How 2 CEOs Built 65,000+ Subscription Shopify Stores with @Battlbox & @GoodRanchers

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]So, hello and welcome to another episode of Winning with Shopify podcast and hello to our live audience. I hope you guys are well. I'm from the UK, which is why I sound quite funny. Um I've got two absolute titans of e-commerce and subscriptions here with me. We've got John from Battle Box. John, welcome to the show. Good to have you back.

[00:00:16]Third time is it now?

[00:00:17]>> Third time. Yeah.

[00:00:18]>> Amazing. And I've got a very, very big question for you in a second. We've also got Ben, first time we've met.

[00:00:22]>> First time.

[00:00:23]>> Ben from Good Ranchers, CEO there as well and founder. So, uh yeah, super excited to have you guys on. I'm going to dive straight in. We always start with big questions. So, John, I'm going to start with a big question for you.

[00:00:32]How have you guys at Battle Box built such a big multi-million-dollar business that is 70% customer subscriptions?

[00:00:40]>> That's That's a good great question.

[00:00:41]It's uh >> Tell me everything.

[00:00:43]>> Yeah, well, when we started uh in 2015, we only had uh We were talking earlier about that single SKU, single product.

[00:00:51]We just had one product and it was subscription only. We didn't offer anything on a one-time capacity. We We also, naivety, we had launched on a very niche platform. We're on Shopify now, but we were on this platform called Cratejoy. And they just didn't have the technical capabilities to even have one-time products. So, it was the business rules Well, I can hear myself now.

[00:01:12]The business rules of that platform set the rules that we only had one product, so it was subscription only. Um it wasn't until we wanted to scale and grow further that we brought the one-time in a into the mix.

[00:01:25]>> Amazing. And we're going to cover some of those regrets of expansion you were telling me a minute ago. Cover those in a in a few minutes as well. But I mean, Ben, you guys have got such an amazing business. How have you guys built a 63-plus thousand subscriber base of customers in such a short space of time?

[00:01:40]>> I like to see it this way. If I could do it, anybody can. Um I mean, we had no I had no e-commerce experience, no industry experience.

[00:01:49]We're an online meat company. And um and uh I mean, you know, we just we we had to get scrappy and figure it out.

[00:01:57]but we did know this.

[00:01:58]Um the trick isn't to get them to buy one time. It's how do you get the repeat purchase? So.

[00:02:04]Um so for us, we actually I mean you know, everybody says subscription, subscription, subscription. Um and the good thing about meat is people eat it every day. You know, um And uh so we we knew that uh for us, it really came down to the product has to be better than what they can get at the grocery store because it's a it's a commodity. Um and with something so simple yes, convenience is one factor.

[00:02:33]Um but we knew from the beginning that um that our quality had to be better. So when they get that first purchase, they eat it and they go, "Oh, yeah, I want to I want to keep doing that. I want to get that." Um and so um John Lasseter, the Pixar creator, he wrote in his book, "Quality is our business plan." And um the the book's Creativity Inc. Amazing book for any founder uh for I mean really for anybody.

[00:03:05]Um but he wrote that at the very beginning. "Quality is our business plan." And we really took that into the business of you know, we you can trick people into buying things, but if you don't have a quality product, they're not going to subscribe and they're not going to keep buying.

[00:03:22]>> And I feel so many brands rely Someone who's in the tech space, an agency space, they rely so heavily on tech to try and give that nudge, that extra email, that 20% off so it becomes a no-brainer. But I love the fact you guys have gone, "Actually, let's in a way almost ignore all of that. If it's a good product, they'll want it again."

[00:03:40]And as you say, the products it it runs out, you know, either goes out of date or you've eaten it, you need more after that, which I think is amazing.

[00:03:46]>> I think it's just the sustainability of of your brand and product because that's how you're building it. You're making it about superior product.

[00:03:53]>> Yep. I love that.

[00:03:54]>> Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And and John, let's go back to the early days. So, you guys one product on subscription. You've expanded a lot and we were talking about the pros and cons of this a minute ago.

[00:04:04]Why don't you share with us? What's that journey like? Why did you expand? And what are some of the lessons you guys have learned over that time?

[00:04:10]>> Sure, so Yeah, so in 2017-2018, we we migrated to Shopify to then have the one-time capacity.

[00:04:18]>> Welcome to the cool club.

[00:04:19]>> Yeah. Uh, we finally joined. The The issue was and not even an issue, we've never really allowed the the curated kits, the subscription box to ever be available in a one-time capacity. So, we've continued to kind of own the narrative on supply and demand and and membership. So, it's only been one-time capacity products that make up a kit that that we've offered. And you know, as we've kind of matured and we've said, okay, the membership is is great.

[00:04:48]The membership is the core business.

[00:04:50]Um, the membership's the lion's share of the revenue.

[00:04:54]It's past the point of exponential growth, right? We're we're still growing a couple points um, you know, month over month. It It's still nice. It's still great, but it's not The exponential days are are done, right? We've had a certain saturation unless we change fundamentally the the membership offering. So, at that point, how do we still have that exponential growth? How do we still scale significant And the answer is is additional channels, whether it's um, uh, you know, marketplaces or marketplace live shopping like Whatnot.

[00:05:29]You know, right now we have we're we're doing demos. We're live selling on Whatnot on the uh, other side of this this uh, convention.

[00:05:37]>> So cool. I And you guys whenever I talk to you, there's always something fun, exciting. But as a CEO, you're making sure it's also feeding the bottom line and revenue's is up, profit's going up. So, yeah, if anyone who's here hasn't seen they're literally running as John says live shopping right now on Whatnot, which is awesome.

[00:05:53]Some of the stats I've got here, Ben, about your business I think are incredible. 55% of subscribers are still active at 1 year, 40% are still active at over 2 years. How do you, beyond just the great product you mentioned, how do you build that loyalty, that trust, that commitment from those customers? Cuz those stats are phenomenal.

[00:06:13]>> Yeah, I'm going to give more to this answer, but I'm going to go back to the quality has to be there. And and and and again, that's been that was our whole messaging was better than the grocery store. Ditch the grocery store.

[00:06:27]And um it and honestly, like we I mean we grew gosh, we grew really fast when we when we launched online. Didn't start online.

[00:06:37]We actually started I started sell the company selling meat out of the back of a truck in a parking lot. Like And then went from one truck to two trucks to five to 10 and then over by year three we had about 20 trucks going around the country doing these like pop-up shops. COVID happened and we realized we've got to get online. So we we we figured out how to shipping perishable items is very hard.

[00:07:07]And I told you this before the before the show.

[00:07:10]Had I known how hard it was, I probably would have never done it, but we reached a point where we were we were just too far in and there was we either you know, make it or we don't.

[00:07:22]But we we knew how to sell meat and we knew how to do it in person with those pop-up shops.

[00:07:29]You know, it was a 180° turn launching online.

[00:07:33]And so we actually came to the SubSummit the very first year that we were we had our toe in the water trying to ship, but we were still doing all the trucks. And the trucks were making money, online was just losing money. Um and so we came to SubSummit that first year and learned so much about subscription.

[00:07:54]Again, we didn't know anything about e-commerce, we didn't know anything about subscription. And so this this conference really has a special place for in my heart and for our business because at the time, I think we brought our almost our whole staff, which was like seven people. And we like we just all came like and and learned so much and took it back. But the biggest thing we took took back was the importance of subscription, the importance of getting that recurring revenue.

[00:08:22]And and and not just getting the sale, but continuing to nurture the relationship, you know, cuz once you get them to buy um too many too many brands get the sale and then just move on. And you know, we it is a relationship and they're you know, they're they're our customers and they could easily be a competitor's customer. So, you know, we want to we have to provide value. Like I said, the the product quality has to be there, but we have to find value beyond just the product.

[00:08:59]Um and we do that through through education, through recipes, through industry news and and you know, have a a regular cadence of giving giving more than just the meat in the box.

[00:09:12]>> Yeah, yeah.

[00:09:13]I love that and I you touched on something that's really close to my heart as well, which is the the fact that so many brands focus I mean, we're an acquisition agency, our clients focus so much on acquiring customers. And then we look at their P&L and we sort of split it by recurring orders or existing customers versus new ones. And we're like, "What the heck are you guys doing?" And one bit of advice I'd give to any brand at the moment is like set an LTV metric and make sure you beat it, whatever it is. It's like we need to have this many repeat orders, this much revenue per customer per year, and suddenly our job becomes easier. We can scale faster now because we know acquiring a customer and I mean you guys are phenomenal at this as well.

[00:09:50]>> Yeah, so something something else that Ben said that I think is very very important and I I want to bring it back to that because it's something that we do as well and it's it's paramount. It's providing the value outside of just the physical product.

[00:10:04]>> Yeah.

[00:10:04]>> So, you know, Ben was saying that through education, through content, um we we do the same thing. Like that is a major focus. We want to make that relationship so much more than just the product. Having a good product obviously matters, but taking it to the next level when you have that relationship.

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[00:11:04]Head to yoast.com to learn more and grab your discount. I mean, you guys took it to an absolute extreme, didn't you? You phoned Netflix and were like, "Can we have a show?" And tell us about the tell us about the show and how that engages outside of everything else. It's >> Uh yeah, so we had a a Netflix show uh premiere on July 4th weekend in 2020.

[00:11:23]It's uh somehow greenlit. It's uh the entire season, all eight episodes, is basically a a >> Yeah. us testing gear to determine if it goes >> It's It's cool. I've watched watched a couple of episodes now. It's really cool.

[00:11:35]>> and it's it's performed well enough where they've kept it. They've kept it on there, you know, six six seven years later. It's uh it's still post-purchase survey. It still calls out 5 6% of our uh net new comes comes from the the the the season.

[00:11:52]>> So good. So I mean, how many brands imagine they could have their own Netflix show?

[00:11:55]>> it's not like you can replicate that.

[00:11:57]>> Yeah, yeah.

[00:11:57]>> Yeah, absolutely.

[00:11:58]>> I'm not the host.

[00:11:59]>> [laughter] >> But how did that come to be?

[00:12:01]>> Uh >> Did you pursue it or was it just happenstance?

[00:12:04]>> High Noon Entertainment, they were um the feather in their caps uh Fixer Upper >> Okay.

[00:12:09]>> and uh Cake Boss.

[00:12:11]>> Yep.

[00:12:11]>> So they they reached out to us, pitched us, "Hey, we have this concept. We have some money from History Channel. We want to film and we'll I'll date myself here a sizzle reel which you would do before a pilot, like doesn't even exist anymore. And they did a sizzle reel.

[00:12:27]History Channel sat on it for 6 months, passed on it. We took it to They took it to Discovery. Discovery sat on it for 6 7 months, passed on it. They met with Netflix and Netflix said, "Uh yeah, we'll do it and we want right of first refusal of seven seasons and this is a Netflix original. We want to start uh filming in 2 months."

[00:12:46]>> Whoa.

[00:12:46]>> Um and then we got a 120-page legal agreement with Netflix. We're like, "Our normal lawyer this isn't this isn't a fit for them." We found an entertainment lawyer.

[00:12:56]>> God, if only Claude would have been around.

[00:12:59]>> Seriously. Um yeah, did not was not a thing. And uh we we spent an embarrassing amount with that lawyer, redlined the whole thing, sent it back to Netflix. Couple weeks later, Netflix replied back 15 minutes later saying, "We apologize if we like missed out any expectations.

[00:13:16]There's no There's no redlining.

[00:13:18]>> There's no No.

[00:13:18]>> Yeah, this is this is the agreement.

[00:13:20]Take it or leave it. Uh so we signed it.

[00:13:21]But yeah, it was it was a journey.

[00:13:23]>> when the lawyers ruin the fun. That's what And the finance director, those are the annoying things in life, office, I think.

[00:13:28]But I mean it's it's amazing you guys have done that. I mean in your business, Ben, if what what do you guys do outside of product, outside of marketing? Do Do you guys give people advice on what else to cook with the products you send? And do you do collaborations with other brands, that kind of stuff?

[00:13:42]>> Uh yeah, I mean there's like playbook 101 things of, you know, collaborating with influencers, collaborating with um momfluencers in you know in in our space. Um the it was just the way it is still in the US. About 70% of the of the shopping still comes from the female even though, you know, early on we thought we would have um much more of a male demographic cuz, you know, meat and grilling and you know and stuff. Um But um but you know, we we we quickly learned that uh men like to eat, but it's more women that are still buying. Um and which my point here is this as soon as you can learn who your target audience is and um and it is most brands uh your audience is not everyone even in a category like ours, which is meat. So, you would think, "Oh, it's anyone who eats meat." Still not true. There's a There's a absolute target audience and for for us, it's 35 to 48-year-old um moms. Like that's like that's like our, you know, >> sweet spot.

[00:15:03]>> biggest persona that we see when we go after that, when we find um audiences. And so, uh when we started, we actually went we we really grew the business um I mean exponentially the in '22 when we started online fully, um we we 22 23 and 24, I'm about to blow your mind, we had no meta ads at all.

[00:15:35]And to build an e-commerce business without uh no meta, no Google. Unheard of. It's unheard of. Uh >> It's amazing.

[00:15:41]>> And uh yeah, so we really leaned in to podcasts and um uh yeah, podcasts and in influencers with podcasts.

[00:15:53]Uh and and and what we found is especially when you're a new brand, you know, you you don't uh no one knows you. Like right now we have I think 25,000 uh Trustpilot reviews uh like uh with an average of 4.8.

[00:16:09]>> Yeah, yeah.

[00:16:09]>> Which is uh >> I mean, well done. Like that's that's not easily achieved. Yeah.

[00:16:13]>> you. Uh we were talking about it on the plane here. It was like, "You know, we should put that stat on our website."

[00:16:18]>> [laughter] >> I could share we work very closely with Trustpilot. I could share some case studies that would convince you to do it tomorrow.

[00:16:24]>> Yeah. Oh, I No, I know. Yeah, and and you know, our largest competitor, which is number one in the space, um they have 1,800.

[00:16:32]And so So, that's a I mean, that's a huge deal for us. But uh >> What was I What was the question? Where was I going with that? Retaining customers, talking about the things that aren't the normal products, I think was the question.

[00:16:43]Yeah, yeah.

[00:16:43]>> I lost my train of thought talking about Trustpilot reviews not being on the website.

[00:16:46]>> It's impressive though. The amount of The amount of reviews you have on Trustpilot.

[00:16:50]>> Ah.

[00:16:50]We went a conven- a a different route.

[00:16:54]Um a- again, getting people to buy meat online is not the norm. COVID helped a lot, but it's still a a pretty big barrier to entry there because it's perishable and it's just not super normalized.

[00:17:08]>> as well which you would in a supermarket. And so >> um w- we borrowed the influence of podcasters, influencers, um and I'll I'll I'll keep saying influencers with podcasts like and and because and not the really really big ones honestly like they get kind of tuned out but it's like that the the you know big enough to move the needle but not so big that they're crazy expensive and the people that are listening to those influencers those podcasters they believe anything they say that's why they're listening and you know they're and so when they say hey good good ranchers just shipped me a huge box of meat and it's amazing you could have it too like we we even though they don't they they don't know us as a brand but we get immediate trust through that through those voices so that's how we absolutely built the business from you know zero zero subscribers to the 63,000 monthly that we have now and I mean we just started like having meta and Google be any like significant portion toward the end of last year for for like literally the first time >> Yeah yeah and I love the contrast in both the brands actually where you guys have gone like how do we get this message out to as many people as possible as fast as possible and just let's just do some big stuff let's take a risk and see what happens you guys have gone grassroots and kind of like work our way up it's it's just so interesting seeing how you both created such successful subscription businesses and on the same thing that Ben's talking about with knowing your customer and talking to customer and nailing down that target group how have you guys achieved that specifically in the subscription space like nailing who subscribes versus the ones that don't >> Yeah so it's it's I would have guessed before chatting today that we had a very similar demographic but it's not >> Okay >> so we're you know sweet spot is is 35 to 55, male, um household income 120 to 130.

[00:19:16]It's uh 90% of our purchases are men.

[00:19:21]And so, out of that 10% that are female purchases, 50% of them are purchasing it for a male gift in their life. Um so, it's it's a wildly wildly different number. But, it it matters, right? You want to target the right people. Um I was actually on a call um earlier earlier today uh just a a a a a a a a a video call. And um we're we're shopping some new banking partners um like full service and uh >> Watch out, some might be here.

[00:19:50]>> Yeah, sorry.

[00:19:51]>> There's a back door if you >> Um >> [laughter] >> but, they they were asking some questions to better understand the business and they were like, "Hey, if we asked, you know, how would you if if we wanted to double membership by the end of the year? Like, what would that look like?" And I I told them, you know, res- respectfully, it's that's wouldn't be the move because we're hyper-focused on our demographic and we start kind of going a little open and getting people that maybe aren't part of it, the LTV is not going to be the same. Uh the CAC might look might look the same, but at the end of the day, if the LTV isn't there, it changes the economics. So.

[00:20:29]>> And I think it's so important playing that long game. I mean, you both been in business long enough now to go, "Actually, I'm looking 5 to 10 years ahead now, not just how do we pay the bills tomorrow." Right. And I think so many businesses sometimes get stuck in that loop then of like, "We need to do a sale to get enough orders in to pay the bills, but then we know we've lowered our margins, that's creating a tomorrow problem with our bank balance." And taking that long approach, you again going down the road of quality and really understanding that that target group, I think so important. Um back to you, Ben.

[00:20:56]Now you know who your target audience is, how do you cater marketing and the way you position the subscription model?

[00:21:04]How do you communicate that to your audience based on who they are.

[00:21:08]>> Yeah, so um and like you guys in we had we really thought um about when when we when we first started about being subscription only, um but we went the approach of um we want them to subscribe, but we'll give them the one-time option, but you know, we we want to put some friction between there and and so we we uh we charged um $25 more for one-time purchase.

[00:21:35]>> Nice.

[00:21:35]>> Um and we're like we would rather they subscribe, but if they pay the extra $25, >> Fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:21:43]>> you know, it's it's better margin.

[00:21:44]>> to say no to that. Yeah, yeah, I'm not going to say no, right? And especially, you know, in in our in our in our in our business, you have to give first-time discounts. Um and so so we kind of saw it as like a as kind of a a net positive of if they do the one-time, uh again, we know they're going to love it and and then and if they're willing to pay >> more for it, >> okay.

[00:22:07]Um but and so we went out that way and then and and just by happenstance, 80% of uh of our new, you know, of our customers just subscribed um right out the gate. Um and so uh but now we're we've started um you know, implementing more uh we're actually running an AB test right now on um the the $25 you know, dis- delta between one-time purchase. Um some people on our team keep saying, maybe we should just test running subscription only. That's That's the only offer.

[00:22:46]I've I've not green-lit that yet, um but what we're doing right now is we're running an AB test on um 15% increase for subscription, I mean, for one-time purchase and a 20% increase versus the $25.

[00:23:01]>> Yeah, yeah.

[00:23:02]>> Um >> See how much more they're willing to pay >> to not subscribe. Like it. Which I think is small.

[00:23:07]>> The thing that drives me mad sometimes when working with brands is when they just go like, "We've changed that." And it's like, "Why?" And it's like, "Well, we should offer 10% off for subscribe and save." And it's like, and then the whole It's what I've just written in my notes. They've got the fact that you guys sat down and thought about it. You were like, "We've got a clear goal and it's subscription." So, you offering just like a random 5 10% off the subscription clearly from your point of view devalues the subscription. It just And we're just making it up. Whereas actually we don't want them to do that. So, let's just make it so stupid not to >> Yeah.

[00:23:35]>> that this is the value you're getting.

[00:23:36]So, the subscription itself is not discounted as the customer sees it. It's so simple and so smart. You guys obviously thought this through.

[00:23:42]>> Yeah. Well, and then and then also the reason we did $25 versus 10% cuz it comes about our our our AOV is 200 It's like 200 on the nose. So, but we realized $25 sounds like more than 10% to a lot of people cuz you know, 25 is bigger than 10.

[00:24:04]But again, that was that was years ago and we've you know, like I said, we're running that test now.

[00:24:12]I I I'd be remiss if I didn't say this.

[00:24:15]We a lesson we learned the very hard way is we looked at subscription management platforms as an expense and thought >> Right.

[00:24:29]>> That's It's so expensive and as we continue to grow and scale, it only like they're going to be we're going to be paying them a million dollars a year. Like >> Yeah.

[00:24:39]>> And that was one of the biggest mistakes we made by seeing that as an expense and not as a value driver.

[00:24:47]So, we tried to build it ourselves.

[00:24:49]You know, one of our developers is like, "Ah, I can write a code that it's just a script and it's just, you know, and >> I see where this is going.

[00:24:55]>> And we yeah, we >> Yeah.

[00:24:58]>> we we missed a lot of recurring revenue those first that first 18 months.

[00:25:06]And when we finally realized what was going on, the beautiful thing is we were getting so many new customers it was masking it.

[00:25:16]But when we uh when we realized we were we were I mean, we were getting 80% subscribing, but we were only processing like 45%.

[00:25:28]>> Woah.

[00:25:29]>> I know. Because of bugs and issues.

[00:25:31]Again, maybe if you're a better developer than my team, you could do it yourself. But uh I would say anybody starting out, don't look at subscription management soft There's a There's a lot of There's a lot of really great ones.

[00:25:43]Um and you can't look at that as an expense. It's absolutely It's a value.

[00:25:48]>> Yeah, yeah. And getting that wrong, knock-on effects on revenue could be massive.

[00:25:53]>> And and plat- and and the platform you're on as well, you know, we um uh just like you guys, when we started Shopify was not what it is today. And and you know, even though we were small, we were like we had ambition to be big.

[00:26:08]Uh so we're like, "Ah, no, we need something better than Shopify." Um we're on Shopify now.

[00:26:12]>> through the same thing. We we thought we were going to build our own and we quickly realized that was not not the answer and went to Shopify and and Recharge.

[00:26:21]>> I mean, we still see it now when we we walk into brands that like using Magento or something and they're like, "This is our development team." I'm like, "Team?

[00:26:27]You got a development team?" I was like, "Have you heard of Claude? Like, Claude is your development team and he can write code for you and you put it straight in Shopify and bang, it's done."

[00:26:34]>> Yeah.

[00:26:35]>> And they're like, "Yeah, yeah, we're migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2."

[00:26:38]is the classic and it's just I I think let's not go too far down the tech road cuz we could talk about that loads. One thing I do want to ask both of you, I'm going to start with you, John, is obviously we're talking about growing a subscriber base and that's fantastic.

[00:26:49]How do you deal with churn? Both How do you prevent it, and what do you do after the churn's happened?

[00:26:54]>> And and I think you and I chatted about this on on an episode possibly. So so we we care obviously a lot about churn, retention. We we we were caring about it before it was even cool, right? Like pre pre COVID where everyone was only focused on acquisition. So we do a lot. It's just part of our our business rules and how the business was built. So just so many touches, constantly testing stuff. Um because it's it's so much easier to keep a customer than than than get a new one. I mean, spoiler alert, Meta is their their CPM and CAC costs are are not going to go down next year.

[00:27:36]News newsflash. It is going to be Meta's going to charge you more than they did this year.

[00:27:40]>> Yep.

[00:27:40]>> So I think it I think it's huge. I think spending time and and testing stuff and and and and just coming to the realization that you've gotten this customer. You've gotten the hard part. Now if you have a good product and and and a good experience, like spend the effort on that because they're going to stick around.

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[00:28:41]That's taxcloud.com/winning.

[00:28:45]>> And when you when you do a lose a customer, obviously it's a very sad day, do you guys reach out and talk to them?

[00:28:50]Do you try and do some sort of win back afterwards to go, even though we've lost them, if we can find out why there might be something we can change or >> Yeah, so so this is super wild to say that we have this because we're a you know, pretty much just a traditional D2C company. So we have a full-time guy his name is Patrick. He literally his full-time job is calling churned customers. We did a lot of testing. The sweet spot is 90 to 120 days after they leave which was not my theory. My theory was first couple of weeks. We tried from immediate all the way through a year and 90 to 120 days was a sweet spot. He calls them you know, I'll say it here the truth is it starts off as a customer service call better understanding and he's documenting the reasons they left what their experience was. Now it has to pay for itself. So it based on what they say it then turns into a sales call where he's positioning a offer to them to bring them back to reactivate them live while he's talking to them.

[00:29:52]>> That's so smart.

[00:29:52]>> Yeah, it's wild to think that we have a full-time phone sales win back guy.

[00:29:56]>> Plus you don't have to do the whole sales journey again. They've been a subscriber, they've been a customer.

[00:30:00]You just need to work out what what was the issue? Let me fix it and and you're back here. It's amazing. And Ben, how do you guys deal with churn, avoid churn in the first place?

[00:30:08]>> Yeah, the the the easiest thing is to This sounds revelatory.

[00:30:14]But to to stop it before it happens.

[00:30:18]You know, it's like a I mean because at that point it's a it's a sever and and again you know, we we don't have a nobody has a 100% you know, success rate at that. But if you can you know, if you can predict before it happens and so again part of our So we use Shopify and Recharge and and Recharge has a really great feature a a lot of great features for churn. And um and you know, once you learn um once you learn okay, where where people most likely to churn um and you know, again for us it's food that they're ordering that they're buying and you know, what are the reasons they're churning or what are the reason they're canceling um and um and you know, uh yeah, what's the what's the number one reason? And for us we looked about 2 years ago and the number one reason was lack of customization. So um because we had curated boxes and we we had a lot of different curated boxes, but >> They wanted to make their own like give them their own companions. Yeah.

[00:31:24]>> And you know, so we you know, we listened to our customer loud and clear and and uh which uh you know, and got got that going, you know, um if you know, is it is it you know, is it is it price? It's it's it's never you know, it's never quality. I can't say it's never quality.

[00:31:39]It's rarely quality. Um but you know, for us it was lack of customization and um and price. Those were our two biggest ones. Can't do much about price because, you know, the price of meat has gone up exponentially over the last 3 years over the last 5 years really.

[00:31:57]Um and it just keeps going up. So I mean it's expensive everywhere. Um but we were like we can't do something about the customization part. And so, you know, our team you know, diligently worked and um and we got that you know, as an option now. Um but so it's listening, you know, you don't if you you don't know what to solve if you if you don't ask the question. So it's, you know, surveying our customers, surveying uh we you know, we we do we have a regular cadence of uh surveying our current customers, not the whole list, but, you know, a subset and and past customers. Why did you leave?

[00:32:31]And um uh we're not a we I I I looked at our customer service who's in the back right there listening when you said the calling every person who's turned and I made us are we doing that? Oh, we're doing that. Okay.

[00:32:50]Because I was looking at you like if we're not doing that we need to be doing that.

[00:32:54]>> I love doing these live. We're all learning. This is great.

[00:32:57]>> Yeah. No, that's that's amazing.

[00:32:58]But so we realized that our biggest drop-off of turn if we can get if we can get our customers if we if we can get them to their third order like that's the like we got them. It's getting them to their third order. So we started putting more check-ins between order one and order two cuz our biggest drop-off is between order one and order two.

[00:33:23]>> Cool.

[00:33:23]>> And so we started for us it was identifying that and okay, what can we do different and then we also realized that we were actually giving too much meat.

[00:33:33]>> Mhm.

[00:33:33]>> And it wasn't it wasn't the money. It wasn't the or or the value. It was the the they had too much, you know, and so that's why they were cancel or pause or just push push push.

[00:33:46]>> Yeah, yeah.

[00:33:47]>> And and so we actually uh this was 2 and 1/2 years ago when we realized that we stripped away, you know, we we took our average order value down cuz like I said it's $200 right now.

[00:34:01]When we first started our average order value was 250. But what we realized is our also our average subscription was every 8 weeks.

[00:34:10]60% were on 8 weeks because the box was so big and so uh we want them, you know, the name of subscription is to have recurring monthly revenue not bi-monthly, you know, and so um so again listening to the customer, watching the data and what is it you know, it the data tells you something and we have a saying in our in our in our company, data doesn't make decisions, people do.

[00:34:37]>> Yeah.

[00:34:37]>> And you can be swimming in data, but what decisions are you making with that data? But if you if you study the numbers, if you look at it, it's telling you a story.

[00:34:48]And you just have to respond.

[00:34:49]>> Yeah.

[00:34:49]>> Yeah, I think I think having feedback loops is so so key. But to your point, you have to actually listen to it and actually act on it, right? People love to think that they have the their product is already perfect and doesn't need anything. And if you just listen to your customers, they're they're going to they're going to tell you, right? You're sending me too much meat. Let me give you more money. Like send me less and my LTV is going to grow.

[00:35:12]I think it's huge.

[00:35:13]>> We I mean we had a brand Three Sisters laughing as we had a brand years ago and we kept saying to them, we don't feel like you know why people buy. We can see the analytics. It tells us what's happened, it tells us how it happened, but it doesn't say why. And then we also did we had a massive they they sold furniture and lighting, massive LTV problem. No one came back. Not an obvious subscription model. And also if no one's coming back, don't try and offer a subscription. That's just not going to work. And we did this feedback survey and the and we started showing the graphs back to the business and said, we sent it out a week ago, we got the results in, let's have a look at the graphs together and start let's get some ideas as to what exactly is what we're going to do. And it was like, people don't like how long your product descriptions are. They think they could be shorter and quicker to understand.

[00:35:54]And she's like, but I like those. I wrote those myself. And I was like, oh no. This is going to be a long afternoon.

[00:36:00]>> This is the millennial marketer versus the Gen Z marketer.

[00:36:03]>> Yeah, well they so they were distributing products, COVID hits, they had to go direct to consumer and she just didn't understand. She knew what the distribution channels wanted, which was loads of information about the products. We're buying the best we can at the right price. That's not what the consumers want. They're like, I like red. Red's cool, isn't it? I'm going to buy that the image cuz the image the image sold it. But there was these massive long descriptions yet to get through before the add to cart button.

[00:36:24]So we were like, let's run an AB test and she sort of went, no, no, no, let's just leave it as it is or let's just change it." It's like, "But if we AB test, we know is it 5% important? Is it 80% important?" We get those kind of stats. So, just That's why I was laughing. I just remember having this meeting.

[00:36:36]>> Yeah.

[00:36:37]>> It's a long day. Um but I'm we're going to take questions in in a minute. I got one more question for you guys. Um so, think of any good questions to ask these two, not me. Um as challenging as you want as well. Um I want to ask about background. I'm going to start with you, Ben, cuz I saw a clip of you on another podcast and thought, "Wow, that's It's quite a story of where you were before as to how you got into um starting the business and and founding it and where you are today." Give us Give us a quick version of um of the story. Like, where did you start? What led you into it and how are you running what you are today?

[00:37:06]>> Yeah, I said at the beginning I had no industry knowledge, no um you know, whether it was business or meat. Um I was a worship pastor at a large church in Houston, and I did music full full-time from the time I, you know, when I was 19 um till my till probably 34.

[00:37:26]Um and that's what I was really good at it. And and uh but um yeah, my my story and, you know, what whatever your personal beliefs are, but my story is God told me to start a meat company.

[00:37:41]>> Mhm.

[00:37:42]>> I heard it loud and clear, and I went I was working full-time at the church, and I can't We just had our first baby boy. He was maybe 6 weeks old. And I walked out of the It was a Sunday morning. I walked out of the the bathroom. I was getting ready. And I went to my wife. She was holding our baby, and I said, "I think God just told me to start a meat company." And it couldn't have been more left field.

[00:38:02]And um thinking she was going to go, "We don't have any money. We just had a baby. We don't know anything about running a business." Um but she looked back at me and said, "If you heard God, then I trust you."

[00:38:13]>> Mhm.

[00:38:14]Wow.

[00:38:15]>> And so, we went.

[00:38:16]>> Wow.

[00:38:16]>> And here we are.

[00:38:17]>> I I am a worship leader at my church as well. It's why it resonated with me. I was like, when I heard it, I was like, "This is amazing.

[00:38:22]Um but John, how did you fall into Battle Box as well? How did you get involved?

[00:38:27]>> I can't go after that.

[00:38:29]>> [laughter] >> Sorry. I feel like I feel set up here.

[00:38:33]Um >> What do you believe, John? Come on. Open everything.

[00:38:37]>> I was in B2B uh sales, technology, SaaS.

[00:38:42]>> Cool.

[00:38:42]>> Yeah.

[00:38:43]>> [laughter] >> Um I was yeah, I was was investing in companies and I like recurring revenue.

[00:38:49]>> it. Set you up. This is fun.

[00:38:51]>> Um so yeah, not as not as a cool story.

[00:38:54]Thanks, man.

[00:38:55]>> That's all right. You've got a Netflix show, which is cool, but >> Yeah. Yeah, sure.

[00:38:58]>> All right. Well, can we give them a round of applause? Amazing for these guys taking time out and sharing stuff.

[00:39:01]>> Yeah. I I have to make one correction. I said CX manager, she is our CX director as of a month ago.

[00:39:10]>> Is that recently promoted or is >> Yes.

[00:39:13]>> Love it. You've obviously done well, so well done. Yeah. Very proud of you.

[00:39:15]>> She walked into the office with Who Runs the World by Beyoncé the next day.

[00:39:20]>> [laughter] >> Love that.

[00:39:21]>> True true story.

[00:39:22]>> Does anyone I love it. Um does anyone have any questions for these guys at all?

[00:39:26]>> There we go.

[00:39:26]>> We got one.

[00:39:34]>> Yes.

[00:39:35]>> So, I'll just repeat it cuz the people listening won't know what the question was. Yeah, what what AB what AB testing tools are you using? What software are you doing stuff differently?

[00:39:43]Who wants to go first?

[00:39:43]>> Yeah, I'll I'll go. Um we we're actually testing uh a new one called Visually.

[00:39:50]We're we're we on-boarded a a week ago and we're testing it right now. We've used quite a few.

[00:39:57]Um so we'll see.

[00:39:59]We'll see how it goes with with that one.

[00:40:00]>> Nice.

[00:40:01]>> Yeah. I don't know the answer to that and I was I'm looking in the audience just trying to find Michael McCorder.

[00:40:07]Where are you? He would know.

[00:40:09]Um Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I do know ours is a Shopify. I mean, there's there's so many >> Mhm.

[00:40:16]>> The that's the beauty of Shopify is there's so much plug and play out the box. Another mistake we made was trying to uh even when we migrated over to Shopify, we we didn't um go head it we we were still headless meaning we were There's still a a good amount of development that we were in charge of.

[00:40:40]And about 7-8 months ago we went Why are we doing this? Like, you know, just just let them do it.

[00:40:48]>> for a while, wasn't it? Like 99 page speed and stuff, but Shopify's improved enough now you don't need to.

[00:40:52]>> Shopify's the expert. Let them be the expert.

[00:40:55]>> Yeah. Amazing. Have we got any more questions for our amazing guests at all or we good?

[00:41:01]Sweet. Well, let give them a round of applause. Thanks for joining us everybody. And for everyone watching, thank you for tuning in. Join us again next time.

[00:41:07]>> Thanks for having us.

[00:41:07]>> Yeah, thank you.

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