Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches

Launching and Scaling Subscriptions as a Solopreneur with Mike Morrison of Membership Geeks

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Many of my guests on the podcast have built and skilled large membership and subscription businesses with big teams of specialists and sophisticated software to support their efforts.

But what if the team is just you?

Mike Morrison, launched the Membership Geeks Podcast 9 years ago to help solopreneurs build online membership businesses. You can drive a meaningful subscription without a team and totally online, and that's what Mike teaches at his Membership Academy.

In our conversation, we talk about how the membership economy has evolved since we first met 9 years ago, some of the elements that make one membership more successful than another, and what it takes to scale when you're working alone.

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Subscription Intrapreneurship with Bosch BlueMovement’s E-Lin Tan

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000

What do you do when powerful tailwinds change to headwinds as you're growing your business?
Many Membership Economy businesses have struggled to keep up momentum in the past few years as the golden era of growth has evolved to a bottom line era.

Today's guest, E-Lin Tan, took the helm at BlueMovement offering subscriptions to Bosch Appliances in Europe during the bottom line era.

In our conversation, we discussed how they balance circularity and sustainability with profitability.

Listen to learn how they've built support across the organization, developed the right culture, and continued to evolve the offering to respond to changing customer needs.

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Is the Future of Subscriptions Circular? A Conversation with Patrick Hypscher of Circularity.fm

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Today we're talking about sustainability.

Where do the circular economy and the membership economy intersect, and how can both be applied to tread more lightly and produce less waste?

These questions have been at the center of the work of my guest, Patrick Hypscher. Patrick is a consultant and advisor and the host of Circularity.fm, a podcast about circular business models and Product-as-a-Service (PaaS).

With experience running PaaS businesses, both at Bosch BSH and at Bertelsmann, as well as at his own SaaS startup, Patrick has developed some really helpful models for manufacturers building subscriptions.

In our wide-ranging conversation, we talk about these models, why Europe is way ahead of the US with regard to product-as-a-service models, and the many benefits that are driving the growth of this emerging approach.

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How Zumba Balances Instructor and Consumer Subscriptions with Yael Dornbusch, Zumba’s Chief Subscription Officer

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Zumba is a phenomenon. Since its founding in 2001, the addictive fitness dance program with a Latin beat has taken the world by storm.

As of 2022, the company claimed 15 million people taking Zumba classes weekly at 200,000 locations in over 180 countries. At its core is the Zumba Instructor Network, a monthly membership program created to give instructors ongoing support and tools for success. It includes an unlimited, never-expiring teaching license, as well as monthly music and choreography marketing tools and access to the community.

Today's guest, Yael Dornbusch is the Chief Subscription Officer at Zumba, responsible for managing what she calls a prosumer subscription.

In our conversation, she explains why Zumba built their first subscription around instructors rather than students, why they launched a second subscription specifically for students, and the principles they use to balance the needs of these two constituencies.

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The One Medical Story with Dr. Joseph Michelli, the Author of All Business is Personal: One Medical’s Human-Centered, Technology-Powered Approach to Customer Engagement

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 21 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000

If you've ever had to wait for your doctor first in the waiting room and then in the examining room, or struggled to get an appointment or had trouble getting a prescription filled while on the road, you know why primary care in the United States is in such desperate need of disruption.

One Medical has been transforming primary care through the power of membership and customer centricity since 2007. In 2023, One Medical was acquired by Amazon for nearly $4 billion. Dr. Joseph Michelli has written a well-researched book on One Medical's journey and what enabled such rapid growth and such strong customer engagement. The book is called “All Business is Personal: One Medical Human-Centered, Technology-Powered Approach to Customer Engagement.”

In today's conversation, Joseph and I talk about how the company reimagined every step of the patient journey, One Medical's three key success drivers, and what the future of healthcare might hold.

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Building Evergreen Companies with Dave Whorton, Founder of the Tugboat Institute and Author of Another Way: Building Companies that Last…and Last…and Last

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 07 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Something I've noticed over the years is that there's a natural membership economy mindset among many family-owned businesses and organizations, not on the venture-backed IPO acquisition path. Companies that aren't on a tight timeline to an exit have the ability to invest in long-term, trusted relationships with customers and with employees.

After a career as both a founder of multiple successful companies and a venture investor with Kleiner Perkins, Dave Whorton decided he wanted to work specifically with what he came to call Evergreen leaders, the ones who combined sound business principles, extraordinary purpose, and a desire to share their success with their employees.

His Tugboat Institute researches these organizations to identify best practices, and then he brings together these leaders to teach and support one another. Now, he's written a book, “Another Way: Building Companies That Last…and Last…and Last”. It's a playbook for entrepreneurs seeking an alternate path to success.

In my conversation with Dave, we discussed how venture capital has changed the face of entrepreneurship, what it means for founders, the 7Ps that are the guiding principles of Evergreen companies, and the two key constituencies that matter most to your organization's long-term success.

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A Behind-The-Scenes Look at Adobe’s Journey to Subscriptions with Mark Garrett, the CFO Who Architected That Transformation

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000

In today's episode, we're exploring one of the most ambitious and successful business model transformations in modern corporate history, the shift of Adobe from a traditional software company selling packaged products to a thriving subscription powerhouse. And who better to walk us through this journey than Mark Garrett, Adobe's former chief financial officer and the architect behind this transition?

When Adobe first announced its move to a subscription-based model in 2011, there was plenty of skepticism. Analysts questioned the financial impact, customers worried about cost increases, and internal teams faced the daunting task of restructuring their entire go-to-market strategy. Mark and his team remained steadfast, not just in their belief that subscriptions would create more predictable revenue, but also that they would allow Adobe to serve customers better with continuous innovation and improved accessibility.

Since those early days, Adobe's market cap has skyrocketed from around 16 billion before the transition to well over 200 billion, proving just how powerful a well-executed subscription strategy can be.

In this conversation, Mark shares the behind-the-scenes story of how Adobe made the leap as a public company, maintaining exceptional financial performance while also enhancing customer satisfaction. We'll discuss the key strategies behind their transition, the biggest challenges they faced both internally and externally, and what other companies can learn from Adobe's playbook. If you've ever wondered how to execute a high-stakes business model transformation, how to balance Wall Street expectations with long-term customer loyalty, or how to design a subscription offering that truly delivers ongoing value, this episode is for you.

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How to Build a Strong Subscription Business While Maintaining a Compelling Free Tier with Chess.com CRO Adam Mayer

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Chess.com is one of the most popular freemium platforms in the world, offering millions of users free access to an engaging online chess experience. But how do you encourage players to upgrade to a paid tier when the free version is already so compelling?

Adam, with his extensive background in revenue strategy and subscription growth, has played a critical role in designing and optimizing Chess.com's premium offerings.

In this conversation, we'll dive into the challenges and opportunities of building a successful paid tier within a thriving freemium ecosystem, how chess.com balances free and premium value, the strategies they've used to convert free users into loyal subscribers., and the key lessons Adam has learned from his experience leading revenue at a fast-growing digital platform.

If you're interested in learning how to drive revenue without alienating your free user base, how to craft subscription tiers that meet diverse customer needs, and how to foster long-term loyalty in a competitive market, then you won't want to miss this episode.

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Controversial Topics in Subscription Pricing with Mather CEO Matt Lindsay

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Pricing is probably the trickiest, most stressful part of managing a subscription business.

How do you balance revenue and profitability? How can you keep your pricing simple to communicate and execute while personalizing it to optimize for elasticity of demand and value created? If these questions plague your organization, you'll want to take notes today.

Matt Lindsay, founding partner of Mather Economics is a subscription pricing expert who's helped hundreds of publishers build and evolve robust pricing models.

In today's conversation, we're taking on pricing controversies, including the role of introductory offers, how to raise prices and how to respond to a subscriber threatening to cancel.

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2025 Trends in Subscription Businesses with Recurly CEO Joe Rohrlich

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000

When I wrote The Membership Economy, I knew that nearly every organization could build trusted recurring revenue relationships with their customers just by focusing on a forever promise. I really saw a huge future and hoped that companies would follow this path. But what I didn't realize was just how quickly and broadly they would heed my words and invest in subscriptions.

It can be hard to predict what will happen next, but in this episode, we're going to do just that. Today, my guest, Joe Rohrlich, CEO of Recurly, and I will talk about trends for 2025. We'll explore what's ahead, both for digital natives and large companies just dipping their toe into the world of recurring revenue.

You'll learn best practices of the most successful household names, as well as how to manage challenges relating to speed to market and scaling without losing your secret sauce.

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Season Six Wrap-Up and Season Seven Sneak Peek with Robbie Kellman Baxter

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Season 7 is launching soon, but while you wait, catch up on our most recent season. Some of Season 6's most popular episodes include Best Practices in Subscription Funnel Management with Ken Houseman of the New York Times, Subscription Pricing, Metrics and the Changing Role of the CFO with Maxio’s Randy Wootton and How a Subscription can “Smooth the Lumps” in B2B Services with DDI’s Dr. Tacy Byham.

And you don't want to miss out on our most loved episodes of all time, Product-Led Growth for Subscriptions, Using Examples from Medium, LinkedIn and The Athletic with Caitlin Roman, Midi Health’s Joanna Strober on the Ultimate Forever Transaction—Healthcare, and Mighty Network's Gina Bianchini on How to Create a Community Worth Subscribing to.

If you haven't listened to these episodes, I encourage you to check them out. And if you like them, please take a minute right now to rate and review them on Apple iTunes or Apple Podcasts. I always ask because it really helps us get the word out.

Guests for Season 7 will include Joe Rohrlich, CEO of Recurly, Adam Mayer, Chief Revenue Officer at chess.com, and Mather Economics’ Matt Lindsay, talking about best practices in subscription pricing.

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How to Price for Both B2B and B2C Subscriptions with American Home Shield’s Braeden Russell

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Making pricing simple can be really complicated, especially in the world of subscriptions, where every pricing change can affect how much your members trust you. How do you manage different pricing for different segments? And how do you change that pricing over time?

Today's guest, Braeden Russell, is the Director of Pricing for American Home Shield, a home warranty provider with over 2 million members. He needs to optimize the price for the realtors, who often gift the first year of coverage to new homeowners, with the pricing needs of the homeowners themselves, who will eventually be responsible for the relationship.

In this episode, you'll learn how to balance the pricing needs of your B2B and B2C members, when to bill monthly versus annually, and how you can use pricing to drive loyalty among your best members.

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How Membership is Transforming Magazines with Katie Vanneck-Smith, CEO of Hearst UK

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 10:00:00 +0000

The subscription stories of publications like The Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Tortoise Media have one person in common, Katie Vanneck-Smith.

In her latest role, Katie is going beyond subscriptions. She's leading Hearst UK's efforts to create deep, valuable memberships around each of their 16 specialty magazines, titles ranging from Elle to Men's Health to Good Housekeeping.

In this episode, you'll learn how to build a platform that allows for rapid launches of multiple brand memberships, while still incorporating unique features and pricing bundles. You'll also gain insights on how generative AI will and won't affect the publishing world and why the forever promise of news differs from that of specialty content.

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Learn How to Bring Membership to the Mass Market with Venessa Yates, SVP & GM of Walmart+

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 04 Sep 2024 10:00:00 +0000

With over 4,600 stores and nearly 1.6 million associates in the United States alone, Walmart is the largest retailer in the world. Walmart+, their membership program, is redefining the contours of paid memberships.

I recently had the chance to interview Venessa Yates, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Walmart+, on the main stage at the SubSummit Conference in Dallas, Texas. And I'm delighted to be able to share a recording of our conversation with all of you on the podcast.

In this episode, we'll uncover the key elements behind Walmart+’s success and the strategies they've deployed to foster growth and deliver value. You'll also learn how Walmart+ adapts to the evolving needs and expectations of today's consumers to boost engagement, which includes the integration of strategic partnerships into their offering.

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Using Behavioral Data in Subscriptions with Nancy Harhut of HBT Marketing

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Budgets are tight and competition to get and keep subscribers has never been more fierce. But what if I told you that there was a way to nudge your prospects and subscribers to help them engage more deeply and rapidly? It's possible.

Today's guest, Nancy Harhut, has a wealth of easy and inexpensive tactics that can motivate your members to do the right thing at the right time. Nancy is the author of Using Behavioral Science in Marketing and Chief Creative Officer at HBT Marketing.

In this special live episode, which was recorded at the SubSummit conference in Dallas, Texas, you'll learn how behavioral science can help you get more from your marketing spend, how to use tools like scarcity, social proof and choice architecture to acquire, engage, and retain your subscribers, and the role of emotion on motivating subscribers to act.

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How SaaS & Subscriptions are Transforming Farming with John Deere's Justin Rose

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 10:00:00 +0000

One of the hottest growth areas for subscriptions is farming. Surprising? Maybe. But with small margins and big numbers, efficiency matters. And farming has become an increasingly high tech, high stakes business. Justin Rose is the President of Lifecycle Solutions, Supply Management, and Customer Success at John Deere, a 187 year old company with revenues in 2023 of over 61 billion dollars.

You probably know them for their tractors, but they're investing heavily in subscriptions.

In today's conversation, Justin and I talk candidly about why this manufacturing company has committed to reaching 10% of annual revenue in software subscriptions by the year 2030, the right and wrong way to accelerate transformation through acquisition, and how to maintain the trust of long standing customers when you change the business model.

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Scaling a Bootstrapped Membership with James Schramko

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 15 May 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Many subscription entrepreneurs lament their lack of fancy software and dashboards to allow them to better manage their business. But if you know your ideal member and understand their pain points, and if you're always tinkering and adjusting your offering to better align with the needs of those members, you can build a powerful recurring revenue business.

Even as a solopreneur, this week's guest, James Schramko has developed a unique model to help consultants and experts earn more while working less. And while he has been an early adopter of technology, many of the tools and tactics are flexible enough to be used by large or even very small businesses.

More importantly, James has succeeded in building his subscription-based business by focusing on his members and their desired outcomes. Ultimately, membership is about trust and relationships, and James is an expert in both.

In today's conversation, you'll learn why bundling too much into your subscription can cost you members, how to use technology to support a global community, and why a tiered ascension model sometimes leaves money on the table.

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Everything You Wanted to Know About Involuntary Churn with Butter Payments’ Vijay Menon

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 10:00:00 +0000

One of the great mysteries for me is why so many otherwise sophisticated companies don’t focus on involuntary churn. Also known as passive churn or accidental churn, involuntary churn happens when a payment issue raises a flag that causes a merchant to cancel a customer’s subscription. In 70% of these cases, there is no fraud, so the company is literally turning away excellent customers.

Involuntary churn routinely impacts about 10% of Annualized Recurring Revenue (ARR), according to some estimates. In today’s episode, Vijay Menon, founder and CEO of Butter Payments, and I discuss what drives involuntary churn, why so many companies underinvest in this problem, and some key tactics to drive revenue growth through better payment management.

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Loyalty 3.0 with Euromonitor International’s Nadejda Popova, PhD

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Loyalty programs seem to be at a crossroads. Industries including hospitality, financial services, and retail are going beyond the points-based programs we're so familiar with and exploring more personalized, emotionally engaging programs. Some, like CVS, Inspirato, and of course Amazon with Amazon Prime have even incorporated paid loyalty subscriptions which provide benefits in exchange for an annual fee instead of requiring customers to earn benefits through their spending and behaviors.

Today's guest, Nadia Popova of Euromonitor International, follows the loyalty trends and provides insights across industries regarding best practices in building long-term relationships with customers.

In this wide-ranging conversation, we talk about how consumer expectations have changed since COVID, why personalization is so important, and where subscriptions fit in the broader loyalty landscape.

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The Future of Loyalty Programs for Retail & CPG with Amazon Web Services’ Justin Honaman

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 11:00:00 +0000

Loyalty programs have been around forever. Points, cashback, branded credit cards, and now increasingly, we're seeing paid subscription loyalty programs, like Amazon Prime or CVS Care Pass. The goal is the same, to smooth out the lumpy buying behavior common in consumer packaged goods, retail, and hospitality, and to drive habits and engagement.

Today's guest, Justin Honaman, leads the worldwide retail and CPG go-to-market team at Amazon Web Services. He also hosts the popular podcast, ContenderCast, where I was a guest a few years ago.

In this conversation, Justin and I talk about the changing landscape of loyalty programs, why loyalty is so important right now, and what's driving the rise in these subscription programs.

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Lessons in “Service-First Product Leadership” from Ford, PlayStation and Beyond with Ross McGregor

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

Building a new subscription model in a large, successful company is hard enough, but when your company's core competency is manufacturing and the subscription involves content and software, you have to do more than build the new business model. You have to change the way the organization thinks about product management.

With experience, both at PlayStation and at Ford, today's guest, Ross McGregor, will shed light on how to build a service orientation across a product team. Something critically necessary if you're going to build a forever transaction with your customers. In this conversation, he talks about how to put together the business case that merits a strategic bet on subscriptions, how to build support across the organization from the beginning, and when it's time to scale the experiments.

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How a Subscription can “Smooth the Lumps” in B2B Services with DDI’s Dr. Tacy Byham

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

You're in for a special treat today. My guest, Dr. Tacy Byham, is the CEO of Development Dimensions International, or DDI, a global leadership consulting firm that helps organizations hire, promote, and develop exceptional leaders. A few years ago, I worked with Tacy and her team as they incorporated subscriptions into their business model. The results have been extraordinary. Three years into the launch, over 50 percent of DDI's revenue comes from subscription clients.

I've been asking Tacy to share her journey for quite some time, and I'm thrilled that she finally agreed. In today's conversation, we'll talk about how subscriptions can smooth out the lumps in B2B services, how to put together the right team with the right mindset for subscriptions, and how to keep up the momentum after the initial experiments with subscriptions are over.

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Subscription Pricing, Metrics and the Changing Role of the CFO with Maxio’s Randy Wootton

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 11:00:00 +0000

The world of B2B subscriptions has changed a lot since companies like Salesforce first paved the way for what would become known as Software-as-a-Service. And while there are hundreds of marketing and sales-oriented SaaS products, it's taken a lot longer for the subscription model to be fully embraced in the CFO's office.

Randy Wootton has seen the evolution of SaaS and understands the changing role of the CFO better than most. He's led businesses focused on sales and marketing solutions at companies like Salesforce, Microsoft, and Rocketfuel, but more recently took over the CEO role at Maxio, a leading provider of billing and financial ops solutions for B2B SaaS companies.

In this very rich and full conversation, we talk about why pricing and packaging of subscriptions is so hard, the power of a pricing council, and the changing role of the CFO in a SaaS world.

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Best Practices in Subscription Funnel Management with Ken Houseman, VP, Product at The New York Times

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 11:00:00 +0000

If your subscription uses a freemium model, it can be tricky to decide what’s always free, what’s free for a while, and what’s always behind the paywall. Knowing how to manage people at each stage of the funnel can be really challenging.

Today’s guest, Ken Houseman, is an expert on both the strategy and the technology required to monetize the funnel for acquisition, upsell, and retention. Today’s conversation isn’t based purely on Ken’s work as VP of Product for The New York Times, and in no way represents the editorial perspective of the organization. Ken’s experience there, as well as his work with organizations, including Oracle, Nike, and even the US military, have shaped his perspective on managing the customer relationship.

In this conversation, we discuss why retention is the next obsession for subscription leaders, what needs to be different about how to optimize your ERP for subscriptions, and a few of the less obvious things that can go wrong on the path to conversion.

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Season Five Wrap-Up and Season Six Sneak Peek with Robbie Kellman Baxter

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Season 6 is launching soon, but while you wait, catch up on our most recent season. Some of Season 5’s most popular episodes include Mighty Network’s Gina Bianchini returning to subscription stories for a second time to share her wisdom about building purpose-driven communities, as well as Dan Zavorotny of Nutrisense talking about blending hardware, software, and services into a single subscription, and Anne Janzer on subscription marketing.

We went deep on customer success with Rod Cherkas, author of the Chief Customer Officer Playbook, and about scaling membership with Pavilion Founder, Sam Jacobs. We talked a lot about subscription product design with Silicon Valley Product Builder, Tom Willerer, Samsara’s CPO, Jeff Hausman, and Mailin Jappé of Acer.

I always love conversations with academic researchers with a strong practical mindset, and this season I was happy to host Harvard Business School’s Ava Escarza and Columbia’s Rita McGrath. And we got into the details of two of the trickiest parts of subscription design, pricing and the law, with respectively Mark Stiving, author of Selling Value, and Paavana Kumar of Davis+Gilbert.

If you haven’t listened to these episodes, I encourage you to check them out. And if you really like them, please be sure to rate and review them on Apple iTunes or Apple Podcasts. I always ask because it helps us get the word out.

Guests for Season 6 include Ken Houseman, who leads product management for the New York Times, Tacy Byham, CEO of the leadership consulting powerhouse DDI, and Randy Wootton, CEO of Maxio.

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Keeping Complex IOT Subscriptions Simple for Customers with Samsara CPO Jeff Hausman

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Subscriptions are going beyond software, content, and community, and increasingly are providing access to the physical world. The internet of things lends itself well to providing subscribers’ ongoing benefits, blending data from sensors and cameras with sophisticated software. This type of subscription can be complex to build, but has to provide value that is simple for subscribers to understand.

My guest today, Jeff Hausman, is the Chief Product Officer at Samsara.

Samsara provides an integrated subscription-based platform to increase safety, efficiency, and sustainability in the physical operations world. Think trucks, cargo, oil fields, and construction sites.

I invited Jeff to talk about how his team uses customer input to develop his product roadmap, how they bundle hardware and software to deliver on their forever promise, and how they've partnered across the ecosystem to keep things simple for their subscribers.

Subscription Models and Innovation with Columbia’s Rita McGrath

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

To launch a successful subscription business, you need to think like an innovator. But what does that really mean?

Rita McGrath is widely recognized as the premier expert on leading innovation and growth, particularly during uncertain times. A longtime professor at Columbia Business School, Rita is also the author of several bestselling books, including Discovery Driven Growth, The End of Competitive Advantage, and her most recent book, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen.

In today's episode, we talk about the right skills to launch, scale and lead a subscription initiative, the neuroscience of the status quo, and the seven archetypes of Innovation.

Subscription Pricing for Value with Mark Stiving

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Pricing is one of the trickiest elements of good subscription strategy and one that most practitioners feel unprepared to tackle. Coming up with a simple and clear pricing strategy is really complicated. That's why I invited Mark Stiving to the podcast. Mark is an educator at heart as well as a pricing expert, and in this episode, I ask him all kinds of questions about how to determine, test, communicate, and adjust pricing.

In this conversation, we talk about:

The difference between a ‘Will I’ decision, and a ‘Which one’ decision.
How to raise prices.
Why so many product prices end in nine.

Scaling Membership for the Long Game with Pavilion Founder Sam Jacobs

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 02 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Do you believe in the adage "Kind Folks Finish First"? Entrepreneur Sam Jacobs certainly does, and it's the driving force behind his successful organization, Pavilion.

Sam is the Founder & CEO of Pavilion. In 2016, he started Pavilion, originally named Revenue Collective, and bootstrapped it to an impressive $10M in ARR.

In 2021, he secured a $25M growth financing round, with Elephant Ventures and GTM Fund leading the way. With 15 years of experience as a senior revenue leader at various VC-backed companies in New York, including Gerson Lehrman Group, Axial, Livestream/Vimeo, The Muse, and Behavox, Sam has a wealth of expertise in the industry. He resides in the West Village of Manhattan with his wife and two dogs, William and Oswald, and fondly remembers his beloved Walter who passed away in the Summer of 2022.

In this episode, Sam shares his belief in playing the long game when it comes to business growth. He also shares his experiences as the founder of Pavilion, a paid membership community for revenue executives, and how the key to success lies in creating human connections and continuous learning.

He also tackled the challenges of balancing investment in community versus learning, and the importance of aligning incentives for growth.

Is there a different way to do business that leads to both success and peace of mind? Tune in to find out!

Key Takeaways from this episode:

3:48 Different ways to do business

9:25 What is Pavilion?

17:45 The constant battle of centralization vs decentralization, consistency vs quirkiness, and how to have intimacy with consistency

24:20 The difference between Acquisition and Retention

29:49 Why bootstrapping is a strategy to achieve success

Other links and resources mentioned:

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The Legal Side of Subscriptions with Davis+Gilbert Partner Paavana Kumar

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 10:00:00 +0000

If you haven’t been focused on subscription compliance before, you definitely need to start paying attention now.

The Federal Trade Commission (or FTC) is getting serious about cracking down on “dark patterns” in the world of subscriptions. They recently filed a lawsuit against Amazon for enrolling consumers in Amazon Prime without consent and for what they call “cancellation trickery. They’ve also announced plans to increase stringency around subscription rules.

Today’s guest on the podcast, Davis + Gilbert partner Paavana Kumar, is a legal expert on eCommerce, with an emphasis on subscriptions. In today’s conversation, we talk about some of the key elements in subscription regulations, the planned changes being proposed by the FTC in the US, and specific actions every subscription-based business should take if they want to stay on the right side of the law.

Excerpt:

One of the great things about the subscription industry is that you don't have to be super technical to break into it. You don't have to be a coder. You don't even have to have tons of VC money. You can be an industry disruptor if you have a great idea. Paavana Kumar is a Davis + Gilbert partner and a legal expert on eCommerce with an emphasis on subscriptions. She explains the proposed regulations changes in the Federal Trade Commission that will push many to pay attention to subscription compliance. Paavana also discusses the best actions to be taken to follow the law, especially with a lot of subscription-based businesses not aware of such legalities.

https://www.dglaw.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paavana/

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Building a DaaS Subscription Business in Europe With Acer's Mailin Jappé

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 01:00:00 +0000

The Device-as-a-Service (DaaS) Market is expected to Surpass $190 Billion by 2026, according to Market Research Future. That’s a compound annual growth rate,of of 55.8%. Acer is at the forefront of that wave, and today’s guest, Mailin Jappé, launched and now runs Acer’s DaaS business for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). It’s hard enough to launch a subscription startup on your own—doing it inside a large manufacturer adds a whole level of complexity.

In today’s conversation, Mailin shares the challenges she faced in launching the business, how she’s transformed the culture to one of access, not ownership, and the right kind of team to support subscription innovation in manufacturing.

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Mastering the "Subscription Marketing" Mindset with Anne Janzer

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 10:00:00 +0000

In the world of subscriptions, the role of a marketer is rapidly evolving. It’s not enough to acquire subscribers—you have to acquire the right subscribers. But how do you market with an eye toward retention? Today’s guest, Anne Janzer, is the author of Subscription Marketing, now in its third edition. In this episode, we focus on the right mindset for marketers and how to establish the right voice to connect with your subscribers. Anne also shares some clever ways to get the biggest return on your marketing spend, as well as who and how to hire for your subscription marketing team.

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Going Deep on Customer Retention Analytics for Subscriptions with Harvard Business School's Eva Ascarza

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 10:00:00 +0000

When I first started talking about the Membership Economy, there just weren’t that many academics or researchers interested in studying the power of customer retention. That’s why I’m really happy to see some of the best minds in finance, strategy and marketing today are thinking about how to build, and measure durable relationships between organizations and the people they serve. Today’s guest, Eva Ascarza, is the Jakurski Family Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Her primary research subject is customer management (with special attention to the problem of customer retention). That’s good news for all of us building subscription businesses. In today’s discussion, we talk about the right metrics to measure and improve customer retention, how to use pattern recognition to predict which customers will be most valuable, and why cohort-based analysis is so important.

The 16-Year Evolution of a Global Subscription Pioneer with Babbel’s CRO and US CEO Julie Hansen

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 24 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Based in Germany, and a global leader in digital language learning, 16-year-old Babbel was part of the early wave of online subscriptions. When they launched, subscription pricing was unusual and controversial. The early team even had to develop their own Subscription Engine to support the business. My guest today, Julie Hansen, has led the company’s expansion to North America, as well as their evolving overall business strategy. In our conversation, we discuss the differences between European and US-Based Subscription best practices; how to make the case for investing in features that drive engagement, rather than just acquisition; and how a first mover can stay nimble even as the competitive landscape grows more crowded.

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The Secret to Building Great Subscriptions with Leading Silicon Valley Product Builder, Tom Willerer

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 10 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Before you start building your subscription product, make sure you really, really understand the ongoing problem you are solving. So says product leader Tom Willerer. Tom, my guest today, has worked with some of Silicon Valley’s most renowned companies, like Netflix, Opendoor and Coursera. He’s also an Entrepreneur in Residence at Reforge and a Venture Advisor at VC firm NEA. Today we’re talking about how to define your forever problem so you can build a forever transaction. In our discussion, we share the secrets to building subscription products, how to build conviction you’re on the right path and when to commit to scale.

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Does Your Company Need a Chief Customer Officer? With Rod Cherkas, Author of The CCO Playbook

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 10:00:00 +0000

In the Membership Economy, customer-centricity is critical in building lasting relationships and optimizing lifetime value. As a result, the Chief Customer Officer, or CCO, is increasingly present at the leadership table. Today’s guest, Rod Cherkas, founder of HelloCCO, literally wrote the book on the CCO role. It’s called The Chief Customer Officer Playbook: 8 Strategies that will Accelerate your Career and Win you a Seat at the Executive Table and it just came out in Spring of 2023. The book is based on Rod’s own experience as a Post-Sale leader at companies including Intuit, RingCentral, Marketo and Gainsight. In today’s conversation, we talk about key metrics for customer success, the changing role of CCO, and what most companies get wrong when trying to build forever transactions with their customers.

Blending Hardware, Software, and Services into an Ideal Healthcare Subscription with Dan Zavorotny of Nutrisense

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 10:00:00 +0000

I’m fascinated by the recent explosion of healthcare subscription companies. If you’re a regular listener of subscription stories, you probably knew that, as recent guests have included Midi Health’s Joanna Strober, Whoop’s Ben Foster and Matthew Mengerink of Thirty Madison. We’ve even explored telehealth for PETs on the show with Fuzzy’s Zubin Bhettay. Today’s guest Dan Zavorotny, Co-Founder and COO of Nutrisense, is focused on helping subscribers optimize metabolic health through a solution that combines hardware, software, and professional advice.

In our conversation, Dan shares the story of how he found product market fit, the challenge of building retention around a “checkup-type offering” and how to manage a business when third parties (in this case hardware manufacturers) provide a significant part of your prop.

Building a Purpose-Driven Subscription Community with Mighty Networks' Gina Bianchini

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 10:00:00 +0000

I have interviewed today’s guest many times, and it’s always a wild ride. Mighty Networks founder and CEO Gina Bianchini is so smart, passionate and insightful. She was my finale guest for Season 1 of the Subscription Stories podcast, back in 2020. That episode holds the record for most popular Subscription Stories show of all time. We were all stuck at home, afraid to go out in person, and were looking for ways to connect, authentically with others. Mighty Networks was established to make it easy for people to build engaged communities around their passion and purpose. Nearly 3 years later, people are back to connecting in person—but Mighty Networks continues to grow. Why? Gina would say it’s because people crave meaning and connection through community.

I invited her back to the show to talk about her new WSJ bestselling book, Purpose: Design a Community and Change Your Life. In our wide-ranging conversation, we also discuss how to implement best practices in launching, scaling and hosting a vibrant online community, and how someone can actually discover their purpose, even if they’re feeling stuck. Welcome to the show Gina!

Season Four Wrap-Up and Season Five Sneak Peek with Robbie Kellman Baxter

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Hey it’s Robbie Kellman Baxter, host of the Subscription Stories podcast. Season 5 is launching soon, but while you wait, catch up on our most recent season. Season 4 has some of our listener’s favorite episodes ever.

We opened the season with two thought leaders, Nir Eyal, author of Hooked and Indistractible, and Tiffani Bova, Salesforce Global Evangelist. If you’re interested in the technical side of building forever transactions, you’ll love hearing from, Piano’s Travor Kaufman and Optimized Payment’s Paul Larsen, experts in operationalizing online subscriptions and billing. And there were some great practitioners with years of “in the trenches” experience leading Membership Economy businesses—LinkedIn Learning’s Jill Raines, Fuzzy’s Zubin Bhettay, and Product Leader Caitlin Roman, most recently of The Athletic.

If you haven’t listened to those episodes—I encourage you to check them out. And if you like them, please be sure to rate and review them on Apple iTunes or Apple Podcasts—that helps me, and makes it easier for others to find the podcast.

This spring, I’m hard at work to make sure that Season 5 is the best and most practical season of Subscription Stories so far. You’ll hear from Mighty Network’s Gina Bianchini, our most popular guest ever returning to talk about her new book, Purpose, as well as Rod Cherkas of Hello CCO sharing the Chief Customer Officer’s Playbook, and Dan Zavorotny, founder of Nutrisense, sharing a new model for metabolic health.

And that’s just the beginning. To make sure you don’t miss a thing, Follow Subscription Stories wherever you get your podcasts—just tap on the Follow or Subscribe button.

Thanks for your support, and thanks for listening to Subscription Stories.

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Product-Led Growth for Subscriptions, Using Examples from Medium, LinkedIn and The Athletic with Caitlin Roman

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 11:00:00 +0000

Everyone’s talking about “product-led growth” in the subscription world right now. Companies are seeing the connection between the way the product is designed and how effective the company is at acquiring, engaging and retaining customers—and even driving referrals.

To do product-led growth well, product managers need to think like business leaders, as well as thinking like product builders.

It isn’t easy and not everyone has the right skills. My guest today, Caitlin Roman, has led product teams at three great subscription-first organizations, LinkedIn, Medium and most recently The Athletic, which was acquired in January of 2022 by the New York Times, for about $550Million.

I’m excited to talk to her, because she has developed pattern recognition about what it takes to build great products that actually help grow the business.

In today’s conversation, Caitlin and I talk about best practices learned at LinkedIn, Medium and The Athletic, the skills needed to drive product-led growth, and how to partner with data analytics teams to make better, faster decisions.

Excerpt:

"If you have real value behind your content, you can confidently charge for it." Caitlin Roman has led product teams at LinkedIn, Medium, and most recently, The Athletic. She sits down with Robbie to share the best practices she has learned working in these companies, putting product development into the spotlight to generate tangible business growth. She also talks about building an effective product team that can work alongside the data analytics team to make better and quicker decisions.

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Scaling a Telehealth Pet Subscription, by Starting in Person. With Zubin Bhettay, CEO of Fuzzy

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 11:00:00 +0000

Sometimes the best way to launch a digital subscription is to launch a physical subscription. Even if you plan to scale with a virtual business model, you can learn so much more about your customer, value proposition and messaging by starting the old fashioned way—in person. That’s the approach Zubin Bhettay used in launching Fuzzy. Today, Fuzzy’s Pet Parents get round the clock access to exceptional virtual veterinary care, as well as wellness products for their pets' health needs. But when Zubin and his cofounder launched the company in 2016, they recruited and served their Pet Parents in person. Starting slow allowed Fuzzy to “crack the Product Market Fit code” and scale rapidly, raising over $80 million in the process. Full disclosure—I’ve been involved with Fuzzy since the beginning, and think Fuzzy is one of the most thoughtful Membership Economy organizations I have ever worked with. In this conversation, Zubin and I reflect on Fuzzy’s humble beginnings in San Francisco dog parks and Pet Parent living rooms, explore the path to profitability, and discuss the right metrics at each stage.

Excerpt:

"We wanted to be the guide and partner of pet parents through every stage of their pet's life. We wanted to ensure that was available to every pet parent and not just a luxury service only available to the select few." Zubin Bhettay is the CEO and Co-Founder of Fuzzy, a telehealth subscription service offering virtual veterinary care. In this episode, he shares how their in-person company evolved into a digital platform, expanding their reach and saving a lot of pets in the process. Zubin explains the business scaling process they followed to fully embrace the digital scene and how to decide if a subscription model is ideal for you.

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Emerging Best Practices in Personalization with Piano.io CEO Trevor Kaufman

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 10:00:00 +0000

We can learn a lot from subscription businesses that experiment with different revenue models and personalization.

Organizations with too many offers risk overcomplicating things with competing goals. I’m talking about companies with multiple revenue streams—different promotions, pricing options and tiers and/or a combination of subscription, one-off transactions, and advertising.

But increasingly we’re seeing examples of organizations incorporating multiple revenue streams successfully—for example, in news, fitness, streaming media and ecommerce.

Today’s guest, Trevor Kaufman, is an expert on subscriptions, personalization and digital experience. He is the CEO of Piano, a digital experience platform that helps organizations launch products and programs faster, strengthen customer relationships and drive personalization at scale.

Piano recently released their annual Subscription Performance Benchmark Report. It’s full of valuable insights gleaned from their customers, and relevant across many types of subscription models.

In our conversation, we talk about the emerging best practices in subscription pricing, the role of freemium and whether there’s a place for ads in the world of subscriptions.

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Maximizing Customer Lifetime Value in Volatile Times with Paul Larsen of Optimized Payments

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 10:00:00 +0000

The single biggest source of churn might surprise you.

It’s not a communications issue, or a product/market fit issue, or even an onboarding problem.

The biggest driver of churn in most consumer subscriptions is what’s known as passive or involuntary churn.

Involuntary churn is when a customer is canceled due to a payment issue or other technical problem.

According to ProfitWell CEO Patrick Campbell, a recent guest on Subscription Stories, involuntary churn makes up 20-40% of overall churn.

Many organizations don’t even track passive churn, and that’s a mistake, because there are ways to manage.

Today’s guest, Paul Larsen of Optimized Payments, is one of the leading experts on “card not present” payments, and works with many of the largest subscription businesses in the world on churn management. He launched his career at Reader’s Digest, one of the earliest and largest subscription publications in the world. When Paul started, churn management focused on getting people to renew their subscription by mailing in a check. Since then, he has been deep in the world of credit cards, debit cards and alternate payments, helping subscription merchants reduce costs and increase customer retention.

In our conversation, we talk about why so many good subscribers end up in the dreaded “do not honor” bucket, who should own passive churn in the organization, and how to bring together the right team to manage involuntary churn.

Excerpt:

Subscriptions are great. We love them, but there's promise and peril associated with them at all times. We are joined by Paul Larsen of Optimized Payments, one of the leading experts on "card not present" payments. He shares his vast knowledge about working with the largest subscription businesses on churn management as he discusses the reasons behind the dreaded "do not honor" bucket and how to build the dream team to address this involuntary issue.

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Building an Educational Subscription at Scale with LinkedIn Learning’s Jill Raines

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 10:00:00 +0000

You’re probably all familiar with LinkedIn Learning, formerly known as Lynda.com. It’s LinkedIn’s professional development platform. They offer more than 18,000 video courses available via subscription. There’s a huge range of educational topics covered—from how to use Adobe Aftereffects, to how to have difficult conversations, to the fundamentals of customer success .

Consumers can subscribe to LinkedIn Learning on their own, or access the platform through an enterprise license.

My guest today, Jill Raines, is Director of Product Management at LinkedIn, where she leads the LinkedIn Learning Business.

I first got to know her when I was developing my own LinkedIn Learning courses for the platform. I was interested in the business model for the platform. I have learned so much through my discussions with Jill. It’s fascinating to get her perspective on the unique challenges and opportunities facing the world’s largest professional development and educational platform,

In this conversation, Jill and I discuss the LinkedIn ecosystem, and LinkedIn's Forever Promise more generally, before diving into the role of LinkedIn Learning within that ecosystem. We also talk about the specific challenges of professional development subscriptions, how to balance the needs of consumers with the needs of enterprise customers, and whether to offer both pay per course and subscriptions as pricing options.

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How Employee Experience and Customer Experience Drive Corporate Growth with Salesforce's Tiffani Bova

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 10:00:00 +0000

We’ve spoken before on the show about the importance of Customer Experience in driving growth, with guests like Wharton’s Peter Fader, Gainsight’s Nick Mehta and Bain & Company’s Stu Berman. But today’s guest says you need to think beyond the customer. If you really want to accelerate growth, you need to focus on the employee experience.

Tiffani Bova is the global growth evangelist at Salesforce. She’s also the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book GROWTH IQ: Get Smarter About the Choices that Will Make or Break Your Business. Tiffani has been named to the latest Thinkers50’s list of the world’s top management thinkers and is a welcomed guest on Bloomberg, CNN, Cheddar, MSNBC, and Yahoo Finance, among others. In our conversation, we talk about whether your Growth IQ is something you’re born with or something you build, the ten paths to growth, and how Software-as-a-Service has changed what it takes to thrive in Sales.

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Bestselling Author Nir Eyal on How to Ethically Hook Your Subscribers

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 10:00:00 +0000

To drive recurring revenue, you need products and services that people use. Habitually. Repeatedly. Organizations strive to design addictive subscriptions. But for every beloved membership, there seem to be a dozen offerings that drive subscription fatigue. How do you design for engagement, retention and expansion, while ensuring the you’ve earned the right to do so?

Bestselling author Nir Eyal has looked at this problem from both sides.

His first book, Hooked, is a how to guide for building habit-forming products.

More recently, he wrote Indistractable, to help individuals control their attention and choose the lives they want.

On this episode of Subscription Stories, Nir and I talk about the specific processes and tools that drive habits, what it means for your subscription business, and how to be more deliberate about how we form our own habits.

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Season Three Wrap-Up and Season Four Sneak Peek with Robbie Kellman Baxter

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 20:00:00 +0000

Hey, it’s Robbie Kellman Baxter, host of the Subscription Stories Podcast.

I wanted to just reflect on some of my favorite moments of season 3 and also share a sneak peek at Season 4.

We packed a lot into this season, truly something for everyone. We opened the season with David Lorsch, the Chief Revenue Officer of Strava, the world’s largest athletic community, talking about how to upgrade freemium subscribers to premium.

If you’re interested in how the membership economy is transforming Health & Wellbeing, you’ll also enjoy my conversations with Ben Foster of Whoop, Joanna Strober of Midi Health, Bryan Welch of Mindful,org and Matthew Mengerink of Thirty Madison.

If you’re building subscriptions around great content, check out my conversation with Ariel Zirulnick, who led the 4-year long Membership Puzzle Project which identified best practices in building deep, trusted relationships with readers of newspapers around the globe. You’ll also learn about key metrics and cultural tactics for building a member-first team from Mayur Gupta, the CMO of Gannett, and about building a membership bundle from Outside’s Tommy O’Hare (who happens to be a former Olympian). And if your startup is looking for a great story to build traction, listen to my conversation with Chief Storyteller at GoodTrust, Daniel Sieberg

Venture investor Ira Ehrenpreis had a lot to share about the power of profit and purpose in creating iconic companies like Tesla, The RealReal and Bellwether coffee. And Rafat Ali, CEO of the Skift talked about the power of subscriptions in travel and hospitality.

For those of you who like to nerd out--Season 3 was like a PhD in subscriptions, with several experts on the cutting edge of markets and trends—Wharton Professor and author of the CustomerCentricity Playbook Peter Fader, as well as Harvard Business School’s Marco Bertini, with whom I have had many spirited discussions about pricing for outcomes and his new book The Ends Game, Google’s Chief Measurement Strategegist Neil Hoyne, whose new book Converted is a must-read for any subscription practitioner, Patrick Campbell, founder of Profitwell, who uses data to go deep on customer retention, and my old friend and colleague Bob Baxley, a leading Silicon Valley product designer and educator who has led design teams at Apple, Pinterest and now Thoughtspot.

This summer, I’m hard at work to make sure that Season 4 is the best and most practical season of Subscription Stories so far.

You’ll get to learn about building habits through your products with Nir Eyal, bestselling author of Indistractible and Hooked. You’ll see how to use employee-centricity to grow customer engagement and retention with Salesforce global growth and innovation evangelist,

Tiffani Bova. Employee Experience is an often overlooked lever in building great business models as well as the subject of Tiffani’s forthcoming book. And you’ll learn some of the secrets that have made LinkedIn such a powerhouse in the Membership Economy. That’s just the beginning.

To make sure you don’t miss a thing, Follow Subscription Stories wherever you get your podcasts—just tap on the Follow or Subscribe button.

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Midi Health's Joanna Strober on the Ultimate Forever Transaction—Healthcare

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 04 May 2022 10:43:00 +0000

My final guest of Season Three, Joanna Strober, was the very first guest on the Subscription Stories podcast. Back then, we were talking about Kurbo, the children’s service for WW (that’s Weight Watchers new name). Today, she’s back to talk about her latest venture in direct-to-consumer healthcare, Midi Health. While Kurbo focused on helping kids get to and maintain a healthy weight, Midi is for women at midlife, helping them get better as they get older. You may have noticed my interest in how the way we stay healthy is changing—with guests from Whoop, 30 Madison, Strava, just this season alone. I am fascinated by all of the transformation in the space, as healthcare embraces the concept of a forever transaction. After all, what forever promise is more compelling than more happy, healthy minutes. Healthcare is just embarking on a massive rethinking of how to better align their business models with patient outcomes. Midi is a great example of this. In today’s talk, we cover the consumerization of healthcare and how COVID accelerated the move to digital patient-centric health, the importance of “forever transaction” in treating patients, and the challenges of developing a clear business model in a highly complex environment.

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How to Find Your Best Subscribers and Develop Relationships That Last with Google Chief Measurement Strategist Neil Hoyne

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 10:00:00 +0000

Not all customers are created equal. The best subscription businesses know the power of customer lifetime value (CLV). They optimize around understanding who their best subscribers are, and then deepening the relationship with those best subscribers over time. Neil Hoyne is an expert at this. As the Chief Measurement Strategist at Google, as well as a Senior Fellow at The Wharton School, Neil helps people use data to win their customer’s hearts. He’s written a new book Converted: The Data Driven Way to Win Customers’ Hearts on this topic, which I read on the beach while on vacation. It’s a book about data that’s entertaining and engaging enough to read on holiday, if you can believe it. We recently spoke about how to measure the full value of each relationship, engage in an ongoing conversation with your best subscribers, and perhaps most importantly, how to find and win new subscribers just like the ones you find most valuable.

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Subscriptions that Combine Hardware and Software with Ben Foster, Chief Product Officer of WHOOP

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 11:00:00 +0000

The first wave of the Membership Economy was mostly digital-- software, content, and services. But increasingly we’re seeing subscriptions around physical products. Challenges abound when manufacturing comes into play, especially with the pricing model. Many companies are selling the physical product and then offering subscriptions as an add-on. Examples include Peloton, where much of the value is in the subscription, but also products like Tile, Ring and Tesla where the subscription is truly optional. One company that’s getting a lot of attention for its innovative model is WHOOP. WHOOP offers a subscription-based service that combines a wearable fitness tracker with software to achieve its mission of “Unlocking human performance”. Today I talk to WHOOP’s Chief Product Officer, Ben Foster. Ben has literally written the book on Product Management along with his co-author Rajesh Nirlikar—Build What Matters, Delivering Key Outcomes with Vision Led Product Management. In this wide-ranging conversation, Ben and I discuss the best metrics for tracking customer value, the unique challenges of a subscription that includes hardware and software and why scrappiness is a key attribute of the best product managers.

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Getting Good at Goodbyes: Optimizing for Retention from Hello with Patrick Campbell, CEO of ProfitWell

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 11:32:00 +0000

Most subscription-based businesses focus too much on acquisition and not enough on retention. But actually retention improvements are usually more effective, both for total revenue AND profitability. Today’s guest Patrick Campbell couldn’t understand why so many organizations weren’t doing the math, and so he started his company Profitwell to help companies better manage churn. Patrick says you have more churn levers than you think. They include how you target prospects, onboard subscribers, support engagement, and of course what you say when they are getting ready to leave. And did you know that one of the best places to look for new subscribers is in your list of former subscribers? In today’s episode, we’ll show you how to optimize your subscription for fewer and softer Goodbyes… from the moment you say Hello.

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Using Subscriptions to Democratize Healthcare with Matthew Mengerink, CTO of Thirty Madison

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 11:00:00 +0000

Nearly every industry can benefit from joining the Membership Economy, and most industries have great examples of subscription-based organizations. One of the slowest movers has been the healthcare industry and for good reason. There's so much complexity to delivering health outcomes—as well as great risk. And that's why I'm so excited about this episode of Subscription Stories. Today's guest, Matthew Mengerink, is the Chief Technology Officer at Thirty Madison. The company describes itself as "the human-first health company bringing specialized care and treatment to everyone." One by one, they are tackling some of the most challenging chronic health issues, like allergies, migraines, and hair loss, using a combination of digital and real-world services through "forever transactions" with the people they serve. In this conversation, Matthew and I talk about Thirty Madison's uniquely scalable approach to healthcare, the challenges of balancing personalization with systems and protocols, and what subscriptions might mean for the future of medicine.

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Beyond Subscriptions, Pricing for Impact with HBS/ESADE Professor Marco Bertini

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 26 Jan 2022 11:00:00 +0000

Even though people think of me as a subscription person, I always say that for me, subscriptions are simply a tactic. Subscriptions force companies to better align their pricing with performance. If the subscriber doesn’t perceive ongoing value, they cancel the subscription…so it becomes the organization’s responsibility to ensure that the customer is achieving the desired outcome. That’s the real goal of subscriptions—to better align payment with outcome.

Professor Marco Bertini is a professor at both Esade in Spain and the Harvard Business School here in the US. He is an expert on performance-based pricing—not just subscriptions, but pay-for-consumption models and even outcome-based pricing.

Marco’s new book, The Ends Game: How Smart Companies Stop Selling Products and Start Delivering Value, which he cowrote with Oded Koenigsberg of the London Business School is one of the best pricing books I’ve read in a long time. In today’s conversation, we talk about how to optimize your pricing model to ensure that your customers can access the value you provide, use your offering well, and most importantly get the performance outcomes they need. Welcome to the show marco.

Designing for Subscriptions with ThoughtSpot's Bob Baxley

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 11:55:00 +0000

Bob Baxley is a design executive who lives and works in Silicon Valley. He currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Design & Experience at ThoughtSpot, a business intelligence and data analytics platform. Prior to ThoughtSpot, Bob was Head of Product Design at Pinterest where he built, led, and managed a multifaceted design team responsible for both the consumer and business facing elements of Pinterest.

Starting in 2006, Bob spent over eight years at Apple, where he served in senior leadership roles for Apple’s retail and e-commerce teams. As a Director of Design, Bob hired and led the creative team responsible for a broad variety of applications including the Apple Online Store, the Apple Store app, and the transactional areas of iPhoto and GarageBand.

As Director of Design for Yahoo! Search, Bob built and led the design team that created Yahoo! Answers and designed other search-centric properties. Bob’s career as a designer began at Claris Corporation where he was Lead UI Designer for the initial releases of ClarisWorks and MacProject Pro.

The author of Making the Web Work, Bob is also a sought-after public speaker sharing his experiences and observations about a range of topics related to design, technology, innovation, and the culture of Silicon Valley.

Bob holds a B.A. in History and a B.S in Radio/Television/Film from the University of Texas at Austin as well as a Master of Liberal Arts from Stanford University.

The Right Teams & Culture for Subscription Growth with Gannett-USA Today Network CMO Mayur Gupta

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 11:00:00 +0000

Mayur Gupta is the Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at Gannett – USA Today Network. He is responsible for leading the transformation of Gannett into a subscription platform that is obsessed with user value and not just site traffic.

Mayur is responsible to actualize Gannett’s mission to build trusted local communities where people thrive. This is not his first time driving growth among subscribers. Prior to Gannett, he was CMO of the subscription meal company Freshly and before that, Mayur was Global VP for Growth & Marketing at Spotify.

Mayur was recently named to Forbes’ list of the World’s most influential CMOs of 2021.

In this conversation, we talk about the kind of teams needed for sustainable long-term subscription success, the role of “growth” as an emerging discipline and his formula for creating a flywheel for growth that can work at any kind of company.

How the "Daily Homepage for the World's Largest Industry" is Rethinking the Future of Travel with Skift's Rafat Ali

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 10:11:00 +0000

In March of 2020, travel as we knew it abruptly ground to a near standstill. First cruise ships were docked, and then air travel quickly became limited to very special cases. Hotels stood empty except for those that held people in quarantine and the health care workers who cared for them. I think it’s fair to say that no industry has changed more as a result of COVID than travel. Today’s guest, Rafat Ali, has been at the forefront of understanding these changes, and the massive impact they are having on the entire industry. He is the founder and CEO of Skift, “the daily homepage for the world’s largest industry”, and perhaps the leading news source for travel executives. In today’s conversation, we’ll talk about the key changes happening in the world of travel that affect us all; why he believes in a reader-centric model optimized for travel professionals, rather than advertisers, and Skift’s recent decision to “debrand” their site.

The Quantitative Side of Customer-Centricity with Wharton's Peter Fader

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 10:00:00 +0000

Customer-centricity is essential in the world of subscriptions. To succeed you have to understand who your most valuable customers are, and invest your resources in those relationships. But measuring the value of each customer over an extended period of time, and understanding which metrics matter most, can be tricky. Peter Fader, the Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, is perhaps the leading expert in the world on how to assess the value of a business by understanding the value of the customer over their entire relationship with an organization from source to completion.

Peter has literally written the book on customer centricity. Well, actually, two books: Customer Centricity: Focus on the Right Customers for Strategic Advantage and The Customer Centricity Playbook which he co-authored with Sarah Toms.

In this episode, we discuss customer-centricity, customer lifetime value and how to use available public data to evaluate a company--using D2C prescription glasses retailer Warby Parker as an example. We also talk about why current accounting standards don't always tell the full story--and how this needs to change.

Building a Subscription Bundle to Better Deliver on Your Forever Promise with Tommy O'Hare, SVP of Outside

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 10:00:00 +0000

Bundles are a hot topic right now and Outside+ is a fascinating example. A few months ago, the Outside Magazine organization announced they were welcoming 20 new publications including Trail Runner, Velo News and Yoga Journal to their family. More recently, they launched a suite of new features such as training plans & workouts, access to the Gaia GPS Premium app and discounts for outdoor events available with the new Outside+ membership.

By bundling together content, discounts and other benefits, Outside is building a membership that more fully delivers on their promise to inspire active participation in the world outside

I recently interviewed Tommy O’Hare, SVP Business Development and Licensing for Outside for the inaugural D2C Summit, a new conference I co-created with Global Media Association, FIPP, and want to share that conversation with you here on the podcast. In this conversation, he shared the journey of rolling up this bundle of benefits to support the goals and challenges of Outside’s most engaged members. I hope you enjoy it.

How Profit and Purpose are Combining to Create New 21st Century Iconic D2C Companies Like Tesla, The RealReal and Bellwether Coffee with DBL Ventures' Ira Ehrenpreis

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 29 Sep 2021 10:00:00 +0000

There is no bigger topic when it comes to consumer sentiment than the rising demand and focus on Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance related issues. Today we’re looking at this challenge from the perspective of a leading VC who has invested in some of the most iconic consumer focused, mission driven businesses.

Ira Ehrenpreis has been investing in companies that are committed to making a positive impact on the world for more than 20 years. A double bottom line investor, even before impact investing was cool, Ira has helped build the category and the discipline in venture capital. He currently serves as president of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists and co-chair of the VC Network. He's a founder at DBL Partners, which is perhaps the largest and most well-known impact investing and sustainability focused firm in the venture asset class. An early investor in companies like Tesla, The RealReal, SpaceX and Bellweather Coffee, Ira is a real visionary. He's also a longtime friend, and always inspiring.

I recently interviewed Ira for the inaugural D2C Summit, a new conference I cocreated with Global Media Association FIPP, and want to share that conversation with you here on the podcast. In it, he talks about bold innovation across sectors and D2C business models, and shares several examples of how companies are using a focus on impact as a strategic advantage. Welcome, Ira.

The Importance of Storytelling in the World of Subscriptions with GoodTrust's Daniel Sieberg

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 10:00:00 +0000

The ability to tell a good story is valuable—and not only when the story is the product, as it is in journalism. Stories can build understanding, trust and connection with members, prospects and investors alike. Storytelling is an important skill in the Membership Economy, and GoodTrust Co-founder Daniel Sieberg is a fantastic storyteller.

Daniel Sieberg started his career as a journalist, and writer, working for the likes of CNN and CBS News. He went on to work at the intersection of news and technology at Google, where he was a senior leader in the Google Newslab.

As a journalist and a technologist, Daniel knows how to tell and share stories—he has used these skills well at GoodTrust, the subscription-based company he cofounded to help people safeguard their digital assets and share them with loved ones today or after they pass away.

Daniel has an interesting title-- he currently serves as Chief Storyteller. He uses his experience in journalism to build trust, understanding and connection with GoodTrust stakeholders—members, investors and partners alike. I recently interviewed Daniel for the inaugural D2C Summit, a new conference I cocreated with Global Media Association FIPP, and want to share that conversation with you here on the podcast. In our conversation, we talk about how to launch a new company in an undefined space, the power of transparency in storytelling, and how to use a journalistic lens to turbocharge your market research strategy.

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Small Is Beautiful - Niching Down Your Subscription to Grow Faster with Mindful.org CEO Bryan Welch

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 10:00:00 +0000

Mindful.org is dedicated to a very specific goal--sharing the gifts of mindfulness through content, training, courses, and directories— and helping people enjoy better health, foster more caring relationships, and cultivate a more compassionate society.

Because of that core focus, Mindful has been able to develop deep expertise about how people want to engage in mindfulness--expertise which has provided a launching pad for a range of additional offerings, including a very successful corporate training business, which has become a larger source of revenue than the subscription itself.

In other words, their niche focus has allowed them to be more impactful, while generating multiple revenue streams to support their mission.

In this conversation with Mindful.org CEO Bryan Welch, we’ll discuss how you can build multiple revenue streams around a strong vertical with a small number of passionate members. This conversation was recorded as part of the D2C (Direct to Consumer) Summit that I coproduced with FIPP, the Global Media Association, so you’ll hear a couple of references to the conference.

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How to Reinvent Your Organization as a Member-driven Movement with Ariel Zirulnick of The Membership Puzzle Project

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 10:00:00 +0000

Since The Membership Puzzle Project (MPP) launch in May 2017, they have studied, advised, and supported more than 100 newsrooms around the world, from Akron, Ohio, to New Delhi, India as they make the transition to a member-driven newsroom. In this conversation I’m talking with Ariel Zirulnick, who runs MPP's Membership In News Fund, which supports these exceptional experiments with.

I recently interviewed Ariel for the inaugural D2C Summit, a new conference I co-created with Global Media Association FIPP and want to share that conversation with you here on the podcast.

In our conversation, we discuss the original goals of the MPP as this public research project nears its end, explore how the project has fared since launching four years ago, and share key lessons from the Project that can help any membership organization to thrive.

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How Strava Built a Subscription Business within a Social Platform with Strava CRO David Lorsch

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 10:22:00 +0000

Just over 10 years ago, I had my first conversation about the idea that would become Strava with serial entrepreneurs Mark Gainey and Michael Horvath. They talked to me about their bold objective of building the world's largest community of athletes.

Since then, they've achieved that goal, touching over 90 million athletes and logging over five billion activities across more than 30 sports in virtually every country in the world. While subscriptions have always been a part of Strava, in the past year, they've moved some of their most popular features behind the paywall and an introduced a bunch of new features for paying subscribers.

I recently interviewed David Lorsch, Strava’s CRO for the inaugural D2C Summit, a new conference I co-created with Global Media Association FIPP, and want to share that conversation with you here on the podcast. We discussed how Strava determined what should be free and what should be paid as they build a subscription business around a social platform, and how to guide members to make the most of their membership.

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Season 2 Wrap-Up with Robbie Kellman Baxter

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 17:22:00 +0000

As we wrap up Season 2, we’re reflecting on the amazing guests we had, and all of the wisdom that was shared.

We covered best practices in pricing, scaling and supporting your subscription offering, and did deep dives on what membership means at organizations including CrossFit, Nike and YPO.

Take a listen to this 5 minute short, to hear about them all. We’ll be back with new episodes this fall!

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Managing Subscription Partnerships for HBO Max Across Multiple Channels with WarnerMedia's Molly O'Connor

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 19 May 2021 03:11:00 +0000

Much has been written about the so-called "Streaming Wars." The market for streaming video content is crowded with players, each with unique strengths - from Netflix's digital native, early adopter status, the platform power of Apple and Amazon, to the highly specific and valuable content of niche players like Crunchy Roll or the History Channel, whom we recently profiled on this show. Anyone interested in subscription models can learn a lot from understanding the diverging strategies of streaming players, many of whom number among the most powerful companies in the world.

Today's guest, Molly O'Connor leads Business Planning Strategy for WarnerMedia Sales Distribution, HBO Max, Cinemax and Turner Networks, all US distribution partners. That means she's responsible for managing the (sometimes competing) demands of the consumers, cable and satellite partners, and the app stores, weaving these disparate products and partners into a single cohesive strategy.

In our conversation, we discuss how to think about balancing direct and indirect channels, how a subscription offering can achieve strategic and/or financial objectives and the nerdy world of subscription math.

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Subscription Learnings from Apple, VMware and GitLab with Xiaohe Li

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 03:06:00 +0000

Pricing is one of the trickiest parts of building a successful subscription model. You want to make the model simple, transparent and easy-to-understand, but you also want it to be optimized for each customer, and of course to maximize revenue and profitability. It can be tempting to offer multiple tiers for different use cases, as well as promotions and add-ons. Before you know it, you have a complex mess.

Today’s guest, Xiaohe Li, is an expert on subscription pricing, with experience at organizations including Apple, VMWare and now GitLab.

In our conversation, we cover what Xiaohe learned about pricing in the Membership Economy at three dramatically different organizations, how to balance the “art” and the “science” of good pricing strategy, and what Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has to teach us about pricing innovation.

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Developing a Minimum Viable Subscription Product at Nike with Dave Cobban

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 03:10:00 +0000

Launching something new is always tricky. It can be especially challenging be entrepreneurial inside a global brand like Nike. You want to align with the broader goals of the organization while also staying nimble and creative. When you’re also introducing subscription models into a transactionally oriented organization, the stakes are even higher.

Dave Cobban spent over 12 years at Nike, many working with the innovation team. A few years ago, as a result of his work as part of a team looking at driving exponential growth at Nike, Dave identified an opportunity for subscription commerce as a potential way to achieve several key Nike objectives. Dave incubated and developed what has come to be known as “Nike Adventure Club,” a shoe subscription for children.

Today, Dave is a co-founder of Unbrkble, an organization that helps start-ups and scaling businesses stay close to their customers as they launch and scale their own businesses.

In this interview, Dave and I talk about how to start small with your subscription offering while thinking big, incorporating sustainability into an eCommerce strategy, and best practices for defining your subscription MVP.

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Freemium, Free Trial and Free Surprises with Elena Verna of Reforge. When Does It Make Sense to Give It Away, and When Doesn't It?

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 03:02:00 +0000

Some businesses today give products and services for free to entice customers to purchase more. However, a huge number of entrepreneurs distance themselves from giving away a freemium offering because of the risks of decreased revenue. But for Elena Verna, Reforge EIR and Partner, this must not be the mindset. Sharing her work in Survey Monkey and Malwarebytes, she explains to Robbie how every business strategy can benefit from freemium offers and impact customer relationships. Elena also dives deep into the real process involved in achieving genuine growth in a business, and why every team must invest in having their own growth leader.

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Building a Content Machine to Support Your Subscribers with EntrepreneurOnFire's John Lee Dumas

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 03:00:00 +0000

How much content is too much? If you have really honed down to your ideal audience, the answer is there will never be enough. Indeed, you have to practically create a content machine to support the needs of your avatar because they would simply love it! With an uncanny stroke of genius, John Lee Dumas solved this problem early in his podcasting career. An avid podcast consumer himself, he identified an unmet need for a daily podcast to punctuate entrepreneurs’ long days with bouts of gainful learning. John started EntrepeneurOnFire out of that need. Since launching in 2012, the podcast has interviewed over 3000 people, including Tony Robbins, Tim Ferris, Barbara Corcoran, Gary Vaynerchuk, and this show’s host, Robbie Kellman Baxter. The podcast has gathered over 100 million listens over the same time. Over the years, John has incorporated courses, community, journals and other experiences, layering in more ways to help his members thrive. He recently launched a new book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success. In this short and sweet conversation, John and Robbie talk about how he has evolved his offerings over time in support of his avatar, "Jimmy", why he wrote his new book and how he has been able to build a content creation machine to serve the ongoing needs of his members.

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When & How to Scale Your eCommerce Subscription Operations with Matt Fiedler of Vinyl Me, Please

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 03:00:00 +0000

Now that you have launched your subscription model, it’s time to operationalize your business. For this, you will need a real team, systems to support your processes, and metrics to let you know how the business is doing. This episode’s guest, Matt Fiedler, is the co-founder and chairman at Vinyl Me, Please, a record of the month club and online record store. After launching in 2013, Matt successfully scaled VMP to more than $15M in revenue, while establishing the brand as one of the largest DTC vinyl retailers, and one of the most admired and respected brands in music. Joining Robbie Kellman Baxter on the show, Matt shares how he scaled VMP from a labor of love for a few fellow music fans to a multimillion-dollar business, how he operationalized the business without losing the personal touch, and how he recognized when the time was right to step back as founder.

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Using an eCommerce Subscription to Change the World with OurShelves' Alli Harper

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 03:00:00 +0000

Most subscription entrepreneurs initially are attracted to the model for its predictable recurring revenue, but there are other benefits to having an ongoing relationship with members. Alli Harper works at the intersection of subscription eCommerce and social impact. Dedicated to the advocacy of promoting diversity in the picture book industry, Alli is building OurShelves, a scalable enterprise that serves the underestimated audience for diverse children's books. Trained as a lawyer and community organizer, Alli launched the business from her kitchen table in the home she shares with her wife Jenn and their two children. Host Robbie Kellman Baxter featured Alli’s launch story in her recent book, The Forever Transaction. She now invites her to the podcast to share the way she is using her subscription business to persuade publishers to include more diverse families in the everyday stories they tell in their children’s books.

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Membership as a Flywheel for Tomorrow's Growth With Hagerty's McKeel Hagerty

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 03:00:00 +0000

McKeel Hagerty is the CEO of Hagerty, a specialty provider of classic car insurance and lifestyle company headquartered in Traverse City, Michigan. The company has become well-known for the tremendous loyalty of their policyholders, who feel a kinship with the brand and its forever promise of helping classic car enthusiasts get the most enjoyment from their passion.

Host Robbie Kellman Baxter met McKeel when she was helping the company as they prepared to launch the Hagerty Drivers Club. In this episode, they talk about how this insurance company has transformed into a lifestyle organization with a powerful membership offering by focusing on their forever promise. They also discuss how Hagerty has nurtured, engaged and celebrated their Superusers – those people who go beyond just being loyal subscribers and contribute their own time, resources and skills to support the Hagerty Brand.

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Tinder's Renate Nyborg On Going Global With Your Subscription Model

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 03:00:00 +0000

As subscription organizations scale, one of the trickiest challenges they face is entering international markets. While they often focus first on things like managing local currency, translating copy into local languages, and ensuring compliance with local regulations around privacy, securities and recurring billing, these tactical steps are only table stakes. It takes much more than that to truly localize the subscription experience for a particular region.

Today, host Robbie Kellman Baxter and her guest talk about what it really takes to grow your subscription rapidly outside of your home country. Renate Nyborg is an expert on globalization strategies for subscription-based business. Prior to her current role as General Manager of the EMEA region for Tinder, she spent many years helping two of the world’s biggest subscription companies and many small and fast-moving European subscription startups learn to compete on a global stage.

In this wide ranging conversation, Robbie and Renate discuss how to staff your first international program, the biggest mistakes American subscription businesses make when scaling into Europe, and the most powerful secret to increasing lifetime customer value, not just in Europe, but everywhere.

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Why Customer Success Matters For Subscriptions With Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 03:57:00 +0000

With subscription models, acquisition is only the starting line. Organizations need to develop competence around onboarding new members, driving engagement, and expanding the relationship to maximize customer lifetime value. A whole new discipline has grown around this idea of "customer success," often replacing customer support, and with a radically different focus. Customer success is about proactively ensuring that subscribers get the value they're paying for. On this episode, Robbie speaks to Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight, often called The Customer Success Company. Nick is both an expert on the emerging discipline of customer success and the leader of a SaaS company that is forever dedicated to a promise of “helping businesses develop deep and lasting relationships with their customers.” They explore the secrets of customer success—what it is, why its growth so closely aligns to the rise of subscription-based businesses and Saas specifically, and how a customer success orientation can help dramatically increase your customer lifetime value, a key metric in the membership economy.

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CrossFit's Eric Roza on Taking Over a Beloved Membership Organization After a Crisis, and Keeping the Magic

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 03:00:00 +0000

In mid-2020, Eric Roza bought CrossFit, Inc. from CrossFit Founder and former CEO, Greg Glassman. The sale was first announced on June 24, 2020, just a few weeks after Glassman had resigned as CEO amidst a swirl of controversy. Eric took over as CEO at a critical time for a membership organization known for its cult-like following and devoted members. He brings tremendous experience and passion to CrossFit. Robbie Kellman Baxter invited Eric to the show because she's been fascinated by CrossFit since her sister and brother-in-law discovered it in 2010. She wrote about how CrossFit develops superusers, members so committed and passionate that they spend their own money and time for the good of the brand, in her book, The Membership Economy. In this episode, Eric and Robbie talk about how to right a membership culture after a crisis, walking that fine line of rebuilding the organization while not losing what had made it great, and bringing together a broad group of stakeholders around a new forever promise.

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Steve Cakebread, Author Of "The IPO Playbook," On Taking Your Subscription Business Public

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 03:00:00 +0000

Today’s guest, Steve Cakebread, knows a great deal about subscription pricing models and IPOs. Steve has brought three notable subscription-based companies—Salesforce, Pandora, and Yext—to successful initial public offerings, or IPOs, and served on the board of three other subscription-based companies - eHealth, SolarWinds, and Bill.com - as those companies went public. Steve is frequently sought-out for his advice on IPOs, often fielding three or more requests in a single week. He decided to put his advice on the subject into a new book, The IPO Playbook: An Insider’s Perspective on Taking Your Company Public and How to Do It Right. On today’s show, Steve sits down with Robbie Kellman Baxter for a discussion on why investors love subscriptions, how to take your subscription business public, what it takes to build a solid foundation, and how to tell your subscription story in a way that investors will understand.

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YPO's Scott Mordell on a Subscription that Makes CEOs into Superusers

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 03 Feb 2021 03:00:00 +0000

Scott Mordell was CEO of the Young Presidents Organization, or YPO, from 2011 through 2020. What is fascinating about YPO is how intensely engaged their community is. Members will move mountains to make sure they can attend their regular meetings, despite the fact that they’re among the busiest people in the world. Many of them even qualify as “Superusers”—host Robbie Kellman Baxter's word to describe members who go beyond just being good paying members, and actually contribute significant time and money of their own to benefit the organization. In this conversation, Robbie and Scott discuss the processes YPO has developed to attract, engage and retain CEOs around the world, the surprisingly friction-laden process they use to onboard new members, and the reason so many members become superuser.

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The Value Of Subscription Businesses And How To Sell Them For More With John Warrillow, Author Of The Art of Selling your Business

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 03:41:00 +0000

Growing a business takes a lot of effort and time investment. So when the time comes to exit, it would be a waste not to harvest the value you’ve created. So how do you get the ultimate reward for selling your business? Today, host Robbie Kellman Baxter sits down with John Warrillow, the founder of The Value Builder System™. John and Robbie first met when John published The Automatic Customer around the same time as Robbie released her bestseller, Th e Membership Economy. They bonded over a shared belief in the value of businesses that were optimized around recurring revenue and long-term relationships with customers. John is launching a new book, The Art of Selling Your Business. In it, he connects the dots about why subscription businesses are so valuable, how to optimize business processes and dashboards to create more value, and how to determine what your own business is actually worth. Tune into this episode to learn how to maximize the value of your own subscription business.

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Season 2 is Coming Soon!

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 20:09:00 +0000

Get ready for another season of Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches. This season, I've interviewed guests like Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight, about building a customer-centric organization, Steve Cakebread, a serial CFO, who has shepherded IPOs of companies like Salesforce, Autodesk, Yext, and Pandora, and Eric Roza, my business school classmate as well as the new owner and CEO of the fitness and training empire, Crossfit. And that's just the beginning. We'll also have stories from a subscription box entrepreneur, the CEO of a family-based insurance business with a rabid fan base, and the head of the Young President's Organization, or YPO on building a global community of senior leaders.

Mighty Network’s Gina Bianchini on How to Create a Community Worth Subscribing to

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 08:15:00 +0000

Gina Bianchini brings her community-building and subscription expertise to this episode. She joins Robbie to discuss the role of community in building a broader Forever Transaction, why some communities go off the rails, and how to use community as a starting point for membership, before layering in other elements of value, like content, digital courses and subscription commerce.

Highlights from this episode:

1:57 - Why Gina decided to create another online community platform after leaving Ning
5:40 - The distinction between launching a subscription company, and an ad-based one
8:20 - The Myth of More - why content is not always the answer
11:36 - Subscription Overwhelm and how to avoid it
13:00 - How MightyNetworks defines “community”
15:47 - Knowing when not to build a community
16:39 - How COVID turned a community from social running to career networking
18:12 - The importance of focusing on helping a customer achieve their goal, not consume a product
22:26 - Two common mistakes when building a community
23:25 - The right resources and structure for starting that nascent community
26:26 - MightyNetwork’s extra easy approach to onboarding
31:21 - Story Time: how a group of Cacao Growers built a MightyNetwork of their own
33:10 - Gina’s advice for entrepreneurs and executives who are sitting on the sidelines of community
34:48 - Robbie’s Speed Round

Gina's Bio:

Gina Bianchini is the Founder & CEO of Mighty Networks, an online platform that serves “creators with a purpose.” Creators can offer experiences, relationships, and expertise to their members via community, content, online courses, and subscription commerce. All of these features are offered in one place, under the creator's brand. In addition to Mighty Networks, Gina serves as a board director of TEGNA, a $3 billion broadcast and digital media company. Under Gina’s leadership, her prior company, Ning, grew to 100 million people in 300,000 active social networks across subcultures, professional networks, entertainment, politics, and education. Gina received a BA and MBA from Stanford University.

Links:

Gina’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginabianchini/
Gina’s Email: Gina@MightyNetworks.com
Oiselle Community: https://www.oiselle.com/pages/community
Mighty Networks: https://www.mightynetworks.com/
Robbie’s Membership Economy Lab: http://membershipeconomylab.mn.co/
Robbie’s Book THE FOREVER TRANSACTION: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/the-forever-transaction/
Robbie's Website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/podcast

Vena’s Hunter Madeley on Driving Engagement in a B2B Subscription Business

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 08:15:00 +0000

Vena CEO Hunter Madeley joins Robbie to share best practices learned working at multiple B2B SaaS success stories. They discuss when it does and doesn’t make sense to pull out another company’s playbook, how to onboard for engagement and loyalty in a complex B2B environment, and his concept of “methodology before technology”.

Highlights from this episode:

2:12 - Vena’s Forever Promise and business model
5:00 - The role community plays at Vena
8:29 - PlanToGrow.com - Vena’s hub for community engagement
10:09 - Using a “methodology before technology” mindset to improve the customer’s journey
16:27 - Making sure the software follows through on its Forever Promise to the customer, the buyer, and the user
19:23 - How Vena’s onboarding process begins before the customer makes the purchase
21:50 - Vena’s “time to value” metric
24:00 - Balancing the needs of the salesperson and the customer
25:13 - When focusing on revenue can be counterproductive to creating a Forever Transaction
28:19 - How to analyze data in a productive and unbiased way
31:14 - Robbie’s Speed Round

Hunter's Bio:

Since 2019, Hunter Madeley, a serial SaaS entrepreneur, has served as the CEO of Vena. There, he continues his track record of leading transformational growth at some of the cloud’s most important companies. Prior to Vena, he was at HubSpot, where as chief sales officer he led annual revenue growth from $80 million to $600 million in just five years. His 20-year career also includes sales and growth leadership roles at ADP and Salesforce.com.

Links:

Hunter’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/huntermadeley/
Vena: https://www.venasolutions.com/
Robbie’s Book THE FOREVER TRANSACTION: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/the-forever-transaction/
Robbie's website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/podcast

EA’s Mike Blank on Keeping a “Player First” Mindset within a Subscription Business

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 08:15:00 +0000

Electronic Arts’ Mike Blank joins Robbie to talk about his journey bringing subscription to the world of gaming. They discuss the challenges of subscriptions in the gaming industry, how to encourage consumers to discover new content within the subscription, and how EA offers multiple consumer models to support their “player first” promise.

Highlights from this episode:

2:15 - EA’s journey to subscription and why subscription models are particularly challenging in the gaming industry
8:00 - How EA used their “player first” mindset to create a subscription that would not cannibalize their business
11:29 - The importance of giving subscribers a taste of the product that leaves them wanting more
12:50 - EA Play’s ideal customer
16:47 - The metrics EA used to measure success, and the key data point for tracking returning customers
18:58 - Why helping a customer discover more content is so critical in a subscription business
21:53 - How EA shares subscription data across the company without distracting from other “player first” projects.
24:45 - How to tackle pricing in the gaming world and how EA chose its pricing model
30:16 - How to create a subscription that is beneficial from both a business and a “player-first” standpoint
33:29 - Mike’s advice for someone tasked with bringing subscription to a transactional or episodic business
35:51 - Mike’s advice for creating something evergreen within a “hits” or season based industry
37:21 - Robbie’s Speed Round

Mike's Bio:

Mike Blank is EA’s SVP of Player Network. In this role, he oversees how the company enables players to connect together, discover games and evolve to new distribution models. Mike is responsible for building teams, providing vision, and helping to invent the next generation of EA including the consumer platform and subscription-based products. Before his 18+ years with EA, Mike worked in law. He received a BA from McGill University and a JD from The University of British Columbia.

Links:

Mike’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blankmichael/
EA Play, EA’s subscription service: https://www.ea.com/ea-play/news/welcome-to-ea-play
Robbie’s Book THE FOREVER TRANSACTION: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/the-forever-transaction/
Robbie's website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/podcast

Impossible Foods’ Jessie Teitz Becker on Creating a New Eating Habit to Save the Planet

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 08:15:00 +0000

Jessie Teitz Becker, the SVP Marketing at Impossible Foods, brings her impressive marketing knowledge and expertise in forming long term recurring revenue relationships to Subscription Stories. She joins Robbie to discuss how Impossible is applying principles learned at subscription companies like Netflix, YouTube and Optimizely, best practices in introducing & building habits with a new product category, and why they launched an “every day” product at special occasion restaurant Momofuku.

Highlights from this episode:

2:17 - The birth of Impossible Foods
4:24 - How Impossible earned its credibility through the famous restaurant empire, Momofuku
6:21 - Why the product, and not the marketing, is the key to creating repeating consumer habits
9:25 - How to build customer loyalty through an “easy out”
12:00 – Impossible Foods’ key to restaurant success: ensuring every employee gets a taste of their meat
15:33 - The milestones and metrics Impossible looks for
18:38 - How COVID rocked the food industry - and what Impossible did to battle it
21:03 - Why Impossible Foods made the jump to direct-to-consumer shipping
23:50 - What Impossible Foods learned from launching their own ecommerce direct to consumer
26:36- The magic of free shipping
29:10 - The ideal Impossible customer
32:45 – Impossible Foods’ loyalty program Taste Place, and how Impossible is building their Forever Transaction
39:26 - Robbie’s Speed Round

Jessie's Bio:

Jessie Teitz Becker is a marketing executive based in Silicon Valley. She is currently the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Impossible Foods where she leads the B2B and B2C marketing, insights, and brand marketing teams. Jessie began her career at Netflix in 2000 as one of the first people hired in the marketing department, and eventually rose to interim Chief Marketing officer. She then joined Optimizely, a B2B software company, as Chief Marketing Officer and later served as the Director of Marketing at Google and YouTube. Jessie holds a Bachelor’s in History from the University of Pennsylvania, a Bachelor’s in Economics from The Wharton School and an MBA from Stanford University, where she was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Links:

Jessie’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessiebecker/
Impossible Foods: https://buy.impossiblefoods.com/
Podcast Website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/podcast
Robbie’s Book THE FOREVER TRANSACTION: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/the-forever-transaction/

Bain’s Stuart Berman on the Power of The NPS Loyalty Forum in Deepening Client Relationships Between Engagements

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 08:15:00 +0000

Bain and Company’s Stu Berman joins Robbie to talk about what makes the Net Promoter System (NPS) Loyalty Forum itself so powerful for the members and for Bain. They also explore how the best organizations build customer-centricity into the fabric of their businesses, a core value of NPS. They discuss the value of creating a private community for senior executives across different companies to meet and discuss, how a subscription can be used to deepen relationships with key customers, and the importance of always listening to your customers first.

Highlights from this episode:

4:10 - How the NPF Loyalty Forum remains an open environment for members to speak about their companies without holding back
10:08 - The origin story of the forum - how Fred Riechheld’s book lead to one of the most powerful discussion rooms
12:50 - How the forum has created a community that members never want to leave
15:00 - Subscription as a marketing tool or strategic element
16:17 - The benefits offered by the forum to keep its high-profile members engaged and open
19:20 - Stu gives a look inside the Loyalty Forum and the types of conversations that its members love so much
24:10 - Changes in the world of NPS and securing loyal subscribers over the past decade
28:03 - Stu’s advice for smaller firms and subject matter experts on creating a community around their practice or expertise
31:10 - Robbie’s Speed Round

Stu's Bio:

Stuart Berman currently runs the NPS Loyalty Forum at Bain & Company where he works to build forever relationships with customers, employees, and partners. He spent the early years of his career as a management consultant at Bain before becoming General Manager of Intuit’s online store. He then worked in startup companies for a number of years before going to work as a Group Product Manager at eBay. Stu obtained a BA with a dual major of Economics and Mathematics/Computer Science from Wesleyan University and an MBA from Stanford University. He has over 20 years of business management and development experience.

Links:

Stu’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartberman/
Bain and Company’s NPS Loyalty Forum: https://www.netpromotersystem.com/resources/the-nps-loyalty-forum/
Robbie’s Website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/
Robbie’s Book THE FOREVER TRANSACTION: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/the-forever-transaction/

charity: water’s MZ Goodman on Bringing Subscriptions to the Nonprofit World

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 08:15:00 +0000

Charity: water’s MZ Goodman joins Robbie to share how she is applying subscription model best practices to a nonprofit. They discuss how MZ leverages content marketing and digital community strategies developed in her work at The New York Times, Glossier and goop to build a donation-based subscription model, how they’ve leveraged a single 20-minute video to raise millions, and how to think about a Forever Promise in the context of engaging donors.

Highlights from this episode:

2:00 - The birth of The Spring, charity: water’s subscription program
5:44 - Why a mission is the most important factor for attracting subscribers
7:15 - The importance of building a brand based on quality over charisma
11:00 - How to lure customers in with emotion, and make them stay through strong relationships
15:00 - Why charity: water is allowing subscribers to press “pause” during the COVID-19 pandemic to combat high churn rates
17:26 - Ways for nonprofits to allow members to remain active without opening their checkbooks
19:00 - MZ’s advice for product leaders who want to transition to the nonprofit world
20:24 - the differences between building a community at a news company, a make-up company, and a nonprofit
24:20 - Robbie’s Speed Round

MZ's Bio:

MZ Goodman is a product and marketing executive with expertise in digital products and subscriptions. MZ began as the Product Management Executive Director for The New York Times in 2007, managing the digital product team as the company first created its online subscription product. From there, MZ joined Ralph Lauren as Product Management Senior Director and was then recruited to join the leadership team at goop. After goop, MZ joined Glossier as Vice President of Digital and Business Insights. She now serves as Senior Vice President of Subscription at charity: water where she oversees consumer and subscriber revenue. MZ earned a BA in journalism from Boston University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Links:

MZ’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mz-goodman/
Charity: water’s The Spring: https://www.charitywater.org/donate/the-spring?utm_medium=ppc&utm_source=adwords&utm_content=spring_sitelink&utm_campaign=sitelinks_paid&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8qfi24rl6wIVzMDACh0cdQYdEAAYASABEgJ_KfD_BwE
Robbie’s Website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/
Robbie’s Book THE FOREVER TRANSACTION: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/the-forever-transaction/

Emory University’s Dan McCarthy on a New Approach to Valuing Companies

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 08:15:00 +0000

Dan McCarthy, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta School of Business, joins Robbie to share his expertise on the intersection of marketing and finance. They discuss why customer lifetime value is such an important and misunderstood metric, how to rethink the way companies are valued by the public markets, and what all of this means for subscription businesses.

Highlights from this episode:

2:50 - Dan introduces Customer Based Corporate Valuation (CBCV)
4:08 - The importance of knowing your customer data
8:46 - Dan’s time working with CBCV at Blue Apron
12:17 - The importance of focusing on the right metrics
15:18 - The challenges of a physical subscription
17:28 - The cycle of Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
24:11 - How COVID-19 has impacted customer behavior
27:44 - Dan’s advice for entrepreneurs
28:36 - Dan’s Advice for academics at the intersection of research and commercial
30:00 - Robbie’s Speed Round

Dan's Bio:

DANIEL MCCARTHY is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Emory University's Goizueta School of Business. Among other things, he’s an expert on valuing companies by focusing on the lifetime value of their customers—a novel approach at the intersection of marketing and finance. His approach, which has won him many accolades, is known as “customer-based corporate valuation” (CBCV). His research has been accepted and published in top-tier academic journals, as well as nearly every major financial publication, from HBR to the Financial Times to CFO Magazine. In 2015, he co-founded a predictive analytics company, Zodiac, which was acquired by Nike in March 2018. Dan subsequently co-founded Theta Equity Partners to commercialize his work on customer-based corporate valuation. He earned a BSc, a BS, and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania.

Links:

Dan’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielmcc/
Dan’s Website: http://danielminhmccarthy.com/
Dan at Emory University: https://goizueta.emory.edu/faculty/profiles/daniel-mccarthy
Robbie’s Book THE FOREVER TRANSACTION: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/the-forever-transaction/
Robbie’s Website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/

INMA’s Greg Piechota on the News Industry’s Big Bet on Reader Revenue

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 08:15:00 +0000

Greg Piechota, Researcher-In-Residence at the International News Media Association, joins Robbie to discuss the increasing importance of subscriptions and reader revenue in a world of declining ad sales. They talk about the value of studying one industry to gain insight for another, new models for advertisers, and the importance of customer-centricity in any subscription business.

Highlights from this episode:

2:20 -- How Greg’s career took him from Poland to Massachusetts to Oxford

3:40 -- The importance of looking across industries to develop insights

6:13 -- How data causes companies from different industries to start competing with each other

9:41 -- Greg’s advice for companies dealing with competitors who come from different spaces but target the same customer

10:37 -- Advertisers that take on new business models in retail, media, and e-commerce

17:38 -- The importance of customer centricity, especially in a subscription business

24:20 -- Greg’s advice for companies that want to move to a subscription model but are worried about the cannibalization risk and leaving money on the table during while they are in between models

28:05 -- Subscriptions as a way to stabilize a business model

30:20 -- Greg’s advice for entrepreneurs and executives, in any industry, who are trying to build robust subscription businesses

31:00 -- Robbie’s Speed Round

Greg's Bio:

Grzegorz "Greg" Piechota studies technology-enabled disruption patterns across industries, with a focus on business model innovation in news media. Greg is a former media executive with 20+ years of industry experience. He began his career at Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza in 1996 as a reporter in one of the smallest local offices, and then rising to a news editor and a vice-president of Agora Foundation. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University from 2015-2016 and continued as a Research Associate at Harvard Business School for three more years. Following his time at Harvard, he moved to Oxford where he conducted research at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. He now serves as a Researcher-In-Residence at the International News Media Association (INMA), and a board member at various media, software, and e-commerce companies.

Links:

Greg’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grzegorzpiechota/
Greg at the INMA: https://www.inma.org/modules/event/2019ReaderRevenue/about-greg.cfm
Robbie’s Website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/
Robbie’s Book THE FOREVER TRANSACTION: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/the-forever-transaction/

HP Instant Ink’s Anthony Napolitano: Reinventing the Razor & Razorblades Model by Focusing on Subscriber Outcomes

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 26 Aug 2020 08:15:00 +0000

Anthony Napolitano, VP and General Manager of HP’s Instant Ink Subscription Service, joins Robbie to discuss his role as an intrapreneur, and what it’s like to be the subscription guy in a transactional business. They cover running a physical subscription business, ensuring customers get full value from their subscriptions, and managing a business in times of change.

Highlights from this episode:

1:40 -- Anthony’s journey at HP

4:13 -- The birth of Instant Ink

6:42 -- Additional challenges of being a physical product subscription

10:57 -- The metrics used to diagnose problems or anticipate opportunities within the business

13:05 -- Addressing and solving Instant Ink’s key consumer issues

18:43 -- How Instant Ink caters to its superusers

21:54 -- The importance of a company continuing to evolve with the needs of the customers

23:21 -- Onboarding to ensure a customer gets the value they are paying for

28:26 -- Anthony’s contribution to HP as a whole

30:26 -- Advice for fellow intrapreneurs who are leading subscription in businesses that don’t typically do subscriptions

34:37 -- Anthony’s lessons learned and business approach during the COVID-19 pandemic

38:20 -- Robbie’s Speed Round

Links:

Anthony’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonynapolitano/
Hewlett-Packard’s Instant Ink: https://instantink.hpconnected.com/us/en/l/
Podcast Website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/podcast
Robbie’s Book THE FOREVER TRANSACTION: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/the-forever-transaction/

Anthony's Bio:

Anthony Napolitano specializes in profitably scaling subscription businesses. Anthony joined Hewlett-Packard in 1997 as a financial analyst in the Notebook Computer Division. Over the next 23 years he progressed through various levels of management in the areas of Finance, Global Supply Chain, Procurement, Quality and General Management. For the past five years, he has served as the Vice President, General Manager of HP’s Instant Ink Subscription Service. Anthony earned a BA from Loyola Marymount University and an MBA from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

A+E Networks' Piper Rosenshein on Standing Out as a Niche Player in the Streaming Wars

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 08:15:00 +0000

Piper Rosenshein, VP Subscription Video Services at A+E Networks, shares her tips for creating a customer-centric approach and a lasting digital subscription model. Join Robbie and Piper as they discuss how to operationalize a digital subscription businesses, how to minimize cannibalization in a business that already has a successful model, and how to manage a recurring revenue business in a time of change.

Piper's Bio:

Piper Rosenshein is Vice President, Subscription Video Services (SVOD) at A+E Networks. In this role, she is the general manager of A&E Crime Central, Lifetime Movie Club and HISTORY Vault, and she oversees all aspects of the business. Prior to joining A+E Networks in 2017, Piper was the Executive Director of Customer Experience at The New York Times. She has deep expertise in CRM, email marketing, direct marketing and eCommerce garnered through previous professional roles at American Express, Barnes & Noble, Coach, and Saks Fifth Avenue. Piper received a BA from Tulane University and an MBA from New York University.

Highlights from this episode:

1:50 -- Piper describes her career path and experience with subscription businesses

4:08 -- Why Piper chooses to work at companies with a membership mindset

5:40 -- Subscription vs. retail business models

6:53 -- The start of subscription at A&E (Lifetime Movie Club and HISTORY Vault)

10:23 -- The metrics used to measure success within the new subscription products

13:21 -- Linear audience vs. Subscribing audience

15:53 -- The importance of data and customer feedback

17:42 -- The role of A&E’s “vault” in building their subscription

19:37 -- The challenges and opportunities brought by COVID-19

21:04 -- Balancing caring for the community and making smart marketing moves

23:16 -- How A&E onboards for engagement in response to a spike in usage

25:21 -- Financial vs. non-financial goals

26:10 -- Robbie’s Speed Round

Links:

Piper’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/piperrosenshein/
A&E Networks: https://www.aenetworks.com/
Lifetime Movie Club:https://www.lifetimemovieclub.com/
HISTORY Vault: https://www.historyvault.com/
Podcast Website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/podcast
Robbie’s Book THE FOREVER TRANSACTION: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/the-forever-transaction/

Peak Prosperity’s Adam Taggart

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 08:15:00 +0000

“Everybody gets the free. But if you want the really good stuff, you cross the velvet rope and subscribe.” Adam Taggart, President and Co-Founder of Peak Prosperity, joins Robbie to talk about his tips for building a community of subscribers that will grow into superusers who generate content of their own. They discuss how to handle a spike in acquisition, building a lifestyle subscription business with no outside capital, and how to create a “tribe” of highly engaged members.

Adam's Bio:

Adam Taggart is the President and Co-Founder of Peak Prosperity, a website that helps millions of people prudently prepare for the future. In his partnership with Chris Martenson, Adam handles the business and subscription side of the company. Adam began his career as an investment banking analyst for Merrill Lynch. He then went on to work in startups before starting at Yahoo!, where he worked for nine years and served as a Vice President. Adam earned a BA from Brown University and an MBA from Stanford University.

Highlights from this episode:

2:16 -- Adam discusses his journey from Wall Street to beekeeper

7:00 -- Peak Prosperity’s business and subscription model

10:25 -- The “eight forms of capital”

11:20 -- Peak Prosperity’s efficient marketing and outreach technique

13:30 -- Turning viewers into members

14:20 -- Building community expectations and guidelines to promote quality engagement

16:04 -- The “tribe” within Peak Prosperity

16:30 -- How Peak Prosperity creates and maintains “superusers”

18:11 -- Managing a spike in acquisition

20:00 -- Making sure customers who come for coronavirus advice choose stay for other content

22:38 -- Adam’s advice for “working stiffs”

25:01 -- Building a subscription business with no outside capital

Links:

Thrive Global’s Jennifer Mazzon: Building a Forever Transaction through Subscription Products

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Wed, 05 Aug 2020 08:25:00 +0000

A good product manager “meets customer needs and solves customer problems and fuels the business”. Jennifer Mazzon, Chief Product Officer at Thrive Global, joins Robbie to discuss her experience as a product expert. They cover finding the right team, how to build digital subscription products, and the importance of customer-centricity and knowing who your superusers are.

Jennifer’s Bio:

Jennifer Mazzon is a product management expert who specializes in subscription-based products. Throughout her career she has led product teams for organizations including Google Docs, Coursera for Business, Apigee, Colibri Group, Education.com, and Rocket Lawyer. Jen recently joined Thrive Global as Chief Product Officer, where she works with Arianna Huffington to unlock human potential. Jen received a Bachelor’s Degree from Yale University and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Highlights from this episode:

3:38 – Jennifer talks about the different product cultures of companies she’s seen

5:30 – Thrive Global’s mission

7:45 – Jennifer shares her experience of managing a product team under the unusual circumstances of COVID-19 and the changes that Thrive Global has made in light of the pandemic

10:49 – Why Thrive Global has made content more accessible during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the power of partnerships with companies such as Snapchat

11:58 – Robbie asks Jennifer about the most important metrics she uses to gauge success

15:25 – Jennifer explains the role of a product manager, and how Thrive Global attracts in-demand product managers

21:42 – The differences between what makes a product manager good in a subscription business and what makes a product manager good in a transaction business

23:50 – Jennifer explains her process of understanding and hearing customer needs

26:36 – How to convince traditionally non-subscription companies about the importance of customer membership

27:01 – Jennifer gives advice to entrepreneurs and executives who are stepping in to the position of being product team leaders

28:53 – Jennifer gives advice to senior team members who are working with product people

31:31 – Robbie puts Jennifer through a series of rapid-fire questions

Links:

Kurbo’s Joanna Strober on a Digital Program to Make Kids Healthier

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Mon, 27 Jul 2020 04:58:00 +0000

“Our goal is to teach forever habits.” Joanna Strober has reimagined the youth weight loss industry through her wellness program, Kurbo. Tune in to hear Joanna talk with Robbie about the role of a human coach in a digital program, how to communicate with both parents and kids, and instilling habits in customers for the long term.

Highlights from this episode:

7:00 – Joanna talks about what triggers people to enroll in subscriptions and what motivates people to make subscription a habit

9:52 – Robbie and Joanna talk about the 7 key areas of competence in a subscription business, and about why WW is more passionate about their subscription mission than their subscription product

16:40 – Joanna talks about Kurbo’s FOREVER PROMISE

17:24 – Kurbo’s “reverse freemium” model, and the power of breaking the mold when it comes to adopting a subscription model

19:50 — Robbie and Joanna talk about customer success, its importance, and what it looks like

23:50 – Joanna explains why human connection is essential and hints at Kurbo’s “Secret Sauce”

27:00 – Weathering negative social media storms

34:40 – The challenges of the launch, scale, and lead phases of growing a business

37:00 – Joanna gives advice to entrepreneurs who want to start a business in THE MEMBERSHIP ECONOMY and investors who want to fund a business in THE MEMBERSHIP ECONOMY

39:22 – Joanna gives advice to smaller companies undergoing acquisition by a larger company

40:20 – Robbie’s speed round

Joanna’s Bio:

Joanna Strober is an entrepreneur and investor who founded Kurbo, the first digital weight loss platform for kids. Joanna grew Kurbo into a subscription business so successful that it caught the interest of WW (Weight Watchers reimagined), one of the biggest names in wellness. She is currently the CEO of Kurbo and a Senior Vice President at WW. Before diving into the weight loss industry, Joanna was Senior Managing Director at Sterling Stamos, and co-authored Getting to 50/50. Joanna earned a Bachelor’s Degree from University of Pennsylvania and a JD from UCLA school of Law.

Inspirato’s Brad Handler on Revamping a Thousand-Year-Old Industry

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Mon, 27 Jul 2020 04:54:00 +0000

“Life is too short to play vacation roulette”. Brad Handler and his brother Brent are vacation entrepreneurs who incorporate membership and subscription into their luxury travel service, Inspirato. Brad joins Robbie to discuss the importance of “celebrating failure” when innovating, how a strategic approach to real estate and data give Inspirato a unique advantage, and the power of a “people-as-a-service” structure to create strong member relationships.

Highlights from this episode:

2:08 – Brad introduces Inspirato’s affordable business model

5: 49 – Brad explains the two travel products and services offered: Inspirato Membership, and Inspirato Pass

10:04 – Hospitality vs. real estate in the vacation business, why Brad chose to focus on hospitality, and the importance of specialization in a company

11:03 – Brad and Robbie discuss subscription vs membership business models

12:25 – Inspirato’s forever promise, and why a membership mindset is so important

14:03 – Brad highlights the importance of planning for success in the entrepreneurial world

16:07 – How Inspirato uses technology to pull ahead of its competitors

16:65 – Brad and Robbie get into the “nitty-gritty” of Inspirato’s business model, and talk about Robbie’s 7 steps for optimizing subscription business models

18:45 – Brad introduces his philosophy of “celebrating failure” to promote innovation

21:03 – Inspirato’s most important metrics, and how data collection can transform and improve customer experience

26:30 – Brad and Robbie discuss Inspirato’s key to lasting members: a personalized onboarding process

31:08 – Why Inspirato has decided not to make any services “free”

32:31 – How Inspirato is structured for profitability

34:12 – Brad and Robbie talk about the importance of customer satisfaction and success

37:01 – Brad and Robbie discuss how human relationships are a part of Inspirato’s success

37:55 – Brad offers advice to aspiring entrepreneurs and explains why passion is an indispensable asset

39:40 – Brad shares his tips for working alongside family, and how he and his brother have grown to be so successful together

41:58 – Robbie puts Brad through a round of rapid-fire questions

Brad’s Bio:

Brad Handler is an entrepreneur redefining the luxury travel industry. Brad began his career first as an engineer at Apple, then as an attorney at a top Silicon Valley law firm, and then at eBay as their first in-house counsel from 1997 to 2001. But he is best known for his innovation in the world of destination travel clubs. In 2002 Brad founded Exclusive Resorts with his brother Brent and served as the company’s CEO and chairman. They have since gone on to create Inspirato, a vacation service providing personalized, high-end travel experiences. Brad earned a bachelor’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law.

About Subscription Stories

Robbie Kellman Baxter — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 04:20:00 +0000

Subscription models are crazy powerful. Savvy small companies can easily deploy them to knock huge Goliaths off kilter. We’ve seen it in entertainment, software, hardware, news, retail, hospitality—the list goes on. In her podcast series, Robbie Kellman Baxter interviews the leaders of this revolution about how they’re using subscription pricing and membership models to redefine the biggest industries and generate predictable recurring revenue along the way.