AppSumo is at war. Return buyers are down 40%.

Return buyer conversion at AppSumo is down about 40% in a month. I have run this company for 15 years and never once questioned that it would exist. These past two weeks I was like, holy shit, this is a real challenge to the livelihood of the company.

It’s easy to blame the market or Biden or Trump. Most of it is our own mistakes, and some of them we identified two years ago. We were hesitant. Timid. We didn’t make the harder choices early on how AI evolved, how vibe coding evolved, how partner sustainability needed to evolve. Customers voted with their wallets.

How did the company known for curation lose it? Revenue targets and the American obsession with growth. When you have a good burger recipe, you don’t keep adding to the menu. You open more restaurants. We kept adding to the menu until people said, I don’t know what’s on your menu, I don’t trust your menu. I agree with them.

I knew the salary and nothing else

I’ve been back a month and a half. I have no set meetings. I went to the org chart and asked people, who here should I talk to, who’s doing interesting things? Then I spent the month asking questions. Walk me through your day, walk me through your week. Over and over I’d go, huh, so why do we do it that way? “I don’t know, that’s just the process.” Okay. I took notes and did not try to take action. That part was important. Recurring meetings are the scary ones. Do we have the meeting to have the meeting? Our monthly town hall gets cut to 45 minutes to see what happens, the Million Dollar Weekend move: do the thing, get a data point, make next month’s better.

The embarrassing version: for the past few years I trusted the sales leader and never talked to anyone on the team. We have a person who does sales operations management. I knew their salary and had zero idea what they did. I met with them. They manage our pipeline. I kind of get it now.

Two weeks ago I was in a sales meeting with 10 people and asked, what’s AppSumo? Everybody had a different answer. To me it’s highly curated, awesome software deals for marketing agencies and solo entrepreneurs who have businesses. Ten answers means the CEO hasn’t been doing the job, which is chief repeating officer.

Triple B

So I took the whole company down to one month and three things. Historically the target was 32 deals a month. I don’t care about the number. How many quality deals can we get on the calendar? That one question turned down everything else, and Ayman, our former CEO and one of my good buddies, is now the bouncer on what gets in.

For October I said we’re doing Triple B. Not Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, though holler at me if you love that show too.

One, the business. Dial in the deal calendar for the upcoming month.

Two, the budget. How many quality products can we do, what does that model look like, and what budget supports it?

Three, the brand. The deal page. We thought we’d do a hundred billion this year (joke), then we forecasted down, then forecasted down again. Call it $50 million net revenue. That means the page where we sell deals is a $50 million page, and I wasn’t a fan of our recent updates to it.

Those were the only three things the company did for the month. People love stupid acronyms, and I’m not saying copy Triple B, but having something everyone can repeat, and then helping everyone ignore everything else, is how momentum starts.

Since we dialed it in: Taco Day crushed. We launched Motion, a video AI product, and it did hundreds of thousands in its first week, one of the top deals ever. The new deal page went from design in two weeks to coded in week three, live by the time you read this. Caitlin and now Sean are driving the BD team on quality.

What I got wrong even inside the simplicity: I was so focused on which products we launch that I missed the deal itself. Ayman was the one hyping on this. The quality of a deal is the price, the rev share, and the type: forever deal, bundle, one year, percent off. November’s goal is a final partner menu. The deal is the flywheel at the center of all our gravity. What’s the core in your business?

Who’s awake

War is clear plans, clear people to execute them, and everyone knowing what we’re doing. I look around AppSumo and ask: who’s awake? Who’s improving the business and making things happen, versus who’s maintaining? I think about it with my wife too. If she’s tired, how am I leading? In your career, your family, your dating life, are you a leader or a follower?

People at AppSumo weren’t excited, and I was like, there’s nothing exciting we’re doing. I talked to Jordan, who runs our product videos, and asked if they’re valuable. Honest answer: no. So I said, Jordan, make videos you’re proud of. He messaged me later that it was one of his favorite meetings this year. Bro, let’s fucking go.

The other thing I did well at AppSumo early and stopped: talking to customers. Now Octolens pipes anything posted anywhere about AppSumo into a Slack channel, and I reply right away. Even if I don’t know the answer, it’s “let me go see what’s going on.” Being quiet is where it goes wrong. And I’m getting ahead of it the old way, posting designs and asking for feedback. We have a new form product, FormRobin, $19 for life, and I said anyone who leaves a comment with feedback gets it free. 10 or 20 people did.

I don’t blame customers for being frustrated. We’ve been okay, not great. We bump prices, products have had issues, our marketing is uninspiring at times. We were cashing in trust we built over the years. I can already feel the sentiment turning. People are saying, oh, they’re awake. The lights are on and someone’s home.

I have a very clear picture of where I want to be in 18 months and a real sense of urgency, because it is not guaranteed we get there. That’s a design review tomorrow and a “let’s meet tonight” for the person working on the product. It’s not founder mode. Running this fast for months isn’t sustainable, and the goal this year is stability so 2026 is set up right. But see if you can get there in half the time.

December might be an entire maintenance month, stolen from LMNT’s three weeks on, one week off. What do customers think sucks, what do partners think sucks, what does the team think sucks? Reviews that get weaponized. Partner onboarding that takes weeks. All on the list.

We’re still at war. Tomorrow the town hall runs 45 minutes, and the next Reddit thread about us gets answered by me, today.

From episode 381 of my podcast, Noah Kagan Presents. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.