CHURN FM

Andrew Michael

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CHURN FM is the podcast for subscription economy pros. Every Wednesday we hear how the world’s fastest growing companies are tackling churn and using retention & engagement to fuel their growth.

17. Juni

E304 | Why Product Delight Is No Longer Optional | Nesrine Changuel (Skype, Google, Spotify)

Today on the show, we have Dr. Nesrine Changuel, founder of Product Excellence and Product Management Career Lab Director at ESSEC Business School. Prior to Product Excellence, Nesrine held senior product roles at Google, Spotify, and Microsoft. In this episode, we dig into why the technical barrier to building products has dropped so dramatically that functional quality alone can no longer differentiate — and what that means for teams that haven't yet learned to design for emotion. We explore the concept of product delight, what it actually means beyond confetti and Easter eggs, and how Nesrine's Delight Model Framework gives teams a step-by-step path to building emotional connection into any product — B2C or B2B. We discuss the real difference between discovery and delivery, why Nesrine spent her first 18 months as a PM doing the wrong job, and what shifted when she stopped babysitting engineers and started owning the why. Finally, we get into the AI feature psychosis sweeping the market right now — why shipping velocity without emotional intentionality produces Frankenstein products, and why the companies that were great before AI will be great after it, for the same reasons they always were. As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me directly at andrew@churn.fm, and don’t forget to follow us on X.

41 Min.
8. Apr.

E303 | Customer Success Is Dead. Meet the Growth Department.

Today on the show, we have Alex Raymond, founder of AMplify and author of The Growth Department, a book reframing how post-sales teams think about their role inside B2B companies. In this episode, we dig into why customer success and account management are in an identity crisis — and why the answer lies in orienting the entire function around one core purpose: helping the company win. We explore the “keep, grow, no surprises” framework, how NRR as a North Star metric can align sales and CS around shared incentives, and why consolidating all revenue under a true CRO is becoming a more common org design move. We discuss the confidence gap in CS teams when it comes to commercial conversations, why over-indexing on relationships is one of the most common mistakes in post-sales, and why parachuting an AE back in at renewal is a poor experience for the customer — and for the team. Finally, we tackle the economics hiding in plain sight: why 100% of a company’s profits come from existing customers, how resource allocation between new business and existing accounts is wildly mismatched, and why the language CS and account management professionals use to describe their work has a direct impact on their standing inside the business.

34 Min.
25. Feb.

E302 | Why 51% of Subscribers Cancel Each Year—and How to Reduce Voluntary Churn

Today on the show, we have Priya Lakshminarayanan, CPO of Recurly, a subscription management platform empowering brands like Twitch, PupBox, Sprout Social, and Pipedrive to launch, scale, and optimize subscription experiences. In this episode, we dive deep into Recurly's 2026 State of Subscriptions report, uncovering surprising trends that challenge conventional wisdom about churn. We explore why "selective churn" might actually reflect stronger consumer intent rather than fatigue, and why the pause button has evolved from a red flag into a strategic retention tool. We discuss the dramatic shift in subscriber behavior, including why 51% of consumers cancelled at least one subscription in the last 12 months, how micro-subscriptions are becoming the new trial experience in an AI-driven world, and why traditional free trials are becoming cost-prohibitive as LLM costs rise. Finally, we tackle the loyalty paradox: why transparency and easy cancellation actually drive long-term retention, how annual subscription renewals have become critical inflection points, and why the best retention strategy might be proactively canceling customers who aren't using your service.

32 Min.
4. Feb.

E301 | Smarter Dunning: How Data and Intent Change Payment Recovery with Charles Rosenblatt of Butter Payments

Today on the show, we have Charles Rosenblatt, CEO of Butter Payments, providing ML AI-driven payment recovery for subscription merchants and recurring payments. Previously, Charles was CSO of Payoneer, CRO at Velo Payments, and ran treasury at D.E. Shaw during the late 90s—where managing a financial crisis taught him that outside factors can derail even the best strategies and smartest teams. In this episode, we uncover why the 14-day dunning period is an arbitrary standard that shouldn't exist—and how decoupling dunning strategy from product access unlocks smarter business decisions. Charles shares how Butter analyzes 128 variables across billions of transactions to predict payment recovery within 10 seconds, allowing companies to shut off high-cost AI users immediately when recovery is unlikely, while keeping loyal customers active when payments will clear. We explore why involuntary churn creates dangerous false signals: 30% of customers leaving might actually want to stay but have expired cards or temporary payment issues. This can lead product teams to catastrophic decisions—like Coca-Cola changing their formula when the real problem was payment infrastructure, not product-market fit. The lesson: understand what's within your control versus what's not before making strategic pivots. We also discuss how Capital One shifted their best people from acquisition to retention after realizing they were churning the equivalent of the 7th largest credit card company every year—because spending $20 to save a $500 NPV customer beats spending $300 to acquire a new one who might churn anyway. Finally, we dig into payment recovery ethics and strategy: why Butter refuses "forced payments" that drive customer accounts negative, how different card types (Amex vs. debit vs. prepaid) require completely different retry logic, and why competitors who inflate recovery promises by 100% damage trust across the industry. As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me directly at andrew@churn.fm, and don’t forget to follow us on X.

36 Min.
23. Jan.

E300 | Building Retention into Your DNA: Matthew Tharp on Churn Signals, ICP & Cold Email

Today on the show, we have Matthew Tharp, CEO of Hunter.io, the all-in-one email outreach platform used by over 4 million people to identify prospects and run cold email campaigns. Previously, Matthew was VP of Worldwide Retention at LogMeIn, where he owned NRR across nine products—giving him a rare masterclass in retention challenges at different stages and scales. In this episode, we uncover why retention isn't a problem you solve when growth stalls—it's DNA you build from day one. Matthew shares the paradox of his career: building a company with 95%+ annual retention that got acquired, versus joining a high-growth PLG business with churn issues that needed solving before scaling further. We explore why over-indexing on either growth or retention creates problems, how to identify the usage patterns that predict churn in the first three weeks, and why every company that tries to fix retention late struggles. The lesson: balance from the beginning beats transformation later. We also discuss how Hunter achieved 3X growth this year by going back to basics—running a rigorous ICP analysis, choosing battles they could win instead of markets where competitors were spending $100M, and layering new customer segments without creating product bloat. Finally, we dig into cold outreach data: why email lists under 100 people dramatically outperform larger ones, why shorter emails force the clarity that drives replies, and how constraints—not scale—are the real performance lever in outbound. As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me directly at andrew@churn.fm, and don’t forget to follow us on X.

37 Min.
05.12.2025

EP299 | How to Build a Brand That Speaks to Robots and Humans with Susan Keplinger | Force of Nature

Today on the show, we have Susan Keplinger, CEO of Force of Nature, a boutique performance marketing shop behind the growth of brands like Ring, Oofos, and other category leaders. With experience building data-driven growth engines across e-commerce and DTC, Suzanne has helped companies shift from chaotic marketing to orchestrated, scalable systems. In this episode, we uncover why the future of performance marketing isn’t about hacking audiences or chasing the “one winning creative”—but building portfolio-driven creative systems, trusting your data, and showing up clearly for both humans and algorithms. We explore why Google and Meta still dominate the ecosystem, why clean data is the new competitive edge, and how brands should think about programmatic everything—from ads to email to retargeting. We also discuss how Suzanne built the original performance infrastructure at Ring, how brands like Oofos leverage their “growth signal system,” and why the best-performing companies today treat robots as part of their audience. Finally, we dig deep into retention: why 10 customers leaving is the same as your 11th leaving, why the “leaky bucket” kills great brands, and how to know when it's time to stop relying on founder intuition — and start trusting the data. As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me directly at andrew@churn.fm, and don’t forget to follow us on X.

39 Min.
14.11.2025

E298 | Why LLM Agents Are Now your VIP Visitors and How to Optimize for Them

Today on the show, we have Kevin White, Head of Marketing at Scrunch AI, a platform helping brands stay discoverable in the era of AI-powered search. Kevin brings experience from leading go-to-market and marketing teams at Segment, Retool, and Common Room, as well as advising fast-growing startups like Ashby, Deepnote, and Gretel.ai. In this episode, we explore how the rise of answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity is reshaping how people find information online—and what it means for marketers. We discuss how Scrunch helps brands optimize their sites for large language models (LLMs), why bots are becoming the new audience, and how AI-driven search is redefining visibility and discovery. We also delve into lessons from Segment and Retool on balancing self-serve and enterprise growth, how activation-first onboarding drives retention, and why doing “white-glove at scale” can triple user success. We wrap up by unpacking Kevin’s biggest learnings on churn and growth—from Reforge’s “don’t fill a leaky bucket” principle to why something as simple as naming conventions can make or break a company’s ability to scale.

33 Min.
05.11.2025

EP297 | How Freemius Aligns Pricing With Growth to Reduce Graduation Churn

Today on the show we have Vova Feldman, the Founder and CEO of Freemius. In this episode, Vova shares his experience in launching Freemius from a side project into a platform powering thousands of indie software businesses. We then discussed how Freemius is repositioning itself from its WordPress roots to become the go-to solution for small SaaS and desktop software businesses. We wrapped up by discussing their new transparent pricing model — designed to align with growth and reduce graduation churn. Mentioned Resources FreemiusLinkedIn | Vova FeldmanRatingWidget.comSenexx | GartnerTechstarsWordPressPaddleStripePayPal

30 Min.

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Trailer

EP0 | Andrew Michael (Churn.fm) - Intro

CHURN.FM is the podcast for subscription economy pros. Every Wednesday we hear how the world’s fastest growing companies are tackling churn and using retention & engagement to fuel their growth.

31.03.2019

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2 Min.

CHURN FM is the podcast for subscription economy pros. Every Wednesday we hear how the world’s fastest growing companies are tackling churn and using retention & engagement to fuel their growth.

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Andrew Michael
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2019 - 2026
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