Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches

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.   Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook

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.     Love the show? Rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts

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.   Love the show? Rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts

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.   Love the show? Rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts

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.   Love the show? Rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today:     robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts

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.   Love the show? Rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today:   robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts

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.    Love the show? Rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts

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.   Love the show? Rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts  

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.   Love the show? Rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts  

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.   Love the show? Rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts  

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.   Love the show? Rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts  

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.    Love the show? Rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts  

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.   Love the show? Rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts

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.   Love the show? Rate us ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts

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. 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 for listening to Subscription Stories.   Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com

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.   Other links and resources mentioned:  Jeff Hausman Samsara Sanjit Biswas, Co-founder of Samsara John Bicket, CTO and Co-Founder of Samsara Cold Chain Monitoring Subscription Stories Episode: Ben Foster, Chief Product Officer of WHOOP Chalk Mountain Services of Texas Liberty Energy Kong Global Ford Penske Navistar Fleetcor AssetWorks Thermo King   Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook

 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.   Other links and resources mentioned: Rita McGrath Seeing Around Corners by Rita McGrath Subscription Stories Episode: Tiffani Bova Rod Adkins of Unix Business Samuel J. Palmisano, CEO of IBM Louis V. Gerstner, CEO of IBM (1993 to 2002) The Permissionless Organization Loonshots by Safi Bahcall Article: Lululemon Hopes to Showcase Home Fitness Business With Membership Program Article: Drinkworks™ Unveils The Home Bar By Keurig® — Cocktails, Brews, Ciders And More At The Touch Of A Button Mirror.co Greg Galle, CEO of Solve Next Jeremy Utley, Co-Author of Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters Daniel Kahneman, Author of Thinking, Fast and Slow

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.   Other links and resources mentioned: Mark Stiving Selling Value by Mark Stiving Win Keep Grow by Mark Stiving Impact Pricing  by Mark Stiving To be released soon: Power Value by Mark Stiving   Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts

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: Pavilion Kind Folks Finish First by Sam Jacobs Article: Following Five Years Of Significant Growth, Revenue Collective Rebrands To Pavilion And Announces $25 Million In Growth Financing What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith "Topline Podcast" with Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno and Asad Zaman High Output Management by Andrew Grove Disney War by James B. Stewart Strava fitne...

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/   Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How »   Join the Subscription Stories Community today: robbiekellmanbaxter.com Twitter Facebook Robbie Kellman Baxter on Instagram Subscription Stories: True Tales from the Trenches on Apple Podcasts