Kick is not affiliated with Bench in any way. We've onboarded a significant number of customers from Bench onto Kick before this happened, so this may have been why were were mentioned.
We're working fast right now to try to provide resources and help Bench users migrate and will be sharing updates here: https://x.co/kickfinance
Thanks Conrad however in the interest of clarity + transparency can you add some insight/details into how/why this statement came about in both the shut down email customers got today + what is currently posted on the Bench.co page?
"For continued support with your bookkeeping, we recommend exploring Kick, a modern accounting software, which has created an exclusive offer to handle your ongoing needs: kick.co/bench."
Having an "exclusive offer" listed in the initial closure communication/announcement + you having a landing page ready to go sounds like there was more to Bench just happening to mention Kick because your company has "onboarded a significant number of customers from Bench onto Kick before this happened"...
Hopefully you'll get an answer from Conrad, but the landing page does not mention the shutdown, so I would point out when I was comparison shopping something else recently, their website had dedicated pages to why you should choose them over each major competitor, and a switching discount is also not uncommon.
It's entirely possible this landing page is Kick's competitive offer, and Bench linked to it because it offers all the people they just screwed over by collapsing a discount.
Good point! I like what I see so far in Kick. It's just given the level of pain Bench has just caused me, my businesses, and a couple very unlucky employees in my office + the financial cost = I have to make super duper sure Kick is not related to/involved with Bench in any way shape or form.
If they asked Kick to be listed as an alternative in the closure email or asked them to do a discount nbd I have no issue there. I just want the full story given Bench events.
I am not related to any of the parties in this dolce, but I did discontinue a product once.
On the shutdown page I listed some alternatives people could try. I found them via Google, but i didn't first try them or talk to them.
They were really just a helpful hint for folk wanting to change to get started. (The thing I was killing was a product not a service so it wasn't going to actually stop working, it was just no longer being updated.)
So, in this case, a simple statement of fact (as above) would be good enough for me. But feel free to do your due diligence.
So you're planning on offering tax filings, or just recommendations? tbh this should have been included in the notice because I wrote y'all off immediately because taxes was the main pain point Bench solved for me (electing to file as an S-Corp).
A friend of mine mentioned Taxfyle as an alternative to Bench. They offer free bookkeeping migration, a free Xero subscription, dedicated bookkeeper to do your books and professional tax support where they handle your taxes too. They seem like a good fit for you! Check them out here: https://www.taxfyle.com/
I signed up to the paid account ($125 per month), added credit card details. Your system has me on free trial until early January.
I've followed all the steps required to unlock the "sorry to hear about the Bench situation" onboarding.
Now after jumping through all the hoops, I'm told that the "free onboarding" and call only happens after the payment is processed later in January.
Why wait?
It's difficult to vet your service without this assistance. Money aside, time is of the essence here.
Really hoping to be proven wrong here, but this feels like an opportunistic sales initiative that claims to be more, but is really just a "20% off for your first year" coupon code.
I tried to sign up for Kick and received an email that you don’t support my industry. Were an artist studio that makes and retails physical goods. Do you expect to support more industries soon?
While you have documentation about migrating to your platform, you don't seem to have any documented promises around export and leaving your service.
Also, it seems a bit odd to me that the "balance sheet" ability is two non-free pricing levels deep into your service. Isn't that a baseline expectation?
Hey all, a lot of people I speak with imagine a "launch" as a single email you send to your audience. The effect of this is quite suboptimal–it doesn't build anticipation or give you data about what's resonating.
We recently went through 100's of online course launch email sequences and pulled the best types in one place (I've seen data on hundreds in the past year). I'd argue a similar set of emails could apply to any online product you're launching. That said let me know what you think here.
We actually drop the transaction fee once you're actually making money. Check it out: usefedora.com/pricing.
To your point, if there's a free tier with a transaction fee, doesn't that mean it's totally free to use? We handle all the hosting for you, so it's a little misleading to call this system free.
With Fedora, we make money when you do - which is an amazing alignment of incentives if you ask me. This really helps people who are just starting out and want to use a robust product. Right now folks using Fedora teach near 400,000 students in any language you can imagine.
Disclaimer, I Co-Founded Fedora and you have any questions, feel free to reach out conrad@usefedora.com.
He's saying that niche marketing is dependent on good content marketing, which is a fancy way of saying releasing free information to attract an audience.
I'm from GrowHack and submitted this post. As an add on, and even perhaps even disclaimer, I do hope folks use this tactic for good. Email responsibly and send all hate mail to Ankur.
Hey guys, as you know, the biggest risk for startups today isn't product, it's acquiring and retaining the right users.
Developed in partnership with GrowHack and seed-stage investor Quotidian Ventures, the User Growth Bootcamp is an offline and online 8-week curriculum designed to reduce that risk by thinking deeply about your engine for growth and to learn by actually doing.
Students learn by meeting with a new practitioner each week who's an expert in their domain. One instructor, Ankur Nagpal helped built a viral engine to bring on 200M non-unique users through Facebook apps. Another instructor, Cassie Lancelotti-Young headed marketing at Savored which was acquired by Groupon, and now leads Analytics and Optimization at Sailthru.
The curriculum for the program is based off of a set of online courses which has grown to thousands of students. One GrowHack client and student includes Booktrack. Paul Cameron, CEO at Booktrack relates:
"In just over five months since Bookrack released its Booktrack Studio Web App it's user base has grown 30% every month, with 300,000 users creating more than 3,600 Booktracks in 30 different languages and have spent more than 2.5 years reading - this is without a mobile app which has just been launched"
If you know someone who'd be a fit tell them get more information and apply here by April 7th.
I don't think the argument is focused on what Meetup should do, but what they could do if new user acquisition were a priority. It's a growth tactic that can be balanced with retention and engagement approaches, that Meetup right now understands and is heavily investing in.
Taking this approach also doesn't mean you'd have to go full throttle. You could test and decrease the pace by only allowing a segment of quality organizers the ability to create their own app.
Nothing wrong with an umbrella approach - I'd argue it's likely that Meetup cares a lot more about retention and engagement, and cross-selling other high-quality events, than any type of acquisition at this point. Users bring in other users through word of mouth is a pretty compelling approach.
That being said, if they wanted to open up their new user acquisition efforts on mobile they could let users brand and launch their own applications in addition to their main app.
They could do it in the same way you're becoming more able to customize a meetup landing page now, and tuck promotion of other similar events, or even the main meetup app in the background.
This type of approach could appeal to organizer who really cares about their own brand. Think large conferences and related topics, who'd love to use a Meetup backend, but need to differentiate their brand.
On the search point would you agree that someone searching for "soccer" in the iOS store would be interested in an app dedicated to doing soccer in person?
Working fast right now to try to provide resources and help Bench users migrate and will be sharing updates here: https://x.co/kickfinance