Starting and sustaining a design business is something that Brucira has taught us very well over the years. But this year, as we introduced our flagship product, ruttl, to the world, we experienced a whirlpool of emotions and learnt from our ever helpful design and SaaS community like never before.
ruttl was created after we kept facing constant troubles for website annotation and sharing feedback on live websites with our teams and clients. It was super personal for us and the community showered all the love on it. But, when we launched ruttl in February 2021, we had no idea that within 10 months we would have achieved:
- 5,000+ users
- 20+ features shipped
- 70K+ USD revenues
- Used by professionals across 132 countries
- Featured on 50+ platforms
- AppSumo launch with 50K+ USD revenues within 3 days
- Offering more integrations
- Offered 12K+ USD Deals on Black Friday
and we are all set for ruttl's Product Hunt launch in 2022. Woah and phew!
Curious to know how we managed to do all of it? Take a rewind with us!
Users Stayed our North Stars
Going from 0 to 5K+ users is not a cakewalk. We prioritized and thought like our potential users right from the stage of research and development of ruttl. Our main purpose was to give it back to our design community which included fellow design agency owners, designers, developers, writers who have always been a sport for collaborations and growth of our industry.
What did we do right?
We talked with users first hand to understand their challenges with website annotation tools and for their overall web designing projects!
Launching 20+ New Features
From CNAME (Custom Domain login), Custom Branding, Guest commenting, Video commenting, Integrations with Slack, Trello & Asana, PDF Review feature, Static Image Review, Separate pins on Edit mode till Adding multiple pages from the same URL, Page versioning to Unsplash integration for replacing images - had we not talked with our users first hand, we would not have been able to launch these super helpful features.
What did we do right?
Being designers and developers ourselves, we worked upon the user insights and then tested out new features ourselves. Collectively, this helped us make ruttl more holistic and go-to-tool for web projects of various scales.
Built a Passionate Team
We created ruttl with all our awesome team members who were already working at Brucira. When we told them about ruttl, they jumped right on its bandwagon and committed 25,000+ hours to ensure it is shipped on time. Not to mention how all of those 8 rockstars poured their heart into its marketing, customer support, product improvement and more. ruttl owes its success to nobody but our team and users.
What did we do right?
We communicated our purpose for creating ruttl and what would it need from our team to make it a success. Transparency and effective delegation helped us all in aligning a lean team for it right from the start.
Witnessed Growth of Revenues to 70,000+ USD
Right from the beginning, we wanted ruttl to bridge the feedback and web project management gap between designers, project managers and clients. As we kept working on the same, slowly and steadily, the design community started loving ruttl. Soon enough, we onboarded users who were all set to try our premium plans and our revenues started picking up.
What did we do right?
We focussed on making our customers happier and chased after product excellence! As always, the big monies followed!
Conducted a Massive AppSumo Launch
Ask any SaaS product founder and they would tell you how nail biting launching your product on various coveted platforms is! We felt all of those feelings and then some more while introducing ruttl on AppSumo! Our patient team and understanding new users sailed us through the same and helped us garner 50K+ USD just from AppSumo alone.
What did we do right?
We offered plans that were perfect for AppSumo users, educated them about ruttl and offered seamless customer support to resolve all their issues at the earliest. In the end, it all added up!
Launched Big Black Friday Deals
Last but not the least, being tech enthusiasts ourselves, we HAD to offer some great deals for ruttl on Black Friday and Cyber Monday! Our team was bullish about the same and within a span of a week, we were able to create a stunning email campaign to inform our subscribers about the same. This activity helped us in getting in touch with our user base again and offer them great deals for believing in ruttl right from day one!
What did we do right?
We made sure to give it back to the community by making the most of these two massive festive sales. Overall, Black Friday and Cyber Monday garnered more loyal fans and encouragement for ruttl from the ever-giving design community.
What's coming up next in 2022?
Our next stop is launching on the widely famous platform- Product Hunt! And there is a lot more that's coming up in the store! As we are on a short break this week, Team ruttl has unwinded, introspected and is all geared to prep for 2022 with renewed gusto and passion to make a difference.
See you in 2022, then!
