Rob Walling

And I guess I said at the beginning of this question that it was 70K MRR, and that's not true. He wrote it's 17K of monthly revenue. And so I said MRR because, of course, I think in SaaS and everything's MRR. In this case, it is monthly revenue. Take your 17K and enjoy it and use that to stair-step your way up to recurring revenue. That is one option.

Another option is to do what a lot of SEO keyword tools have done. When you think about people doing SEO keyword research, if you're not an agency and you have one website, you often need to do keyword research infrequently. Maybe it's once a year, maybe it's once a quarter, maybe it's once every six months. And so churn in those tools can be high. So what have those tools done?

Another option is to do what a lot of SEO keyword tools have done. When you think about people doing SEO keyword research, if you're not an agency and you have one website, you often need to do keyword research infrequently. Maybe it's once a year, maybe it's once a quarter, maybe it's once every six months. And so churn in those tools can be high. So what have those tools done?

Well, they've built in things that you would use on a weekly or monthly basis. Rank tracking to see where you rank for the keywords that you're trying to rank for. website quality monitors or the SEO monitoring of your site to say, oh, you have broken links, you're missing these tags to kind of keep everything up to date and in sync and operating well.

Well, they've built in things that you would use on a weekly or monthly basis. Rank tracking to see where you rank for the keywords that you're trying to rank for. website quality monitors or the SEO monitoring of your site to say, oh, you have broken links, you're missing these tags to kind of keep everything up to date and in sync and operating well.

Any type of thing that someone might want a recurring use out of or that they might want to monitor or use on an ongoing basis is one approach to trying to become a subscription tool when you're currently a one-time use tool. Another way that I see bigger companies doing this is they say, you can only pay annually. Then you get a year subscription for X amount of dollars.

Any type of thing that someone might want a recurring use out of or that they might want to monitor or use on an ongoing basis is one approach to trying to become a subscription tool when you're currently a one-time use tool. Another way that I see bigger companies doing this is they say, you can only pay annually. Then you get a year subscription for X amount of dollars.

And that's really a tactic that you can use for this. Personally, I don't love it. It just feels a little like Verizon making their pricing impossible to figure out so that you can't actually price compare between their own plans and the plans of their competitors. But that certainly is one way that people fight churn is to only sell annual subscriptions. And

And that's really a tactic that you can use for this. Personally, I don't love it. It just feels a little like Verizon making their pricing impossible to figure out so that you can't actually price compare between their own plans and the plans of their competitors. But that certainly is one way that people fight churn is to only sell annual subscriptions. And

And the problem is there's problems with it, right? A, your customers might get a little miffed. If there are other options that are one-time use that are cheaper, they'll go use them. They will often complain, oh, I used it once and then maybe potentially do a chargeback, ask for a refund.

And the problem is there's problems with it, right? A, your customers might get a little miffed. If there are other options that are one-time use that are cheaper, they'll go use them. They will often complain, oh, I used it once and then maybe potentially do a chargeback, ask for a refund.

You know, there's a bunch of challenges with that, but it is an option that I wanted to throw out in the spirit of brainstorming and getting all the ideas out there. And I think from a high level, those are probably the three things that I would consider.

You know, there's a bunch of challenges with that, but it is an option that I wanted to throw out in the spirit of brainstorming and getting all the ideas out there. And I think from a high level, those are probably the three things that I would consider.

And probably in your shoes, I would try to make this subscription by building other stuff and seeing if it works, if I had the energy and kind of the excitement and the motivation to do it. And if it doesn't work, then I would do plan A, which is just leave it as one time and use that to stair step your way up. I don't know if it'll work or not.

And probably in your shoes, I would try to make this subscription by building other stuff and seeing if it works, if I had the energy and kind of the excitement and the motivation to do it. And if it doesn't work, then I would do plan A, which is just leave it as one time and use that to stair step your way up. I don't know if it'll work or not.

I don't know if there are other features, other things you can cater to that these folks are trying to do on an ongoing basis, because I just don't understand the business well enough. And if you have absolutely no ideas for how to do that, and you've asked your customers and they have no ideas for you, and you ask your mastermind or a co-founder,

I don't know if there are other features, other things you can cater to that these folks are trying to do on an ongoing basis, because I just don't understand the business well enough. And if you have absolutely no ideas for how to do that, and you've asked your customers and they have no ideas for you, and you ask your mastermind or a co-founder,

or an advisor, or your spouse, or a good friend, or this podcast, and no one has any ideas, then yeah, there are tools that really just shouldn't be subscription, and that may be the case. I, of course, always like to at least try to invest some elbow grease into it first. I actually did this with .NET Invoice back in, I don't know, whatever, 2005 or 2006, where it had peaked.

or an advisor, or your spouse, or a good friend, or this podcast, and no one has any ideas, then yeah, there are tools that really just shouldn't be subscription, and that may be the case. I, of course, always like to at least try to invest some elbow grease into it first. I actually did this with .NET Invoice back in, I don't know, whatever, 2005 or 2006, where it had peaked.

It was a one-time sale as well, $300 worth. one time with like 20% maintenance a year. And it had peaked between like 3,000 and 5,000 a month. And so in any given month, it was great. It was making my house payment plus a car payment, which I didn't have because I had big cash for the car. But you get the idea. It was just a nice side income as I worked full-time during the day.