u/nova_trader

A self-hosted email marketing platform built to replace legacy less featureful tools like Sendy. Users connect their own AWS SES or SMTP server and get a full modern stack: drag and drop email editor, behavioral automation flows, multi-project/brand support, deliverability diagnostics (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, blacklist monitoring), subscriber management, lead capture forms and a REST API.

Traction

Launched 8 days ago. $240 revenue, 5 LTD sales. All from 3 organic posts in 2 Facebook groups. No ads, no SEO, no Reddit or other stuff. I realized this saas market is real and the people in those groups already understand self-hosted tools so they converted fast.

LTD opportunity

Already got an inbound from an LTD platform wanting to run a deal. Haven't moved forward with it, due to time limitation of my current schedule. That conversation is sitting there ready for whoever takes this over.

Why selling

Have a full time job and have been building a separate project for 6+ months with my mate that's close to launching. Also need the cash if I'm honest. Not selling because the product is broken or needs major work, the core app is fully built and running.

Tech stack

Modern nodejs stack, postgresql, docker.

Asking price

$4000. The tech is hard to replicate easily. It's self-hosted so almost 100%. Only thing I pay is to host the marketing site built on NextJS. Could do great with proper marketing and seo.

A self-hosted email marketing platform built to replace legacy less featureful tools like Sendy. Users connect their own AWS SES or SMTP server and get a full modern stack: drag and drop email editor, behavioral automation flows, multi-project/brand support, deliverability diagnostics (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, blacklist monitoring), subscriber management, lead capture forms and a REST API.

Traction

Launched 8 days ago. $240 revenue, 5 LTD sales. All from 3 organic posts in 2 Facebook groups. No ads, no SEO, no Reddit or other stuff. I realized this saas market is real and the people in those groups already understand self-hosted tools so they converted fast.

LTD opportunity

Already got an inbound from an LTD platform wanting to run a deal. Haven't moved forward with it, due to time limitation of my current schedule. That conversation is sitting there ready for whoever takes this over.

Why selling

Have a full time job and have been building a separate project for 6+ months with my mate that's close to launching. Also need the cash if I'm honest. Not selling because the product is broken or needs major work, the core app is fully built and running.

Tech stack

Modern nodejs stack, postgresql, docker.

Asking price

$4000. The tech is hard to replicate easily. It's self-hosted so almost 100%. Only thing I pay is to host the marketing site built on NextJS. Could do great with proper marketing and seo.

I run an AI course newsletter where almost all the content is free, along with the bi-weekly newwsletter. The business model relies on an automated drip sequence that eventually pitches two paid courses I built.

The list just crossed 40k which felt amazing until month's chimp bill hit. I was paying $300+ a month just for mailing to my lists. My conversion rate on the paid courses is pretty embarrassing right now (0.3%) so the software costs were literally eating up the actual course profits. I do get some small sponsorships but it still felt like I was working just to pay for my email list.

I finally spent a weekend moving the whole operation to AWS SES and a self hosted marketing tool. The raw sending cost is insanely cheap now, basically pennies compared to what I was paying.

The only tricky part was rebuilding the course funnel because my strategy is based on tagging people if they click a specific free tutorial and then routing them to the paid course pitch. I ended up putting a self hosted tool called MailRivo on top of SES to handle those visual automations without adding another monthly subscription.

If you run a high volume free newsletter you really need to look into SES. Just be careful and clean your list before you migrate. AWS is super strict about bounce rates when you first start.

Anyone else running a free to paid funnel in the AI or education space? Really curious what kind of conversion rates you consider normal.

I run an AI course newsletter where almost all the content is free, along with the bi-weekly newwsletter. The business model relies on an automated drip sequence that eventually pitches two paid courses I built.

The list just crossed 40k which felt amazing until month's chimp bill hit. I was paying $300+ a month just for mailing to my lists. My conversion rate on the paid courses is pretty embarrassing right now (0.3%) so the software costs were literally eating up the actual course profits. I do get some small sponsorships but it still felt like I was working just to pay for my email list.

I finally spent a weekend moving the whole operation to AWS SES and a self hosted marketing tool. The raw sending cost is insanely cheap now, basically pennies compared to what I was paying.

The only tricky part was rebuilding the course funnel because my strategy is based on tagging people if they click a specific free tutorial and then routing them to the paid course pitch. I ended up putting a self hosted tool called MailRivo on top of SES to handle those visual automations without adding another monthly subscription.

If you run a high volume free newsletter you really need to look into SES. Just be careful and clean your list before you migrate. AWS is super strict about bounce rates when you first start.

Anyone else running a free to paid funnel in the AI or education space? Really curious what kind of conversion rates you consider normal.