF because it's just like. And if they're the type of person that likes this thing, it's like they're not going to those emails because it's like, cool. It's like, here's a new weapon that we have or whatever. And I think they're like, shoot, that actually sounds sick. And it's like there's 37 other of these in here. And here's some, you know, here's some reviews.

[Brendan]

Yeah, here, here's one of the 13 spells.

[Alex]

Whatever the next thing is. I do think that you, you've made the right call in the bundles. So I think that was a good, a good call overall because that was one of the notes that I had for myself. But the fact that you had like these, these increasing bundles is pretty much the way to go. The more books you have.

[Brendan]

Where would you cap that? Because right now I think it's starting to get a little complicated with how many things you can choose from. And I know how many options do you have? Let's see. So there's just the PDF, there would be the hardcover.

[Alex]

Can we go to the old Kickstarter?

[Brendan]

Yeah, well, do you want to go. Actually, let's go to the Backer Kit project. We've got the full PDF bundle. And then We've got the full hardcover bundle.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

So. And then the next one's going to come out. There'll be four books available. And so I'm feeling like I need to simplify this so it's not as much fatigue trying to make a decision on what you want.

[Alex]

I think I would reverse this to the avatar of the buyer. And so the way that I'll typically make pricing tiers is going to be based on people's willingness to pay.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

And so it's like, I know there's going to be like, I basically reverse it from price to make my tiers. So it's like I know a bunch of people are going to be willing to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of like the one book purchase price. So that might be like 70 bucks or whatever. And then there's like the next tier of people that are like they're only pay $300. And then there's another. Well, you know, you'll know the tiers, but like there's. You had your three avatars. One of the questions I had that I didn't ask yet was did you have any value buy avatar? Like do you have the three that you showed? Is there a different like willingness to.

[Brendan]

Pay when you say value buy?

[Alex]

So like do you have any, do you have any data? If you don't, it's fine. But do you have any data on the. Here we go. So you know, player or DM collector, how much that guy spends versus time strap. Professional versus cost conscious hobbyist. Do you know what? Like each of them? Yeah, like what they're worth.

[Brendan]

Yeah, I mean I, I would say I don't have great data on this, but my, my assumption would be that the cost conscious hobbyist would be picking up just all digital and one add on.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

50% of people have gotten one add on.

[Alex]

The add ons are.

[Brendan]

Add ons are like the other PDFs, like that one that's 80% off.

[Alex]

Okay, got it. Okay, got it.

[Brendan]

And so that would mean that that person. Well, the 2023 campaign, the PDF was $20 versus the 2024 campaign where it was 35. But if I'm looking at this, that means that the average person would be spending about $40 for that, that PDF tier where they're going to grab one PDF add on plus the PDF book. And then the same thing would go up for the next tiers where if they're buying one book that's going to be $70 for that plus one of the add ons for like 20 bucks.

[Alex]

Okay, so I'm just going to say fundamentally for these, you'll know what the three kind of like tiers are. I don't think the tiers that you had are bad. Big picture, big thing here is that I don't actually think you've done much wrong at all. And so that's a good thing. I think the big thing that was missed is you took a roll on something that was doing a lot more good for you than you knew. And so we know that if we spend more on ads, like you're getting 29 to 1. Right. Or 28 to 1. Like absolutely absurd in terms of roas. And so like when I see something like that, I'm like, my God, I want to spend 100 grand. Right. Like we make 2.8 million. That would be chill, right?

[Brendan]

Yeah, I mean it's definitely the concern of like, if that doesn't manifest, then I have the problem.

[Alex]

Oh, but the thing is you're not going to spend all at once. Yeah, right. So, but. And we're going to be repeating successful actions. We're going to basically run the same playbook you ran year one, year two. Right, Exactly. We're going to add in this, this is going to help the next thing that I think is a self liquidating offer. And so that will also make you feel better because you have your $5 thing, but it still doesn't offset the cost, I'm assuming.

[Brendan]

Right.

[Alex]

Of the ads. Right. So my goal would be like if I'm you, if we crack this, you'll be like, oh, I could spend a hundred grand. Cause I'm making a hundred grand back day one.

[Brendan]

I mean this is like your agency example where they're getting all the funds up front.

[Alex]

And even with low ticket works great. Like, low ticket's where it gets wild. Because with an agency or a service based business, it's like, oh, even if you are making the money back, you're like, I can't handle all these customers. You can. And so when you crack this, you basically get access to like unlimited traffic, which is where it gets really fun. Okay, so I. Because you wanted to do a grand slam offer, what I want to think about is what's the grand slam offer? We can offer people on the front end available now and then we might basically, it's like we're going to pull them in with the new project. That's exciting. But how do we get them to be like, hey, what? Because the thing is, is all your customers more or less have come from Facebook or Kickstarter. Right. So it's, they're all. Your stuff's brand new to them. Even though it's not brand new to you, it's still brand new to them. And so it's like, okay, it still works. It's not going anywhere and it's new to them. I'm like, fuck. Well, we have, we have a bunch of products that we can offer them now and we're just, we're playing with our hands behind our backs. Right. And so I would rather take them through basically straight sales process for this stuff and then hit them later for the launch. And then the idea would be if I can break even here, then everything at the launch is gravy.

[Brendan]

Yeah. So you're looking at Kickstarter still being like a huge engine for this, but when you're spending these ads now, you're driving it through sales.

[Alex]

And you couldn't have done this two years ago because you didn't have this. Right. So we can drive like so the strategy's changed because we have more assets and resources.

[Brendan]

Right.

[Alex]

And so can we have people come in. Right. And so instead of the $5 and you could keep the $5. But I'd rather like, how can we, how can we put that bundle of this stuff and make it available for maybe like half and then that way we can get our cause. What's the average lead cost is what upfront? Like five or six bucks or something?

[Brendan]

Yeah. So like on Meta running through, it ends up being cost per lead is like $4 and change.

[Alex]

Okay. So let's reverse engineer those. So if we have 7% of people who are buying the upsell. Right. So we need to get. And it was $5, right?

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

So I'm just going to say for simple math, it's five bucks a lead. Right cpl?

[Brendan]

Yeah. And that's probably fine too because I found every year the cost per lead is been going up for me.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Brendan]

So that's probably pretty on point.

[Alex]

Great. And then we have five divided by 07. So it's. It costs basically $71. If that sounds right. Does that sound fair?

[Brendan]

Like a VIP. Yeah.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

You mean who take the $5 thing?

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Okay, got it. So $71. So this is just this divided by 7%, people watching at home. There you go, $71. Okay, so we need to get this divided by 0.07.

[Brendan]

And this is where this is too high in most cases.

[Alex]

So this is just mispriced in my opinion. So typically a self liquidating offer is going to be. So like let's say you run a free event, right. So self liquidating offer. Like a traditional funnel would look like this. It would be so self liquidating offer 101. Perfect. All right, so you'll have some free thing, right? This is the opt in.

[Brendan]

Yep.

[Alex]

Next you'll have a thank you page. Vsl. So video sales letter that's on the thank you page.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

Here you'll typically have some sort of. It'll usually be 47 to $97 offer. Typically.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

And then there'll be one or two bumps. That'll be another. Call it another 97. Then maybe one that's either like 67 to 1 97. It depends on like whether it's, you know, hey, here's some VIP amazing stuff. Right. And it's this crazy offer and they say yes as soon as they take the first action. There's two other basically bumps that they can check off on the checkout page where you literally just have a blurb. I'm talking like one and a half sentences. It's just like the candy bar at the grocery store. That's what this is.

[Brendan]

Yeah. So as you're checking out, you can add in two more products.

[Alex]

Exactly.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

And then some people take people through what I call like upsell hell. But like I think at that point then you go, I think like, I think that's clean. And then you can just go to your. The, you know, the backer page. Right, the backer, et cetera. And so I think like if we solve this, this solves your business.

[Brendan]

It does, Right. For sure.

[Alex]

So the conversion rate here typically is going to be. I mean it wildly depends. But for something that's like a free opt in to mat, like to a very large market, you'll see something that's like, you'll see sometimes, usually 2 to 3% if you're at like if you have someone who bought something up front, their conversion rate to the next thing, sometimes closer to like 20 to 30%.

[Brendan]

I see.

[Alex]

So there may be a world where you offer that. So if I had to do two different versions and we can basically pick which one you want to try. But the second version of this is instead of the free opt in, you actually advertise the $5 thing.

[Brendan]

Well, I was going to say what if you stuck this $5 thing in between these two but made this like $1?

[Alex]

I'll tell you that the conversion rate probably won't be any different.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

Yeah. Like 1, 2, 3, 4. It's nothing. Like it's they're all. You take your credit card out. That's the cost. Right. So the alternative version of this that I would bet would be very interesting. So this, this is considered. This is called a tripwire funnel.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

Where someone comes in, they buy the $5 thing and then you offer this. And this is where you can see these 20 to 30% increases or 20 to 30% take rates on this thing. And so let's say the average part value here is a hundred dollars. So now you pay basically, if you can get customers for close to 25 bucks here, then you break even on the whole thing. Now we still have the launch that happens on Kickstarter, Right? That's still going to happen. And so even if we don't recover 100%, even if you get, get 50% or 70% of your ad spend back, it could triple the amount that you can spend.

[Brendan]

Well, and it's dramatically reduced that risk because you've already collected those funds, right? Yeah, because the other challenge with this is you're essentially spending advertising for three months. Well, four months really. You don't get the funds until after Kickstarter ends, plus two weeks.

[Alex]

Yeah. I think this is what we have to do for now until you have like basically more capital. Because long term you could just run the way that you were before and running, you know, 28 to 1. There's worse ways to live life, but your capital constraints. So we have to solve the cash flow issue. So I think like this is the smallest change, the first one. Like this is smallest change. This would be a bit more of a bet. I just know these numbers because I've seen these funnels over and over again.

[Brendan]

Well, would it make sense then to actually have this be the primary AB testing to start?

[Alex]

So this would probably be my AB, okay, $5 thing. And then. So this page is going to be the same for both. It's just this one's going to lead with a $5. This one's going to lead with a free opt in.

[Brendan]

All right, so this, I mean this one will dramatically decrease the number of leads generated. So this will be primarily geared around generating cash flow. And this one would be still getting the same number of leads, effectively keep all parameters the same 24% of landing page.

[Alex]

And we just need to see what percentage here because you're getting whatever 2 or 3% on the 5. I think that in the ad copy. So this is before this.

[Brendan]

Yeah, I guess you couldn't likely run the same ad if you're not. Unless you're Right.

[Alex]

You'd have to have different ads. You'd have to have different ads.

[Brendan]

You got two variables in there.

[Alex]

For, for this, I, I like. For either of these scenarios, I like telling people what's on the thank you page. So being like, hey, and after you opt in, there's going to be the opportunity for you to get the two other books so that this third book makes even more sense when it comes out. And then people are like, oh, okay, like it's not a surprise. You're just telling them. State the fact. Tell the truth. Right, right. You'll get a. You'll get an increased take rate because they're opting in. But they already know that this is coming.

[Brendan]

Gotcha.

[Alex]

I do think there's probably an opportunity to lower the lead cost though, because like, for you, if we could get. So here's the math. If we can get average CPL here to like $2, which I think is possible with better creative, and we can get a 3% take rate with an average cart value of like 70 bucks, which I think is super doable here. Now you're break even.

[Brendan]

Yeah. Well, I will say there is a. Assuming data is accurate, a case study in my space on Kickstarter. Their leads about $1.80. They have a huge audience compared to me. And their project, I think raised just over 4 million for their Kickstarter. But in theory it's possible.

[Alex]

Now the next thing is going to be ads. So I know that you tested that ad, obviously. Did you, with the influencers that you were paying. Did they give you permission to run ads like use their page or whatever to run ads?

[Brendan]

No, and I haven't asked.

[Alex]

I would ask because most of them don't care. And if they're gonna like basically whatever that snippet is that they have from their, from their YouTube channel or whatever snip that obviously get permission from them and then run it on meta because they probably. There's people on meta who know who they are. Right. Even if they're big YouTubers like it. Yeah, it's crossover. And I would bet that those ads will slay because you're going to har. You said like these guys have these big followings. It's like, great, let's use the followings because the amount that you get like the big, like the big infinite money glitch that exists right now, and I don't know how long it'll exist, but it exists right now, is that basically any person who's got organic following can pretty much. And that like Generates revenue from it, can typically 5 to 10x their revenue by just adding in paid ads. And so the reason that happens is like, let's say, let's. I'm just gonna use Instagram as a simple example. So let's say you've got your. Your, you know, your audience. Right? This is your subscriber base of, let's say, 100K subscribers. Okay. Your. Each post that you put out is going to cover like 1 to 2%. Right. Of the audience. It's not going to be a lot because that's just the nature of the platforms. Okay, fine. But you have, you know, 98,000 people who know who you are that never even see or know who they are and never even see the promotion for your stuff. Now where it gets even nastier is this is subs. This is what I'll just call, like, recognize.

[Brendan]

Okay. Like, you've seen their stuff, but you didn't.

[Alex]

Yeah. And you've got a positive intent. So it's like, I know this, this guy, he's really good at D and D stuff and I like him, but I just didn't hit the subscribe button because social media's changed and you don't need to hit it anymore. But I know who this guy is. When you run the ad, you hit all of this.

[Brendan]

Gotcha.

[Alex]

And so we paid them for this. But dude, the juice is going to come from the ads by a mile. Not even close. Like, if I say, hey, go, go check out school, like in this video, then I'll get a hundred, two hundred people who will be like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go check out school and start a free trial. If I run an ad, I can get 150,000 people to sign up. Right. And give it a shot.

[Brendan]

Yeah, yeah. Cause you're in this case, you're relying on their organ.

[Alex]

Yeah, I have to use my pen here. Like, you're getting like this little slice of time, you know?

[Brendan]

So when I've been doing the evaluation on return on ad spend and influencers are doing these things, I've only been looking at your dot here.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Brendan]

And so the. I did have one person whose thing blew up. Like, their videos usually bring in 20k to 50k and this one got 450k subs. And so that one was like, absolutely, I do that again. But obviously it's a crapshoot.

[Alex]

Like, this is your insurance.

[Brendan]

But exactly. If I was looking at it that way, then the influencers are actually probably a much better tool to scale this. Assuming that this also parts at the way that we would expect.

[Alex]

Sometimes it'll convert better. Yeah, well that would be because there's already brand.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

They don't even have past history.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And there's trust there.

[Brendan]

That's, that's super interesting.

[Alex]

So I'm gonna say ads with influencers. So now it's like thing is like they're not. Most of em are just like, sure, that's fine. But like that's, that's where 95% like you, you had the right idea, the execution. Yeah. You just didn't get the. You just like, that's the, like that, that's the gravy. This is the mean potatoes.

[Brendan]

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[Alex]

And it's referred to as whitelisting.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

Okay. So I think that's a big one. Let me make sure that. Because I think with the Kickstarter, ooh. If you're always on time or you deliver early and that's the biggest concern that these guys have. And you know that you always do it it. I would leverage it and if that scares you, make it half off, whatever. But this is compelling as hell.

[Brendan]

Yeah, no, it totally is. Yeah. I think the, one of the things I've been thinking about is and show the history here.

[Alex]

So be like 2022, we promised this, we delivered here. 2023, we delivered, we promised here, we delivered here. And so all these other, you know, guys aren't as legit as I am and aren't don't know how to like manage these types of projects. I do. That's actually what I do for a living in my, in my other life. Right. And so I think that if you say this, it makes it like you're like, what's the grand slam offer? The grand slam offer I think is going to be a combination of the self liquidating offer that we just kind of built out ads that are coming from trusted sources and then an offer that is significantly more compelling for the backend.

[Brendan]

Yeah. Yeah. Well. And I think one of the things I was looking at doing is actually simplifying my product offering too. But right, right now I've been adding an additional PDF on each campaign. But then I have have people like that one I showed you where it's like he's not sure what. He's bought enough things now. And it's like, so if I can start decreasing the number of those things, actually maybe incorporating like some of the best pieces of those into the books and adding more to it, then this gets even simpler because if I'm only making One product for Kickstarter, then I don't have lots of competing things trying to build.

[Alex]

This follow up piece also applies here hardcore, because you'll probably get somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% more revenue from the extended follow up.

[Brendan]

Okay, so when they get the follow up email, if they go, depending on, I guess if we have a B test here, one of them is doing a reminder to buy this thing. The other one, they've already bought it because otherwise they wouldn't be in here.

[Alex]

Right. And then so the reminder on the $5 to buy the big thing, the reminder on the free things is to just go to the upsell page is the.

[Brendan]

Oh, okay. So on that first one, every campaign.

[Alex]

Pushes to an objective.

[Brendan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's always somewhere else to go. So if we've got the first one, they get to the landing page and the only option is to buy the $5 thing. The other one, they leave their email address to get the lead magnet. That takes them then to the upsell piece. And then what is the reminder here would be to get the upsell piece for the one group who bought the $5 thing. And it would be.

[Alex]

So follow up is going to be like, this is follow up to go to here. So you bought the $5 thing. You should definitely check out this thing. Right. Which is gonna be the same thing.

[Brendan]

Yeah. So this is identity, right?

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

Here the follow up is still going to be to this. So you actually only have to write one campaign because it's going to be the same.

[Brendan]

Okay. So both people, if they didn't buy this, they're both getting directed to the same thing. We're not directing these people to this.

[Alex]

So what's really interesting about that, I mean, it's probably testable, but like the. That wouldn't be my first test. What's interesting with tripwires is that is the crazy high uptake rate on the second second thing. So it's really like, can we get $5 buyers for 25, 30, maybe $40? If we can, then the economics work again. The whole thing that we can do here though is that we're just going to get closer to break even. If we break even, then like you literally have unlimited money.

[Brendan]

Yeah. No, you just.

[Alex]

Exactly. And so then it's like there is no cap. You can do a million, you can do 3 million. It's like you could go nuts. But if, even if we can get a. If we can get 50% off on our ad spend, it still doubles how much it can spend spent. So to me, this is really material.

[Brendan]

Yeah, no 100% because that's always been the constraint is even, even if they are performing amazingly, obviously I'm just tapped into my capital on how much I can spend and the risk I can take to get to that Kickstarter.

[Alex]

I feel, I feel way less. Okay, so let's, let's add these up because I think it's material. So I. As much as you're looking your wounds right now, I would still say try and spend the same targeted amount on v4 on this next go round as you did on v3, but spend it on the trusted platform. If we just did that, you'd still do 600k and we. With none of these other improvements. So that feels good. If we add the follow up, we can probably add about 50%. So that would take us to like 900. So this will probably 3x your 23 numbers, right?

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

This is because it's just switching back to the platform. Right. This gives you a plus 50%. This one is the potential unlimited unlock of like if we get close to this now, realistically I'm gonna, my. If I'm you, I'm shooting for 30 to 50% recovery of capital.

[Brendan]

For every dollar I put in, I'm getting 30 cents back.

[Alex]

Yeah, I mean I want a hundred. Like, yeah, I'm. But like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Why not just like print unlimited money. But I think what this BASIC effectively does, if you get a 50% then it's basically a 2x. Yeah, right. If you have, if you have a 30% recovery, then you get like 1 point, whatever that is. 1.5 or something, which is still great because that still. It still multiplies up.

[Brendan]

Yeah, yeah. Because this is only the pre launch stuff. Once you launch you still have all the funds coming from that this thing.

[Alex]

Like the nice thing with each of these pieces. And this will probably just give you probably like maybe it might be like a 10 to 20% lift in conversion. I don't know if it's 20, I'll say it probably could be about 10% left. But hey, it's free and not hard to do. This one is also a massive lever that like if I'm thinking about these implementations, I'm like, all right, what are the for sure things? This is for sure. This is for sure. This is for sure. This is for sure in terms of ease of execution, very low risk things to do. The only two that are like new are 4 and 5 and so this one will almost certainly work better if you have A branded person recommending your products will work better than somebody who is not not branded recommending your products. This is super low risk. This one is just math. And if for whatever reason this doesn't work, all of these other things will. And so like, this is definitely like a. This is when we're talking like order of magnitude change in terms of the business. This is that.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

But if we just did 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, I think you're in a good position.

[Brendan]

Okay. And this gets back me back on the trajectory I was looking at originally.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

How does that sound? Or field.

[Brendan]

I mean, it sounds good. I think the last piece trying to figure out is how, like, if in this offer, like, obviously this would be a pretty awesome guarantee as far as increasing that value even further. Kickstarter is already a urgency piece where it only lasts so long. I have done scarcity stuff before with like this tier only has X number of things which has been mixed. And then the last piece would be fitting the sass back into that on what that value piece looks like also maybe. And the even like the pricing piece for that. Like how.

[Alex]

If they're familiar with. Because you had to explain it to me because I'm not in that world, but like if they're familiar with that type of offering, I think adding it into the tiers is fine, considering. Especially considering what the LTV is.

[Brendan]

Yeah, I mean, the. I haven't seen anyone do that in crowdfunding. I've only seen DMV do that.

[Alex]

How. Wait, one more thing. On the SaaS, how many people did you say have SaaS credit credits?

[Brendan]

840.

[Alex]

Okay, then I care significantly less about it now.

[Brendan]

Okay. 3,500 of those people, their credits were like $20, so they've already expired.

[Alex]

Yeah. Okay, so If I have 3,800 people, right. And then that results in 69 people at $10, then that is $690 per person right now divided by. It's like we're talking pennies. So, like, I wouldn't spend any more time on it.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

I just wouldn't. I mean, if basically the only value that it adds is that if it increases the conversion rate.

[Brendan]

Well, and that was the intent of having it be part of the offer and not necessarily be a tool to make money itself, but be a tool.

[Alex]

Just a conversion rate tool. Yeah. If it's, if. If it takes no time for you and it's already been done, we have to just prove that it's going to increase conversion. That's all. Because if it costs you 2,100 bucks or so. You said it's $100 a month and then 2,000 a year or something.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Okay, so it's costing $3,200 a year. All right. We just have to make that up, a conversion, that's all. Yeah, that's. That's the only. That's the only benefit it offers. Otherwise I wouldn't even think about it.

[Brendan]

Okay.

[Alex]

How does this plan, though, feel?

[Brendan]

I mean, I think. I think it makes sense, though. The order of operations that I would look at is actually doing this first. So I would need to build out a landing page on. Essentially build a new project on Kickstarter where people can go to follow.

[Alex]

So make. This is first.

[Brendan]

Yeah, so that would be number one. And then.

[Alex]

Then you build the follow up sequence.

[Brendan]

Then I would do the follow up sequence. So if that's too. Yeah. This one. I already have ads for, like, these two books, so I could run those ones.

[Alex]

Just give it a shot.

[Brendan]

Yeah. And just see how it does. Because it could even, like try those to like, shopify or something.

[Alex]

I'm going to. I'm going to vote a different order. I'm going to vote third. Third. Okay, so we get this. This gets added there. So I'll just say this is third too, because it's.

[Brendan]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Same time. Right. Then we have this as our fourth, and then this happens fifth. Once we build this stuff, then you can go. All of these things will optimize the spend.

[Brendan]

Yeah. Yeah. So I think the final determination I need to figure out is when this actually launches, because that'll determine when everything else starts. And obviously the sooner I can get there, the better for revenue coming in. But I need to have the capital to spend to do that. And I also need to have the time to do that and finish fulfilling the current stuff already.

[Alex]

Because you have your IT consulting that you do.

[Brendan]

You know, when I have that full time stuff too. So. Yeah, this is all on the side.

[Alex]

No, for sure.

[Brendan]

Yeah. So.

[Alex]

But I think this is how you can stop doing what you don't like doing.

[Brendan]

Yeah, no, I. I think this is. Yeah. Because I keep. I've had that gut feel of, I don't know, that doing the crowdfunding on the new platform is the right call. Based on his experience, obviously.

[Alex]

I think this gets you there, man.

[Brendan]

Yeah, No, I think this looks good.

[Alex]

Cool. Real quick, guys, I have a special, special gift for you. For being loyal listeners of the podcast. Layla and I spent probably an entire quarter putting together our scaling roadmap. It's breaking, scaling into 10 stages and across all eight functions of the business. So you've got marketing, you've got sales, you've got product, you got customer success, you've got it, you've got recruiting, hr, you've got finance. And we show the problems that emerge at every level of scale and how to graduate to the next level. It's all free and you can get it personalized to, so it's about 30ish pages for each of the stages. Once you enter the questions, it will tell you exactly where you're at and what you need to do to grow. It's about 14 hours of stuff, but it's narrowed down so that you only have to watch the part that's relevant to you, which will probably be about 90 minutes. And so if that's at all interesting, you can go to acquisition.com roadmap, R O A D map, roadmap.