Funnel teardown: SavvyCal (Scheduling and meeting booking)
Founder(s): Derrick Reimer

SavvyCal sells one specific objection: 'your Calendly link feels rude'. The entire funnel is the objection-and-resolution.

TL;DR: SavvyCal's funnel is built around a single sharp Brunson Hook: the social asymmetry of a Calendly link. The hero, the demo, and the founder narrative all return to the same message — 'we built scheduling that respects the recipient'. The lesson for indie founders: when an incumbent owns the category, naming one specific objection and building your entire product narrative around resolving it can carve out real, defensible niche revenue.

What they sell: A scheduling tool whose differentiator is overlaying the recipient's calendar on the booking page, instead of a one-sided availability picker.
Who it's for: Founders, consultants, and senders who book peer-to-peer meetings and want a scheduling experience that does not signal a sales motion.
Pricing: Free tier; paid Basic and Premium plans starting around $12/month per user, with team pricing above (verified 2026-05-18).

Hook pattern: Named-objection hook
The hero leads with the recipient-overlay UX as the entire value proposition. The implicit hook is 'you know that thing that feels off about Calendly links? It is the asymmetry. We fixed it.' This converts a reader who has had the bad-link experience faster than any feature list could.

Story pattern: Founder craft narrative
Derrick Reimer (also a co-founder of Drip and a long-time bootstrapper) is visible across the marketing — the story is 'a craft-obsessed indie founder who cared enough to redesign a default'. This is exactly the kind of founder the dream customer wants to buy from, and the narrative reinforces the product's positioning.

Offer pattern: Free tier as proof, paid tier as polish
The free tier is enough to let a reader experience the overlay UX with a real recipient. The paid tier adds team features, integrations, and polish that matter once the magic moment has happened. The free tier is the demonstration, not a trial.

What's working:
Single-objection positioning — the entire site returns to 'recipient overlay' as the wedge.|Founder-led narrative aligns with the indie founder buyer profile in a way Calendly's enterprise tone cannot match.|Free tier lets the differentiator be experienced, not just claimed, before any payment decision.|Pricing transparency and per-seat economics that compete with Calendly without trying to undercut.|Restrained design and copy reinforce the 'craft tool' positioning the buyer is paying for.

What to adapt:
Identify one specific objection your category's leader creates, name it explicitly, and build your entire positioning around resolving it.|If your differentiator is UX, the free tier should be enough to feel the difference — do not gate the magic moment.|Founder-as-craftsperson narrative aligns with indie buyers; make the founder visible, not anonymous.

What to avoid:
Do not try to out-feature an incumbent on every dimension — pick one and own it.|Do not copy SavvyCal's restrained voice if your product does not actually have craft-tier polish to back it up.|Do not position as 'cheaper Calendly' — the differentiator is sender brand signal, not price.

Brunson lens:
Hook: Named-objection hook against category default (Calendly's one-sided link).
Story: Founder-led craft narrative — Derrick Reimer as the visible builder.
Offer: Free tier as experiential proof; paid as polish and team scaling.
Value ladder tier: Front-end lead funnel (free tier as bait, paid as ascension).