Episode 24: From Hacker to Customer-Focused CTO with Joel Van Horn of PetPlate

In this episode of the Subscriptions: Scaled podcast, Nick Fredrick, President of Rebar Technology Solutions, is joined by Joel Van Horn, CTO of PetPlate.

What is PetPlate?

PetPlate is a human-grade dog food company. They ship personalized and pre-portioned meals in resealable containers directly to subscribers. They do this after first asking a few questions about their dog and using a proprietary algorithm to figure out the right meal plan and serving size for them. 

Joel has been an entrepreneur most of his career. Starting in graphic design and programming led him to product management. Then he switched careers to information security, where he became a white hat hacker. But he found that he didn't enjoy breaking things, and he wanted to start building things again. So he got into e-commerce consulting.  

He began consulting with PetPlate about four years ago and joined the team as CTO full-time last year.

Custom vs. Off-The-Shelf Software Solutions

With a technology and product management background, Joel looks at software from the user experience side. Focusing on direct to consumer showed him the opportunity brands have to build a personal relationship with customers. 

Working with early-stage startups led him to focus on building core products on cost and resource-effective technology. That led to leveraging integrations with off-the-shelf software solutions. However, he describes the experience of working with off-the-shelf software as "extremely painful."

When a company grows fast, Joel has found that a custom solution is a better way to go. 

He decides on custom vs. off-the-shelf solutions by looking at it from two different angles. He looks at the marketing perspective and the retention perspective. 

He wants to think about the customer's experience using the product and platform. 

Using off-the-shelf solutions constrains you to what that solution can do. And as you learn more about your customer and gather behavioral data, you may realize you need to change how you're communicating with them and the product offerings you give them. 

The flexibility that some customers want requires custom solutions like when, for example, they go on vacation and want to pause a subscription. Varying billing and fulfillment solutions can cause challenges when using off-the-shelf solutions. PetPlate, especially for their frozen food offers, must use a custom solution to coordinate their subscription billing and fulfillment.

Should Anything Be Off-The-Shelf?

Joel believes you can outsource marketing solutions pretty early, then data aggregation once you have the budget for it. Anything outside of the core product with an integration to feed into your core product is okay off-the-shelf. 

Anything proprietary and specific to how your business works is much harder to outsource. Particularly as you scale, you have to think about margins and operating costs on a granular level. That also makes it harder to use off-the-shelf solutions. 

Fulfilling a Unique Subscription Product

PetPlate ships frozen food on a subscription basis, meaning they can't use solutions like Amazon fulfillment.

They've focused on the logistics of getting the food to their customers faster. They rolled out a strategy last year that completely revamped their approach and took their delivery time down from two to three days to one to two days. 

Connecting the sales side to the fulfillment side is a part of the custom solution they had to build. Their goal is to improve the flexibility they provide subscribers constantly. They also always try to create options that help subscribers stay subscribed.

Staying Flexible and Efficient

Joel admits it can be a challenge balancing being flexible enough to keep customers satisfied while remaining efficient with offers and service. 

One way they've done it in shipping is going from offering one to two days a week for shipping to now offering four and even five days a week. This way, subscribers don't have to wait long to start or refill subscriptions. They've also tried to make their products available as geographically far-reaching as possible.

Their customer service team plays a huge role in that balance, too. They're hands-on implementing the changes and, of course, keeping subscribers happy. 

Evolving Your Subscription

In the beginning, PetPlate was very prescriptive. They expected subscribers to buy based on their recommendations for servings and schedules. But they made changes based on data and learning about their subscribers through observation.

One of the earlier improvements they made was giving subscribers control over their subscription calendar with scheduling flexibility. 

Then they introduced a "topper plan" versus their traditional plan to allow subscribers to buy what they want. They can use this topper plan how they want without being restricted to PetPlate's recommendation. 

Now they're also focusing on ways to provide new products at lower price points, as well as non-subscription options.

Just-In-Time Subscriptions

The opportunity many businesses have is to focus on replenishment schedules. They may not be obvious to the customer, but they can be apparent to your marketing team. 

Some products have a natural replenishment schedule, but customers don't see them as subscription products. Joel thinks of these as an opportunity for just-in-time subscriptions. It's about communicating to your customer when they're probably about to run out of the product and are ready to buy again. 

It allows them not to have to commit to a subscription, but creates a subscription through communication. Not being committed creates a better user experience for some customers, but the communication keeps them buying from you and helps you look thoughtful. 

Subscriber Payments

PetPlate recently rolled out digital wallet payment options and has seen an uptick based on that. PayPal is the next option they're looking at adding. 

They take a hands-on approach to dealing with failed payments. They've found that the most effective way to recoup failed payments is through manual customer service outreach. The goal is not just to collect revenue, but to keep a subscriber. 

Expanding Internationally 

Joel didn't say PetPlate is expanding internationally anytime soon, but he did touch on his thoughts of international expansion. He mentioned how a subscription business has to rethink everything from payments to products to platform. 

Joel says that brings you to a pivotal point, and you must thoroughly evaluate how you want to re-platform. He says it can be an "interesting, daunting, or exciting exploration." 

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

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