How we do planning for our $13+ million business

Every month, 36+ million people use our AppSumo Originals products like TidyCal and SendFox.

Also every month, we get 200+ pieces of feedback from users, prospects, and customers.

A lot of the feedback is helpful. Some of it is threatening (“if you don’t release this feature, I’ll refund your product.”).

Either way, we don’t have enough hours in the day to release all suggestions. We have a small, 10-person team — so we complete only 5% of user requests every month.

But, we’ve still built a $13+ million SaaS business.

And, it’s one that’s consistently grown: Over the past 5 years, our number of new customers has increased by at least 37% yearly. (And this year, we’re pacing for 50%+ YoY growth.)

Our New Buyers have grown 37%+ ever year for 5 years straight

As the saying goes: “The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing.” Too many SaaS founders, CEOs, and leaders I meet are trying to do too many things with their products.

Most often, it’s because they’re:

  • Scared to say “no” to a customer, and risk churn
  • They’re doing last-minute planning and aren’t thinking about their ideas strategically enough (often because they’re too busy getting pulled in so many directions)
  • They think they can do more than they really can — which often results in half-baked products that don’t do anything well, don’t have strong PMF, and ironically have high churn anyway

We’ve had all these issues at different times with Originals.

But after 5+ years, we’ve refined a process where 10 team members can support 36+ million monthly users — and succeed building a million-dollar business 40% of the time (10x industry average).

Here’s how we’ve accomplished a process of focused product planning.

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