When was your company founded & where is it located?
PathPro was founded in 2021, and is located in Dayton, Ohio. United States.
What are past projects, failures, or successes you’ve had in your career?
I am passionate about building things from scratch, and previously created a SaaS based product titled MapifyPro. Buildiing it from scratch, I designed, branded, and launched the product with an initial budget of $1200. Over the course of 4 years, I grew MapifyPro into the most popular WordPress mapping tool available, ultimately selling the product/business for nearly half a million dollars. Over the course of running this business, I learned valuable lessons on embracing customer feedback, but also kniwing when feedback is valid through repeat submissions and common suggestions.
After selling MapifyPro, I launched a second product which I also sold via AppSumo's marketplace. With dozens of 5-taco reviews and a massive influx of customers, the idea of PathPro truly began to form. Combined with my previous experience of developing an evolving product, I knew that collecting feedback, confirming ideas with my customer base, and keeping customers fully in the loop on what to expect next was key in not only running a successful AppSumo campaign, but in properly growing a product using actual data.
I've now spent nearly 3 years growing PathPro into a tool that I'm not only proud of, but one that I use in both my product development pursuits, and in my client projects, where I use it to manage my projects and bridge the gap between developers and clients. Over the course of 15 years, I've been lucky enough to work on some truly amazing projects, both in my previous consulting company, and my more recent role as a product developer.
What is your team size?
1 founder and lead designer (Josh Sears)
1. Advertising and Marketing Manager (Adnan Jehan)
2 Developers (George and Pavel)
Are you funded or bootstrapped?
Bootstrapped, but financially supporte by dividends generated by a previous sale of a separate busienss, and dedicated account for PathPro. Our runway is basically not limited due to the extremely low operational costs.
What 3rd party tools is your product critically dependent on?
We offer the option for users to log in with Google or Facebook, but it's not a critical dependency, as we also offer login with their own email. So, none, other than the internet, but we wanted to mention the only external service used.
Where is your customer data stored?
Our servers are hosted via Digital ocean, which is located on their "New York 1" region cluster in New York City. Customer payment details are stored via Stripe if purchased directly from our site. We do not store details otherwise.
What’s the origin of the idea for your product?
Ironically, the original idea of PathPro came while running a previous AppSumo campaign! I have developed and launched multiple products, with my main success coming in the form of a WordPress plugin/platform called MapifyPro. I built this software from the ground up, ran the business for 5 years, ansd ultiamtely sold the business in 2020. I learned an enormous amount of lessons on how to manage customers, and to embrace customer feedback. I then launched a second product and actually ran it on an AppSumo campaign, and this campaign planted the seed for PathPro. With the infliux of so many new customers, I realized that a proper management system didn't exist. One that allowed me to place public roadmaps on my site to keep AppSumolings informed of what's coming down the line, while also managing all of the tasks involved in evolving my product. I needed to know which ideas were valid amongst other customers, I needed to organize these tasks and my deveklopment team to deploy new features as quickly as possible, and I wanted to rally this community by giving them credit for their contributions, while constantly keeping them infomred of new releases. Thus, the idea of PathPro was born, and the result is a platform that covers the entire spectrum of community-driven prodcut development outlined above. It is truly a tool geared not only towards growing a product, but managing every task and use involved along the way.
What problem is your product solving and how?
The main benefit PathPro brings to the table is that it combines the best of feedback collection tools (Canny, Frill) with project management platforms (Asana, Trello) in a single package. Not only does it organize feedback and idea submissions, but it lets its users move these ideas directly into a Feature Voting scenario (where other customers can offer their own feedback on any given idea, upvote, and validate to the product owner that it is indeed worth putting into development) or to move the idea directly into their production pipeline. A PathPro project keeps all users informed at every step of the process with public-facing roadmaps that keep customers informed and engaged, to interactive release notes, which give credit to those who contributed to any feature/idea included in each update. PathPro provides all of the tools needed to organize (and rally) a community behind a product, while also managing the tasks needed to properly build and deploy updates, all while keeping internal team members on point, and ensuring that a product's community truly feels heard. In turn, Product Developers can grow their product using actual data from those actively using it, and that means saving and immeasurable amount of time and cash on development fees.
What’s the #1 thing you’re looking to gain from the AppSumo campaign?
For the most part we are looking forward to the influx of feedback, and the uptick of users. Since PathPro is in part a feedback management system, we plan to use it to maximize AppSumoling satisfaction as we provide a dedicated roadmap, and a centralized location to submit feedback on what they'd like to see next (as well as feedback on how we can refine existing features). We feel there will be a ripple effect from the campaign in that it will boost the interactivity on our public project (IE Our public roadmap) and further strengthen our own community of members due to the ongoing activity, word of mouth, and so on.
What are your plans with the customers, cash, and learnings from the AppSumo campaign?
Most likely the income will go directly into new features and revisions suggested by AppSumolings along the way to further refine the product. Since we are very much in a growth phase, all income has been going into the product, and since our operational costs are so minimal, that simply means making PathPro even more polished. As for the customers, we look forward to engaging them indefinitely, as building a community around a product is what PathPro is all about :)
Any details to clarify about the deal?
None that I can think of, but translation is not yet supported, so we primarily focus on english-speaking countries. Translation support is a feature we will consider and we have added it to our feature voting panel to confirm customer demand.
