How BattlBox Scaled from 300 to 10,000+ Members
The "subscription box" era might be over, but the membership era is just beginning.
In this episode of The Watson Weekly, Rick Watson sits down with John Roman, CEO of BattlBox, to pull back the curtain on how they survived the collapse of the 2015 subscription craze to become a powerhouse in the outdoor and survival space.
John shares the unfiltered truth about why he prefers the term' membership' over 'subscription box,' and how shifting the focus to community and content saved their business. We dive deep into their unique content strategy, where 15% of their staff is dedicated to video production and why John believes every modern brand should function like a media company.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
* The "CrateJoy" Origins: How BattlBox validated product-market fit on a niche marketplace before moving to their current scale.
* The Inventory Nightmare: Why scaling to 10,000+ members requires production runs and forecasting six months out.
* The Content Flywheel: Why 80% of BattlBox’s highest-value customers are regular YouTube viewers.
* Hiring Your Customers: The story of how Brandon (Current 1776), a paying customer, became a full-time face of the brand.
* Data-Driven Leadership: How John’s background as a professional poker player influences his obsession with churn, LTV, and retention.
* The Future of D2C: Why John believes 70-75% of their 2026 revenue will still come from their core membership model.
Transcript from video:
Introduction of John Roman, CEO of BattlBox.
0:00 Hello and welcome. This is Rick Watson. I am here with John Roman, the CEO of Battlbox. Thanks for coming to the program.
0:07 Thanks for having me, Rick. Excited.
0:09 You have a I think a particularly unique view on a number of subjects. You produce a lot of great content and you also have the name of your company suggests something and like what almost
0:23 like the era that it was founded in because the the box business meaning the subscription box business had a had a moment like a cultural moment that was sort of like a sub moment within the DTOC
0:38 you know legend. Can you talk about your founding story? Like where did it where did Battlbox come from? And I think that's a good place to kick us off.
0:47 So yeah. So let's go back to 2015 which as you said was like this moment where subscription boxes were just the coolest thing and everyone had had two of them.
Evolution from Subscription Box to Membership
0:58 or three of them it seemed. And obviously that's changed a lot in the the last decade, right? that this little subniche is is gotten absolutely
1:08 destroyed and there's there's not a lot of survivors left and and the the big ones, the the golden child children, right?
1:16 The birch boxes of the world that are that are long gone or or or an empty shell of what they
1:21 used to be. So, so yeah. So, my my my ex- business partner, he hasn't been involved in the the business in quite some time now, 5 years. He his his his
1:34 fiance at the time was getting a Birchbox, ironically, which, you know, was this this this billion dollar. It was it was
1:43 they were the gold standard, right?
1:45 And he'd see her get it every month. And the the genuine excitement on her face, opening up, unboxing, seeing these these new, you know, beauty and health
1:54 products, and, you know, she enjoyed it. And he wanted that feeling for himself. avid outdoorsman went online was like,
2:03 "Well, every there's all these subscription boxes. Surely there's one for me." And he he couldn't find one. It was as simple as that. He said, "Well, maybe there's an opportunity here." And
2:17 yeah, the the rest is is is history, right? We we were on, you know, they're technically I I guess they are still around. They they haven't gone under.
2:26 They're probably nowhere near where where they used to be. But we launched with a not on Shopify. We launched on a very niche platform called CrateJoy that was literally
2:37 I know Crate Joy. Okay. Yeah. I mean they were Hey, without any, you know, web development.
2:43 Yeah. It's a marketplace. Yeah. you know, we launched a a website, nowhere near what ours is today, but we launched a a website through a template and we're off to the races fairly
2:55 quickly. Um, and you know, the subscription box world is you're you're selling for a month before you even have to fulfill. So, you're like you're
3:04 getting this cash in this almost even validating product market fit with with very little little risk.
3:12 And and that was it. we were, you know, his his desire for for replicating his fiance's feeling for himself. It turned out he he wasn't alone and it was
3:23 it was probably, you know, if we if we launched today, I think the barrier to entry is much different.
3:30 Much much different and, you know, it was it was it was it was timing. It was timing with with a few other variables, but 2015 was the time to do it.
3:38 Yeah. No, I I it's a fascinating story as well as the as the rest of your story in today, but I think it it definitely pinpoints a time. Funny, I actually
3:48 Crate Joy was a consulting client of mine like early on in the business maybe in the 2020 time frame. I even went to Austin to their HQ.
3:57 It was a lot of fun. And so it was it's definitely a cool business that was actually doing quite well at the time because they were they were out of YC like they had this this huge momentum.
4:09 Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting. But I didn't even know that you guys launched on crate joy before just a few minutes ago. So it's hilarious.
4:17 Yeah. Yeah. We were that was it. Talk to me about the subscription box and what is battle like battle box. Okay. So it it it had like subscription box is in your name. So what do you
4:29 think about the subscription box now? I hate the term subscription box which is just to your point. It's in our name and we can't change that, right? It's
4:37 BattlBox. At the end of the day, we're just outdoor survival storefront gear place community for people to people to come to. big emphasis on the community piece, but the
4:49 reality is our core business, it'll probably still be about 70 75% of our revenue in 2026 is the membership.
Inventory Management Challenges
5:00 That's great. Which is another word for the subscription box, but we by design call it a membership because man, the subscription box industry and the model,
5:10 it it has a couple black eyes. has been a rough couple of years for most everyone I've seen particularly in fashion where you have configuration a
5:18 size color especially fit you know those things are a disaster in normal retail never mind a subscription box business
5:28 and so those guys never had a prayer but they didn't know it but the rest of it when you say the model has some black eyes talk to me about the inventory component of it and
5:39 how you manage that so it is such a challenge because so you know let's go back February 2015 or March 2015
5:50 you know the first month I think we had I think 300 people sign up for the subscription box so
5:56 you know we had an idea we had already gotten pricing ordering 300 from these six seven different vendors or maybe we'll get lucky and one vendor is four
6:04 things it's easy right it's on the shelf we have it in a couple days we already got the money for it so it's easy to pay
6:10 very very very easy process. You know, when we when we crossed that somewhere probably in the 8,000 to 10,000 membership levels, the dynamics
6:19 completely changed because no vendor has cuz you know, this is these aren't samples. These aren't little mini atomizers of of perfume. These are actual pieces of gear. So, no one has
6:33 things heavy bulky things sometimes, right? And and no one has them sitting on a shelf at that at at that scale.
6:39 It's a production run. Whether whether they're doing a dedicated production run, whether you're piggybacking on their next production run, what we do
6:48 now a lot of times we give smaller businesses their first production run.
6:52 We we take their product to scale because you have the audience.
6:56 We have the audience and you know it's the only way to get the quantity. That's actually like a really testament I think to your your platform which is what I would call it to launch to launch brands
7:09 much way in much the same way that crate joy was for you. No, and it's it's it's a good point and it's it's one of those things some boxes are checked with just
7:18 feeling good about a situation with some of these where like it's it's a knife maker and you know he can he can pop out a 100red knives in a in a month
7:28 and it's that's pretty cool. But like now we need thousands and thousands and thousands. So like we're showing him our supply chain and allowing him to then take his
7:39 business to the next level which is which is kind of cool to showcase showcase the smaller businesses. So, so to answer your question, it's a nightmare because it's production runs
7:49 and you know the challenges of it's tough to really build too many relationships on the manufacturing brand side because we can't feature the same
8:01 brand too many times. We can't ever feature the same product. So, like as soon as we're done with one month, it's the next. But um we're having to forecast out you know
8:11 typically I would say at minimum typically 6 months and there's a lot of variables from the obvious ones like turn and retention but customer
8:22 acquisition what if meta ads stop working and we can't acquire a certain number the inventory piece can be very challenging because with certainty in
8:32 this model you have to send everyone the upcoming box the active member You can't not order enough. So you always have to side on caution which means over orderering. So it it can be very very
8:45 problematic. It's probably one of the number one deaths of the subscription boxes or just they all their cash is in sitting inventory that they don't have a
The Power of Content and Community
8:53 path for. Yeah, that's I mean inventory is always the the big challenge and I noticed you're sort of pivoting the conversation from subscription box to memberships.
9:05 Walk me through that and sort of your implication as a business owner with that term subscription and the perception of subscription on the consumer side.
9:16 Yeah. So it's multi-prong, multiaceted. There's in oversimplifying it. Subscription just has a negative connotation in general, right? people
9:25 don't like even if they're signing up for it, they they don't like the end result of the the money coming out of the the bank account or credit card or
9:32 or whatever every month. But also, you know, we saw the writing on the wall that especially, you know, there was a little bit of temporary increase during
9:44 during the pandemic where if you were selling anything online, you you saw this this uptick and then when reality came in and and the normalization
9:52 happened and everyone's numbers dropped, if you still look at a chart, but they were still higher than 2019, right? They
10:00 were still higher than before all that, but everybody got used to these these higher ones. Around that time,
10:06 you know, even prior to the growth, we started focusing we we we felt the writing was on the raw with subscription boxes long term. So that the change in
10:16 membership, but also providing additional value to our members, to our customers outside of just the box.
10:24 Yeah. which is not a unique novel concept, but you know, it's one that customers appreciate and stickiness is there.
10:31 Yeah, I think that is a good segue to our next topic where we're going to talk a little bit about content. And so, I'll
10:37 just ask kind of flat out, I mean, you have a big content production business. You know, you're huge on YouTube. Your videos generate so much like engagement,
10:47 comments, you have a lot of interesting people on the show. how what percentage of your members are really signing up
10:54 for the content, not for the box. So, we we we talk to our members a lot. So, we're we're constantly asking questions. We have some some automations
11:04 and in some some automation surveys when when customers hit certain criteria that are that are above above average LTV, above average lifetime duration. And one of the one of
11:17 the questions is is there's several, but they're pointed and they dig into the content piece to better understand.
11:23 So all of our uh so 80% of our better than average LTV or lifespan customers, 80% of them regularly watch our YouTube channel, which is pretty wild number.
11:36 Yeah. Um, and it's it's definitely it's it's tough with content and the amount of resources we put in it because it's not like a you run a Facebook ad and you
11:47 can see the results and it's black and white and it's profitable or not. It's tough to attribution wise to like
11:54 you know someone watches a YouTube video it's not like they have a pixel on their computer now you know when they when
11:59 they go to our site directly right so it is it's it's a challenge but we have enough confidence just by talking
12:06 to enough of our customers that the content piece is both a retention tool but it's also top of funnel for us and
12:14 it's it's wild for a small business our size to have two full-time creators four full-time video editors. It's a lot. I
12:22 just described I think like 15% of our staff have that much focus. And then obviously we have graphic artists and a
12:29 social media coordinator and a content coordinator and a bunch of other marketing roles that touch the content a
12:35 great deal. It's it's an it's an interesting approach to put so much value in it, but it's in in in my humble opinion, it's not a gamble.
12:44 It's it's we're confident. We know that the consumer behavior. I tal I've talked about this before. how consumer behavior
12:51 has continued changing and moving in this direction. It's this is has happened for over a decade where
12:57 when you buy you look at the need want scale and you know I could argue that you you need battle box to be prepared but
13:07 the reality is it's probably closer on the want want side. Yeah. So, when you're making those those additional purchases as a as a consumer,
13:15 you want to feel some kind of connection to the brands you're buying from, and the easiest way to accomplish that
13:23 is is content. You're hitting on so many points that I want to ask you about because I I've said for the last few
13:30 years that brands should become media companies. So, that that's kind of like one point. The other one is I'm out
13:37 there on LinkedIn as well and you know people come to me it's like hey I'm thinking about starting an e-commerce business and I'm like don't start an
13:44 e-commerce business. Well why do you say that? I want to start an e-commerce like don't start an e-commerce business.
13:49 First attract a following then start an e-commerce business. Like it feels like you're saying the same thing. Could you explain a little
13:57 bit like what are people missing about the value of content?
14:00 No I think I I think you nailed it. So, and this is crazy to say, but this I
14:05 I'll bring it together at the end. We went from, you know, well, what is this direct to consumer brand doing or what
14:12 is this subscription box doing, the leader, the Birchboxes of the world, trying to get best practices from them, right?
14:17 And then we made this pivot where we said to the marketing team instead of, you know, doing research on that like
14:24 watch some Mr. Beast videos, watch some Nelky videos because they did the reverse, right? They created the
14:33 audience. They got the engagement. They had them and then they dropped a product on and you know replicating Mr. Beast.
14:41 Sure. That's probably impossible. Maybe impossible. Right. Right. But because of what he was able to accomplish with content, he then
14:49 drops a chocolate brand and day one of launch, they're in every single Walmart nationwide because
14:56 Yeah. Yeah, which brands would kill for the opportunity to do that, but he just had the opportunity because
15:02 of the content, because he created the community. I completely agree with you.
15:06 If I were to start from scratch, it would be solely focused on content and not not sold on what the product even exactly is.
15:17 Build the audience and then create the product that they need and want. No, it's such a good point and I think it's one that so many people miss.
15:24 everyone's focused on rorowaz and their attribution metrics and all these things that it's just like stop
15:33 thinking about your damn website. Yeah, I think I think I think you're spot on. It's it's music to my ears
15:39 because I think we're quickly realizing you and I are on the same exact page, right? Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. I mean
15:46 clearly there are a lot of people out there that value e-commerce businesses you know during the heyday say 2019 you
15:53 know even before 2010s especially during the pandemic multiple of revenue post pandemic multiple of ibida content where
16:03 is content on your ibida it's tough right I mean like how do you how do you put how do you put a valuation on on the small media firm
16:11 that we have instilled instilled in our our team it's tough tough. You know, when we when we sold in in 2021,
16:21 I think it helped with the multiplier, but there wasn't a firm line and we couldn't line item the the the goodwill
16:27 or the value of of our social reach. But it's uh but you you show that you show that reach to people and they they get it. It makes our job easier on the
16:38 procurement side because we're going to show this to millions of people that are in your in your ICP. They're they're they're your your ideal customer.
16:47 These people, they don't understand what why people buy things, and I think most people who start e-commerce businesses, frankly, don't either. It's the trust
16:57 factor 100%. You know, the funniest thing is if you if you just start ingesting some of our content, the uber
17:05 majority of it, we're not selling anything at all. There's no hard sale. Now,
17:09 don't get me wrong, midfunnel, we'll throw an ad up. There'll be an intro offer. We're we're trying to get you on
17:14 board and we'll do the same, you know, in certain cadences of emails and SMS, but for the most part, most of our content,
17:21 yeah, 80% probably, I'm guessing, yeah, at least is is not is not selling at all. We're just we're just living living the the lifestyle of of the product. Just being
17:34 outdoor enthusiasts, prepared people. So, talk to me about that that credibility factor because I think that's what sometimes brands are
17:41 missing. First of all, they don't spend any time on copy. Their imagery is is poor. There's no romance. This is kind of the typical sure,
17:50 you know, fashion brand, luxury kind of thing. And then you're in the space where you're selling the lifestyle. So, talk to me about like how do you
17:59 establish the credibility there?
The "Current 1776" Story: Hiring Customers as Creators
18:02 Great question. You know, I'll I'll tell you how we started. I think you can replicate this because of what we did
18:08 and how we did it. So, when we when we launched our go-to market strategy, and
18:13 it wasn't it wasn't there was no rocket science or tough math in there. It was pretty simple. One of the things we did
18:19 besides launch meta ads was we sent uh I think 30 25 or 30 boxes to YouTubers. Right now, this is standard practice that everyone has, right? But like that
18:30 was a little okay, that's a big big thing to do. And then we tracked them and we watched the videos and we we
18:37 wanted that organic video presence and we had you know a spreadsheet where we were tracking it all and we saw and
18:44 also to it's 2015 it's people would flip out if if you did this now we had a pre-purchase survey. So, stop. Don't buy
18:52 from us yet. Tell us how you heard about us. And we had all your usual suspects.
18:57 And there was a there was the other button and you could type something in and in the first couple months we saw it
19:04 was second month we started to see it. A bunch of people putting uh current 1776 in there. And we're like, "Okay,
19:11 we don't know who this is." We went to YouTube. We did a Google search, found him on YouTube. He has a YouTube channel. He has a uh he's he's doing a review for us
19:21 each month. Okay. He's one of the 30 people we sent it to. Went there. He's not there.
19:26 Huh. Figured out his real name. Looked him up. He's a paying customer.
19:31 Huh. Okay. With great screen personality, stage presence. Yeah. Very super talented individual. He was just a paying customer putting out
19:41 content himself. And we we saw that as an opportunity because clearly people like this guy.
19:49 He was giving, you know, unbiased Yeah. views of the product. He clearly liked
19:54 it and it was genuine. You could tell. And we quickly reached out to him. We said, "Hey, Brandon, nice to meet you. Keep doing what you're doing
20:02 and we don't want to screw this up." Yeah. You don't have to pay for your box anymore. Box is free. Just keep doing what you're doing. And then I think
20:09 three months went by and we said, "Okay, hey, Brandon. Um, Fox is still free. Keep doing what you're doing. We're going to give you $500 a month just because we love this.
20:21 Yeah, we love you. Um, and then a little bit after a year, it was April 2016, we said, "Hey, Brandon, we know you have a full-time career job." He was greater
20:32 than 20 years. He was a chiller mechanic, like HVAC stuff, but on like bigger units. like he went into like a a nuclear facility and like wow making great money, has a great job, has
20:43 a career during the day and this is all just fun for him at night time. And we said, "Hey man, like what's it going to take for and he has three kids like for
20:51 you to move you, your kids, your wife down to us and just do what you're doing at nighttime full-time." And he said he said, "Yeah." And and we figured out a
21:01 deal and he he came down and then we were able to really just lean in on the content. We've now done it. We have two full-time creators now. Joey, who came
21:09 on only a few came in at the second half of last year. He was a customer. We did some some part-time like content work cuz he wanted to do it. And we quickly
21:20 realized the same thing like people people are connecting with this individual. He knows what he's talking about. He understands the product. He
21:27 genuinely likes it. People genuinely like you can tell, right?
21:32 And when you can tell, it's infectious and you want to be a part of it. And so we brought him him on full-time as well.
21:38 What I described, it's not easy, but everyone branch up to a It's not possible either. Right.
21:46 Right. People to a certain if you're at any scale at all, like you have people you're regularly sending the box out to
21:53 or the product or the item, whatever. And people are doing whether it's TikToks, YouTube shorts, or or whatever sort of content. And you can see genuine
22:03 and and you've seen some larger brands have have even done that. They've they've said, "Hey, we're going to give some equity to this this big creator sponsor to be a part of the team."
22:12 Yeah. What whoever it is, right?
22:15 Yeah. So, it's there. Yeah. I think, you know, it's just just opening your eyes
Data-Driven Leadership and Business Metrics
22:21 and looking at at what's around you. A number of times in the discussion, you've mentioned metrics and you you mentioned when we were having
22:30 conversations before that you guys are sort of self-professed data nerds. I guess how did you come to that and talk
22:37 to me about the importance of data and what do you look at every day? So I mean I'm just a a data nerd in general. So this is my third career. Um
22:47 my second career was in B2B sales. So soft software as a service, infrastructure as a service. My first career was poker, you know, to the to
22:58 the extreme excitement of my parents after after university and getting my degree, I said, "This is what I want to do."
23:07 Yeah. Um and I did it for four and a half years, but I'm going to follow Phil Helmu.
23:11 Well, that and it was the time period where, you know, Chris Money Maker, this is early 2000s, it just it was the cool thing to do. you know,
23:20 TLDDR. I wasn't good enough. I was I was I was a B player, B+ on a good day. But if you're not A, like you look at people
23:29 that were still playing poker that are my age now, and it was not something that I wanted to to to be a part of.
23:37 Yeah. But there was a lot of math in that. Most of my success was online because you could play more tables. You could
23:45 get rid of mathematical variance. So, I'm a big data nerd. I would literally do exports of all my hands and run it through to see models.
23:54 Super super nerdy with data. Back to back to your question though, we yeah, we look at a lot of metrics. There's none any that that you would no aha
24:04 moment of, oh, you look at that. It's it's the standard stuff you you would think. We we obsess over churn and retention rates.
24:12 We we obsess over LTV. We don't obsess over conversion rate as much as some. Don't get me wrong.
24:20 We're right now we're running an AB test on the site. We're definitely trying to improve and it's a constant we're constantly working on, you know,
24:28 conversion rate optimization. It's not in the same category of the obsession, right? I'm not looking at our conversion
24:33 rate every single day, but I am looking at our active members, how many turned off that day, how many we brought on. I
24:42 found I mean frankly and I think the CRO industry probably doesn't want to hear this. Most people's conversion rate
24:49 doesn't change. It's because of the freaking offer so much.
24:54 You're It's the offer. Yeah. The strong offer. Our conversion rate triples. It's not our site didn't improve.
25:01 Correct. Right. I still remember that company that Amazon bought back in the day. What is it about 1015 years ago called Woot? Do you remember Woot.com?
25:09 Mhm. Speaking about the box business, they sold literally boxes of crap.
25:14 Yeah. On a single page website and crushed it. Mhm. And they and they got bought for like a
25:21 They got bought Yeah. was like a obnoxious number. The offer is is is the single. I mean, don't get me wrong, if you have a broken site that
25:29 But it it's very hard to make a broken site in 2020. In today's day and age, it's it's hard. You have to you have to purposely almost do it to have a a
25:40 that didn't used to be true. Even 10 15 years ago, you could really screw up a Magento site pretty fast.
25:48 Sure. With Shopify, with Big Commerce, with Woo Commerce, even I think any of these guys, you can't screw it up.
25:57 No. Well, they and they they lock down a lot of parts so you
26:00 Yeah. Yeah. They don't they don't trust the merchant to be able to access the checkout fully. a good reason for that because for most people it's not going
26:07 to matter. It's hilarious. I mean, this
Advice for Large Retailers and the Future of D2C
26:10 is this has been a great conversation, John. I feel like we could keep talking for like
26:15 I could keep going. This is, you know, hours and hours. This has been a lot of fun. If you are at a larger business, like I think there's something
26:22 you can teach a lot of larger businesses about the value of brand trust and brand authority. What do you think the big
26:29 guys like the department stores, people who sell into department stores could learn from you?
26:34 I would say truly truly engaging with with their community in in turn consumers, customers. I think the bigger brands get content wrong. Most of the
26:46 times they're they're following trends because it's going to get the views. It's a much harder thing to execute. I I
26:53 think there are some that that do execute it that that are able to have a unique voice
27:00 and and connect with their consumers, but most of the big brands like they're just not doing it. They're they they
27:06 they're just trying to hit some trends and and get some views, but there's not any like
27:12 it's not a top offunnel true connection. It's oh, they made me laugh.
27:17 Yeah. So, really really trying to engage your community. I find a lot of these brands treat content production as a cost
27:23 center and they're just trying to make it as small as possible. Yeah, I don't I don't I don't think you're wrong at all.
27:28 But it's been a lot of fun having you on here, John, and look forward to potentially having you back in the future.
27:37 Yeah, I'd love to, Rick. Thank you so much.