Thread

Hi,

If you know anything about internet marketing then you’ve probably heard of people like; Brendon Burchard, Eben Pagan, John Reese, Jeff Walker and, of course, Tony Robbins.

A team from that camp (they all know each other) have banded together and created a new software package called Kajabi.  You can see a promo video for Kajabi by going to the URL below:

http://www.altitudeprogram.com/kjba

Anyway, what this software does is basically allows people who are selling information products to manage their launches and indeed their entire businesses online.  As I write the product has not yet been launched and the price is a closely guarded secret.

However, as a web developer and a person who is aware of what these people normally charge, I am predicting that the cost will be anything from £250 per month to £1,250 per month - possibly with a large set up fee.  The entire internet marketing community is buzzing about this new software and according to sources (e.g., the kajabi twitter blog), their software has been the #1 topic of discussion on Alexia.  So this thing is going to be massive and people are going to make many millions from it.

The software makers proudly claim that it’s been made by marketers for marketers.  As a web developer and an internet marketer I’ve done my research and I’ve spotted some SERIOUS omisions from the software.  Furthermore, I have observed that the competition for this type of software is zero.  Yes indeed. Zilch.  Nothing.  Nil pois.

So, purely as a hypothetical curiousity I’m wondering if any other Codeigniter developers would be interested in building an alternative to Kajabi and making a fortune online by giving it better features and charging less than the makers of Kajabi.

In short, my proposition is this - How about some internet marketing software build by web developers for marketers?

Would anyone be interested in participating in a project like that?

Hi David,

I would be interested in this, sent you a PM.

InsiteFX

I too would be interested, pm me with more details.

I’m interested too , PM me with details.

Hi,

Thanks for the responses.  Here’s the vibe (and there’s no need for any PMs right now):

I’ve already started working on a system that, I think, could rival Kajabi.  As a matter of fact, I’ve rolled out a dumbed down version of it for a martial artist who wanted to do online video lessons.  The result was that it works. It held together and everyone involved made a lot of cash - including the end user.  The system that I built wasn’t built in Codeigniter, however, the new version I’m working on will be in Codeigniter.

The kinds of challenges that lie ahead include; uploading and converting videos, security, streaming from Amazon, integration with MailChimp etc.  These are all heavy coding issues. The good news is I’ve already done most of the work. 

Never the less, if there’s any coders out there who see this as being something that they’d be interested in then I’d love to hear from you.  To the designers and marketers - at this early stage your services won’t be required.  However, that could change in the future.

I have studied Kajabi via a renegade affiliate who has given me a sneaky peep behind the scenes.  I can confirm three things:

1. It’s going to be massive.  Every well known marketing guru in the world has been promoting it.

2. It’s got holes all over it and therefore will come with lots of hidden costs which are required to fill those holes.  Hearts will be broken.

3. I predict a massive demand for a software application that fills those holes and does all the things that Kajabi should do.

I’d also add that, if we did his then it could potentially be the greatest application built in Codeigniter so far.

Can I just ask if any of you have heard of Kajabi?

Cheers!

David,

Why MailChimp? Most marketeers I know use aweber.

InsiteFX

i am a developer that does work with internet marketers. My wife is big into IM. She pays attention to the industry, what people, especially the big wigs like jeff walker, tony robbins, ect… are promoting. I showed her the vid last night. her response? in one word: unimpressed.

She has heard of things like List Control and the others that the vid mentioned as being powered by Kajabi, but as a heavy IM’er has she even heard the word Kajabi before last night??? NOPE.  And if people like Jeff Walker and that group were promoting it heavily it would have been something she would have mentioned to me already.

The features and abilities that kajabi is boasting ? god sake , these are common sense features available in all of the top notch cms applications, even if they are not there out of box they are easily found and added at no cost.

I think Kajabi is going to have a hard time with client retention because of what David C says: the holes. Plus you will probably find all those wonderful features they are boasting about will not come as standard, what people will get is a bloated website theme manager, then if they need more chaching, oh need a support forum? chaching, need a blog module? chaching, want twitter like features? chaching, want to have the ability to use custom layouts outside what kajabi provides? chaching, ect , ect ....

these people are looking to make big dollars off of each and every client. your probably looking at 2,000 pounds per month to get the features that a IM’er would need to be successful with it. OUCH, that translates to near or more than 4K in both Canada and US. Our these people on drugs?

even the basic package will probably kill the newbie IM’ers budget.

when i was watching the vid, and this is purely a personal choice, they lost me completely when they mentioned Ruby On Rails. Not a fan in any way shape or form.

cloned/copied twitter and facebook like features. God do these people not have any imagination???? I understand the power of it, and it is useful, but come on can we please think for ourselves?????

this cookie cutter stuff, pffft. please. I would prefer to guide clients to be unique in each and every case, but just nudging them, have the system help them create clean, nice looking uniqueness. Empower them to think for themselves, do for themselves. Just provide the tools that allow them to do it super easy.

HTML5 - whole other issue. I like allot of the new stuff being implemented. You can do some cool stuff with it. Should the system include HTML5 ? yes, should it push hard on it? absolutely not. Right now lets follow W3C’s recommendations and not deploy HTML5 to production, but still support it.

ok i am done ranting now. 😊

A perfectly valid rant.  I think you’ve made some great points.  Maybe it’ll flop in which case I’m very glad to have had this conversation.

don’t get me wrong, the concept behind Kajabi is quite powerful. And if the holes were filled and some true thought put into being ‘unique’ it can be even better. I am all for putting into this.

Alright.  I’ve taken on board what you’ve said.

Since creating this post I’ve found of what the price for Kajabi is going to be.  I have to confess that the basic edition is much much less than I had originally estimated on my first post above.  As a matter of fact, if what I’m hearing is right then they’re under charging.

If people were indeed going to be paying up to $1000 dollars per month for Kajabi then I absolutely think there would be a strong case for going all out against it.  However, now that I’ve discovered how cheap it is I am no longer convinced that it’s worth going for.  I also take on board the points that it might turn out to be a marketing flop.

Never the less, it was an idea and I’m really grateful for the feedback.  I think it’s better to have posted an idea with you guys and had it shot down in flames here than to have wasted six months building some application that was never going to fly in the first place.

So, thanks for the responses.  Rock on!

I’ve come across another software called FusionHQ http://www.fusionhq.com .
From what I’ve seen in their video it’s pretty much similar to what Kajabi doing.
Have anybody tried that before? I’ve tried to signup but looks like they close the door at the moment.
Anyhow, they promise to open the door to register again next month so maybe I’ll give it a try..

If people were indeed going to be paying up to $1000 dollars per month for Kajabi then I absolutely think there would be a strong case for going all out against it.  However, now that I’ve discovered how cheap it is I am no longer convinced that it’s worth going for.  I also take on board the points that it might turn out to be a marketing flop.

I don’t think it will be a total flop, there are always enough sheeple who think if they only get all these hyped-up tools they will automatically be successful. And there are big names behind it - big in the internet marketing world that is.

I wouldn’t use it mainly because it’s not self-hosted. Maybe I’m paranoid, but I wouldn’t entrust other internet marketers with MY marketing campaign data for their free perusal. And even at $100-$300 per month it’s way too expensive esp. when you have any kind of web dev skills. You can easily have something very similar for much less:

WordPress - Free as in beer
Product Launch WP Theme - Clone whole Kajabi launch funnel, $77 with discount
WishList Member - Membership site script for Wordpress, professional and good support, $97. There are free alternatives in the WP plugin directory but IMO not as flexible
Amazon Web Services - Storage and streaming, pay as you go for usage.

There you go: < $180 total ONCE + your own hosting, which means you have complete control over everything. I’ve used this setup before and it was every bit as slick, if not better than what I’ve seen from Kajibi so far.

Why MailChimp? Most marketeers I know use aweber.

Maybe has to do with what I posted in the other thread:
AWeber Database Hacked, Email Addresses Stolen. Again.

I also wouldn’t use a hosted solution and since the people behind Kajabi have some spotty track record. What’s stopping them from taking a ‘peek’ at what you are doing, copy your methods without you knowing and simply take your market from you after several months?

There was this other forum I came across that had a list of free wordpress plugins that would emulate kajabi. And a paid theme that mimics kajabi, http://jvpress.com/, was recently launched so we have quite a number of alternatives to kajabi.

“Why MailChimp? Most marketeers I know use aweber.”
MailChimp is really good. I know some people who are doing good stuff with its API.

I did not like Kajabi. I ended up getting Optimizepress and integrated it with a membership site plugin. I had spent a year trying to find the right solution for my membership site. I would love to see something come out that is better than Kajabi.

Optimizepress did much of what Kajabi promised and it was only $97. However, you have to add a membership site plugin to it. Because of difficulties finding the right software solution, it took me a whole year just to start building my website and I am still not done. The time lost was money lost. If I had the right solution then my product would have been launched several months ago.

Bad software solutions pushed me back. I knew what I wanted and Kajabi overpromised and underdelivered. I wish I was a software creator. I am so tempted to learn.

Steven, I use Aweber to build my list.

Everyone, Digital Access Pass is something I hear is pretty good. OptimizePress integrates with it. However, you know if someone could develop something that does all of those things without having to go outside to another vendor then I see a flood of buyers. I know that I would have jumped on that. Digital Access Pass was or already has created an autoresponder. This eliminates the need for Aweber. This will save people money.