PLEASE NOTE: This is a discussion that is curated from our Facebook community on risks regarding potential lifetime deals. Go to this thread to see the live discussion at https://www.facebook.com/groups/alstonantony/permalink/572714760278401/
Comment 1
I fully understand the frustrations of LTD’s closing down and some nasty scams out there. However, I approach LTD’s like Kickstarter projects. You invest in an idea, most of the time an unfinished product at best. If you are lucky, you get a hell of a deal.
But the downside is, you run the risk of losing your money. That’s why you should do your homework and do some due diligence before buying.
From the business perspective of the creators, LTD’s are a good way to gather beneficial feedback from early adopters and fellow entrepreneurs. And you have a chance to raise some cash to fund further development. Most of the time, this money is already spent on investments like dev when things go south.
Finally, it might be my background that colors my opinion (I’m a Dutch tech lawyer), but jailing people should always be a last resort. I do hope this post was written to tease our thoughts and was not meant to be taken literally.
This is just my two cents. I felt obliged to advocate a – in my perception – more nuanced view. Feel free to reply if you have a different opinion.
Comment 2
Yep, I totally agree; most founders do not set up to fail. They believe in their product and bring it to market to be successful. The reasons for failure can be many, from lack of business acumen to market volatility.
Comment 3
‘Nothing is certain in this Planet’, Everything changes due to various factors. And so happens with human beings; no one can say what will happen in the next second.
And so with founders, they start & do work with the intention to succeed, but who knows the future… so it’s buyer choice to buy it or not. No founder is forcing to buy their product.
Comment 4
Agreed, my argument does not apply to start-ups that betray their customers’ trust (LTD or not). It is good to have such dedicated reviewers to help us make informed decisions.
Comment 5
Actually, indeed LTD’s are very similar to crowdfunding projects; it is pretty easy to realize this, I’ve related this as well; if you do your research, you’ll find a lot of similarities in general.
Of course, there’re some products that aren’t really in that phase but doing it for strategy (Divi as for example) or because of thinking on giving relief to their customers (Dabble as for example), but that’s not common, and that’s why the majority of well-established products are not running LTD offers.
And I’m just clarifying this other scenario as an exception of being that similar to crowdfunding. Still, I have something similar which is actually pretty much relevant: the risk involved there, as even if they don’t really need to offer a LTD because of already being sustainable, they totally risk their existing sustainability with this move.
Comment 6
Elgar, I agree 1000%. Even companies that raise millions fail.
Investing in an LTD is that- an INVESTMENT. Just like stocks you run a risk. In this case, a risk of the company failing. I’m a perfect example of this. In the last 4 years, I launched 4 SaaS, and 1 failed, and I’m getting shit for it.
Things happen all the time- unfortunately, like you said- there are some really bad folks (JvZoo, to be precise) that simply use LTD’s as a money grab and then leave users in the dark to wonder what happened, and they get nothing.
Whoever wrote that screenshot is taking this to an extreme and an unnecessary one.
Comment 7
Very simple solution don’t buy LTDs if you don’t have the capacity for the risk involved. You only pay on a month-to-month basis and will only be buying what you really intend to use at the moment.
Comment 8
I can see your point on that. So guys, let’s talk about risk mitigation strategies. For one, we know some founders that are on the big bad blacklist because their companies have either gone down or they haven’t held up to their end of the lifetime deal. I understand that some companies like to change their lifetime deals later on, which is risky.
Some founders and companies have been around for a while, and they’re even launching their second-lifetime deal product or maybe another iteration of a lifetime deal product that they’ve created early on.
One of the things that bother me the most is when you buy a lifetime deal, and you can’t change the email address as an example I have chanty which they promised APIs over 6 months ago and never delivered they even said they were going to make it a Christmas present, but it’s been two more months and no APIs.
So now I had to spend $300 on ORA because they have APIs and just rolled out a better chat module which means it’s a better deal, a better buy, and better for all my employees.
So now I’m stuck with chanty, which I’ve paid over $300 for that’s useless because it’s obsolete now, so in a way, there will always be some sort of risk whether losing the money we’ve invested in a platform because another platform rolls out. Or the fact that some companies don’t deliver on their promises.