

Twilio and 99designs Join This Week's AppSumo Lean Startup Bundle - noahkagan
http://blog.twilio.com/2010/10/twilio-and-99designs-join-this-weeks-appsumo-lean-startup-bundle.html

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johns
Just a heads up. There's a new process for redeeming the Twilio credit, which
is outlined in your AppSumo dashboard. We had to change the process due to
fraudulent use of the promo code. If anyone has any issues with redeeming
their Twilio credit, please email help@twilio.com

~~~
Yoms
Just redeemed my code using the new process, and it was totally painless.

This deal was already amazing, and you guys made it 10x better (for my app at
least :)).

~~~
justinchen
I bought the deal just for the Twilio credit since we're existing customers.
Prob won't use any of the other apps.

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zaidf
$200 in credit? Now I might just buy this :)

I do question AppSumo's longterm strategy. It seems like they are trying to
make a deal _so_ damn good by adding more and more _stuff_. But for me, I
don't go so much by quantity as quality. Meaning, I'd sign up for $42 for $200
in twilio credit _regardless_ of the other offers which aren't attractive _to
me_. But there may be folks who would sign up for uservoice _regardless_ of
the other offers. So I guess appsumo may be shooting themselves in the foot by
combining so many offers vs. just focusing on a kickass offer at a time.

~~~
metamemetics
A thematic bundle seems necessary because people buy apps based on use case as
tools. The consumer is exceedingly unlikely to have heard of randomly selected
application_foo unless it has already been marketed successfully. Which
defeats the benefits for app-makers of getting in on a promotional bundle.

Groupon can get away with decreased items per bundle (1) at a higher frequency
(daily) because: A) they have a ton of repeat viewers, B) each individual
product use-case (ex. restaurant) is usually extremely obvious and non-
specialized in appeal

~~~
noahkagan
Good point. One thing that works out well with these bundles is we get to help
some lesser known companies get discovered.

One coming out shortly I'm really excited to promote is for
<http://healthmonth.com>

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Mc_Big_G
This is a very cool deal and I just bought it, but please be careful when
redeeming the twilio promo code.

You must purchase $20 of twilio credit, but if you get the promo code wrong,
it will charge your card and tell you that the code wasn't found. There is no
way to enter the code without paying again. I put in a helpdesk ticket about
the issue.

The problem for me was that the appsumo page is really cluttered and
disorganized. There are two columns, one named "Product" and the other one is
named "Code", but there are some rows that encompass both columns which make
them seem like dividers and it isn't clear what the text in those columns are
supposed to be associated with. Anyway, there is one "divider" line a few
lines above Twilio that says "Promo code is XXXXX" and I assumed that was the
code for all of the products below it, without realizing that there was a
"code" column. Yes, it's my fault for jumping the gun, but in my defense, that
page is pretty bad.

~~~
johns
Unfortunately our promo code system requires a payment and we tried to make it
very clear on the AppSumo page what the requirements are. We couldn't change
our system in time for this promo so we had to run with it as is. _If you run
into this issue, please email help@twilio.com and we will take care of you._

~~~
Mc_Big_G
I knew a payment was required and I'm okay with that. My suggestion is that
the payment isn't processed if the code is invalid. This gives the user the
chance to correct the code if they made a mistake.

~~~
johns
You're absolutely right. I will make sure this gets reported to the correct
people.

~~~
ajju
I just got a 'Promo code has expired' error and it charged me 20 anyway.

~~~
johns
Email help@twilio.com Attn: JohnS/AppSumo and we'll take care of you right
away.

See: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1769131>

~~~
ajju
Thanks, just resent my mail with that subject.

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YuriNiyazov
I think maybe this is what I like best about HN - both the guys from Twilio
and the guys from AppSumo are hanging out in this thread.

~~~
hugs
Other folks involved in this appsumo bundle are watching, too. ;-)

~~~
ajju
Just signed up for saucelabs. Newbie question: Do you guys let me export my
selenium scripts so I can also test it manually later?

~~~
hugs
Using Saucelabs labs is like talking with someone over IRC. (In Selenium's
case, it uses an RPC-ish HTTP API.) You tell us what to do (launch a browser,
open a url, click a button, etc.) and we'll tell you the result. Your scripts
talk to us, but you don't _send_ us your selenium scripts. So, in this case,
there's no "export" of tests, since you had them the whole time... Does that
make sense?

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misterbwong
Awesome. I bought this bundle yesterday when it didn't have Twilio + 99designs
and AppSumo added them on to my purchase for free! Great customer service.

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Sindrome
I've been staring at this deal all day.

I can't figure out how they got a $85 as the regular price for a website and
logo design. If you look on 99Designs site they charge $295 minimum for just a
logo design.

Am I missing something? About 3-4 weeks ago I wanted to use 99 Designs for a
IPhone App Icon. But went there to find that they raised their minimum price
for everything.

~~~
Sindrome
I just figured it out. The 99 Designs deal isn't for an actual contest. It's
just for a Free Power Pack Upgrade.

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Jun8
I loved the bundle idea! Two suggestions:

* Not everyone is familiar with everything. Can you add a section to the site that better describes what the included services can be used for. I don't mean full-blown tutorials, although links to these would be great. Right now the descriptions are just publicity blurbs for each service.

* Can you add voting so that people nominate what services/books they want to see in the next round of such a bundle offering, if you want to continue this startup bundle idea.

~~~
noahkagan
Awesome feedback.

1- This is so true! If we had more money / people / time we'd personally like
to make videos of each product. Will try to add more in the future. 2- Good
call. Added to roadmap. Something similar to <https://www.dropbox.com/votebox>
. For now you can submit any suggestions here:
<http://www.appsumo.com/opinion/>

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tapp
As long as the appsumo guys are in this thread, quick observations from a new
user:

1) The "refer friends, get $10 link" in header doesn't seem to work (it
prompts me to login or register, and no further info re: referring friends is
provided.)

2) The logout link in header doesn't seem to work either (it triggers
snapabug, but won't let me logout.)

Cool deal, though, I will undoubtedly purchase anyway. Thx for offering.

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metamemetics
Has anyone used or can comment on Selenium for testing?

edit: context: one of the bundle inclusions is selenium cloud testing (sauce
labs)

~~~
hugs
Yes, what do you want to know? ;-) Ask me anything! [Disclosure: I created
Selenium.]

~~~
metamemetics
Is its common use case to enable testing for people who aren't normally
writing them, reduce total number of tests maintained for people who are
writing them, or for writing additional supplementary tests to guarantee a
higher confidence in interface functionality?

edit: context is prototypical M-V-C python or ruby web app development

~~~
hugs
Yes to: "tests to guarantee a higher confidence in interface functionality "

Selenium should be part of a complete suite of tests (unit, component,
feature/acceptance). Selenium's design goal is a "for developers, by
developers" feature testing tool -- a browser automation API with bindings for
all major programming languages. Classic "perfect user" is an open-source and
agile loving Java/Ruby/Python/C#/Perl/PHP programmer.

However, because of the Selenium IDE browser extension for Firefox and its
"record/playback" feature, Selenium is also commonly used by people who don't
normally write lots of tests. Even though those users are not "real"
programmers, there's so many of them... So I try to be nice to them most of
the time. :-)

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mise
Turns out a lot of the ebooks mentioned are only some chapters rather than the
whole book. Nice deal all the same, I guess.

~~~
noahkagan
Yea, we tried to make that as clear as possible. Let me know if you have any
suggestions...

~~~
dchest
What did you change since yesterday when the bundle have been criticized for
the same thing?

~~~
noahkagan
I lowered the prices of the books that are just previews / bonus chapters
instead of the full price of the book...

~~~
dchest
Thanks, I appreciate this.

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markmywords
Awesome deal. Thank you very much for this one! I am busy redeeming
everything. Some stuff might not be useful for customers outside of the US.
Maybe "geographic deals" might be an interesting idea for a future bundle? :)

~~~
noahkagan
Let me know what you want :) noah@appsumo

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mcdowall
Excellent deal, just wondered how quickly I need to redeem the offers. Is it
possible for me to use them in say 4-8 weeks time, I would rather purchase
when available now than lose out.

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ajju
It looks like you can buy 3 bundles but many of the included items are only
for new customers. So will they allow redeeming 3 promo codes on the same new
account?

~~~
noahkagan
Smart but unfortunately most of the codes are for new users only. Some
companies like Twilio allow you to add 1 to your existing account.

~~~
ajju
Yeah, I am not sure it would make sense for anyone to buy more than 1. So I
wonder why they let you buy 3!

I must hasten to add that even limited to 1, this is an incredible deal and I
am jumping on it. Great stuff!

p.s. it looks like the appsumo.com is down!

~~~
noahkagan
Yea, too much traffic. Also, we have some leaks from wordpress. Fixing now....
Some people buy and gift it to friends.

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ryanwaggoner
It's ironic that the top two stories on HN right now are a post promoting a
99designs deal and another decrying design contests.

~~~
proexploit
Simple explanation though: As a buyer, design contests are great. Plenty of
ideas and you only pay if you see something you like. As a designer, design
contests are awful. Most people don't get compensated for their time and it
gives some people the idea that they should only pay for your time if they
love your work.

~~~
psyklic
I used 99designs, and I agree with you on the designer end. Not so sure about
the buyer end in this case. If you offer $x, to make it worthwhile each
designer has to "spend" ($x)/N dollars to submit, where N = (avg # of
competitors). So you end up paying $x to one designer, yet each designer only
"spent" a small fraction of that to make their submission. In other words, you
get tons of low quality submissions.

Your hope is that with the diversity, either by chance a hastily made cheap
one will be decent or that someone will take a risk and "spend" more than
($x)/N dollars on your submission, hoping for the full $x. It usually works
out "okay," but there is a good risk that you as a buyer won't get exactly
what you're looking for.

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GBond
I've been wanting to build a "scratch an itch" app using twilio. This gives me
no excuse. Thanks!

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innovate
just grabbed it, excellent stuff for our small team and lots of it

