Recently we had an epiphany, which led us to take an exciting step in focus booster's journey (man I intensely dislike that word, especially in relation to reality television, but it fits...). Upon examination of where focus booster is now and where it has come from, we came to the stark realisation that unless we change something, focus booster is going nowhere... or, at best going somewhere too slooowly!
Over the past 30 months of working on focus booster, we have realised these things;
- Bootstrapping the growth of start-up is really bloody hard!
- People love focus booster and want to keep using it.
- We haven't taken the opportunity to foster a community but we totally should.
- The need for decent and simple productivity tools isn't going away.
So, whatcha going to do about it, you ask?
Well, as many of your will know, we got busy, starting a lifetime membership campaign, it allowed our most avid supporters the opportunity to 'invest' in focus booster with these bonuses;
- Very reasonable price, $60 for access to all existing and future features, forever.
- The ability to influence what features are built next, through our lifetime member only voting system.
- The opportunity to be part of our productivity community on Slack, with access to Scott and Alice for productivity coaching and advice.
Essentially it was a private crowdfunding campaign... invest in us and get some great perks!
We started the campaign at the beginning of September, with these goals;
- Let people get to know us. 'Us' being, Alice and Scott, the two owners of focus booster and Rey, our intern. We had secretly let people think we were bigger than we are and it was time to dispel the myth!
- Gain more knowledge about what our customers want, you know, the ones who are actually willing to pay for the product!
- Build a community around focus booster.
- Raise some cash to help take the pressure off our need to consult, allowing more time to work on focus booster, yay!
So, now for the results... during the two middle weeks in September, we raised US$10,000 (after PayPal fees)! That is one-third of our annual revenue, in two weeks!
Here are the lifetime member stats;
- 184 people supported focus booster in total
- 1 bought the $85 full price lifetime membership
- 180 bought the $60 early bird lifetime membership
- 3 showed support with a $10 supporter pledge
- In total, we made just over $10K after PayPal fees
- 140-lifetime members voted in the poll
- 111-lifetime members joined the Slack channel
So, we think the lifetime membership offer was a pretty great success.
Thanks to everyone who supported us!
But I bet what you are all wanting to know is... what happened with the voting... which feature won?
Well... you should click here to find out!