Ep 143: How To Build A Subscription Business ft. Matthew Holman

Welcome back Hustlers! In this week’s episode, we are featuring Matthew Holman! Matthew is the Head of Growth at Qpilot. Qpilot offers merchants a truly dynamic and flexible software to manage their repeat orders.

If you struggle to manage 'subscriptions' for your best customers, you should know that there is a solution that can automate everything you need to make their subscription experience amazing.

In this episode we discuss:

• Subscription fundamentals (different types of programs, customer experience, discounts, when are subscriptions a good fit)
• Places to collect data to learn about the program (Google Analytics, conversion tracking, post purchase, cancellation)
• Unit economics (what discounts make sense)
• How to think about churn (people that churn right away versus those that churn over time)
• Fundamentals for scale (data collection, iterating, flexibility)

Time Stamps:

(0:00) - Intro with Alex & Owen preamble

(9:14) - Business tip of the week - Top 5 Chrome Extensions for your business

(16:00) - Hustle Nation tip of the week (Setting goals & creating systems)

(22:00) - Show starts

(22:23) - Our worst subscription purchases

(32:00) - Common mistakes in a subscription business

(34:40) - Day 1 of launching your business and what you should do

(38:38) - Owen’s story of getting lured into a sneaky subscription while in university

(42:26) - Businesses that run excellent subscription businesses

(44:45) - How one business did a watch subscription and offered a Rolex to get subscribers

(47:00) - BarkBox losing subscribers and niching down

(49:00) - How to manage the threat of big box retailers starting a subscription business

(51:16) - McDonald’s use of great coffee beans & their attack on Starbucks business model

(56:00) - Marketing your subscription business

(1:00:41) - How to avoid churn as soon as a customer subscribes to you

(1:03:00) - How businesses can trap you into a subscription

(1:05:50) - How Qpilot helps businesses run their subscription business
(1:07:00) - How to manage logistics with shipping

(1:10:21) - How Qpilot acquires new customers

(1:11:30) - Debunking the “average” subscription metric & focusing on looking at common drop-off points

(1:14:20) - Managing the accounting process of building a subscription business with uplifts, discounts, and returns.

(1:16:00) - Offering the right discounts to the customer

(1:18:25) - How to recover revenue when customers having credit card failures

(1:20:30) - The future of subscriptions

(1:22:00) - Game changing apps for your business & Shopify’s ecosystem

(1:26:25) - Quotes & phrases that has had an impact on Matthew’s life

(1:28:00) - Wrap up & closing remarks

To learn more about subscriptions, follow Matthew and checkout his newsletter!

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/holman-matthew/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/subscriptiondoc
- YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4bPOQPNvVYYwv_-ywHyzpQ
- Weekly Subscription Newsletter: https://content.autoship.cloud/subscription-prescription-registration