About Sessions
Sessions is a refreshingly disruptive platform in the otherwise dull & overcrowded video conferencing space.
Sessions stands out by keeping meetings organized around an interactive agenda, and integrating all the collaboration tools a team would use during a meeting into a single-window experience.
The Challenge
Just a couple of weeks after releasing the MVP , we set our eyes on winning Product of the Day on ProductHunt.
We knew that the best way to do this is by building up an active community of Sessions users.
The problem. We had a very hard time with acquisition. Paid media had huge CPA and low-volume and other channels were basically
inexistent.
Early Struggles
Even from the start, we knew what we had to employ: a systematic and scientific approach to experimentation.
We built out complete conversion funnels for multiple ICPs. Multiple value props. Hundreds of messaging variations. Nothing was working. We even did a Free for Life offer for our early adopters.We were confident that would break the internet, but it barely moved the needle.
All this time, we were trying out multiple tactics and channels (direct outreach, events, becoming active in social communities, PR, etc.) and spent 5 figure budgets. And organized almost 100 customer interview.
Nothing was clicking. Until…
The Breakthrough
After dozens of failed experiments, we finally find our silver lining in a very specific community of people. LTD users. What’s a LTD? We didn’t know at that time, either.
Lifetime Deals are a popular way of launching a SaaS on platforms like AppSumo. The basic concept is that early adopters get the chance to pay a one time fee and use an otherwise subscription-based product, for life. Good deal. We didn’t have a paid product yet. But we had something better.
For this community, a well priced deal would be something they would be willing to try. But free for life? That was nuts. Never seen before.
By positioning Sessions as a LTD, we got a
hockeystick effect. What hundreds of hours and big media budgets had struggled to accomplish in a couple of months, the LTD community doubled in just 10 minutes.
The Epic Product Hunt Launch
We were going into PH not only with an extra 2000 people, but these were people passionate about products, SaaS, tech, startups. We were sure that winning Product of the Day would be a piece of cake.
But our surprise did not end there. In the day that we had planned our launch, our main competitor, Zoom, also launched Zoom Apps, a huge product that was in direct competition with Sessions. They
did a full media campaign, with all the integration partners (Notion, Miro, Kahoot) in Zoom Apps sharing their launch. They even had Ray Dalio as an influencer that day.
But their launch only added fire to the flame of our community and things took off even more for Sessions. It was close, but we took it home against a billion dollar company with a fully-expanded media campaign.
The Outcomes
Sessions won Product of the day. And Product of the Week. And even went on to winning The Golden Kitty – Product of the Year in the most “Work from Anywhere” category.
This win also led to closing a $4.5 mil. seed investment that would further fuel Sessions’
growth.
But the really big win is the community that we had as a result of our efforts. That not only changed our marketing, but also fueled a new apetite for product-led growth.
