Subscription Stories

True Tales from the Trenches

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.

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Episode Blogs

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

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...

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

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...

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

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...

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

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...

Beyond Subscriptions – Pricing for Impact with Harvard Business School/Esade Professor Marco Bertini

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...

Designing for Subscriptions with ThoughtSpot’s Bob Baxley

Design is such an important if sometimes overlooked element of the best subscriptions. Today's guest, Bob Baxley, is a thinking person’s designer, with the book and teaching credentials to prove it. He’s also an experienced practitioner, who has been “in the trenches”...

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

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...

How the “Daily Homepage for the World’s Largest Industry” is Rethinking the Future of Travel with Skift’s Rafat Ali

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...

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

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,...

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

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,...

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

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...

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

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...

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

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...

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

Since The Membership Puzzle Project (MPP) launch in May 2017, the team has 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...

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

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...