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topicprinter · 5 years

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Hi all, I recently wrote this post about how Drip screwed over its most loyal customers and I thought perhaps /r/Entrepreneur would get value out of my lessons learned.----If you’re not familiar, Drip is email marketing software that’s pretty heavy on the marketing automation front. I won’t do them the courtesy of a link, so you’ll have to Google them if you want to check it out.They’ve been around since 2012 or so, founded by someone I trusted, but he sold the business to Leadpages a few years ago, and it’s been going downhill ever since.I’ve been using them for years as the backbone of two “side” businesses: IndieHive, which covers this website for freelancers and the related products and services that I sell, and Everleads, a curated lead generation site for freelance designers and developers.In 2016 and 2017, I really dug deep into Drip. I built out dozens of interconnected workflows to carefully shepherd my subscribers through various funnels and sequences with duplicate emails or annoying content that’s not relevant to them. I integrated my web front-end with their APIs so that I could customize the site for subscribers. I wrote bridging scripts to connect it to Mixpanel for analytics, and I used Zapier to hook Drip up to even more services. It was the heart of my entire business, and it was awesome.But throughout 2018, things started to go awry.I kept experiencing glitches in the workflows where people would get stuck on workflow steps that should be instant, like “remove tag”. Or people would end one workflow and start another, but not have any of the data that the first workflow had set. There were honestly dozens of these little glitches, but individually they were minor.Also troubling: deliverability started to slip. Not precipitously, and I can’t prove that it wasn’t just my emails, but I have heard from others that they were having issues with getting their emails into people’s inboxes in 2018.But the most egregious thing for all of this was that support was basically no help at all. I probably opened two dozen support requests in 2018 and I’m not sure they actually resolved a single one. We’d spend hours going back and forth so they could even understand the problem. Then they’d almost always say one of two things:“For a workaround, just insert a number of delays between steps in your workflows so that the system doesn’t get confused!” So all my workflows had little 5 minute delay steps to try and make sure things worked correctly. Which they still didn’t. Wtf.Or they’d just say they need to escalate to the developers and then I’d get an email weeks or months later from some random support engineer letting me know they were still looking into why the most basic functions of their software don’t work right. Awesome.Alarmed by this, I repeatedly researched alternatives throughout 2018, but nothing seemed worth going through the pain of migration and the risk of just having similar issues somewhere else. So I kept resolving to be patient with Drip and hope (pray) that they were hard at work at undoing whatever architectural disaster had led us here.And then…In early January 2019, while I was on a relaxing cruise with my wife for our 15th anniversary, I got an email from Drip:https://ryanwaggoner.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/drip-bullshit-pricing-email-2.pngSo basically: “Hey, we’re raising our prices in 12 days! You can keep your current price if you switch to an annual plan!”And if you read it carefully, there’s something pretty important missing from this email.It doesn’t say what the new pricing is**. Seriously wtf.**So I emailed to ask. They responded the next day (so now I have 11 days) to reveal they were doubling my monthly price.Drip raised my price from $184 / month to $368 / month with 12 days notice.That’s just about the worst way imaginable to treat your oldest and most loyal customers.And it was the last straw for me.Now, to be clear, I completely understand wanting to grow a company in a new direction, or thinking that you need to raise prices to reflect more value.But you don’t do it when your platform is half-broken, you don’t do it with 12 days notice, and you grandfather in existing customers, at least for long enough for them to migrate. Also, you tell them the price when you tell them that prices are rising.It’s hard to imagine how Drip could have been more disrespectful to their customer base than what they did here.So as of last month, I switched all my subscribers to ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign for Everleads and IndieHive, respectively. That’s thousands of dollars that Drip won’t be getting from me. I managed to get both setups completely migrated off just before their billing renewal dates, in one case with literal minutes to spare.It was a pain and required some late nights but it was worth it to deny them another penny.I’m not alone in feeling upset about this. Twitter was ablaze for weeks with people who were angry and bailing for greener, more respectful pastures. I’ve taken a sick joy in watching a lot of people migrate off Drip with much larger lists than mine.I also cancelled Leadpages in favor of Instapage. I was already unhappy with Leadpages, mainly because it feels pretty clunky and dated, they aren’t very responsive to user feedback, and they’re still missing some pretty basic things (like being able to pass form data to the thank you page. Seriously?).Side note: I was going to link to the Leadpages idea portal, but they apparently shut it down. Makes sense, since it was filled with hundreds of good ideas with many, many customer votes that had been ignored for years.Regardless, even if Leadpages was awesome, they own Drip and I won’t give another penny to such an unethical company that treats its customers so poorly.And this migration was a huge pain (which is what they were counting on), partly because of how complex my Drip setups were, but also because ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign are both pretty different from each other and from Drip. On the surface, they all do some of the same things, but once you dig in, things diverge, which made the migration especially painful.Drip is complicated. Stupidly so. In fact, it’s so complicated that there are a number of problems using it:It doesn’t really work. I mean, it does like 99% of the time, but that last 1% means that some of your subscribers are going to have a bad time. And it’s not just that their emails won’t show up. They might just get stuck in a workflow, or skip some emails in a sequence, or get things at the wrong times, or lose data, etc. And since this happens randomly, the number of subscribers who experience it accumulates over time.The customer support reps don’t really know how it works, because it’s too complicated. So you end up spending hours writing up descriptions of the problem and putting together screencasts to show how things don’t seem to be working, and the only response you get is that they’ll have to ask the developers.It encourages you to setup really fancy complex automations which, even if they did work, are way beyond what you actually need. Just imagine: you can do anything! You can track everything! You can have an unlimited number of tags and fields! Track and automate all the things!Your setup can end up being really brittle and deeply tied to the Drip architecture, which is a problem if you want to migrate off. And it’s hard to expand and modify over time without breaking all kinds of things for your subscribers who are in those automations.The setup is hard to document. It’s easy to end up with a large collection of documents and spreadsheets and screencasts to try and explain not only what you did, but why you did it.It’s hard to audit and debug when things go wrong. And things will go wrong. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s happening with your subscribers, where things went off the rails, and how to get it back on track without screwing things up further.In the end, Drip for me felt like a really shitty programming language. Technically possible to do almost anything, but so painful that in the end you wish you hadn’t bothered.By contrast, ConvertKit is simple. And yes, I think it’s too simple in places. I think there are some genuine gaps in the functionality that makes it a little too hard to get done the things you want.But I’m also aware of the fact that I’m coming from Drip and a really convoluted setup, so being forced to simplify is probably a good thing.And ActiveCampaign is not simple, but it’s powerful in a bunch of ways that Drip should have been. Additionally, it has the distinction of actually being, you know, functional. Crazy, I know.Also, ActiveCampaign apparently is more open to feedback than Drip. I posted a Twitter thread listing some things that I like about it and Jason VandeBoom, the founder of ActiveCampaign, setup a call with me to go over some of my feedback. And ActiveCampaign isn’t a tiny company; they have hundreds of employees and are much larger than Drip. It meant a lot to me that Jason would just jump on the phone with a random customer to see how they could improve.Meanwhile Drip’s emails aren’t even signed by an actual person. During this whole debacle, I don’t think anyone from Drip actually responded to anyone’s tweets or complaints. A couple days after the initial announcement when things were blowing up on Twitter, they sent this out another email that was basically "sorry, not sorry"Just like their price increase, all of their corporate communication just screams “We don’t care about you. Go away.”So I did.I’m actually really glad that I dropped Drip, after all that. Partly because of how much better ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign are as tools, but mostly because it taught me a lesson about how you need to be careful when you’re a small company about who you integrate with, because while your interests may align now, that could change at any point.But this rant has gone on long enough, so I’ll save that point for a future post.Disclaimer: just in case Drip decides to sue me (which would be so on-brand for them at this point), ALL the descriptions of Drip’s functionality, failings, and communications is to the best of my recollection and should not be taken as a literal word-for-word account.----Happy to answer any questions about my experience with Drip, ConvertKit, or ActiveCampaign. Would also love to hear anyone else's experiences with any of those (or others you'd recommend in the space of email-based marketing automation).Original post: https://ryanwaggoner.com/drip-pricing-review/

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ensmagonline · 7 years

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Help! I’m 50 with no savings. What do I do?

If you reach 50 with no savings, it’s natural to feel anxious about the future. But don’t worry, you still have time to make money, save and invest before retirement. It might be tempting to think you can’t do enough before you retire. You might want to give up and rely on pensioner benefits and the state pension. However, you can’t rely on the state, because you never know what will happen in the future. Now is the time to grasp the nettle, and make and save your own money. Take a reality check Set a savings goal Go on a money-making drive Consider pensions Invest wisely Consider equity release Have regular check-ups Step One: Take a Reality Check First, you need to change the way you view your life and work. If you have no savings at 50, you’re probably going to have to work until you’re at least 70. You might not want to hear this, but remember you’re not the only one. Lots of people are working longer these days and it’s not the terrible sentence it might seem. There are good sides to working longer: It will keep your brain active and may help you to live longer. You don’t necessary have to work full time. A part-time job might be enough to top up your state pension. After 65, you’ll pay less tax and no National Insurance, so you can keep more of what you earn. Working can get you out of the house and meeting people. You might even meet someone special. You could find yourself setting up your own business and create a whole new world and life for yourself. Step Two: Set a Savings Goal The first step is to work out how much money you’ll actually need in your old age, so you have a savings goal to aim for. Put together a budget, taking into account heating, electricity, water, council tax, food, transport, home repairs, clothing, holidays and gifts. Check out our guide on putting together a budget. Once you’ve worked out how much money you’ll need each year, multiply this by the number of years you expect to be retired. Don’t forget, you can expect to live far longer than your parents, so it’s safer to assume you’ll die at 100 than at 80. You’ll also need to factor in inflation. This kind of calculation is tough to do yourself, so track down an online calculator to do the hard work for you. Consider the cost of care in your later years too, should you become unable to take care of yourself in your own home. There’s more advice on this topic in our guide to long-term care. Once you’ve worked out the total income you’ll need to take you through your retirement, use one of the online pension calculators to work out how much you need to putting away each month to achieve this. Don’t panic if this seems like an enormous sum of cash: there are plenty of steps to help you hit your goals. Step Three: Go on a Money-making Drive You need to think about ways to make more money right now. You have the strength, the skills and the resources to make money for yourself: you have very valuable life experience to help, so go to it. After all, you could find yourself creating a whole new life for yourself! Did you know, for example, that over-50s are the best at setting up successful businesses? We have lots of tips and ideas for making extra cash in our Make Money section. Why not start off with the easy and immediate cash-makers in our article 10 Easy Ways to Make Quick Cash? And, for an easy way to make money from the comfort of your sofa, read our article on online surveys. To make money on the side it depends how much time you can spare and what skills you have. For example, if you’re a mum, consider becoming a doula. Doulas support women through childbirth and new parenthood, and can charge up to £500 to be present at the birth and £15 an hour to cosset a new mother in her home. British Doulas runs courses in London for women wanting to take up the role. Find out more about it in our doula article. If you’re well educated – particularly in subjects like maths, economics and business – you could become a tutor and teach maths and English in the evenings. You can earn up to £80 an hour doing this. Dog walking is another option with a good hourly rate of pay (£10-15 per dog per hour in most places), provided you can handle more than one dog! If you’re comfortable selling to people, network selling is another great money maker. It involves selling products through your network of friends and family on behalf of a direct selling company. It can be a great way to start a small business. Also, consider signing up for market research or mystery shopping, both of which can pay well for a relatively small investment of time. If you own your home, why not take a lodger? You can earn up to £7,500 tax free this way (in 2017/18), and even smaller rooms are attractive to renters in today’s market. If you don’t want to commit to a full time house guest, you could host a foreign student for a short period of time. You could charge commuters to park on your driveway. You could even rent out your garden as an allotment, or your attic space as storage space. And while you’re up in the attic, keep an eye out for vintage clothes. You can often spruce these up and sell them for good money. If you have a job, ask yourself if you’re earning what you’re worth. You can compare salaries in different roles on the Payscale website. While it’s never easy asking for a pay rise, you have nothing to lose. Ask yourself if there are any extra responsibilities you could take on in return for a pay rise. If you think that might be possible, put together a proposal and pitch it to your boss. You could also consider learning new skills to increase your value in the job market. You could do this through an Open University course or evening classes. If you’ve been working in a professional field, such as education or business, you might even be able to make money on the side as a freelance consultant, putting your years of experience to good use. Step four: consider pensions Pensions haven’t always had the best press, but don’t be put off. The tax treatment of pensions makes them one of the best ways to save for retirement. Any money you pay into your pension after income tax will have that tax added back by the government. It means an automatic top up of at least 20% before you start. It is also allowed to grow tax-efficiently, and you can take out 25% of the fund tax-free when you retire. If you have a job and your employer offers a pension scheme (which they’ll soon be legally obliged to do), this should be your first port of call. Check out what’s on offer, because often, in addition to the contributions they have to make by law, some will put a decent chunk of money into the pension. Sometimes they will match at least part of your contributions. If your employer has a generous scheme, you should be making the most of it. If your employer doesn’t currently offer a pension, or you have concerns about the scheme, you can get yourself a low cost stakeholder pension. Alternatively, if you want more control over your investments (and more options), you can consider a self invested personal pension (SiPP). Step five: Invest wisely It’s also worth considering setting up investments outside of the pension scheme – especially if you hit the annual limits. If you don’t have an ISA, you should get one, and if you do, you should aim to use all of your tax free allowance each year. If you plan on working until the age of 70, your investments have 20 years to grow. For this reason, you need to consider your investment options very carefully. Most people should at least consider a stocks and shares ISA, which can be wrapped around all sorts of investments. It’s worth starting by considering collective investments, like funds. These are managed by experts, so you’re picking an overall fund rather than individual stocks and shares. We like index-tracking funds for easy, cheap stock market investing, so take a look at our explanation of how these work and why it’s best to put them in an ISA so that you don’t pay tax. Whatever you invest in, you should review your investments regularly. It’s particularly vital as you approach the time when you need to access at least some of your money. You should consider gradually moving into bonds, savings accounts and other more stable investments. Don’t do this too soon, however. At the age of 70, you may still have 20 years or more until you’re accessing the last of your investments, so cash may not be the best place for all of your money. Step six: Consider equity release If you have your own home and, particularly, if you have no family to leave your wealth to, then equity release may be a good option once you retire. It’s not something you can get until you’re into your 60s but it’s a potential fallback option. Be careful though! The industry has improved in recent years but there are still a lot of pitfalls for the unwary. Read our article on equity release and get independent advice before agreeing to anything. Step seven: Have regular check-ups If you’re unsure if you’re doing the best you can to make your money work for you, it’s often worth seeking the advice of an independent financial adviser (IFA). In the majority of cases, an IFA will save you more than they will charge you for the appointment. They consider your personal circumstances in depth, and suggest ways you might be able to free up spare funds, such a re-negotiating your pension or advising on equity release if you own your own home. VouchedFor is a good place to go to find a financial adviser. The post Help! I’m 50 with no savings. What do I do? appeared first on MoneyMagpie.

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