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How did a subscription box startup go from selling survival gear to starring in its own Netflix show? On this 182nd episode of the E-Comm Show, Andrew Maff interviews John Roman, the CEO of BattlBox. From initially investing in the company, selling it...buying it again, and then having their own Netflix show- the Battlbox journey is a rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship, perseverance, and constant innovation.
In this episode, you'll understand what it looks like for a company to successfully transform from a subscription box service to a thriving community-based business. By continually adapting to changing demands and crafting a robust engagement and entertainment strategy, BattlBox has garnered a dedicated fan following.
Key Topics Covered:
- Resonating with your audience: Strategies for creating unique and engaging content that resonates with target audiences
- Leveraging your identity: Insights on how BattlBox used their brand identity to stand out in the crowded subscription box market
- Staying adaptable: The importance of continuously evolving your content strategy to keep up with changing customer preferences and market trends
- How to market socially: The impact of social media on community-based businesses and how to harness it effectively for customer engagement
Transcript from video:
0:00 [Music]
0:03 we own this this is a Netflix original series we're like "Oh wow this is legit." We What do we do we start asking
0:09 "Does anybody know an entertainment lawyer?" This is the agreement if you want it we'd love to have you but we're not going to redline a single
0:16 [Music]
0:22 page and I want a good show damn it you ready for your show doing awesome
0:32 yeah I'm excited to talk to you thanks for having
0:39 Yes, I've always been into archery and my dad said because that's how
0:46 I Yes of course let's do this together
0:52 hello everyone welcome to another episode of Econ Show
1:02 [Music]
1:11 hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the ecom show as usual I am
1:15 your host Andrew Maff and today I am joined by the amazing John Roman who is
1:18 the CEO of BattlBox john how you doing buddy you ready for a good show good
1:22 glad to be here thanks for having me Andrew super excited to have you on the
1:26 show i know we actually uh were lucky enough to meet at Shop Talk and I was
1:30 like "All right I've definitely got to get this guy on the show uh your
1:33 background your stories wild i always kind of like to start these off
1:36 relatively stereotypically and give you the floor and just kind of let everyone
1:39 know like where you started how you got into BattlBox i know there's some crazy
1:43 stuff that happened towards the middle and now where you're at now and then
1:46 we'll kind of take it from there sure um so yeah so BattlBox started in early 2015
1:53 um just impeccable timing with the then you know decade ago subscription box
2:00 craze um comboed with you know the the product just not existing in the
2:05 marketplace so so I came in actually um as an investor in BattlBox pure limited
2:12 capacity not not uh leaving my day job the previous decade I had um built B2B
2:18 sales teams so every so starting off focusing on more SMB and I carried a bag
2:24 and then it it grew into kind of Fortune 2000 enterprise level uh sales team just
2:34 from scratch building it um you know targeting cities so didn't have any DTOC
2:40 experience it was all B2B um but I loved the reason I invested in it was the um
2:47 because what I knew from B2B is reoccurring revenue is like all the
2:53 matter right and so reoccurring revenue and it's for consumers which is a much
2:58 larger um in theory easier sale uh and so much of it is just done through
3:05 traditional DTOC advertising so I was super interested invested and then it
3:09 kind of blew up a year in um I I joined full-time and uh yeah the rest is
3:17 history uh bunch of years of growth um kind of our peak everybody you know so
3:23 many direct to consumer brands did well during COVID everybody's locked in their
3:27 house we did really well during COVID and then um halfway through 2020 we we
3:33 had the combo punch of COVID and the Netflix TV show which shot us even
3:37 higher with growth um at that point uh there were three partners left
3:43 originally four there were three uh we had a difference of direction uh one
3:49 wanted to be done with it two of us didn't want to didn't make financial
3:54 sense uh for the two to buy out the one and uh we looked for a partner that that
4:01 all spoke the same language as as us found one they did um they bought us we
4:07 stayed on uh for an agreement of three years um but we were all kind of vibing
4:13 and and talking the same language so it was exciting and we thought they would
4:16 take it to the next level of growth um they were a spa everybody knows the
4:21 stories of the valuations and the market caps of spaxs in 2020 when this in when
4:27 when this happened um and then yeah the the rest you know we so we sold in 2021
4:37 um and the market just fell out um and you know they had a decent nine figure
4:45 market cap and um in in the course of less than a year uh it was seven
4:50 seven-digit market cap and we saw the opportunity bought the business back um
4:56 which was not part of the plan but we saw um just to oversimplify just an
5:00 arbitrage situation we sold the business for X and we could buy it back back for
5:05 pennies on the dollar so we did now we have it back uh call this BattleBox 3.0
5:11 uh 1.0 was the original 2.0 was when they owned it and now we have it back so
5:17 yeah that's that's the quick so crazy yeah not not the playbook of what we
5:23 thought we were going to point just kept kept going different ways yeah no I mean
5:27 I know there's there's nuances to stuff throughout all that but no one thinks
5:32 you know one day I'm gonna you know take on a partner or sell the business and
5:36 then the you know after that I'm just going to buy it back for to your point
5:41 pennies on the dollar no one goes into a business thinking that's going to happen
5:44 so it's a very unique situation let's let's come back to that i've got a
5:48 question about the Netflix side of things because that's that's very
5:51 interesting right like I'm a huge fan of you know build out media become a
5:55 thought leader in the space educate and entertain and then you know use that as
6:00 a tool to sell obviously a Netflix uh show is about as big as that can get for
6:08 especially in 2020 so like what was that did they approach you did you approach
6:12 them what was that whole process like and then obviously did it help yeah so
6:18 um so great questions and yeah you see the end result you're like "Oh oh yeah
6:22 this is like you know perfect storm how do you get it?" Um so you have to go
6:26 back over 3 years um of of us trying so in 2017 we had a company High Noon
6:35 Entertainment Production Studio reach out to us um and they said "Hey we're
6:40 watching what you're doing on on YouTube we like it um we have some money from
6:45 the History Channel to shoot some and it's funny this isn't even really a
6:49 thing um eight years later but they had received money to shoot a sizzle reel so
6:55 just short eight short years ago um you'd get money for a sizzle reel you
7:00 then make it think of it almost like a pre-pilot you then shop that or get the
7:05 green light to pay for the pilot and then you get the green light if that
7:09 goes well to hopefully run the first season um so they have the sizzle reel
7:14 money um they come in 2017 we do some we do about four and a half days of full
7:20 full days of shooting come up with a scissor reel they give it um to History
7:27 Channel history Channel sits on it for six months um very limited yeah very
7:33 limited interaction they keep Well anytime we try to ask or get answers
7:36 just kick the can down the road yeah we're looking at it might be this after
7:40 six seven months they say "Hey no you know we're good but we appreciate it."
7:44 Okay so you know we got excited now it's not looking good and then they're like
7:50 "Hi noon's like you know we actually have some meetings with Discovery we
7:54 think they're probably a better fit anyway we're going to take it to them."
7:58 So they um pitched them and you know long story short
8:05 um they sat on it for greater than six months probably like closer to seven to
8:10 eight um you know where we have anxiety we think we think this could be it and
8:14 then they tell us no so we're like okay so from them
8:19 reaching out in 2017 now at this point we're in 2019 um started 2019 we're you
8:26 know have we don't think this is going to happen at this point and um they're
8:31 like "No you know we have a couple meetings set up this is January uh the
8:36 first one is with Walmart's streaming service which I don't know if it even
8:40 exists anymore but in 2019 they had one um and they were they were going to
8:45 compete with everybody else and uh they had that meeting and they're like "We
8:50 have a meeting with Netflix." Um to be fair they had never sold Netflix before
8:54 he entertainment they have two big feathers in their cap they have Fixer
8:58 Upper uh which is huge and it's the cool thing about it is it's very similar in
9:04 the sense that they they followed kind of the model you spoke about a moment
9:09 ago of like education entertaining mhm um except they didn't besides their
9:15 actual business they didn't have the business they have today where they're
9:18 in Targets and have their own line but that gave it to them um so they had that
9:24 in their hat and then they also have Cake Boss which is another big big hit
9:29 um of of a of a dessert baker that has a show and now he's got his vending
9:35 machines there was a cake vending Duff something right yeah yeah yeah yeah um
9:41 so his last name yeah yeah no that's the guy so they have both of these so we
9:45 feel good about them but they're like "We've never sold a Netflix before so
9:48 we'll see." So they meet with Walmart walmart is um same vibes as everybody
9:52 else yeah this looks cool we'll let you know and all all they're asking for is
9:56 money for a pilot um they meet with Netflix and Netflix is like "Well we
10:03 don't pay for pilots." like um how about we just and basically in the meeting how
10:09 about let's just let's just agree on a budget for the first season and then we
10:13 want right of first refusal on the next seven seasons and and we own this this
10:18 is this is a Netflix original series they came out they're meeting they're
10:22 like we think this is going to get done like okay so within a few weeks we have
10:27 a 125page legal agreement from Netflix we're like oh wow this is legit We what
10:34 do we do we start asking does anybody know an entertainment lawyer uh we find
10:40 when we get recommended and this guy's big thing is Jim Canour the Weather
10:45 Channel guy the Hurricane uh guy he's he's like he's a client and that's like
10:51 this big guy's big home run which is cool anyway we give it to him redline it
10:56 cost us like $8,000 we feel confident we've redlined
11:00 it we send it back to Netflix a week later um 15 minutes later they reply and
11:05 they say "Hey sorry for miss setting expectations but this is the Netflix
11:09 agreement there's there's no red line you can't negotiate this
11:14 we don't negotiate this is the agreement if you want it we'd love to have you but
11:18 we're not going to redline a single page." So we're okay um make a couple
11:22 tweaks we make some decisions um I was I was down to be in the show originally um
11:29 even though I wasn't a fan of the character they wanted me to be i want is
11:32 going to be like this the city slicker that was like "Quit spending all this
11:36 money." Um but you know it's entertainment it's it's fake reality um
11:42 the ass were a lot i was out afterwards but you know we had four four team
11:46 members that were in signed the deal um the back half of 2019 all six months
11:52 filming um like like 60 hours a week so all those guys were basically able to
11:59 work um during that time they came back early uh 2020 uh just to two weeks of
12:07 just filming some some additional shots for you know continuity and to wrap it
12:12 all together then Netflix went radio silence on us we didn't hear anything at
12:17 all um they came to us in April four months later and said "Hey we're
12:21 thinking uh July 4th weekend this is the art this is what we're thinking is very
12:26 very very patriotic uh which the actual end result isn't which is the last
12:31 little curveball we're gonna call it Southern Survival we're like "Okay
12:36 cool." So we start ordering we go all in on manufacturing we're manufacturing a
12:41 line of Southern Survival stuff like we're we're we're going uh we can get it
12:47 all in time it'll all get in right before the July premiere forecasting
12:52 literally throwing a dart at the board how do you even measure this case
12:56 there's similar case studies uh Duck Dynasty but there's was a weekly new
13:01 episode drop as opposed to it's 2020 people binge it all at once
13:06 we we make a guess we think we're good um and then as we get a little bit
13:10 closer we have um the George Floyd stuff happen and everyone's a little bit you
13:19 know there's there's chaos in our country and people weren't happy and
13:24 they come to us and they're like Patriotic isn't really a
13:29 thing on a release jeez so they're like um we're going to make some edits to the
13:37 thing they remove all the American flags they remove any USA patriotic vibe of
13:43 the whole thing and then a couple days later they're like "We don't know about
13:47 the title Southern Survival." Um and we're like "We just went all in um on
13:53 branded Southern Survival Gear." And they're like "Yeah we don't we don't
13:57 know about the title we don't know if we're even going to air this right now
14:01 we need to do some thinking." and we're trying to plead our case but at the same
14:05 time we're talking to talent managers because that's all we're viewed as we're
14:10 viewed as talent they won't even have a conversation with me they will only talk
14:14 to the four people on the show and they don't you know Netflix is too big it's
14:20 not like this guy in the talent department is going to go out on a leg
14:23 and reach out to you know four orgs over and say "Hey these guys bought millions
14:28 of dollars worth of inventory should we take that into consideration yeah they
14:33 don't care they don't care um we learned that quickly that we were just never
14:37 dealing with people that spoke the same language as us from the business side
14:41 but then they made the decision we're going to keep it we'll call it Southern
14:44 Travel we're still going to go we're still going to go July 4th weekend and
14:47 we launched um quick answer on the on your on your latter question we were
14:53 getting about 125,000 unique visitors a month um leading up um to the premiere
15:00 uh the month of July 2020 we had 1.2 million unique visitors we saw massive
15:08 increase now to be fair they didn't they didn't all behave in the same way right
15:13 we're talking targeted traffic um they're buying one-time stuff they're
15:16 not buying the membership but still when you when you 6x traffic even if they
15:21 perform at about half of expectations of normal traffic which was accurate it's
15:25 still a big big windfall um so yeah it's a long answer but yes
15:32 that's crazy so I mean obviously this is a uh exaggerated version of what every
15:39 brand would love to do because that's I mean that's it's it's such an
15:43 interesting opportunity would you do it again
15:47 um the answer is yes um it it was it was not easy there were a lot of you know
15:55 throughout the process of unknown not being in control of the situation um the
16:01 fact that we would get you know copied in to conference calls with Netflix and
16:06 then they would remove myself and others out that weren't on the show there was a
16:10 lot of frustration um but at the end of the day Netflix paid paid for the show
16:16 mhm um it still sits there i would say our post-purchase survey today still
16:22 about 5% of our new members new customers that come in they still where
16:27 did you first hear about this uh Netflix TV show so it's very long in the tooth
16:32 so I would say yes absolutely um but it wasn't like it was a it wasn't a
16:37 cakewalk and it was there was massive frustration a lot of times during it
16:42 yeah well I know that uh developing media is obviously a forte of yours for
16:49 those of you that are listening and not watching I can see the YouTube black
16:53 behind your shoulder so like I know that this is a common approach for you guys
16:58 is it something you still lean into because of that you know obviously it's
17:02 entertainment and it's education but at the same time it's that community
17:06 building element so is it still basically what you lean in on in terms
17:10 of kind of developing that new customers yeah no 100% so we still view um you
17:16 know traditional digital advertising and traditional advertising for us really is
17:22 middle ofunnel there's there's some that's top of funnel but for the most
17:26 part our top offunnel is organic content um whether it's the the TV show which is
17:32 a a sliver still but most of it's YouTube Tik Tok Instagram short form
17:37 videos uh so we're for being such a small business um relative it's wild we
17:44 have three full-time video editors which is very unusual for for small brand um
17:52 yeah but it's because we're we're constantly doing content we have a full
17:55 we have a full-time creator um we've looked at hiring additional full-time
18:00 creators so it's it's definitely it's definitely part of our our DNA and our
18:05 secret sauce if you will in fact we um we analyzed and we used AI to help us
18:10 with this we analyzed all of our short form video posting content um that we
18:16 posted in all of 2024 um we did this at the in January and February dumped it in
18:22 AI um and just analyzed the data and we saw that not all platforms but some
18:29 platforms we saw that um if we increase the frequency on certain channels the
18:35 output would be greater um there's some channels where it's not doesn't work
18:39 that way if you post too many times in a day it gets watered down and you're
18:43 spreading the views multiple but um we found direct correlation um Tik Tok was
18:50 was the leader that increased frequency will actually net um net more results so
18:57 February 1 we doubled down and we increased all of our content output by
19:01 about 80% um and it's not like we'll see the results instantly but the goal is
19:07 yeah more top of funnel we'll see we'll be able to test the theory
19:13 probably 120 to 150 days in we'll have enough data to understand um given the
19:19 buying cycle and hopefully hopefully that's that's part
19:23 of our next unlock yeah I mean it's definitely the you know it's a if you
19:28 have the the means to do it and the creativity to do it which is obviously
19:31 one of the big sticking points for a lot of brands it's hands down the best way
19:35 to do it because if you can get that organic traffic and you get those types
19:39 of views all you have to do from a paid advertising perspective is middle of
19:43 funnel because you're you're basically already covering all of your bases and
19:47 those CPMs are typically wildly lower even when you factor in production costs
19:52 right um so it's a it's a a pretty uh it's a it's a genius move if you have
19:56 the ability to do it so you've doubled down the TikTok side i assume you're
19:59 probably also leaning in on like TikTok shop and advertising on that channel
20:03 also how's that going yeah so so TikTok shop um we we started it about
20:12 um we started it we went live January of last year um it took us about a year of
20:20 learnings and mistakes we were just trying to figure out how to scale it
20:23 because it's it's not it's not our traditional customer um at at all and uh
20:30 it's a it's not only a different generation it's a different customer
20:33 it's a different household income demographic um you know our our uh like
20:40 direct site traffic our our core business um average order value is
20:44 typically $85 average order value for memberships is $140 um Tik Tok shop we
20:51 finally found our sweet spot average order value is $20 um which is Tik Tok
20:57 wildly different and uh we finally got we we believed in January of last year
21:03 we launched it was definitely a seven figure channel we just didn't know how
21:06 we were going to get there we figured it out march was was our first month was
21:12 our best month ever um we did right at 100K um we'll do slightly over 100K
21:20 knock on wood we're we're over 50 and we're halfway through in April um and we
21:25 still know next steps to scale further so we're figuring it out it's uh it's
21:31 just interesting because we have to be we have to be we can't look at the whole
21:36 big picture on Tik Tok shop because of the price point because it's different
21:40 demographic because they don't uh you know we have ways to get get them over
21:45 into our ecosystem and they don't necessarily make further purchases so we
21:49 do profitable on the channel by itself which has been a lot of the challenge um
21:55 but still eyeballs um are But you're thinking based on that the way that
22:02 consumers acting it's going to it's going to end up most likely being
22:05 obviously it's a lower average order value out the gate but are you thinking
22:08 it's also going to be a significantly lower like lifetime value over time or
22:13 is it something you're kind of building into significantly lower for for the
22:17 cohort in general now don't get me wrong there's there's the little the little
22:21 bit in that cohort that are they are customers but you have to you have to
22:26 you have to squeeze so many more Tik Tok shop customers to find the the BattlBox
22:31 gems in there there's just not it's not the same ratio as other channels yeah
22:36 and it is amazing almost every brand I know that's successful on Tik Tok it's
22:41 because they figured out either a they figured out how to talk to that audience
22:45 because it's a very not only is it a different audience it's a different
22:47 platform and you know to fit in it's it's a different approach but then it's
22:51 also the products being offered it's it's like that $20 price point is
22:56 perfect anything over it it's it's tough to get anything to actually move on
23:01 there there's not enough education on the platform and consistency to be able
23:06 to stay on top of them so right that doesn't really shock me that's interesting
23:10 um look obviously I really appreciate all the time i don't want to take up too
23:14 much of your time i know you're super busy you've got a ton of content to
23:16 create um and now we've got some more for you so uh I'd love to wrap this up
23:21 and give you a moment here let everyone know where they can find out more about
23:24 you and of course more about BattlBox yeah um so BattlBox uh B- A TL B Ox um
23:31 you can misspell it in a Google site will still come up
23:34 um yeah we're on all socials tik Tok is our largest with 1.1 million youtube um
23:43 for those that are watching we're so close to the gold one and uh hopefully
23:49 we get that this year that's the goal we've been close though for a while um
23:53 so all social channels were there uh myself I'm I'm probably most active on
23:57 LinkedIn and then uh onlinequeso.com is is my blog which um I'm 80%
24:05 of the content on there 20% um other people in the industry it's uh we we try
24:11 to highlight it's not just about the wins um so like you can go uh on there
24:16 and watch our journey or read our journey on TikTok uh you know we were on
24:21 there for over a year posting every day not having much success um and just
24:27 trying to get learnings until we've eventually popped but um you know it's
24:32 there's lots of losses along the way it's not just wins and I think we do a
24:36 good job on the blog of like highlighting um you know the L's and
24:41 then how how we can learn from them if we can at all yeah hey those sometimes
24:45 the greatest things to learn about is the losses uh because then you can not
24:49 hopefully not make the same mistakes that someone else already did there's
24:52 typically a lot more than wins yeah John thank you so much really appreciate you
24:56 being on the show everyone who tuned in of course thank you as well please make
24:59 sure you do the usual thing rate review subscribe all that fun stuff whichever
25:02 podcast platform you prefer or head over to the ecomshow.com to check out all of
25:06 our previous episodes but as usual thank you all for joining us see you next time
25:10 have a good one
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