In the past year, ABtesting.ai launched successfully on Dealify. We sat down with Franco to talk about what makes a good SaaS launch and why the team decided to collaborate with Dealify to jumpstart their business.
"It went so well that we did a second launch for Black Friday"
Tell us a bit about your background
Our team consists of:
Rodrigo👋 He is the CEO of the company. He is a Software and ML Engineer, with 10+ years of experience in AI development.
Ismael👋 He is the CDO (Chief Design Officer). A Graphic Designer, with 10+ years of experience in front-end development.
Gonzalo👋 He is on his way to end a degree in Communications (Publicity and Marketing). 2 years of experience in one of the most influential publicity agencies in our country. He has a lot of experience in Digital Marketing and he’s the CMO.
And me, Franco👋 I have a very similar background to Gonzalo’s. We are classmates in the university, and we both are writing our thesis. Gonzalo and I are close friends, and we also have that “entrepreneurship energy” (we tried growing some ideas together, drastically failed), which made us fall in love with this project.
Going back to me, I also have agency experience, and I’m focused on Digital Marketing too. I’m the COO, but have a lot of influence in Marketing.
Obviously, now that we are just a startup, these titles don’t mean that much, because we all interfere more or less in all the areas.
How did you start ABtesting.ai? What's the story?
As you know, we are based in Uruguay, and, as I like to say, we are a small country of big ideas.
Rodrigo says he always had this specific idea of developing a tool that automatically maximizes conversions in your landing page, but it really started when Rodri and Isma were having a brainstorm of possible business ideas they could start (2019). When ABtesting.ai appeared on the table, they knew it was it.
Around July 2019, they started developing the actual tool (as a side hustle). Later on, in December of this year, Gonzalo joined to give a marketing edge to the project. The team was looking solid.
At this time, they decided to apply for a government seed fund from an institution called ANII.
The Beta came around in March 2020. The first time the public would have the possibility to really put the tool to test. With some bug fixing here and there, it was looking very promising.
2020 was a great year. We landed some big names: Toyota, Suzuki, Claro, and Movistar. We started to make some noise in the industry, our application for the seed fund was approved and we made a double launch on Dealify.
Right after the first launch, I (Franco) joined the team, stoked about the idea.
After that, we focused on growing our subscriber-based clients.
That is it for 2020. The big thing to highlight from the start of 2021 is, without a doubt, our Product Hunt launch. I was fully in charge of it and, oh my, what a ride that was!
We received great support from the community, and it drove a lot of traffic to our website.
That’s more or less it 🙂
What made you decide to run a deal on Dealify?
The truth is that we didn’t have that possibility in mind, but Tom, founder of Dealify, contacted us and everything just clicked.
It was a solid proposal (way better than the main competitor’s one), which allowed us to achieve two very important things:
- Stress-test our tool with a big number of users.
- Get some money to re-invest in the company.
How was the process and how did the deal perform on Dealify?
It went super smooth. We loved it! Tom took care of almost everything. We only had to implement the possibility of redeeming a Dealify code on our website and be there for customer support and bug fixing.
It went so well that we did a second launch for Black Friday.
Any tips?
Brace yourselves for the incoming traffic (it was wild for us) and be fast at the customer support and bug fixing to increase conversions. You have to offer the best customer experience possible.
Brace yourselves for the incoming traffic📈
What would be your advice for other SaaS founders?
It really depends on the industry and the product stage, but if you are a bootstrapped SaaS company like we are, our advice is to do an LTD launch.
It gives you money and feedback about your tool, allowing you to grow your audience without giving up your company’s share to someone that doesn’t really care about it as much as you do.
A lifetime deal launch gives you money and feedback about your tool, allowing you to grow your company.
Just wanted to say that we will be forever grateful for this experience and it really helped us grow.