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Instead of a Black Friday sale, I'm raising prices. 🦃
It's that time of year again.
That special time when our Twitter feeds and email inboxes get flooded by Indie Hackers promoting steep discounts on their products in order to capitalize on the American custom of post-Thanksgiving sales.
Well, I've got a different tradition.
Instead of offering a discount to join my community for Indie Hackers I use the end of the year as an opportunity to raise our prices.
On November 29th, the day after Cyber Monday, I'll raise prices by 70%. From $29/month currently to $49/month going forward.
It's the opposite of a Black Friday sale. It's an Anti-Sale.
FOMO Marketing
FOMO stands for “Fear of Missing Out”.
Studies show that people tend to be motivated more by loss avoidance than by potential returns.
Loss aversion implies that one who loses $100 will lose more satisfaction than the same person will gain satisfaction from a $100 windfall. - Loss Aversion, Wikipedia
Instead of presenting a sale, something to be gained, I instead present a limited opportunity. Customers are more motivated to buy in order to avoid “losing out” on the current price than they might be by a sale.
Here are the results from the last time I leveraged FOMO.
Community Updates
And it's not just marketing.
Indie Worldwide has made huge, meaningful, improvements this year and I absolutely feel like the current price is undervaluing our community.
1-1 introductions
This is something we've done for a while now. We introduce you to a startup founder making similar revenue every week.
What's changed is we now have a much better platform that lets you pause or unpause matches at will, update your own data, and choose who you want to meet with ahead of time.
Better moderation
✅ We removed 90% of lurkers. Now only active founders and paid Indie Worldwide members are in our Slack group.
I wrote about this change in a recent post here on Indie Hackers: Why I kicked out 90% of free members
This has already led to much higher-quality conversations.
✅ I quit my job as a freelancer to focus on Indie Worldwide full-time.
✅ We started regularly pulling member updates from the Slack to feature in our newsletter (5000 subs) and on Twitter (3000 followers). This helps our members get extra eyeballs on their product launches and updates.
✅ We added a searchable member directory.
More resources for your startup
✅ We negotiated deals with AWS, Stripe, MongoDB, and more totaling over $20,000 in benefits you can take advantage of.
✅ We've built and continue to grow a content library of recorded webinars with experts on topics like cold email outreach, audience building, and product positioning.
Attracting High-Value Customers
Pricing is counter-intuitive.
"If I charge more, more people will buy", right?
No.
If you charge less, people will undervalue what you've built.
I want to attract people who value the indie community and are invested in the group. One way we can continue to grow, without ballooning in size, is by increasing prices.
At the same time, I want to reward current members who've taken an early bet on us.
I will not increase prices for current members. That includes anyone who signs up this week before the price increase.
Results from the promotion
From the time I announced the price increase on Nov 20th until the end of the anti-sale, MRR increased by $580 up to $2470.
Club dues are now $490/year or $49/mo for new members.
I'm calling that a success 🙌🏻
If you've been considering joining Indie Worldwide for a while, now is a great time.
Obligatory CTA: 👉 Join Indie Worldwide
