Introduction
Nice to have you with us again for another episode of Digital4Productivity. And today I’m sharing a tip that is worth a lot of money, namely the Appsumo platform. I’m often asked where I get my money from to pay for all my software lists. Good question: If I don’t ask myself this, my wife – who is a professor of controlling – will ask me The Queen of Cash. Joking aside. My license costs are over 20,000 euros a year, but I’m gradually reducing them. By using Appsumo. And that’s a tip for you too. The idea of Appsumo is that you … it’s a platform where providers of software services, mostly web-based services, use it as a practical promotion and say: Okay, Appsumo has lots and lots of users. And services that normally cost a monthly subscription are then offered as so-called lifetime deals. And the structure of these lifetime deals is usually such that if you take a monthly subscription of the middle tier, if there are three tiers, i.e. three price ranges, three packages, and you take the middle tier and this monthly subscription, and if you take that between times two and times four, so ultimately not even the cost of a six-month subscription, that’s often the price for the lifetime deal.
Video mailsend
And then there are gradations. And the good thing is that you can subscribe to a newsletter there and then you get an e-mail every two days or so where deals are suggested and I recommend subscribing to this newsletter. Then you can take a look If you’re interested in something, there’s always a short title about what it’s about. If you say that this could be a tool that is interesting, then you can click on it and then in 95% of all cases you will always have a video. And in this video, this tool is explained and even if this tool is not relevant for you in individual cases, you will learn an incredible amount about what great IT tools there are, including in the AI sector, but also in other areas. I’ll give you a few highlights of where I’ve saved a lot of money with Appsumo. As you may know, I really, really like doing video communication emails. That means, for example, that I write in response to requests for presentations: Do those who write to me in the lecture request always get a video mail back and I do that with a service called HippoVideo. I got the original idea from Phil Calvert, a highly esteemed colleague from the British Speakers’ Association, who once suggested the BombBomb tool.
BombBomb
And the idea is that you record a video, you send it by e-mail and in the e-mail there is a link to this video and an interactive GIF preview is automatically activated in the e-mail. That means it moves, everyone really clicks on it. And the great thing is that you can see when someone has clicked on this link. In other words, you can see “Okay, it’s been opened. And the nice thing is, I also use it to present my offers and, as I said, it’s excellent for presentation requests. I have several landing pages there for requests for German-language lectures, for requests for English-language lectures and then I always have customer testimonials, videos, I have either in English or in German on these landing pages. Or, for example, if it’s an inquiry from a Volksbank or Raiffeisenbank, I have special pages for VR-Bank and I do a lot there. Or for Microsoft 365, which means I have 10 or 12 landing pages that I’ve prepared once and I can even record a video on my cell phone while I’m out and about – there’s an app for that – and then simply say, with the landing page it goes out by email.
I even did it on vacation the other day. While we were still drinking our espresso at the Italian restaurant, I quickly made a video and answered it immediately. Incidentally, I also get most of the lecture requests converted because people say: “Oh great, Jägel answered quickly. That’s somehow human and natural, it’s not so licked and yet you have complete lectures underneath that you can see, testimonials and so on. This Bombomb costs 500 euros a year or 500 dollars a year. Then at some point I switched to a service called Dup. Dup ultimately offers the same thing for around $250 a year and then at some point I switched to Hippo Video Lifetime Deal for a one-off $199. So here’s an example of how you can save a lot of money. I’ll give you a few more examples that I’ve used with AppSumo. Aforei, for example, a service that allows you to make lots and lots of AI, lots of documents with AI through Super. This originally comes from the scientific field, so it was built for people who are writing a bachelor’s thesis, a master’s thesis or a PhD thesis and who have to research a lot of sources.
Afforai AI tool
And that’s what Afforai was built for. You can also use it wonderfully in the automotive sector, for example, to look up all the operating instructions or all the workshop manuals. And then you can ask this tool a question and not only do you get the answer, but you also get a link to the source. And by the way, it’s created in the exact language in which the question is spoken. I recently asked the question in Ukrainian: “You can also get the answer in Ukrainian, even though the document was in German. Yes, then PressRanger, for example, is a press database where you can get the addresses of journalists worldwide. Then, what else do I have here? Insight to AI, for example, where you can help build telephony chatbots. Then Wit Chapter, where you can divide videos into chapters. Then, what else do I have here?
Minvo, again something where you can create videos. TinyTalk as an AI chatbot system alternative to Chatbase, which I also used to get as a live tab. Then here “bot9, also a bot. Then Magic Bocquyfire, a tool with which you can generate e-books very quickly. Of course, it doesn’t use a real book, but it’s great for lead magnets. Then SemDoc as a CRM, for example, was also available for a one-off €99.
Digital signage solution “Juno”
Then a digital signage solution, Juno, I bought there. “be Human – a way to personalize videos, similar to HeyGen. Then Hide My WP Ghost, so you can make your WordPress site a bit more secure here. “part “Malikall, a booking tool, something like Calendly or “Aquity Scaling. Then, what else do I have here? For example, this Air Deck, an option for events, for example. “task Magic, a really great solution for optimizing and automating recurring activities, such a small RPA solution. “spirit Me, where you can also build your own avatar. Vista Social, a great way to automate social media posts. And also an example where I either didn’t use a solution before because it was too expensive, or I paid monthly fees. It once cost 200 or 300 dollars and that was the end of it. There are also email newsletter systems like Inbox, for example, and event management systems like Holacon. I already mentioned Chatbase. So here are the possibilities “Go Brunch, the tool that you may know from Lunch & Learn, where we always meet afterwards, I think for 200 dollars, instead of the whole thing with monthly subscription fees. “reck & Go, a support board, a possibility where I can even livestream on the iPad.
Support Base
Support Base, Support Board, a possibility where I can handle support requests accordingly. “goos VPN, a great VPN solution. Pinchat, a group chat solution. An alternative to Rumbletalk, which can normally cost 500 or 1,000 euros a year, and 100 euros for a one-off fee of two. Yes, Cloud Presenter, also a possibility for events and just to name a few here and it goes on. Incidentally, I also bought the Hardbit platform, which I used to create my digital-for-productivity platform, twice via Appsumo, each time for a one-off fee of $299, which I used to set up two platforms.
Alternatives to Appsumo and conclusion
Other platforms like Skool, for example, cost 99 euros a month and that adds up if you do a bit more. So as I said, I can highly recommend Appsumo to subscribe to the newsletter and check it out regularly. Alternatively, you can also subscribe to Appsumo’s YouTube channel, which, as I said, will save you a lot of money.
That’s why I always recommend Appsumo in my seminars and of course here in the podcast.
Yours, Thorsten Jekel.
Also available in: Deutsch