Apple just released its latest product, the Apple Vision Pro, and from the outside looking in, the launch was a success. Which is strange considering that, according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Apple Vision Pro is an inferior product to their Meta Quest 2 VR system...and 7x the cost!
So today I want to break down the launch, what Apple did, and why it worked.
But to understand Apple's positioning, it helps to take a look at Tesla.
Tesla launched their first vehicle -- the Tesla Roadster -- in 2008. The base price? $98,950.
Comparatively, the average price of a car at that time was only $23,429.
This made the Tesla product $75,521 more expensive than the average car at the time.
Percentage-wise, that's 322% more expensive, or 4x the average price of a car in 2008.
Let me highlight the important thing here:
The Tesla Roadster was 4x more expensive than the average competitor (make a note of this for later please).
Now, let's look at the launch of the Apple Vision Pro.
I see some similarities…
Like the Tesla Roadster, it's not the first virtual reality headset.
("there are many like it, but this one is mine")
Like the Tesla Roadster, it's unabashedly class-ist and does NOT care about the majority of the market.
And like the Tesla Roadster, the pricing is integral to the product.
Case in point:
Take a look at the Meta Quest 2 (originally titled the Oculus Quest 2, but later rebranded), which was released in 2020 for $499.
Fast forward to 2023, Facebook (Meta!) releases the Meta Quest 3 for $499.
Then in comes Sony. To compete in the VR market, Sony releases the Sony PSVR 2 with a price tag of $549.99.
There are other VR products, and they all fall around the same price point.
Then in walks Apple, hours late to the party and probably a little drunk, and says hold my beer.
The Apple Vision Pro releases for a whopping $3,499.
That's $3,000 more expensive than the Meta Quest 3. Percentage-wise, it's a 601.2% increase in price…
And by multiple, the Apple Vision Pro is 7x the price of the average consumer VR product in this category.
Take that in for a second:
7x more expensive than the competition.
What's the point?
Entrepreneurs, creators, and companies often look at pricing in terms of 'mass adoption.'
What's the sweet spot to get the most number of people to buy the most number of products to make the most amount of money?
They compete on the feature set.
It works. That's why they do it.
But when a market is saturated, this pricing strategy ends up being a race to the bottom.
Good for the budget buyer...but for the brand trying to stand out, it becomes increasingly difficult to communicate a message around why your product is 5% to 15% more expensive compared to the competition.
For the customer, that requires brainpower, time, and effort. I have to look at the specs, I have to read reviews, and I have to convince myself the "premium brand" is worth paying more when the "dup" is just as good for half the price.
But Tesla and Apple -- they take the ULTRA PREMIUM pricing approach.
In other words: they're playing the 'status' game.
There's no comparing the Tesla Roadster or the Apple Vision Pro to anything else, because you literally can't compare them to anything -- and that has nothing to do with the feature set. It has everything to do with price.
When playing the game of status, the price IS the product.
The product features, the packaging, the polish…all of that reinforces the story that the price is already telling you before you learn anything more about the product.
Here's what Musk said about the original Tesla Roadster:
To break the mold, to establish a beachhead in the market, Tesla HAD to play the 'status' game instead of the 'price to value' game. They started at the top of the market, intentionally excluding 99% of the population.
Yes, this gave them margin, but more importantly, it let people know: this is only for the cool kids.
And you see where they are now.
As for Apple? Well, it seems to be paying off...
In the game of STATUS, the price IS the product.
So when you're thinking about pricing, maybe consider an APPLE or Tesla approach.
Instead of competing on an extra feature, why not go 7x higher than your average competitor and see what happens?
Yes, it raises the stakes. And, yes, you'll have to level up your messaging, packaging, and the product itself (although apparently not according to Zuck)...
…but at a 7x multiple, maybe there's margin (and meaning) in doing the extra work to be in a category of one.
I get asked questions every day about starting, finishing, and shipping things.
Let’s be honest: I bring this on myself.
Not only do I write about these topics, but I ask everyone I meet or who joins The Resistance to tell me what they’re struggling with (and how I can help).
The nature of this is that some questions come up again and again.
I find they fit a certain trend.
So today, I want to talk about the second most common question I get asked (right behind “why are you so handsome?” - a question that has no human answer):
First, the question:
Tom, I want to [place description of doing something here, like: write book, sell more kitten mittens, etc.], but I don’t have [place description of excuse here, like: an audience, money, connections, platform, etc.]. What do I do?
Now, the solution is actually pretty obvious: go build or create the thing you’re lacking (audience, money, whatever), then do the thing you want.
Thing is, though, this advice is about as useful as telling a diabetic to stop consuming so much sugar.
Great thought, but the obvious isn’t what we need. If that were the case, the problem would be solved already.
Case closed. We won. Let’s go home.
No, most humans are great at recognizing what needs changing (whether in diet, business, relationships, or life). What we’re not so great at is implementing the changes necessary to succeed.
So what we DON’T need is someone reiterating the problem and telling us a solution.
What we DO need is a framework to facilitate success: a process to help us make change; a template to help us ship our project (or lower our cholesterol).
So if you’re stuck, confused, depressed, exhausted, or ready to throw in the towel (or already have), here’s what you need to do.
(more…)
For a step-by-step path to creating, marketing, and launching your first five or six figure product, read: Collaborate: The Modern Playbook for Leading a Small Team to Create, Market, and Sell Digital Products Online.
In the fall of 2013, I resigned my commission in the US Army.
It was a pretty great moment, I’m not going to lie.
For the previous 9 years, I had been part of an organization that wouldn’t let me go a day without shaving or tucking my pants into my shoes...
But no more.
I was free.
During the last few months before I officially left, I got a lot of questions, usually on the topic of "what’s next?"
“Not sure, but something big,” I’d say.
(and my battalion commander and peers would roll their eyes…what was bigger than what I was already doing?).
Fast forward 8 months and I’m sipping a doble espresso con crema at a side café in Buenos Aires, Argentina (home of black market currency exchangers on every street corner, Madonna’s musical Evita and Johnny Rico), and I’m writing this essay in gym shorts and a 10 day old beard.
Most Argentinians probably see me and think: beautiful American.
But that superficial analysis doesn’t tell the whole story (except for the living the dream part…check).
Because from that little computer (not a Mac), I was making online alchemy happen.
In fact, just two weeks ago, in a side café much like the one I’m currently in (except from South Africa at the time), I was doing something I was pretty sure was IMPOSSIBLE…
From my location-independent office (coffee shop with wifi), I was launching a brand new company (a remote, business incubator program).
We were just closing up the doors to the program, accepting the last couple entrepreneurs into the program, and the numbers were in…
We cleared $41,000.00.
What our team looked like after the final sales push:
* * *
But Tom, how can you launch a business from a coffee shop!?
Don’t worry, I’ll feed you baby bird…
There are a number of things that are remarkable with this launch.
Beyond the decent dollar amount we brought in (not the biggest online launch I’ve read about, but enough to validate our business model), and the fact that we were able to launch it from anywhere in the world (I was in South Africa, my partners were in the USA, and our customers were from around the world) we also:
And arguably even more impressive, and what I want to teach you today:
Yes, it’s possible.
Yes, we did it.
And yes, you can do it too.
Today, I’m going to share with you the exact strategy and techniques we used.
Today, I want to focus on profitable idea creation theory and practice.
In other words: how do you create an idea that is MARKETABLE (i.e. one that has a good potential of making money)?
In the next article in the series, I'll cover the launch itself (how we got people to find us and buy our idea – the actual practical steps of creating the sales page, the sales funnel, the sales copy, etc.), and the week after that: how we leveraged initial success to build out our program (think: scaling)
If you have any questions, just post a comment below.
Here we go:
I’m not going to spend much time on this one.
It’s fairly self-explanatory - but not common practice.
I get emails all the time from people asking for advice on an idea they have. The problem is, they’re coming to me with a solution. Usually a version 9.0 vision they’ve been pondering for a while.
The reason this is a problem is because they started backwards. When you come up with an idea for a product, service, or fully-fleshed out whatever, you’ve skipped over he most important part: the real problem or pain that needs fixing in the first place.
If you want to build a passion-based business – or any business for that matter – you need to start with a problem.
What’s broken? What needs fixing? What would people PAY to have fixed?
That’s all business is: fixing problems.
It’s not any more complicated than that.
No, it doesn’t matter if you think it’s a good idea (more on this below).
All that matters at the start is that you begin with a REAL problem that needs REAL fixing (and there are already people paying to have this problem fixed…don’t go inventing problems, there are enough in real life already).
Good?
Good.
A lot of people have a lot of good ideas.
A lot of good ideas either:
Now I’m not talking about hobby projects.
If you have a great idea for a hobby or something you’re passionate about, go for it. Doesn’t matter if other people like it. Do it cause you enjoy it, enough said.
But if you want to build a business from your passion (what we’re talking about here today), then it’s important to understand that if people don’t want your idea, they won’t pay for your idea, and your great idea really isn’t a great idea.
So we need to kill bad ideas as soon as possible in the product launch lifecycle, otherwise we risk wasting time and money (the grim reapers of business).
So step 1 is to kill off all your bad ideas – fast.
How?
1 of 2 things will happen:
If they like it, move onto step 3.
Now here’s the important part…
If they like it – do NOT build it.
That’s what amateurs do.
Someone gives them a pat on the back for their idea and they go into full production mode.
Pretty soon, their home is filled with thousands of Kitten Mittens and no one is buying.
Yes, it’s a great idea. But it doesn’t matter unless people buy.
I’ve done this myself before, and I’ll let you in on a secret: it never pans out how you want it.
No, what you need to do after someone tells you your idea is awesome is VALIDATE IT.
In other words: give them the chance to buy it.
Right now.
As in – put money into your hand for your idea BEFORE you create it.
This technique is nothing new. It’s basically a glamorous way of saying: get preorders.
Most ‘lean start’ businesses, especially in the software world, use this idea to validate their ideas before they spend years building something.
But it also works for in person events, physical products, services – you name it, you can probably get a preorder.
I used preorders for my book The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing, where I offered nothing more than a concept of what I was building and was able to bring in enough money to validate building it.
I've since gone on to do this with a half-dozen businesses, books, products, services, and more.
For the business in question, we did the exact same thing but in a bigger way.
This required a more methodical, scaled approach to validation, which I’ll explain below…
Okay, so sometimes you can’t sell your idea right on the spot.
Sometimes, you have to build at least a portion of it before you can truly judge if people will want it (and before people are willing to pay money for it).
This is where progressive validation comes in.
Just because people won’t put down $10k for your idea right now doesn’t mean you should build it then try to sell it.
This isn’t the 1950’s anymore.
Nor does it mean you should scrap the project.
Instead, you should systematically and methodically validate your idea as you build it.
Progressive validation is all about surgical risk mitigation.
At EVERY stage of the product development lifecycle, there is at least one primary risk (usually is takes the form of a major assumption) that could destroy our chances of a successful launch if we do not mitigate it.
The primary risk at the outset of any business or creative venture is the idea itself.
Notice the major assumption we talked about earlier: the ‘great idea’ assumption.
What is great? How do we define and measure great? Finally, how can we be sure it’s great?
When it came to our new business, we wanted to build a premium, remote, business incubator program (with a specific focus on what we call "heart-centered business").
First, what is the pain or problem we’re fixing?
Can we validate this statement?
Second, heart-centered…do people care about building businesses that they’re passionate about, or do they only care about making money?
Note: we took our time building our individual platforms (this blog, for example), which was validation that these topics are important to people. But you could expedite the process by methodically asking questions and researching competitors in your industry. You could do this in less than a month, easy.
Third, are people willing to pay a PREMIUM for an incubation-style program?
*note: the last step – progressively validate your idea – is something that is ongoing. You should constantly be validating your project as you build it.
For us, once we did our research and realized there was potential for such an incubation program, the next step was forming it into a sellable idea.
This section is quite big, so I’m going to leave this for next week.
Next week, we’ll take a look at:
Sign up for The Resistance Broadcast so you don't miss a beat.
Started, finished, and shipped in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Total writing time: 4:45 hrs
In this report, I share a behind-the-scenes look at how I launched The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing, which resulted in over $1,000 in "Pay What You Want" sales in the first two weeks of release.
The purpose of this article is to give you a look "behind-the-scenes" of a book launch that used an uncommon pricing strategy (Pay What You Want Pricing).
My hope is that if you’re getting ready for your own launch – whether you're using Pay What You Want or fixed pricing – this report will show you what to do (and exactly what NOT to do) so your launch is a success.
If you have any questions or would like me to clarify any part of this, don’t hesitate to email me: tom at tommorkes.com. I always try to respond as fast (and in as much detail) as possible.
This is Tom Morkes,
If you’re reading this, you ARE The Resistance.
* * *
I started using Pay What You Want pricing (PWYW for short) back in March of 2013 as an experiment with the release of Notes From Seth Godin's Revolution Conference.
The book itself was a compilation of notes (over 60 pages worth) I took while at a 2 day Seth Godin seminar/meetup.
The reason for PWYW pricing was twofold:
First, I didn’t want to restrict access to the notes/book – I wanted it to be freely available to anyone, no matter their financial situation.
Second, it wasn’t really a book – not in the conventional sense. Just compiled notes from a conference, carefully curated and edited. And while I added my insights and ideas to supplement the notes, it wasn't original source material. I received permission from Seth Godin to share the book, but I still didn't know how to make it available (and Kindle forces a minimum $.99 price point on its platform).
From that perspective, it was a difficult book to price.
One thing I did know I wanted, though, was validation – both for the book and all the other work I had done up until this point (100+ blog posts, several guides and ebooks, a podcast, etc – all of which I gave away freely).
The only way to truly "validate" anything, though, is by means of an exchange of money…but how could I do that without creating a barrier to entry for some people who didn’t have the funds to pay for the book?
That’s when I discovered Pay What You Want pricing.
Pay What You Want is a pricing technique that gives the customer the power to set his or her price (rather than the price being set by the seller/producer). A completely unorthodox pricing technique to be sure, but I had nothing to lose.
To be honest, I didn’t think I’d make a dime.
I released the book and let my readers know they could take it for free…but, if they liked the work I had done up to that point, they could contribute a few dollars to support my creative work.
Instead of a bunch of people grabbing my book for free, I made close to $500 in the first month. I was completely shocked – I never expected people to pay money for something they could get for free…but here they were, not only giving money but giving generously (sometimes as much as $50 - $100).
The surprise success of 2 Days led me to test out Pay What You Want with a bunch of other stuff.
Since then, I’ve released several products as PWYW – from guides to workbooks to CDs.
I’ve had a lot of success (and some failures).
Each project has helped me to understand not only my own audience better, but how PWYW actually works.
In August of 2013, I documented the results of my PWYW book Notes From Seth Godin's Revolution Conference on ThinkTraffic.net (now Fizzle.co) and later my blog.
After my guest article on Think Traffic, I received dozens of questions about Pay What You Want:
I was blown away by the incredible amount of interest in the subject. What I had done as a small (but happily successful) experiment was something people wanted to know more about – a LOT more about.
So I got to work.
To answer these questions, I started connecting with entrepreneurs and artists from all around the world who were using PWYW successfully. People like:
+ Anthony Vennare of The Hybrid Athlete (a fitness website that sells PWYW products)
+ Tara Joyce (who’s been using PWYW for 5 years for her consulting business)
+ Joost Van Dongen (who created the PWYW video game PROUN and made $20k on launch)
After I’d collected hundreds of examples of PWYW being used successfully (and, in some cases, unsuccessfully), I began synthesizing this data into a useable framework.
I continued to collect, analyze and synthesize data over the course of 3 months (over 6 if you include my personal tests and tracking I did with Pay What You Want prior to creating the guide).
Figuring out the ins and outs of such a unique pricing model was time-intensive but extremely rewarding work (especially knowing I was answering a question that many people wanted to know the answer to).
When I finally launched, I made over $1,000 in less than two weeks.
In the following pages, I’ll show you exactly how I did it (and how you can apply it to your own product launch).
* * *
Here's how I organized my launch:
When I first came up with the idea to teach Pay What You Want pricing, the first question I needed to answer was:
How do I deliver this content?
There are lots of ways to deliver content online, including: eBooks, eGuides, eCourses, and Membership websites (among others).
From a purely ‘value’ based standpoint, eCourses and membership sites can sell for the greatest amount. But membership sites require a serious commitment to updating content every month, which means income from new members would be much less passive than an eCourse.
With that in mind, I decided to create an eCourse. Out of the various options that were available, I thought an eCourse would be considered the highest value and still deliver the content in the best way possible.
I created 6 modules, scripted out over a dozen videos and started recording the screen captures using a PowerPoint template to highlight specific content as I taught.
While it was looking great, midway through developing the course I decided that this information would be better digested as an in-depth PDF (plus additional bonus materials for those who really want to master Pay What You Want pricing).
Why the change of heart?
Not sure – it just felt right. I figured the product would be better this way, and I believe it is as a result.
But what I failed to consider was the impact that changing the medium in which the information was delivered (eGuide vs. eCourse) would so dramatically impact its perceived value (more on this later on in this report).
I officially announced the guide to my newsletter readers at the beginning of November, 2013.
I figured I was close enough to finishing the project that I wanted to set a hard and fast deadline to ship, otherwise, I’d let it trail into December (or possibly into the new year -- and that was the last thing I wanted to happen).
#ResistanceProTip: Set your ship date EARLY in the product creation lifecycle [click to tweet]
I chose 25 November arbitrarily – I simply wanted to have something ready to go before December. I also figured tying it in with Thanksgiving might encourage people to be more generous, (although I can’t confirm or deny this actually worked).
Prior to the launch, I wrote about 3 in-depth articles on the concept of Pay What You Want – what it is, how it works, and how it can help make you more money than fixed pricing.
Something interesting I noticed was that as I started to write on this topic, I got more subscribers than usual to my newsletter.
#ResistanceProTip: Teaching the material from your product will increase subscribers and sales [click to tweet]
Besides writing for my own blog (where I spend the majority of my time and effort crafting and creating content for my readers), I linked up with a couple podcasters to do interviews. One I reached out to, the other found me through a mutual friend.
Both podcasts aired their episodes on the week of release (coincidence), which let me share the content with my readers at the perfect time.
I also wrote up an article for Medium.com (a publishing platform that lets just about anyone write for it).
To be honest, I didn’t think this would have much effect, but I figured for the couple hours of time I spent on it, it wouldn’t hurt to spread the message further (as you can tell from above, I didn’t do much guest posting or a very good job of spreading the world about my new product beside writing to my own audience.)
#ResistanceProTip: Getting in front of other people’s audiences should be priority #1 for your product launch [click to tweet]
The Medium.com article ended up doing way better than expected. In the first day, the article caught the attention of Medium curators and they tweeted it out to their twitter list.
This brought in thousands of readers to my article in just a few days. I was getting ready to launch the guide the next day, so I immediately released the book and linked to it from the article, to hopefully capitalize on the attention.
I netted 20 sales worth $80 from this. Not a huge amount, but not bad for one article.
*note: the article also helped me get dozens of new twitter followers and subscribers to my list. So while it didn’t have the impact of guest posting on a website with a particular target audience (like my Think Traffic post), I was pretty happy with the results.
When the guide + bonuses were finally ready to ship (literally the day before launch…I didn’t give myself anywhere near enough time to properly prep this launch, if you haven’t noticed), I sent them to a couple dozen friends of mine with audiences online, and I asked them to share it with their audiences if they found the book and content at all helpful.
Some of the people I reached out to included:
They all ended up sharing it on Twitter at least once (and on a couple occasions, multiple times or on Facebook).
The result? 2 sales from Twitter for a total of $39 and 5 sales from Facebook for a total of $85.
*note: this may also have included my OWN shares on both channels, as I didn’t track which shares resulted in the sales (mine or someone else’s)
#ResistanceProTip: Social media is overrated (especially for launching a product) [click to tweet]
That said, it definitely didn’t hurt.
At the end of the day, if you can get tweeted / shared by the same person to the same audience several times – that definitely improves conversion and sales (but it’s also something you can’t demand nor count on unless you’ve made a prior arrangement). But even that isn’t nearly as effective as getting mentioned in someone else’s newsletter.
#ResistanceProTip: The highest ROI marketing tactic you can use for your product launch is leveraging other people’s newsletters [click to tweet]
I didn’t have enough time to properly coordinate this for my product launch, which means I lost out on potentially dozens (or hundreds) of sales. However, I’ve seen the tactic used to great effect for others who released similar style information products. The key is to target audiences that are similar to yours and could benefit from what you’re offering.
*note: you will see this tactic used all the time if you subscribe to any newsletter for a period of time, so subscribe to a few and study them if you’re interested in exactly how to do this.
I mentioned earlier I originally started creating an eCourse around Pay What You Want, but switched it to an eGuide midway through the product’s development.
This shouldn’t have been a big deal, but I made a couple mistakes that cost me a lot of potential revenue.
*for those looking to launch their own PWYW product or service, take notes on this section – it will seriously save you from losing out on hundreds if not thousands of dollars in contributions*
When it comes to selling content online, readers are generally aware of price ranges for certain types of products, and they’re usually savvy to the pricing of comparative, competing products. When you think ‘eBook’, you probably picture an Amazon Kindle book priced from $2.99 to $9.99.
For many of us, this price is anchored in our mind.
Therefore, if I’m writing an eBook, I’m forced to contend with this price anchor. Which means writing an eBook is not a great idea if you want to make decent money from your writing.
Guides and Reports aren’t anchored the same way as eBooks. Guides and Reports can sell from anywhere from $19 - $199+ depending on the material, the industry, etc. I’ve seen (and purchased) such guides and reports for over $200, so I know what is required to price a product at a premium like that. That’s why I put so many bonuses into ‘The Complete Package’ of my product – I wanted something that was easily worth $249.
But…
I failed to convey this value to my readers and customers.
Instead of clearly defining the benefits of what ‘The Complete Package’ will do for the user, I only explained the features (if people contributed over a minimum amount they get 12 bonuses, from cheat sheets, to video tutorials to expert interviews to a half dozen case studies, etc).
#ResistanceProTip: Benefits (not features) give a product value [tweet]
Had I continued with the eCourse version of this product, I have no doubt readers would have valued the product much higher by default. A guide or report could similarly sell for quite a bit, but there’s more work involved in explaining what differentiates a guide or report from an eBook (whereas an eCourse is already price-anchored in many readers minds in the several hundred dollar category).
The day I announced the guide (to a subscriber list of 444 people), I received about 30 preorders worth over $200. Not bad, certainly…but way below what I expected (I’ll explain below).
When it came to perceived value, I made things worse by ‘discounting’ the minimum contribution to receive bonuses for subscribers who preordered the product before it launched on 25 November.
In hindsight, this doesn’t make sense.
Think about it – the product is Pay What You Want…why would I discount it? What effect does that have on the reader or customer? And why would any reader contribute more than that discounted minimum (if the incentive is a lower price, then I’m basically telling them they ought to contribute less)?
I didn’t realize this until after the fact, but by giving a discounted price for early subscribers I was actually DEVALUING what I had spent months creating.
Instead of dealing with the standard eBook price anchor, I made things worse by lowering the minimum contribution to $4+ for all the bonuses.
The biggest problem with this is that it completely defeats the purpose of generosity.
The whole point behind why I use PWYW is to run a generosity-based business (for my writing and content on Tommorkes.com).
By lowering the minimum to get the bonuses, I effectively said to my audience: don’t be generous - contribute less.
Fail.
#ResistanceProTip: To increase pre-orders and sales revenue for a PWYW product launch, include exclusive bonuses for early adopters
Lucky for me, while I botched my PWYW pre-launch with a well-intentioned but misdirected incentive for my readers, many of them were still generous, contributing $20 or more in some cases.
Even after all the mistakes I made, I still consider my launch a success.
The day I announced the guide (to a subscriber list of 444 people), I received about 30 preorders worth over $200. Over the next couple of days, I received about 20 more preorders, worth over $350 cumulatively.
Not bad, but also way below what I could have made if I had (1) demonstrated the value of my product better to the reader, and (2) created a better incentive for contributing early (and generously).
Had I made those corrections I pointed out above, I have no doubts in my mind I would have made over $800 in pre-orders the first day (assuming the same number of readers would still preorder the product at an average contribution of $20).
The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing (Just the Book and The Complete Package) actually shipped the evening before launch day (25 November).
This meant people who preordered should have gotten their products earlier than the ship date (a good thing if you can swing it).
On the day of the launch, I sent out one email to my newsletter.
The newsletter headline: ‘Share Your Work – Make a Profit (new guide releases today!)
Subscribers: 467
Open Rate: 38.4% (179)
*average for my newsletter: 39%
Click rate: 12% (56)
*average for my newsletter: 9%
Unsubscribes: 2
This brought in about $150 in sales.
Many marketers will tell you to email-blast your newsletter 3 times in the days leading up to launch, and then another couple emails the day of and the day after launch. They also suggest pressuring your audience to buy by setting time limits on discounts, spaces available (if it’s a membership site), etc.
I didn’t do any of this because I don’t like that style. That said, I’m also aware that when it comes to results, the numbers don’t lie: the more you market (emails through your newsletter, shares on social media, or talking directly to people in person), the more you’ll sell.
#ResistanceProTip: The more you market, the more you sell [tweet]
I may have missed out on sales by not sending out several emails on launch day, but my hope was that readers would notice that they weren’t being bombarded and appreciate being on my list even more (there is no way to track this, of course, so it’s all blind faith).
Prior to launch day (25 November), I had accumulated over $500 in pre-orders of my guide.
For reference: it took me over a month to do that with 2 Days With Seth Godin. By that standard, I had far and away exceeded my prior benchmark in much less time.
The week that followed brought in even more contributors, this time with many more contributing at or above $19 (the minimum amount for all the bonuses). Within the first week of launch, I was closing in on $1000.
Here’s a breakdown of the purchases by price over time (*note: all the preorder receipts came due on 25 November, thus the large amount of sales volume on that singular day):
Here’s the results at a glance:
| First Week Sales | Revenue | |
| The Book | 31 | $118 |
| The Complete Package | 61 | $836 |
| Total | 92 | $954 |
I made $954 in sales from The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing (including both tiers: Just the Book and The Complete Package).
But $954 is not what went into my pocket.
Gumroad.com, the sales platform I used to sell my products, charges 5% + $.25 per download.
Since I sold 92 products, that’s -$23, and 5% of $954 is -$47.70, for a total of $70.70 out of my pocket and into Gumroad’s (of which I’m happy to pay, for the record).
So now I’m down to $883.30.
Because I’m a jack of all trades (I’m not really – mostly just stubborn), I did the cover design, interior design, and just about everything by myself (although I did pay $5 on Fiver.com to turn my 2d book cover into a 3d image), which helped me minimize expenses. I also had some incredible volunteers help me edit the finished product (thanks Tom and Diana Owens!), which gave it a professional spit shine without the steep cost.
So that means $883.30 is all mine, right?
While this would normally all be the case, I decided to enlist the help of my brother, Seph, to help me finish the product and ship on time. Having someone give feedback as I created the material helped me to finish and polish the book and bonus materials to a very high standard (from video tutorials to interviews to cheat sheets to the workbook etc.).
I told Seph that if he can help me create a quality product and ship on time, I’d split launch profit with him 50 / 50.
That’s a pretty big split, but there are two reasons for this:
1. Launching on time with a great product and splitting profit is better than launching late and keeping all the profit to myself.
2. Seph is a college student getting ready to graduate. I figured the best thing he (or anyone else in his shoes) can do is learn to run an online business, not only in the short term to pay down student loan debts, but because commerce is continuing to move online, and if you don’t know how it works, you’re at an incredible disadvantage (no matter what job or business enterprise you’d like to pursue).
I feel the best thing I can do is not only teach this stuff to as many people as possible, but when the time and money allows, help others learn by working directly with me.
So, after paying Seph half of $883.30, I’m down to $441.15 takeaway profit.
I’ve mentioned before in The Art of Instigating that many entrepreneurs, because of the hours they commit to creating something, work for sweat-shop wages.
My case is no different.
I worked on this project for about 1 hour a day in September, for a total of 30 hours that month (this is a conservative estimate).
In October, I spent about 3 hours a day on the project, coming out to about 93 hours that month.
In November, I worked on the project for about 6 hours per day for the first two weeks (84 total hours) and about 10 hours per day for the remaining 10 days (for a total of 100 hours).
All in all, I put about 307 hours into this product (conservatively)
$441.15 from 307 hrs of work = $1.43 / hour
So after at the end of the day, my time was worth about $1.43 (ouch).
Maybe I should have stuck to my day job…
Or maybe not.
I mentioned I made about$1.43 per hour from this product, but that ignores one important aspect of selling digital goods – this product is a new income stream, no matter how small, that supplements my other income.
Here are the results of the first three weeks after launch:
As you can see, after launch week, I’ve made another $100+ from the guide.
$100 a week isn’t enough to live off of in the States in most cases, but in Bali (where I’m currently writing this from) it goes a pretty far way.
What you’ll notice is that while the majority of sales came during the major announcements and hard sells of the product (5 November and 25 November), I’ve managed to maintain decent sales going forward. This is in part due to new people finding me from recent podcasts I’ve been on explaining Pay What You Want and how it works.
#ResistanceProTip: Once you’ve shipped a product, the real work starts – continue teaching, marketing and selling
So was it a success or failure?
In the end (after reflecting on this months later and doing an update to this post), I'd call it a draw.
You’ll see a lot more from me in the coming months as I teach and spread the word of Pay What You Want. Already, readers who bought the guide have told me they’ve seen an increase in sales and revenue.
Think about that for a second...pretty powerful stuff, right?
These are just two small examples, but they show the power of Pay What You Want (and the value of the book by extension).
It also tells me this message is important and more people should hear it (and use it).
With that said, financials aside – it was a success. And I’m looking forward to my next product launch…although this time I’m giving myself a bit more time to complete and ship it.
Interested in Pay What You Want pricing and want to learn more about how to use it?
Go here to pick up your copy of The Complete Guide to Pay What You Want Pricing.
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Started in Brisbane on the way to Cairns Australia (in a Juicy relocation 'Campa' van). Graphics were created on a terrace off the rainy streets of Ubud, Bali. Finished the article and finalized the PDF in Jakarta, Indonesia (with the help of a quadruple shot Americano).
Current beard length: 3 inches
Total writing time: 20 hrs