AppSumo Case Study Series: Linguix

Welcome back to the AppSumo Case Study Series, where we highlight noteworthy partners that embody successful collaboration and growth. You’ll get a behind-the-scenes recap of their AppSumo launch, learn tips from the folks who have already been there, and find out how they handled reaching a new global audience.

Today, we’re in a conversation with Alex Lashkov, co-founder of Linguix. Linguix is an AI-powered writing assistant that checks your writing for errors and provides context-appropriate grammar, punctuation, style, and vocab recommendations.

How did you get involved with AppSumo? What’s the origin story?

So we actually tried to reach out to AppSumo a couple of times, but it didn’t work out. Then last May, we had a successful launch on Product Hunt. After that, I emailed you guys again and linked you to our stuff at Product Hunt. Actually, we were the Product of the Day at that time. So things just started rolling out. It was like early June. And in July, we launched on AppSumo. The rest is history.

What were you hoping to learn from your launch with AppSumo?

I had no idea what the volume of sales would actually be like.

We had some experience with our product and I was extrapolating that to a possible AppSumo launch. I wanted to collect feedback from AppSumo users. The idea was: get some users and get some sales. I had no idea what the volume of sales would actually be like. So, we saw this as a learning opportunity, learning about customer development and learning more about our users.

You mentioned that you first launched with Product Hunt before launching with AppSumo. Tell us more about your Product Hunt launch. How did that launch inform your AppSumo launch?

Well, we actually had three launches on Product Hunt and we were a Product of the Day twice with our regular product retailer and once with the business product.

Those launches taught us that we need to prepare well, because you know that it takes time. On Product Hunt, they vote every day, so it's like a 24-hour job. And then on top of that, you need to support the discussion. You need to promote your listing to get folks to come in and vote.

I thought this experience would reflect pretty well what we should do to succeed at AppSumo. But the volume requests turned out to be much higher, and so support requests were also much higher.

Let's talk more about that. How did the AppSumo launch compare to the other launches? How did the AppSumo launch compare to your expectations?

As the founder, I feel a need to chat with users myself. But after a couple of hours, I literally couldn’t type anymore, my arm was killing me.

We didn’t really have expectations, because I didn’t have time to browse through the products that had launched prior to us on the AppSumo site. We had a tight schedule, so we needed to prepare the staff to make videos, promotions, and newsletters.

But on our AppSumo launch day, the volume of our support requests was about 90% higher than on regular days. And even compared to Product Hunt launches and other listings, it was around 80% higher than what we had experienced in the past. It was pretty significant. I was surprised!

As the founder, I feel a need to chat with users myself. But after a couple of hours, I literally couldn’t type anymore, my arm was killing me.

How did launch day go? How successful do you consider the launch to have been?

...you understand that people are genuinely interested in your product and that the AppSumo team actually understands that.

Oh, I think it was quite successful for us! It was hard because Sumo-lings are supportive, but they are demanding at the same time. We got what we wanted, which was to uncover some hidden information about our users.

‍But the folks at AppSumo started asking questions we didn’t anticipate. They began to ask about different features, if we have this or that. It was a real surprise to me, because I didn’t think anyone would need those things. When I told them that, that I didn’t think about it, that I thought it was unnecessary, some people got furious. So I realized, OK, we need to explain why we do things a certain way. You know, we’re still a tiny startup, so we need to move step by step. We have a road map and one can learn from it.

That was the hard part actually, but it was also inspiring. Because you understand that people are genuinely interested in your product and that the AppSumo team actually understands that.

From that launch, you got a lot of feedback and learned about all these new features people wanted. Did the launch actually change your product?

It was such useful information and it’s shaped our whole business model.

The launch changed a lot for us, because we got a bunch of new premium users and our monthly active user count tripled, or even quadrupled. So, we got a lot of new data to analyze. And we analyzed the retention, how people use our product, what company they work for, what stuff they actually do with the product, etc.

Knowing that helped us validate our product market fit. We understand that there are certain types of companies that use our product. Before the launch, we thought people used our product in retail and business. But now, we know that people are actually using it more for business. So for now, we’re mostly targeting business order. In fact, even retail customers are using the product for work. It was such useful information and it’s shaped our whole business model.

You might be returning to AppSumo with another product. What do you think you might do differently going into another deal with us? How do you feel prepared for this one compared to the last one?

We’ve had a lot of support from AppSumo. I think we’ll need to put more effort into linking our product roadmap and describing all the features we offer when we’re in the planning stage. What can we limit or change in the schedule? What are the things that people might want us to include in the future?

Right now, we don’t know what we have to spend to get things working. We have to figure out what we’ll be charging AppSumo users and if it can fit into a lifetime deal. We need to run those numbers, to do this job better and sound more confident about where we’re coming from.

What advice do you have for people interested in launching on AppSumo?

My biggest advice is to invest in your support team and prepare well. For us, we were just two people working on support. We managed to do it, partly because of my work experience. Early in my career, about ten years ago, I was working as the support lead for one company. So I knew what I was doing. But even then it was hard. Having support is really important. If you don’t have prior experience in that role, you need to hire someone or consult with someone who can take care of things for you.

Final Thoughts

That’s the scoop from Linguix, y’all!

We’re stoked that we got to catch up with Alex and hear about how launching with AppSumo has helped the Linguix team brainstorm new product ideas.

Want to get your hands on Linguix? Get discounted access to Linguix’s Premium Plan for one year for $49.

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