Episode 67: 25 Years in the Subscriptions Industry with Paul Chambers, CEO & Co-Founder at SUBTA

Apr 18

In the latest episode of Subscriptions Scaled, we speak with Paul Chambers, CEO & Co-Founder of SUBTA.

Paul has worked in the subscriptions industry for 25 years. In the episode, we learn everything from Paul’s learning curves and lessons over the years and how he overcame them to how to retain subscription customers.

Keep reading to learn more about the episode.

SUBTA

SUBTA is the world’s largest DTC subscription community. It is a growing community of innovators, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and dedicated teams aiming to scale their businesses. Its mission is to help subscription companies thrive.

Paul Chambers

As mentioned, Paul has been working in subscriptions for 25 years. However, he hasn’t always worked in DTC. Paul’s first business venture was a website hosting company, so he’s always had a recurring revenue model in mind.

Over time, Paul has built a variety of different businesses. Around seven years ago, he started a company called Gentleman’s Box. It was a subscription box to turn any man into ‘a true gentleman.’ At this point, Paul was still learning about working in subscriptions.

In 2016, Paul launched SubSummit for subscription box owners to meet one another. Since then, Paul quit Gentleman’s Box to focus on his other ventures.

Learning curves and lessons

Over the years, Paul has had many learning curves and lessons regarding subscriptions. The subscription space is changing quickly and inflation significantly impacts the industry. Subscription brands often need to think about how they can cut costs and provide more value.

Shipping and fulfillment continue to be another challenge in subscriptions. At SUBTA, they’re looking at overseas suppliers and pulling on products. They’re discussing topics such as what happens when subscriptions get stuck during transit.

Having these types of conversations in the early days helped Paul and his team learn. They continue to bring a variety of topics to SUBTA conferences to make sure people are discussing them.

Retention

One of the critical components often overlooked in the subscription space is retention—making sure there is a focus on bringing the customers.

The theme of SUBTA’s conference this year is shift and discover; they want to encourage subscription companies to shift their perspectives—the way they look at things and think about their business.

This can help subscription brands discover what’s possible, what’s next for them, and discover new ways to keep subscribers engaged.

Paul and his team don’t believe in tricking people into renewing every month. Paul thinks this is the wrong approach for a subscription business.

Subscription companies shouldn’t focus on how to get another dollar out of their customers. That doesn’t help the brand build a long-term relationship with someone.

At SUBTA, the team wants to promote building solid relationships that stand the test of time. Even if people cancel their subscription, it doesn’t mean it will be forever.

Maybe they’ll take a break and come back one day. This happens with streaming when there are so many different offerings such as Paramount Plus, HBO, Disney Plus, and Netflix. Someone might take a break from Netflix to use another channel for a while when there’s something in particular they want to see and vice versa.

Keeping customers happy

When it comes to keeping customers happy in subscriptions, it mostly boils down to communication. If you can be proactive, have good communication, and let people know what’s going on, you can solve a lot of headaches.

People will still get angry and upset when something goes wrong but if you let them know what’s going on and are as transparent as possible, you will win. You’re at least keeping a more significant percentage of your customers.

New verticals

One subscription Paul was excited to see was Taco Bell’s tacos subscription. After all, you can never have enough tacos.

We’re starting to see more and more companies embrace subscriptions to bring in customers and reward current ones for being part of the community.

Panera Bread rolled out a pre-pandemic coffee subscription and carried it through Covid. For Paul, that subscription worked well. Paul often bought sandwiches at Panera Bread, so ended up utilizing the coffee subscription. Panera Bread would make most of its money on the food items it was selling that way.

There are also fun subscriptions like Who Gives a Crap and Bippy that do toilet paper subscriptions, essentials that everyone needs.

Another excellent subscription service Paul references is Vinyl Me, Please. It offers vinyl to borrow every month. You can also buy some vinyl as a member of its program with an exclusive member price.

This system allows exclusivity as a member and, as a subscriber, you save every month. You also discover new music, which is a great way to build customer relationships.

The Dollar Shave Club also launched an alternative subscription model. However, while the subscription was affordable, subscribers were receiving too many razors that they couldn’t use in time. The company flipped the model so that customers could push a button in the app to let it know when they were running low and were ready to receive more razors, instead of receiving them every week or two.

The app also started to learn people’s habits. For example, if someone pushed the button two weeks ago, it would ask if they’re ready for the next delivery. A lot more companies are starting to look at subscriptions like these, especially now that software has evolved.

Now tech is so advanced that AI analytics can put these features to use, and that’s what we can expect for subscriptions in the future.

Untapped verticals

There are also verticals Paul believes could benefit from a subscription model. Paul thinks that almost any company can benefit from a subscription model.

When Paul first started working in subscriptions, Birchbox was the leader. Now it’s not where it once was and isn’t the industry leader as it’s still sorting through some changes in its business model.

An untapped vertical example Paul gives is a lawnmower subscription service. Many people in suburbia own lawnmowers and use them every week or so.

But there could be one central lawnmower in the neighborhood that everyone subscribes to and uses. Then subscribers could use it when they needed to, whether that’s once a week or once a fortnight.

After 25 years of experience in the industry and countless learning experiences and curves, it’s clear that Paul has plenty of excellent advice and insights for those interested in exploring the subscription model.