Episode 17: Custom-Tailored Subscriptions and Educating Subscribers with Coulter Lewis, Founder and CEO of Sunday

In this episode of the Subscriptions: Scaled podcast, Nick Fredrick, President of Rebar Technology Solutions, is joined by Coulter Lewis, Founder and CEO of Sunday.

What is Sunday?

Sunday is a subscription lawn care service that uses data and ag tech to help customers have a good-looking yard without a lot of work—and without all the toxic pesticides. Grass is technically America's third largest "crop", taking up 40 million acres of land, whereas organic farms only cover approximately five million acres of land.

People understand the importance of not using pesticides on food, but we use about 10X the amount of pesticides on our lawns than we use on industrial farms. Sunday is on a mission to change that through plant science.

Custom Subscriber Solutions

When a customer signs up, they get a custom-tailored "care package" for their lawn based on where they live, their soil, and the climate of the season. They even get a test kit to find out if the soil in their yard needs any special attention. 

Sunday makes it easy. They give subscribers exactly what they need, when they need it, without needing any knowledge of how to take care of their lawns. 

This allows subscribers to have beautiful lawns their neighbors admire without chemicals that harm their family.

They’ve found that subscribers actually feel good when they’re empowered to take care of their property. This has led to over 2,800 online reviews with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars in about two years.

Jumping From The Food Business to Lawncare

Coulter and his wife have run a business called Quinn Foods for the past ten years. With a mission to revolutionize food, they started with microwave popcorn. They removed the chemicals, plastics, artificial flavorings, and preservatives, and stuck with real ingredients that they could trace back to the source. 

To do this they spent a lot of time with farmers in their fields, literally. This led to Coulter learning a lot about agriculture, so when he started looking at the lawn care space, he looked at it through that lens. 

As he was trying to take care of his own lawn, he noticed the readily available solutions were mostly synthetic pesticides. The same things he was working to get rid of in his food business were his main options for upkeeping the lawn he was letting his kids play in. 

That led him down a path of research that resulted in what they now do at Sunday.

Retail vs. Direct-to-Consumer

Coulter thought he could bring in his current retail knowledge and connections. But instead of the “Hey, buy this and good luck using it…” approach that typically happens in retail, they needed an educational direct-to-consumer online approach.

They learned very quickly that 99% of people don't know much about lawn care. Offering their product online allows them to educate their subscriber base.

Direct-to-consumer also gives them the value of continuous data. The clarity from the data allows them to adjust and change much faster than retail.

Educating Subscribers for Growth

Sunday’s solution is a mix between do-it-yourself and hiring a company to get it done for you.

It’s a new approach in the industry, and that’s what makes the educational element so important. 

They try to educate potential subscribers by simplifying their value proposition with three main pillars: custom-tailored solution, easy to use, and safe for everyone including your kids and pets.

They've mainly acquired subscribers through paid search on Facebook and Instagram. They also use paid search on Google and direct mail.

Coulter says their continuous challenge is getting their message across without overwhelming potential subscribers.

Custom and Flexible Tech Stack

Because of the unique and custom-tailored solution Sunday offers, they don't use many of the traditional software solutions. Their entire platform is built from scratch. 

Coulter does mention that they now integrate with Looker and a few other external services. But because their subscriptions are based on things that can change, like weather, they had to build a very flexible platform.

He also mentions that tools that drive the right insights are important, but also it's important that the team has a data-oriented mindset. Sunday helps achieve this with weekly meetings where they're reviewing data and measuring KPIs.

To hear more from Coulter, tune into this episode of the Subscriptions: Scaled podcast.

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