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- A Better Lemonade Stand #303
A Better Lemonade Stand #303
Insights, trends & tools to build a better online business.
Richard Lazazzera
August 13, 2024
Thanks for joining me for another week of insights, trends, tools, and opportunities to help you build a better online business.
As an entrepreneur, I’ve come to realize that the true foundation of any successful business isn't just the strategy or the tools—it's the people you connect with. When I returned to Toronto a decade ago, determined to carve out a path in entrepreneurship, I had the incredible fortune of meeting one of Canada’s most renowned connectors, Jayson Gaignard.
Jayson’s story is a powerful reminder of the importance of relationships in business. After building a 7-figure business only to lose it all, he discovered that one's network is their true net worth—a wealth that can’t be taken away. Through his journey, he became a "super-connector," linking top-tier entrepreneurs with others based on their specific business challenges, often leading to partnerships, solutions, and lifelong friendships.
Thanks to Jayson, I’ve had the privilege of connecting with extraordinary entrepreneurs from around the world—relationships that have not only led to valuable collaborations but have also solidified my belief in the unparalleled value of a strong network.
With that in mind, I’m excited to share one of the most interesting and potentially valuable applications of AI I’ve encountered: Boardy, the world’s first "autonomous social being."
Boardy, led by Andrew D’Souza, who previously raised over $1 billion with Clearco, is designed to connect professionals within its network to help them achieve their goals.
Whether you’re looking for a job, customers, investors, mentors, or cofounders, Boardy has already proven its ability to deliver.
Boardy is still in early release and is only being shared with a select group of people. Fortunately, I’m excited to offer you early access to try Boardy for free. Simply book a 15-minute call to discuss your work, challenges, and how Boardy can assist you. |  👆🏼Boardy |
Boardy is designed to understand your unique needs and connect you with the right people who can help you overcome obstacles and seize new opportunities.
As Boardy’s network grows, so will the value of the connections he makes for you.
Your conversation with Boardy will offer a glimpse into a future where AI and human connections intertwine, creating new opportunities and relationships.
I guarantee it will be one of the most interesting conversations you'll have this week.
To get started, book an intro call with Boardy or simply send an email to [email protected] (just say hi), and Boardy will reply with his calendar and some more details to book your call.
Once you've booked your call with Boardy, dive into this week’s highlights:
🏷️ One-Time Fee SaaS Models: One-time fees rise as creators like Dan Kulkov and Greg Isenberg highlight subscription fatigue.
💌 Why Newsletters Matter: Discover how newsletters build stronger reader connections and benefit creators committed to the long-term.
🚀 Micro-SaaS Growth: See how Lee and Katt turned a casual idea into a successful micro-SaaS through combined skills and user focus
🤝 Build a WhatsApp AI Chatbot: Using no-code tools like Vector Shift to automate customer interactions and boost productivity.
Let’s Connect! I’m always interested in hearing from fellow entrepreneurs. Whether you want to say hi or share your latest project, just hit reply—I’m always up for a chat, and there are no VAs or AIs in this inbox.
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💛 Sponsor
📧 Get Bigger Sales from Email & SMS
Omnisend’s email & SMS platform helps 115,000+ merchants like you make more sales and reach more people than they ever thought possible.
📈 Trends
🏷️ Shifting SaaS Pricing Models to a One-Time Fee
Subscription fatigue is hitting hard, pushing the SaaS industry to rethink its pricing strategies. As users tire of managing endless monthly fees, the shift towards one-time-cost models is gaining serious traction.
Creators like Dan Kulkov and Greg Isenberg provide real-world examples of how one-time payments can be more appealing to customers and businesses in certain business models.
Why’s it Trending?
LevelsIO answered this in an Indiehackers post a while ago. Like Greg’s view on his Figma subscription, Levels believes that recurring billing usually disrupts customer satisfaction.
People Hate Auto-Billing: Both Levels and Greg Isenberg mentioned that they were frustrated by auto-renewing services they no longer used, leading LevelsIO to offer lifetime memberships to avoid this common SaaS pain point.
Early Advantage: Levels also believes that beginning with lifetime payments is a clever strategy to align with new products, allowing you to increase the price as you improve the product gradually.
No Churn: Creators like Danny Postma mentioned the beauty of having no churn issues with his AI headshot tool when it went viral on Hacker News. You get a year’s worth of monthly fees for your product in just one day.
Developments
1/ Large SaaS Companies: Greg Isenberg's observations indicate that community-led companies are among the first to adopt these new pricing strategies, and Zapier is doing that by experimenting more with paying per task, as with other industry leaders
2/ Small AI Tools: AI tools like FounderPal also jumped on the one-time fee trend. They offer AI marketing tools for a yearly fee and have even consistently hit $8k - $10K/month in revenue despite no recurring subscription. This works well for AI tools as Dan only spends around $100-$400 monthly on OpenAI fees.
He believes his idea of selling for $299 once off is the same as charging users a $25 monthly fee(but better), as just a few users can cover API costs and give you that liquidity to fuel growth through things like Facebook ads.
(PS: if you don’t know what an AI wrapper is, you can learn more about it in my previous trend report here.)
3/ Communities: Community platforms like Small Bets have a one-time fee for access to their community, which made $438K in revenue last year and $351K in profit. Despite not relying on a subscription model, the community continues to grow with a steady revenue stream without recurring fees.
Charging a high one-time fee for community membership is an effective model because it provides upfront liquidity, allowing you to continuously enhance the value offered to members. For example, Dan has used this approach to invest over $65,000 in guest speakers, cover $20,000 in payment processor fees, and manage other essential tools like Zoom and Discord. These investments ensure the community remains valuable and engaging for its members.
Challenges Based on Real-world Conversations
Maintaining Costs: Consistent revenue for updates, support, and ongoing development is tough without consistent recurring subscriptions if your marketing strategy is off. This Reddit discussion pointed out ongoing costs like cloud hosting and customer support.
Continuous Updates: There is a risk that customers who pay a one-time fee may still expect continuous updates and support without considering the long-term sustainability of the product, which could strain your company's resources early on. So, keep this in mind when choosing your pricing model. Does it require heavy monthly costs and support to keep it running?
💡 Insights
💌 Why Newsletters Are Worth the Commitment
Before diving into the newsletter game, evaluating if it aligns with your long-term strategies and content creation capabilities is essential.
Personal Connection: Despite average open rates of 21.3% and click-through rates of 2.6%, newsletters outperform social media when converting readers into loyal customers, creating a personal connection that social platforms can’t match.
Who’s it For: Newsletters are a marathon, not a sprint. They serve well for deep content creators with specific knowledge and those with products or services they plan to sell. Never rely on newsletter ad revenue only.
🚀 Building a Micro-SaaS to 4,621 users
How Lee and Katt transformed a casual idea into a collaborative micro-SaaS success story.
No-Code Collaboration: Lee combined his Bubble development skills with Katt’s marketing expertise, showcasing the power of complementary talents and community support.
Relentless Focus on Users: Success in micro-SaaS is less about having the perfect idea from the start and more about continuously executing, refining, and listening to your users, as well as consistently doing the ‘boring’ marketing tasks.
🤝 Opportunity
🛠️ Build a WhatsApp AI Chatbot Without Coding
Klarna, a leading fintech company, revolutionized its customer service by deploying an AI chat assistant that handles the workload equivalent to 700 full-time customer service reps and managed 2.3 million conversations within its first year.
Now, imagine applying a similar integration to your small business. This guide will show you how to create your AI WhatsApp chatbot using no-code tools, helping you automate customer interactions and streamline routine tasks with zero coding knowledge.
The Problem
Businesses struggle to provide 24/7 customer service, leading to missed opportunities, unhappy customers, and having to continue to train and pay for extra staff.
The Strategy
You will learn how to use Vector Shift, a no-code platform, to build and deploy an AI chatbot on WhatsApp. This tool will help you automate tasks like answering FAQs, booking appointments, and more.
Execution
24/7 Support: Automate responses to common questions, reducing the need for human intervention.
Appointment Booking: Let customers schedule via WhatsApp, syncing with your calendar.
Personalized Replies: Use AI to create custom responses for better customer communication.
So, Is This for You?
If your business handles repetitive customer-facing questions. This guide is tailored for you, freeing valuable time and resources for more complex tasks.
🧰 Apps & Tools
📦 Boardy*: Harness the power of AI to connect with the right people and unlock new opportunities with Boardy, your autonomous networking assistant.
📹 Kroto: Generate professional how-to videos and step-by-step guides based on any of your recordings.
🦉 SnipOwl: Capture and organize your crucial web snippets and turn cluttered information into actionable insights for quick decision-making.
👤 Synthesia: A new feature that lets you create hyper-realistic personal avatars with hand movements and voice cloning in 29 languages.
* Sponsored
🤖 Product Updates
🖼️ Create Stunning Business Visuals in 3 Hours
Leonardo is my favorite image generator because it hits the sweet spot between quality, ease of use, and flexibility.
If you’re ready to make stand-out brand and business visuals, check out Leonardo’s webinar series to master your AI image generation (no design experience required).
Quick Start with Leonardo: Start with Leonardo 101 and 102 to learn how to create high-quality images for your blog or newsletter and optimize for consistent results.
Master AI Visuals: Leonardo 103 takes it up a notch with a lesson on making your visuals look like they belong in a top-tier ad campaign.
💸 Boost Beehiiv Newsletter Earnings with Streamlined Ads
Beehiiv rolled out new features to help you earn more from your newsletter with an upgraded ad management process.
Simplified Booking: Customize and schedule ad placements directly from your dashboard with new tools that let you learn more about advertisers, estimate payouts, and preview ads.
Why This Matters: This is a great step forward for increasing ad experience in Beehiiv for advertisers and newsletters, as their new system now does a much better job of matching your content with the right advertisers for the best results.
🖇️ Everything Else
🍎 Rapid Success Stories: How Mactools Pro used David’s directory boilerplate to generate $350/month just a few days after a viral Reddit post. (🔗 Insights)
🧹 Scaling Simple Tools: Ambar built Job Seeker AI to $1k MRR, starting with a basic Airtable form and Zapier integration. (🔗 Insights)
🎁 Free Tool, Big Impact: Anthony Riera recorded himself building an AI wrapper in public as a free marketing tool to drive leads for his main SaaS.(🔗 Insights)
A Private Community for… you. 🚀
Are you enjoying these emails? If so, I am building a private community that you might be interested in.
“Space” is a community I'm creating for entrepreneurs, creators, and digital explorers who are passionate about pushing the boundaries of what's possible online and preparing for what’s next.
After over a decade in the digital business world, I've seen firsthand the power of connecting with like-minded individuals.
In Space, we'll be building a community focusing on:
Leveraging AI, no-code, and automation in our businesses
Creating and launching impactful digital products
Building sustainable online business models
Developing strong personal brands in the digital age
This community is for those who are always looking ahead, ready to adapt and innovate as the digital landscape evolves.
I'm curating this group carefully to ensure we build something truly valuable.
If you're intrigued by Space and what we'll be exploring together, you can sign up for the waitlist here 👇🏼
Have questions? Don’t hesitate to hit reply, even if it’s just to say hi—I’m always up for a chat, and I personally handle all responses. No VAs or AIs here!
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