If you are wondering how, I am excited to bring on John Roman who has a successful subscription box business, and he will share what he has learned in building a community of raving fan customers.
Transcript from video:
0:00 all right if there's two things most sellers want to get if they're selling on Amazon and that is sales off of
0:06 Amazon and recurring revenue and so if that sounds of interest to you you're in the right place because my guests today
0:13 has both of those figured out so that's why I'm super excited to bring on the
0:19 CEO of Battlbox John Roman so John thanks for coming on maximizing e-commerce thanks thanks for having me
0:24 Kevin yes yes so I'm excited to get into this because it's one of those things that I've thought about over the years is
0:31 subscriptions and so you have a pretty elaborate subscription company that you
0:37 run um if I'm catching this right yeah yeah so we have um where the battle box group
0:44 battle boxes is our Flagship um subscription but we have battle box we have uh which is outdoor uh camping
0:52 survival you know could be a tent could be a knife or a fire starter
0:58 um and then we also have carnivore club which is monthly charcuterie so
1:03 artisanal Meats cured to think like a salami or prosciutto um and then we also have Wanlow which is
1:11 a children's experience subscription so the goal being to get kids kind of off
1:16 the screens a little bit I'm not gonna be able to get kids fully off screens these days but if we can you know get
1:22 them outside a little bit like maybe when we were kids kids I think a lot of
1:27 parents connect with that so those are our main main three and yeah they're all subscription Centric subscription first
1:35 got it got it so just for the sake of definitions what the very simple question what is a
1:42 subscription so a subscription is is is a reoccurring
1:47 um recurring billing so in in our you know you'll see different versions of it Amazon you know made the Subscribe and
1:55 save famous um and they really led the pack there where you know you're ordering this replenishable product and agree to a
2:04 frequency of every 30 days or every six weeks what have you and there's typically a discount associated with it
2:11 um we're and then there's other subscriptions right there's subscriptions that we've had forever remember when
2:17 um decades ago when I used to fill out the uh Columbia House mailer side yes my
2:24 12 free CDs yes CDs for a dollar right or VHS thirty dollars for a CD every
2:30 month after that yeah but then the subscription renews and it's like 89 you only get two now all right so we've had
2:37 subscriptions forever so there's there's that type there's membership which you know you're receiving some kind of
2:43 service there's obviously streaming subscriptions that we all use every day um and then us which is uh it's a little
2:49 bit non-traditional which is simply um this it's a surprise it's mystery
2:56 um you don't know what you're getting with with any of our Brands um we treat it almost in that
3:02 um Supreme model where you know everybody finds out at the same time this is the drop we you know are very
3:09 strategic we're our main facility is in Atlanta Georgia so we start shipping
3:15 West Coast and then we go across that way everybody gets it delivered around the same couple of days okay um but it's
3:22 a complete mystery so people are trusting us to hopefully send them something good since
3:28 they're giving us a lot of money for it okay got it got it so and this is one of those things where like unlike subscribe
3:34 and Save which is generally like if you have a coffee you like or they just send it to you every month or Whatever frequency it's the same product over and
3:42 over again this is you're sending them something different that they won't know about until they
3:47 get yeah so it's always it's always different uh battle box we launched it
3:53 in 2015 and um you know at this point we're we're getting close to we're in the in the mid
3:59 90s now of different boxes we call our boxes with Battlbox missions
4:05 um so we're getting close to Mission 100. we'll hit it oh well it'll you know early middle part of next year and uh we
4:11 don't repeat repeat items um which brings a whole nother
4:17 um you know uh procurement is definitely a multi-person multi-team
4:24 um job which you know subscribe and say you don't have to worry about that as much that's I would think honestly if
4:30 you can if you have a replenishable product um subscribe and save is a much easier
4:37 um barrier and arguably might have better conversion rate might have more
4:42 success okay we're always think we're thinking now of like how we can get more
4:47 in replenishable or more same item um just because it makes not for our core offering but for additional
4:54 offerings got it all right well let's go back in time before we start diving deeper into all these uh strategies and
5:02 uh philosophies with it um but let's go back to 2015. that was about the time I got started in
5:07 e-commerce okay I decided to go all in on figuring out Amazon you went all in the description model
5:14 what made you decide to go this route um so so the idea the concept of it is
5:20 is interesting so 2015 is was when I first dipped my toes in e-commerce
5:26 um for the previous decade I was um managing and starting and Building
5:31 Sales teams in the B2B space um so telecommunications and software as
5:36 a service and I was investing in companies that
5:42 that were um in hitting my desk so to speak just through my network and
5:48 um my uh business partner not no longer but but was my business partner for for
5:54 six years um uh Daniel he came up with this idea his wife was getting a Birchbox in the
6:03 in the mail which is a female subscription box makeup uh eyeliner kind of like beauty
6:09 products um they actually are I think following bankruptcy this month
6:15 um which is which is crazy because they they had a over a billion dollar valuation at one point
6:21 um but she saw her getting this this box and he saw this excitement level and uh
6:29 he was like man I want a box for myself I want to I want to when I'm seeing her experience I want to experience too went
6:35 online he's a Outdoorsman and he couldn't find anything and then um
6:41 said okay well if I can't find it I I want to create it um I got involved uh two weeks after
6:48 launch and then my whole my plan from the beginning was just investment and
6:54 limited capacity um in the business just kind of some some advisement a couple hours a week nothing uh too insane but then you know
7:03 we did four and a half million our first year um so
7:09 2016 year two in the beginning we had a run rate of eight figures and I said
7:15 okay yeah I have a mortgage I have all these things responsibility I'm gonna tell my
7:22 wife that I'm gonna take this this career that I'm building and jumping into Ecom something I only know a year
7:27 about and we did it was scary but you got it so so
7:33 you decided to make the poll or the the plunge um you weren't necessarily the original
7:39 starter of it but you were the one basically helping ramp it up yeah so there were there were um four of
7:46 us that were the the technical co-founders um and um when I came in in 2016
7:55 um my first task was getting um buying out one of the fourth Partners so it became three and the uh three of
8:02 us Daniel Patrick and myself we we ran the business up until
8:08 um a little over a year ago when Daniel stepped down got it so basically you
8:14 you started off in an advisory role then you said I'm going to go all in on this bought out another one of the
8:20 co-founders and then even scaling it since so okay help me understand since I
8:28 I probably am going to ask a lot more basic questions than someone else in the subscription I'm curious about this
8:35 um and I know a lot of people my audience will be curious about this too because you know on Amazon
8:42 you hope that someone comes back and buys your product because you know they just go to their manage orders and like
8:47 I'll just buy that again or maybe they do subscribe and say if your product lends itself to that but
8:53 how do you how do you Market this just to even get
8:58 started so like how do you acquire a customer sure um so it was a great question so on the
9:06 funny thing we can get into this later on on Amazon we actually sell one-time products but we also sell our
9:11 subscription um on on their on there as well um back to your question everywhere so
9:18 our our channels are um everything you know there's a there's
9:24 a heavy heavy focus on social so for us um meta Facebook Instagram uh Google
9:31 Google search is is huge um YouTube is very large Tick Tock is is our largest
9:37 channel which you know a year ago it wasn't but we've had to kind of shift the focus on this this this content
9:44 piece um but then everything from podcasts um to a connected TV to like you know
9:52 ads on Hulu everything we've we've tried we've tried traditional television as
9:57 well that's really tough to track oh I can imagine but it's it's everything so
10:04 and even on the Amazon side we're running Amazon ads on both our subscription product and our and our
10:11 one-time products okay now I'm curious like on Amazon how
10:17 do you sell the subscription like sure so buying the subscript is making
10:23 it subscribe and save to get this no so so we were in so we've been
10:29 in it for a few years now um we were part of the beta with them so it's it's called um Amazon subscribe and
10:38 it's um it's a subscription box offering that Amazon has Amazon has about
10:44 um I think maybe 300 or so um subscription boxes like like us
10:50 um in the program and um it functions exactly like it's not it
10:55 expectations are clear it's a different box each month we have the same offering all four tiers so our our pricing we
11:03 have four different options um but it doesn't function as a subscribe and save it functions as a
11:08 subscription to a service got it so
11:13 are you fulfilling this or are you sending it to a fulfillment center in Navy yeah so so for traditional uh
11:21 one-time sales you know we we do FBA that's that's what we want to do
11:26 um the subscription box piece is that is fbm um okay no choice in the matter uh
11:33 we would much much rather do FBA I think the initial plan when when we were launching the beta was that you know a
11:40 year from now we hope to figure it out um to get into FBA but it's fbm so we
11:45 get we get an export out of there and have to have to fulfill it each month okay got it got it so
11:53 um so I didn't even know Amazon had that program so that that's interesting is
11:58 that something that's even available to people nowadays or is that uh is that program closed
12:05 um I think it I believe it's actually still still available um we we typically have quarterly calls
12:12 with them about the program but it's definitely lost some momentum um it had some more momentum um in in
12:19 previous years I'm not sure if maybe um some of the the jobs I I would
12:26 imagine that might be an area that you know might not fare well as well as others I think anything that isn't
12:33 proven and isn't isn't like a big needle mover like Alexa technology right is one
12:38 of the places that's super affected by the layoffs um so I'm not sure we probably need to touch base with him because we haven't
12:44 chatted with him since um the layoffs oh gotcha so maybe your rep's not there anymore yeah I'm
12:51 confident that some of them are going to be there because it's a pretty talented team no I I would imagine and I would
12:57 imagine Amazon probably will not scrap it totally because if they have 300
13:02 companies working there that's probably nowhere near you know some of their other programs but that's probably
13:08 generating a decent amount of revenue for them yeah it's funny it's when we got put in the program it was one of
13:14 those things that um when you go just to amazon.com and you go all the way to the bottom of their footer Amazon has the
13:21 most insane footer you'll ever see they have all their programs that are active there and it's it's insane there's all
13:28 kinds of programs that you're like what is Box Office Mojo um and it that's just the first I'm
13:35 looking at it right now yeah it's crazy all the things that they have um
13:41 but yeah so I don't think it's going anywhere because there are so many merchants in it okay got it so so it's
13:46 semi-successful but they might not be putting a lot of effort behind uh scaling it for now yeah so I just looked
13:54 it's if you go to amazon.com and you go to the footer we're actually bottom right it says Amazon subscription boxes
14:01 okay so Amazon subscription boxes and you're part of that program now just to help kind of paint the picture what
14:08 percentage of your sales are Amazon versus non-amazon for subscription boxes
14:14 so um for for subscription boxes and four one time it's both about the same
14:20 it's it's uh about a half a percent which oh got half a percent of your
14:26 total sales yeah most of your sales are not through this Amazon program hence
14:31 why you're not on the phone all the time with your Amazon right yeah yeah
14:37 so you know the vast majority of so the vast majority of our business is the
14:42 subscription we're about 90 of our revenue is subscription Revenue 10 is is Marketplace one time but um when you
14:50 when you look at different um sales channels the our website the direct to Consumer
14:56 um through us through a Shopify site that is that is the core Core Business
15:01 now is to me that means there's major opportunity for us on on the Amazon side
15:09 um you know you know Amazon better than I do um when you have a product that has a nice sales velocity and you're moving
15:15 through it the one thing you cannot do is run out of it um and the way we're ordering for the
15:24 subscription box we're ordering maybe a couple thousand extra of a skew we think is going to do well but this is a
15:30 manufactured run so by the time we're able to spot that it has nice sales velocity and get more and and get a
15:37 manufacturer and get it over to us at the price point we need it's it's been sold out momentum lost so
15:44 we part of our Focus next year is probably doing a better job on that and trying to see how we can grow the Amazon
15:49 business yeah that's a uh that that's the pain point of a lot of people myself
15:54 included is you run out of stock and sometimes getting back to where you were is hard if not possible yeah
16:02 um so yeah I totally understand that pain point now one question is how how would if someone
16:09 came to you and said hey this sounds interesting how would you recommend to them or what would you recommend they do to figure out like okay what Niche do
16:17 you even go after like do they take their existing private label product and try to incorporate it or
16:23 yeah I think just start from scratch on this yeah I think I think the path path
16:29 of least resistance is to test a subscription element of your of your current business right for a lot of
16:36 businesses a lot of Brands it's probably a lot easier than others um but if you have any sort of way to
16:43 create a subscription um in some sort of cadence of of you
16:49 know reoccurring billing I I think you try to take your existing brand and you do some testing and you try to see if
16:55 you can find something there um I think you can probably lean on some of your data of you know repeat
17:01 customers like how how often are they ordering um yeah I know with Amazon specifically
17:07 it's it's a little bit of a challenge sometimes because of you know Amazon maintaining the customer data but
17:14 um yeah if you can get any any sort of indicators of how often people are ordering your products overall I think
17:21 they can probably help create it like an infrastructure to know okay well we have you know our perfect customers ordering
17:27 something from us every 60 days or every 90 days maybe we're setting we need to set up a quarterly or a bi-monthly
17:34 um subscription and offer some sort of cost savings to to in entice it
17:41 so if you have a product that lends itself to a recurring purchase like if you have a
17:48 can opener or a three press hole punch like I'm looking at my desk most likely people are not going to buy this over
17:56 and over again right but if you have something that does lend itself like a
18:01 supplements or something that's consumable yeah well I mean you're you're looking at the hole puncher and
18:07 um I the other thing I think you said was an office supply too right so the first first thing I'm thinking of is
18:13 okay so that's what you're selling then let's look at let's look at what the replenishable subscriptions are right
18:18 paper clips um okay pens um you know maybe maybe you start
18:24 thinking while it's so it's still on brand still part of your typical Blue House of what you would be expected to
18:30 sell and if you can find the reoccurring piece got it would you recommend folks go the
18:36 route of they know what they're getting every recurrence or it's easy this is what you
18:43 get it's easier so it's easier to to not do the surprise piece
18:50 um the surprise piece is definitely has a lot more
18:55 um challenges and and Logistics you have to figure out but at the same level and it doesn't
19:02 convert at the same rate that a replenishable non-surprise does um but the the reason we do it is we're
19:10 able to um and we also kind of lean very heavily on content and community building and
19:15 really focusing on the brand um but because of that we we get these
19:21 battlboxers that are absolute you know ambassadors of the brand they they love
19:27 it just as much as we do so you get this you get some passion um in community building with it which
19:34 which ultimately lead to a higher LTV um and and less churn lifetime value
19:39 okay correct sorry no no that's fine and so for those who aren't familiar can you describe what churn means
19:46 sure so so part of of the issue of subscriptions is that yes you get the
19:52 subscriber and that's awesome but you're gonna churn churn a percentage every every month of of your you know
20:00 scheduled active subscribers that typically would be Billing at Whatever frequency you had them agree to they
20:06 agreed to and you know for the Subscribe subscription box mystery piece a little
20:13 niche of of of e-commerce you're typically looking at a 16 to 18 monthly
20:19 churn so you do some quick math on that you are turning through customers
20:25 um we're a little bit fortunate we're we're a little bit closer to ten percent okay um which which is good which is
20:31 which is great um you start getting on more of the
20:36 non-mystery piece where it's a replenishable or something of that nature and it's you know where we're at
20:43 right now while it's a home run for mystery it's probably be expected for a replenishable churn rate
20:50 um so go ahead no no so just quick math so if
20:55 it's let's say 16 18 you're looking at the average customer sticks around for
21:01 five six months and a ten percent churn rate the average customer is sticking around for about 10 months yeah right so
21:08 monthly yeah it's times so no it's a it's not as a little straightforward is
21:15 that because they're people with different different parts of their life cycle sure um so like for us example so
21:22 our average customer um sticks around seven months on average okay um but we have a very large
21:30 um spike in the in the between the fourth and the fifth box the fourth and the fifth renewal where we see a a
21:37 larger than than normal increase just in general for the life cycle when you say
21:43 increase in like they're more likely to stick around if they've been around for four months a week four months we see we
21:50 see larger fell uh fall okay after that fourth box now our average seven but
21:55 with that larger fourth box fall after a fourth box fall out well what we see is
22:01 you know no matter where you fall out it's being calculated in that months that month's sure that the current churn
22:07 um so that 12 or 18 we're losing it might be you know 20 of that group might
22:14 be this month and 10 might have been 12 months in so it's up you have to where
22:20 we go by cohort data to to have a better understanding it and another thing it's
22:26 super complicated you're having a look at data in all these different ways to
22:31 um you know our biggest Med one of the our North Star metrics is lifetime value
22:37 um which is yeah I mentioned earlier how much revenue is this customer going to generate on average
22:43 um because of that we can have you know we know what our cogs are on average and we
22:49 know what our our margin should be so then we know okay if we can get X
22:56 um you know if we can get a customer for X we know that's super profitable
23:02 um so we're oftentimes scaling and advertising acquiring customers what
23:07 could be a loss in the first month but we know that month two they're going to be profitable so it's just a different
23:14 way to for us to look at it we're not always um as focused on like return on ad spend
23:21 so to speak because we have such forecastable and expected Revenue data
23:28 when someone comes in got it so it's probably more of the cost to acquire the
23:33 customer than it is like row as or we would oftentimes think of a cost just
23:38 the inverse but right okay got it so um how how do you bring them in so to
23:45 speak at an ad are you doing one of these like free plus shipping are you selling them a one-off product and then
23:51 in the back end you're trying to sell them into this were you going straight for the here's the subscription
23:56 um all all of the above we typically yeah we typically in ads um lead with
24:02 subscription um 2022 has been has been a challenging year just in general I think for
24:08 everybody um in e-commerce overall we've had to get a little bit more aggressive with
24:14 offers um initially off the Jump typically we would run ads that were just informational about the subscription get
24:21 them into our funnel and you know as they move through the final one engage with ads we might offer a discount
24:27 um off their first box um but now we're offering free a free tent with your subscription
24:35 or something something aggressive to to onboard them um but it's it's typical ads we we also
24:44 really focus on a lot of content that is not there's there's no hidden agenda it's not
24:50 um trying to get them to subscribe it's just making them aware of our brand
24:56 um we'll do tick tocks that we know we're not dancing in our tick tocks we're we're discussing our products and
25:04 gear and what we do um but it's just to get them in the ecosystem and understand us and you know
25:11 some of those those those audience members will actually see oh there could be some value in the subscription
25:18 um so something I didn't hit on that I probably should have um while it's a mystery at the end of
25:25 the day the the value that you're gonna get in those items if you Source them independently is much
25:31 greater than what you would have spent so so our 170 a month box which is it's
25:37 our most popular um about 45 of our base is actually in that that box we charge shipping for it
25:45 um because these are bigger than you know this isn't uh first class under a pound male it could be a 67 pound box
25:51 okay um and and with that you know if they they pay call it 200
25:57 after sales after tax shipping everything you're probably going to get maybe 350 dollars worth of stuff if you
26:04 try to Source it on your own so even though it's a mystery you might not like one of the seven products in the box but
26:12 you're probably still gonna come out ahead for the products you do like and then you can gift that or I mean I guess
26:18 technically you could sell yourself um on eBay or we have a bunch of buy sell trade groups
26:23 so there's definitely valued there even though it is Mystery got it got it now are you
26:29 sourcing from the same companies over and over again are you constantly looking for new suppliers
26:36 I wish we were because that would be a lot easier um and would allow us to you know build
26:42 relationships better with these manufacturers so to yes and no we really our customers don't want to see the same
26:49 they don't want to see the same product they don't want to see the same brand too often so the most typically in a
26:55 we'll occasionally maybe maybe showcase a brand three times in a year
27:01 um but those products are all vastly different so that that's like best case scenario for repetitiveness of a brand
27:09 but only in a perfect scenario where there are skus and and options are so
27:14 diverse that we can do that typically it's a it's a one and done for a lot of Brands which makes it difficult for us
27:20 because we're constantly having to Source new um instead of instead of building those
27:25 relationships got it got it but you're basically going
27:31 to this uh suppliers the manufacturers the wholesalers whoever and saying hey we're gonna buy
27:37 x amount how far out are you having to Source this because you know every month
27:43 you have something so yeah it's this is and so this is a nightmare uh so we're
27:50 having no we're having to um on the conservative side we can sometimes get away with maybe 180 days
27:56 okay um lead time um but typically we're we're getting
28:02 we're we're north of that we're greater than that um which is a challenge because
28:09 um forecasting that far out is is difficult um and it's typically one of those
28:14 things you give them the purchase order this company it's some it's definitely a manufactured run
28:20 um so if we're wrong in the forecast and need to bring it back some that's typically not a fun conversation or one
28:27 that's even on the table and the same for Hayward we under shot it we need more they don't have the allocation you
28:34 know they're dealing with the manufacturer themselves typically it's not them directly
28:40 um so it's it's a it's a challenge and causes a huge cash flow issue as well
28:45 constantly because for having to pay uh for this product when we're ourselves not going to be
28:52 even billing for it in in three four months sometimes got it just
28:57 mechanically when do you Bill for it versus when the customer receives it sure so we we always
29:04 um so when you when you sign up we charge you immediately we ship you your first box right away
29:10 um after that you fall into uh our traditional Cadence which is on the 15th your build okay and then we're shipping
29:18 it to you the beginning of the following month we ship everybody everybody their box
29:24 um the beginning of the following month got it so you you charge their card on the 15th and then the around the first
29:30 it goes out correct okay got it got it got it okay so this is interesting
29:36 because I could see your conundrum there of you have to really
29:42 hope your turn is consistent or your Acquisitions are consistent too
29:47 on both sides of that equation right so kind of thread that needle of having the right amount of product because you've promised everybody and I'm assuming
29:54 everyone gets the same product that you ever have to say okay these 400 people
29:59 are getting something different so in in seven years we haven't there's always the fear there's there's always
30:05 the fear um typically we try to we try to be a little conservative inside with caution so if we think the number is X
30:12 we'll typically build a little bit extra in because we have Avenues and ways to move it
30:17 um one you know the products I'll look hard on our on our site at greater margins um and and then there's
30:24 we we ship to Canada and Canada because of the time it takes to get the product to up to Toronto out of our we have an
30:33 office of Charter out of Toronto shipped locally it it's quite a processor they're behind a month too which gives
30:39 us another ability to move additional um we have uh uh in cart upsell to move
30:46 inventory so we have ways to move the excess inventory um so we definitely always side with
30:52 caution but this month for example we were cutting it very very close
30:57 got it got it so you're if you go over you do have ways of
31:04 moving that it's more you can't go under you can't go under because you've
31:09 promised everyone um because and if you have this community I'm sure they're probably
31:14 comparing with each other hey this is what I got especially if you're having to yeah I'm the East Coast versus West
31:20 Coast right and it's coming with with a with a booklet that's you know typically a six seven page booklet full color
31:27 really nice quality showcasing all the items what they are how to use um use
31:32 case um specs if you will so there's no room
31:38 room for air um hey it says this because you gave me some yeah and we're and we're we're
31:44 having to print that that book and create that book obviously before
31:49 we're even right because that's not into the box so there's a delay there because you have
31:55 to create the content then have it printed do you print that in-house or do you have a a third party news so we have
32:03 a we have a third party we have um we have we have two different vendors for we have a rather large vendor
32:10 um and with them it takes a little bit more time better pricing um but the lead time is there then we
32:17 have a local vendor that we have a relationship where we don't use them often but when we do it's it's known hey
32:24 something changed we need you know we need 10 000 of these can we pick them up
32:29 later today oh gotcha gotcha and luckily we have both now but because of that
32:35 they're substantially without the same day they're still substantially more
32:40 sure but we have two different vendors depending on if everything is going to plan or are we because because to your
32:46 point we might a product was supposed to be here typically four weeks before we need to
32:53 ship it okay but then things happen and we'll have to call audibles and we'll say okay well we have we have this
32:59 product is very similar on the shelf for a future month and we don't think this product's going to get in time so let's
33:05 pull this one in we'll push that one out um change all the creatives and let's go
33:11 and and we'll have to print more um yeah it's not fun definitely a
33:17 replenishable non-mystery subscribe and save is definitely the
33:22 path of least resistance and and so much so that like we we're not changing our core business but we were really focused
33:28 next year on trying to find some subscribe and save uh model for our space both on our site and and Amazon
33:35 got it so the the way to go about this really if I'm understanding this is
33:42 there's a lot of complexity in a mystery box especially if it has a community and
33:48 content that's going with it so the path of least resistance if someone's listening to this thing I'd like to kind
33:54 of go down this path uh it sounds interesting because it is nice I'm sure knowing this is we can forecast what our
34:00 sales are going to be um and have some level of accuracy compared
34:06 to if you just have a Shopify store and you're hoping for SEO traffic yeah that
34:12 that that's there's two two reasons it's so attractive and that that's one and
34:17 then um just the consistency and and ability to forecast
34:22 um and be right um the flip side is if you ever have a negative strategy re a reoccurring
34:28 Revenue model is is always going to yield um a better valuation got it got it okay so it also could help
34:36 you with multiples and valuations down the road if somebody precisely exiting
34:42 okay um any other kind of closing advice to somebody thinking about getting into this other than maybe mystery is uh
34:50 would be Varsity start on JV yeah yeah I would I I think that's that's probably
34:57 spot on the on on comparing it yet start with it start on JV start with the rep with a subscribe and say model and if
35:04 you see success with it I think that means that okay let's look at mystery let's look at bigger bigger
35:10 picture um other advice is it's we have subscriptions all all in
35:17 our life right we've we've used subscriptions for for all kind for
35:22 everything I I think um it's it's such an opportunity if you if you're if you
35:28 don't have one um there's just no downside to trying to take a shot and figure it and figuring
35:34 it out because reoccurring Revenue makes your life so much easier yeah and even
35:39 if you started it out and you had 20 well you're gonna figure it out it all goes back to the man in the arena is the
35:46 one you know who figures it out as opposed to or woman in the arena um he's going to figure it out more than
35:51 the person who's you know dreaming and hoping about it and so yeah like
35:57 anything in business there's uh there's a bias towards action so if you
36:03 have the bias towards action you're more likely to succeed so this is this is interesting so if somebody wanted to follow you or learn more where would
36:09 they go John um so I'm not good at Twitter but I am on LinkedIn I uh I I try to post
36:17 um a couple times a month with typically just what we're kind of going through
36:23 um what we're focused on uh the mistakes we're making with stuff and and our learnings from it to try to save others
36:29 from making the many mistakes that we have made along the journey um and then I also have a Blog called
36:36 onlinecaso.com which is again I'm just kind of documenting
36:42 um things we're doing so like one of our big initiatives um over the past year has been uh
36:48 turning our customer service department into a profit Center uh which is kind of a very unusual thing to hear
36:56 um since you know CS departments typically are just spend the money right and uh so like I document how we're
37:03 doing that how we looked at the problem how we solved for it what worked what didn't work okay so it's a kind of it's
37:09 a lot of a lot of content like that okay great well I definitely recommend folks check that out so we'll have a a link uh
37:15 it'll be in the description below if you're watching on YouTube and if you're are listening to the audio version will be in the show notes both go to
37:22 onlinecaso.com as well as John Roman's LinkedIn page so I appreciate this John
37:27 this is uh has my eyes open and thinking about a few things I might potentially do with something like this and like
37:34 anything it just kind of get started no I love it Kevin thanks for having me and and yeah we can chat offline if it can
37:40 give give some some feedback and ideas awesome cool I appreciate it thanks yeah
37:46 thank you so much it was great meeting you