Yesterday’s big Backpack update was a huge success. It was the best day in Backpack’s history — even better than the last big update in July ‘07 and add anywhere in Oct ‘07.
We usually don’t share numbers, but we thought we’d break tradition and give people a peek into Backpack’s signups, upgrades, and financial performance yesterday.
317 Upgrades
Yesterday 317 people upgraded their Backpack accounts. This includes free → paying upgrades and paying → paying upgrades. Here’s how they broke out:
- 2 Max ($149/month)
- 1 Premium ($99/month)
- 12 Plus ($49/month)
- 54 Basic ($24/month)
- 111 Home ($12/month)
- 137 Solo ($7/month)
61 New Pay Signups
Yesterday 61 people signed up for new paying plans. This means they selected a pay plan on the signup page. Here’s how it broke out:
- 1 Max ($149/month)
- 1 Premium ($99/month)
- 13 Plus ($49/month)
- 26 Basic ($24/month)
- 11 Home ($12/month)
- 9 Solo ($7/month)
We had about 200 new free signups as well, so about 30% of all signups yesterday were pay signups.
$4,131 New Net
Upgrades + pay signups – downgrades – cancellations = $4131 new net revenue for yesterday. On an annualized basis that’s about $50,000/year. We’re very happy with that number.
Thanks to all our paying customers for putting your trust in us. We hope you continue to find the new Backpack useful and valuable. We’re already finding it invaluable in keeping our own company organized (and, man, do we need it).
Kevin Milden
on 20 Feb 08I am one of the 317. You guys added a lot of features officially that we were sharing one backpack login to pull off. Thanks for doing that.
allan branch
on 20 Feb 08Jason thanks for sharing these numbers. Very cool, congrats on the success.
Ben Nevile
on 20 Feb 08Congratulations! we heart Backpack.
Rick Reich
on 20 Feb 08Brilliant success from a brilliant product – congrats!
Jeff Mackey
on 20 Feb 08Interesting insight. Thanks for sharing! And congrats on a successful launch/update! The new features are definitely sweet.
Scott Wintheiser
on 20 Feb 08Without disclosing too much financial information, I’d love to know how 317 compares with your overall backpack membership. How many active members choose to stay where they were?
Also, we upgraded to the plus plan and we’re very happy so far. Great job!
Anonymous Coward
on 20 Feb 08How did you decide upon the different plans? Or more directly, why 6?
Scott
on 20 Feb 08When you do a big upgrade like this, do you have a target net increase in mind that you need/want to hit in order to justify (financially) all of the time you spent on the upgrades?
I guess what I’m asking is, how much of a “budget” for the upgrade costs do you create or think about ahead of time?
JF
on 20 Feb 08When you do a big upgrade like this, do you have a target net increase in mind that you need/want to hit in order to justify (financially) all of the time you spent on the upgrades?
We don’t have a target in mind or a budget. We believe in the product and believe in the changes and believe the work we put into it will pay off. We’ve seen this approach work for every release and every product so far.
We usually don’t work on any one release for more than a few months so we have a good feeling for how much time/money we’re investing. Plus we usually just have one person on a release for 90% of the work/time. Then we all join in to finish the last 10% or so.
If we were working on things for 2 years, and had 5 people working on it full time, we may have to approach our work differently.
Terry Sutton
on 20 Feb 08I don’t know why, but releasing this kind of info increases my general trust level. Just an observation.
Anonymous Coward
on 20 Feb 08Awesome, just enough cash to pay half of Mr. Bucks salary! j/k.
Erik
on 20 Feb 08Definately agree with Terry. Good job!
Tim
on 20 Feb 08Thanks Jason for the information! You went into much more details that one could find on any company. Which is very interesting because I always wonder how well companies are doing and how much they actually make with their products.
In the case of 37signals in particular, it feels like you are doing great and since you’re a small team (aren’t you like 8 or 9?), I end up pretty fast trying to figure out how much each of you end up making…
Anyway, congratulations!
Stacy
on 20 Feb 08You guys are definitely THE industry leader in web apps, hands down. Releasing real-time details like this is stunning to say the least. And I’m so grateful you did as it helps me think through my own web app. Thanks and Congrats!!!
ron
on 20 Feb 08@Stacy
”....You guys are definitely THE industry leader” = 317 Upgrades + 61 New Pay Signups???
maybe if 37S where based in Monaco (Population = 30,000:)
Arlo
on 20 Feb 08I’m glad you’re raking it in and making BP more like Basecamp, but where’s the iphone version?
Jeff Ward
on 20 Feb 08Thanks. Very inspiring.
Ivan
on 20 Feb 08What are the numbers of other products, ex. Basecamp?
Adam
on 20 Feb 08Always cool to see this type of information. Congrats on your success.
Geoff
on 20 Feb 08Thanks for breaking tradition. Many in this audience appreciate you connecting the dots between product and revenue.
And thanks for the upgrades as well.
alan
on 20 Feb 08jason and co.
we’ve been reading your blog – and obviously Getting Real – for the past couple of years, and we’re big fans of all your apps, but more so the head-space you guys inhabit. the ethos of simplicity, of less, all those inspirational details you so readily share has inspired not just us but many more out there. we return here quite often to find these little bits of inspiration (even between the Air and Kindle ‘product placements’.. ;)
nothing that i’ve read here in all that time has inspired me as much as this post. not because it’s about money and figures – although it is – but about what’s possible if you put your mind to it, and stick with what you believe in.
thanks for sharing this aspect, and in particular thanks for doing what no-one else usually does.
Stacy
on 20 Feb 08@Ron – leadership is about inspiration and getting others to follow you because they feel it. Size is only one of many components, not THE component (as she said lol).
Dante
on 20 Feb 08A couple more product upgrades, and you can trade up to the Audi R8 with the V12 diesel!
Josh Walsh
on 20 Feb 08Ok… so what’s Bezos’ cut?
;-)
Jean-Pierre
on 20 Feb 08Jason,
What a vision ! Again ! I use backpack since years for private stuff (few pages). I also use Max Basecamp and Highrise Plus. But your statement of intranets made the click. We have a wikipedia thing installed on our server to handle procedures since years (people hardly use it). When I introduced this morning to my staff we would move everything to Backpack the answer was “much easier” !
BTW your numbers of sales today could be much higher. I signed up yesterday for the free account and already moved today to Plus.
Thank you to you and your team, really !
Scott Brooks
on 20 Feb 08Simple elegance. Great Job guys. I have just cracked open my new account and we are up and running here at CS using it. cheers Scott
Amy
on 20 Feb 08All the new features are neat, but the thing I’m most excited about is being grandfathered in with my current plan (the $5 one). I picked it because it was all I needed, not all I could afford. Thanks for not insisting I need more.
Anonymous Coward
on 21 Feb 08What about cancelations.. There must be at least 1!
Ric Mazereeuw
on 21 Feb 08Given how good you guys are at keeping things simple, I’m curious: What sort of formulas do you use to track retention rate, lifetime value, upgrade conversion, etc.
I’m not looking for actual numbers, but just your methodology…
Jed Christiansen
on 25 Feb 08With all this talk on numbers, you got me thinking about how 37signals does financially. I put together an analysis and Excel spreadsheet where anyone can put in their own assumptions. You can find it here:
http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2008/02/25/37signals-is-one-hell-of-a-profitable-business/
I thought some people here might be interested in it, and how it could apply to their own projects.
This discussion is closed.