Why THESE Buyers are the Biggest (and Most Overlooked) Retention Leak...

Why THESE Buyers are the Biggest (and Most Overlooked) Retention Leak... Speaker 1: If acquisition and retention are seen as like, I acquired them, now it's your job, you're never gonna win, like, how is someone that's here 50% off? How are you going to retain them? Speaker 2: How do you tailor your ads and your landing pages to that retention model? Speaker 1: All the messaging has to make a pitch for the product. Once you put that guardrail on the team, I think half of these problems and discussions on acquisition versus brand versus performance, they all disappear the second you put that guardrail. If you're optimizing for the best pitch that you can give the customer within that guardrail, you're building your brand because like, oh, coterie, like that's like the really, really clean one. Oh, that's the good stuff. Turns out that motivates customers and builds your brand. Speaker 3: Welcome back to another episode of Chew on This. Today's a special episode brought to you by Klaviyo. And we have Ankur Goyal, who is the SVP of growth at Coterie. As we jump in, today we're going to be talking about some of the great things that go into retention marketing, pulling levers for LTV, and even some really cool, incredible insights that Ankur is going to be sharing while building Coterie. But before we get started, Ankur, for the few people who may not know you, can you give them a little bit of your background, what got you to Coterie, and what you've been working on while you've been there? Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So my background has always been in scaling consumer brands. I started in big CPG, actually, and whether I was at the CPGs or consulting for them, kind of learned a little bit of the brand building, like how they think about things, and also kind of the areas where Hey, they weren't doing it the best anymore and these digitally native brands were. And so I hopped over to growth seven, eight years ago, really embedded into DTC subscription brands to figure out how to scale those brands, making some of the mistakes then, and then developing a really strong point of view on how Hey, how would I scale these brands if this was a thing that I was owning more directly? And so once I had that point of view after four years, that's when I hopped to Coterie, four years ago, and then owned Growth, which is like DTC Revenue, ever since. And it's been a great ride. We, being like the team, the really strong Coterie team across all functions, has really, in the four years, 15x the business. Wow, that's insane. Yeah, really, really proud of what we've accomplished and want to tell you guys more about it. Speaker 3: Before we dive in, a quick word about today's sponsor, Klaviyo. In 2025, retention isn't optional. It's a growth engine for any brand that's serious about scale. That's why at Avvi we use Klaviyo for all of our email and SMS marketing needs and to know what our customer are talking about. We're not just using Klaviyo to blast everyone the same promo code, but to make sure our message actually reaches the right people at the right time based on real customer behavior. Klaviyo combines real-time customer insights with AI to help us design smarter flows Create dynamic segments and personalize every touchpoint based on what our customers are actually doing. It saves us time and helps us drive way more repeat business. Want to know more about your customer than ever before? Go to klaviyo.com slash chew on this to learn how. Now, let's get back to the episode. You talked a little bit about it, but I feel like anytime I talk to you, and I've gotten the opportunity and the pleasure to talk with you both on stage and in conversations, but you're like the first growth marketer that I've talked to that has always kept retention very close. You talk about growth, but then you also talk about the importance of the impact of, hey, how is churn looking or how is this going to impact the retention piece of it? And I just want to go, before we jump into the strategies and stuff like that, what is your true philosophy and vision on how you look at where acquisition sits versus where retention sits? At least under the umbrella of a coterie because growth sometimes is only correlated to acquisition and I feel like sometimes that misses the point. Speaker 1: So it's actually, it's really funny you said that because even the framing of the question was growth versus retention and so I keep on having, this is a foundational point, the growth team There's acquisition and there's retention on the growth team and so we'll talk about this in creating a culture for retention but those are not separate functions because revenue growth is, in Coteri's case, revenue growth is probably more correlated with retention than it is acquisition. Our revenue has grown faster than our acquisition because the retention is there. And so that's the first foundational thing of you have to, You have to treat these both as levers to drive revenue. I think retention is a harder lever to move sometimes, but when you do it, it's a, I mean, from an EBITDA perspective, the contribution is gigantic, so it's worth it. Speaker 3: I love that line when you said your revenue has grown more than your acquisition because I think so many of us get caught up in acquisition needs to fuel constant revenue growth. But no, that's incredible. Speaker 2: Especially with these DTC bros, it's always acquisition, acquisition, acquisition. What ends up happening is the retention piece never gets solved. And once your, you know, acquisition slows down, which it will, there's nothing to fall back on. And I feel like this is just gonna be a really good lesson for a lot of people that are starting DTC brands. Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely a different model. And so, I mean, if I was, if I was, this would look, be a very different conversation if I was in maybe a much more multi-SKU context and much more of a one-time purchase context. So like, I don't, Everyone here with fashion brands, I don't envy you. And like, I mean, this isn't like, it's tough. That's a different challenge. And I don't want us to say, this is a one to one copy and paste in this for what we're going to talk about this might be more of the abstract the lesson versus copy the lesson. But when you have a subscription context, I think Obvi operates in that space. CodeRe operates in that space. You have some really interesting levers to play with that the growth community doesn't talk about because so many people are in that multi-skew context. So that's kind of what we're here to do. Speaker 2: Interesting. Speaker 3: I think the basis of a lot of conversations comes from The concept of what does lifetime value mean? I think for a lot of people, they look at it from the context of, oh, well, it's kind of the metric I use to think about my CPA. Some people look at it, well, it's the metric that tells me how good my product is. You know, there's a lot of different ways to look at it. What's your philosophy on it? Talk a little bit about how you guys look at LTV at Coterie. Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm gonna answer this Mathematically, and then I can answer this philosophically. So I think mathematically will be less controversial, which is, although there is a bit here, sometimes people talk about LTV as their lifetime revenue metric, and they call it LTV. LTV needs to be your lifetime profit metric, which introduces a fun new lever because now gross margin becomes an input to LTV. So that's how we think about it. And then I think the other thing to think about is also in terms of timescale. Especially for diapers, you have an LTV that lasts, I mean anyone here that's potty trained knows that it's a multi-year LTV for better or for worse. And so I could think about it as a pure two-year LTV, but earlier on I couldn't afford two-year payback periods. I still can't, or I still choose not to. So LTV then becomes a theoretical versus a practical. You have to look at how much cash you have and what your burn rate needs to be and figure out where do you want yourself to pay back. And that's how it becomes a practical thing. Speaker 3: Makes sense. And now are you guys utilizing that from, like when you look at this metric, right? Is it a conversation that you're having daily about it? Is it something that you're tying and looking at daily? Is it weekly? Is it monthly? How does that metric sit in your fundamentals and reviewing data? Speaker 1: Yeah, so this will tie a little bit into some of the topics that we have about how, excuse me, A lot of retention is actually done at the point of acquisition, and so those things are a thing we look at daily. We can expand on that. That's the thing I'm probably most excited to talk about today, so I'm more than happy to go into that. And then there's other things, like LTV maintenance, that I think will happen on a weekly cadence. I'll talk more about that. And then when you're thinking about net new step function changes in LTV, that's probably more of a quarterly conversation. Steer me where you want to steer me, but there's a couple, that's the menu of stuff I'm happy to talk about. Speaker 3: No, I like that. I think we can jump into some of it, but before that, I do want to like go into, you know, when you get into the retention side of things, as we jump into, right, you have this world of like email, SMS, maybe push notifications, now people are doing like calendar invites. There's a few different things that go into it, right? Do you guys look at retention and then look at each of those things I mentioned, whether you're using like a Klaviyo or a Postscript, whatever it may be, are those tools to help retention come about? Or again, obvi, right, we have kind of a different take on things because we approach it differently is more so like each of those channels have its own retention strategy. And retention isn't really bucketed across that and they're not tools for retention. So I'm curious, how do you look at retention in general? Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm thinking about retention. So to answer your question directly, email is a tool to accomplish your retention goals, but there might be different channels that can work in concert with email or independently. And so the actual goal is thinking about the high-value actions that you want your customers to take. So I think this is actually a software philosophy that I'm kind of applying to consumer, but you know how Facebook figured out that the second you make, if you have eight friends, then the platform becomes usable and then, so they did everything they could to get to eight friends. For us, we have similar things. It's how often do you actually, like getting you to log into your account is a really big step because our account management screen is fantastic and been souped up a ton, and so that drives a lot more LTV. Our CX is fantastic. So actually getting you to talk to CX is a lever for us or is actually a thing we want you to do to experience like the full breadth of Coterie. And there's also upsell-driven high-value actions. You know I'd be lying if I said I don't want someone to subscribe or Get SMS or try our wipes. So when you think about in terms of actions, then you can say, hey, what's the best way to do this? So to get someone to log in, email becomes really, really helpful because that's the only interaction they have or to get SMS sign up. But if I want you to add on a product, actually the account management screen might be the best place to do that and spoiler, it is because that's where you're already Managing your stuff anyway. Speaker 2: No, I was actually on your website, beautiful website by the way, product page, everything, and there was just like really cool simple features on there that I felt like other DTC, or they're maybe titling them wrong, like I saw your quick buy button. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: And I instantly clicked that right when I got on the website because wow, that is so, like that takes all of the stress and that fog out of you as far as like What do I want to buy? What do I need to purchase? Oh, just hit the quick buy button and then you can kind of just get and it has three things already there to tell you, you know, maybe pick up some wipes, maybe pick up some diapers. But these little actions, they're priceless. Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was, this is interesting and this is part of the Coterie team being excellent. So like the Coterie team is Figured out an amazing new just like upgraded site. And then it was kind of a baton toss to like, hey, growth, do what you want, figure out how to optimize this thing. And so Quick Buy was an optimization. But yeah, so that's like that step one, which I think errs on, okay, maybe like DTC hacks a little bit. Like, cool, that's like a quick thing. But then what we kind of realized is, and you kind of were a complete embodiment of this is, oh, this is for people that are looking for speed. So what do we do next? And so one thing that we're playing around with is like, hey, maybe quick buy, the options are a lot more bundles than they are like individual things, because that's actually what this person needs more. So this is not totally retention driven, but it's that acquisition point. How what you acquire on sets the tone for the entire user journey and the retention of that person. Speaker 2: Because now I know anytime I need to buy, it's not going to be this vicious cycle where I have to go looking for the product. If that initial journey was so simple, then all my journeys are gonna be that simple, and I feel like you guys have done that. Speaker 1: Yeah, well and that kind of speaks to the subscription piece as well, which is, so ideally, and we kind of figured this out a little bit by accident, I wish I could take again, say this is all planned, but a coterie buyer typically interacts with our website Or the website that you interacted with. But they interact with our website via the account management screen way more times. But then when you realize that, oh, most of your users are coming in account management, and changing a button there, whether by accident or not, has a much bigger impact on the business, now you actually open up a whole new screen, or a whole new swim lane of conversion rate optimization, or site optimization. And that's what I'm talking about, which is levers aside from email, because they're interacting with their emails, but they're interacting with They're interacting with your shipping tracking pages. They're interacting with your account management pages. These are all pages that people are naturally going to. What do you do about it? Because with retention marketing, you have a lot more of a canvas than you might think. Speaker 2: That's so interesting. They're all their own LPs at some point, right? Yeah. Speaker 1: I got this. I'm sorry. Speaker 3: No? Speaker 1: Well, I'll share this. You can cut this if you want. I got this inspo. Did I say I got this inspo? Eight or nine years ago, I was working on my own thing, which I learned I'm not great at doing that. So this is why I work on other people's startups. I was at a conference and someone made this tool called, it was like a, basically took your confirmation emails. Soup them up to put a lot more upsell. So it was like a early kind of AI thing where they like looked at the clothes that you had in your receipt and then dynamically populated like outfits and complimentary products on the checkout email. And he's like, the checkout email is the most clicked on email. Why are you not maximizing your real estate there? And I was like, You know, with marketing opt-in and all the legal stuff taken care of, that's genius. And that kind of like was the kernel that then set off this thought for me with Coterie. Speaker 2: Wow, nine years ago. Speaker 1: Yeah, you just gotta bank the stuff and then use it eventually. Speaker 3: Oh, no, that's incredible. I want to actually double down even more on, you mentioned like, what are those non-email levers, right? And you gave some really great tactical examples, which has been awesome so far. What else are you guys doing, right? I think there's a lot within Packaging, there's inserts, there's how do you go even deeper? I think some people stop at a QR code and slap that on but like I know you guys are super creative with the team so I'd love if you can share some more tactics that you guys are doing that goes beyond that email piece. Speaker 1: Yeah so kind of back to this framework which I think if there's one like abstractable concept that probably applies to a much wider array of business models is like yeah figure out what those What those key actions are and then also think about like what is the core value that you bring to someone's life and get someone like have someone feel that. As soon as possible or design your experience that they can't cancel before they feel that yeah and so. For us, a lot of the, like, oh my god, this thing is amazing, is when the diaper fits right. If the diaper doesn't fit right, yeah, if the diaper's too big, you're gonna leak. Like, at no fault of the diaper, there's just more openings for things to, like, come out. So, getting the right fit was frankly something the customer really wanted, and something that we really wanted for the customer. We got a lot of CX. We looked at what CX was doing when they got those complaints, and they were just giving them the next size up. Our diapers, I think if they have to run, they might run a little small. So more often than not, the Next Size Up was what parents actually needed. So we were like, what if we just make that a default? So we came up with this thing called the sizing service, which you basically get a trial pack of the Next Size Up in your box anyway, with a little card explaining why this is here. It worked. It boosted retention rates. Speaker 2: That is so good. Speaker 1: So yeah, shout out to... I was telling Andy Swim this when I saw them last week, so shout out to Andy Swim. They used to do this with bathing suits and that was also part of the expo on how we could do it with coterie, but it wasn't just like, oh Andy does it, let's do it. It was only when we realized there was this problem and I'm like, oh, somebody solved this before. Speaker 3: Yeah. Wow. Speaker 2: That's so good. Speaker 3: That's actually really cool. Non-block. Is the experience there like, oh yeah, okay, I got my size. But you also thought about the fact that, you know, I have another sizing, but also, does it also go into the mindset of like, oh, I have the next size, I'm just gonna stay on, like, subscription because, like, I'm already tied to the fact that they've thought about the next size, I'm here in this experience, like, do you think that creates a psychological element there, too? Speaker 1: That's a good point. I don't, I can't, I can speculate, I don't know for a fact, but I, it doesn't hurt. I think, like, I think it's like once it pays, so I can't, I'm not gonna justify this to myself on like that kind of feeling, but if I can have it pay back, which it did, from just like a hard metric, then I'm like gonna continue, or even if it's break even, then I'm happy to break even on that and create a better experience. Because like there's definitely something that's happening that I can't quantify, so then the gravy comes in that 10% of benefit that's not quantifiable. Speaker 2: That's so great, because the consumer at that point, you know, they weren't expecting this, And when they got it, they're pretty much thinking like, okay, they thought about me. And I feel like that right there is just going to make them stay on forever. Speaker 1: We hope so. And so, and if anyone has ordered Coterie and did not get that, it was in beta and only at 50-50 for a bit. So, yeah, you can get, but uh, but so it's not, it's not, don't take it personally. Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting because we had the, we had the founder of Lalo here too, Michael. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 3: And then we also had the founder of Modi Toys. And, you know, one thing that's really common in all this is You guys actually have a middle step to your end customer. Your end customer is a baby or a kid, right? And the person buying for that customer is the parent, right? And I think there is an element here where I always, and Michael had mentioned, he's like, we have the job of almost satisfying two people, right? There's almost two sets in your customer base. So I'm really curious. Are there things where when it comes to even just the marketing side of it or whether it's a retention layer of it, it's like... You know, parents in themselves, I think when they find something for their kid, they're very happy, they're very sticky. But that also makes it equal parts hard to get a parent off of a diaper they're happy with, right? And get them into your... So I'm also curious, like how do you guys think of acquisition and then of course retention from that point of view of like, hey, we also want to get people who are not maybe happy with their diaper or not thinking about their diapers enough. To get them onto Coterie because that's it's its own marketing cue, right? Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this speaks So there's a couple of things in that question One is how do we deal with the fact that the end user of the product is different than the buyer? And I think I think for with Lalo for example, they have an older child using their products and a child that can actually give opinions We are really really focused on you're typically engaging with Coterie when you're in discovering us when you're still in the Pre-child having an opinion. Their skin definitely has an opinion on how it has rashes and all those things, but it's like, it's just a very, it's that kind of thing. I noticed this with our, we launched The Pant, this was, been three years at this point, and then we saw videos of like UGC and we're like, and the child was saying how much they love The Pant. I'm like, oh, right, that's different. But that's definitely a retention thing, right? Because like, our goal with The Pant is you are sold on coterie because of the diaper, Now it just guides you to the pin at the right time. So I think leveraging the benefit to the child becomes a retention message. But you also said something interesting, which is, is part of the acquisition strategy just making people realize there's alternatives out there? And that is a whole thing. I mean, if you're happy with your diaper, listen, power to you. As much as I would love for Coterie to have 100% market share, Power to you, don't interrupt your child's routine. Like a lot of parents just don't know and that's kind of the state the industry is in. The diaper market was largely, I mean disposable diapers were only invented like two generations ago, right? So like the idea that you now have Even a higher level of functionality that your diaper can do more for you. That's part of the education. And that kind of speaks to how acquisition is one of these things with retention. The message that you acquire on creates different types of customer retention profiles. If someone is here because they're like, hey, listen, I heard coterie is the diaper that like parents have less rash with this diaper. I hear that the parents, some people are saying they sleep better with this diaper. That's clean materials. I entered your store for that reason and now I'm buying this product and then I had that experience. Congratulations, you're gonna have a really, really sticky customer. If a customer is here because you're either making a false promise or you're using, I'm gonna call it gimmicks, for lack of a better word. I mean, I think discounting is a part of just retail. We don't have any sales or any big discounts. But like, yeah, if your message is, buy this thing, you get 50% off, Then that value disappears after the first box, and you haven't really told them why they should stay here beyond that. That's why they're here, and they're doing their job. So you really have to think about your messaging. And that's kind of the thing, too, of like, how do you structure this? How do you think about acquisition retention? If acquisition and retention are seen as like, I acquire them, now it's your job. You're never gonna win. How is someone that's here 50% off, how are you gonna retain them beyond just giving them 50% off their next box? Speaker 2: That's so interesting because, so let's talk about, you said something really interesting in the beginning where it was like, retention starts at the acquisition level. How do you tailor your ads and your landing pages to kind of that retention model? Speaker 1: Yeah, so there are a couple of things. So some of this is guardrails and then some of this is like, Things you have to improve or optimize. So one guardrail that we have on our team is all the messaging has to be has to make a pitch for the product. And I'm not talking like, oh yeah, we said it won this award, here's 50%. Like, realistically, when someone sees this ad, the reason they're excited by this ad has to be what's the pitch. Once you put that guardrail on the team, acquisition teams are fantastic at optimizing within whatever bounds you provide. And I think this might be verging on philosophical. I think half of these problems and discussions on acquisition versus brand versus performance, they all disappear the second you put that guardrail. Because all of a sudden, if you're optimizing for the best pitch that you can give the customer, Within that guardrail, you're building your brand. Because like, oh, Coterie, like, oh, that's the brand that helps you, like, that's like the really, really clean one, right? That's the really, really like, oh, that's the good stuff. Like, that turns out that motivates customers and builds your brand. Speaker 2: Make sure there's guardrails at the acquisition level and not just let them, you know, run wild. Speaker 1: Yeah, because then if you're optimizing with no guardrails, then everyone's like, well, my performance team does this. They just like, it's so lower. Yeah, you told them to do that. Speaker 2: No, I think that's so valuable for people who are listening. Speaker 1: And then I will expand on that, which is like, so then you have, that's your pitch. And then there's certain Markers of customer quality. I can tell you the retention and the LTV of a customer if you tell me three things about them at first purchase. You have to define a couple of things for your brand, but this is not rocket science. Do you subscribe? Do you buy the wipe? Those are the markers. We've improved the rates at which those happen a ton and improved retention in the process. Again, this is not an email-driven thing. This is a landing page-driven thing. How do you upsell those particular things? And then you will change your retention curves all within like everything that's happened here before they swipe their credit card. Speaker 3: When we moved Obvi to Klaviyo earlier this year, we weren't just switching platforms. We needed a better overall system to manage email, SMS and real-time customer insights to create long-lasting customer relationships, all under one roof. Since making the change, we've rebuilt our abandoned cart flows, created dynamic segments that tell us who's ready to buy again, and used predictive data to time our offers more effectively. The impact has been higher repeat purchase rates, Better retention metrics and even more control over how we grow our customer value. Retention isn't set-it-and-forget-it tactics anymore that used to work. It's a system that needs the right tools and infrastructure. For us and for a lot of top brands out there, we know that's Klaviyo. If you want to turn retention into a growth engine, go to klaviyo.com slash Chew on This to learn more. Now, let's get back to the episode. When you talk about some of the elements of how you're getting people introduced into the idea of retention even early on, I'm really curious on the people who do churn early. I think there's probably equal part, at least for us too, Equal parts to learn from people who churn than the people who stay on forever, right? Talk a little bit about maybe some of the things you guys have learned that were maybe not clear to the naked eye from the people who, hey, I bought these and I'm off subscription, let's say, right? Or maybe just bought once and left. I'm curious what are some of the things you guys have found. Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think part of it, this was the The sizing thing that we talked about earlier, so You know people were like hey listen this just didn't work for me And we looked at the people that were reaching out to CX for those problems, and it developed that system So I think that's kind of where you can look at what they're saying Versus what then CX can add and also you know we have diaper experts on our team so what the diaper expert can say oh This is why that's happening Also, from a product perspective, so when we launch a new product, looking at the feedback and churn reasons for a new product becomes really, really telling because we're actually making optimizations to the product in real time on that. I mean, as real time as you can commercialize a product, but that's still like 8-12 weeks, you know? So, yeah. So, that's a big thing that we learn from those people. And then I also think I don't know if this falls into this bucket completely, but it's also the product that you give them. This might be a little counterintuitive, but I think People will buy just kind of what's in front of them and the retention profile can dramatically change even if it's the same person. So this is a really, really funny example. We launched swim diapers last year. Huge success. And we're like, great, people know that swim diapers are not normal diapers. And 99 or 97% of people probably do. And I frankly, Even a couple of percent of people that were interchanging them. So basically what we noticed was a couple percent of people that would have just bought the diaper just started buying Swim diaper. It's just like the day you launch it, you're like, hey, our full-size diaper sales kind of just went down. And the number stays exactly the same. And then Swim diapers went out of stock because we sold more of them than we thought. And the diaper numbers went back up. So we're like, okay, cool. That's a clear proof point that there was this switching happening. I can see the logic, which is like, okay, let me try this brand out. I can buy the swim diapers out for like this price. But obviously, it's just a very different value. That's what I mean. And so like the retention of those people is lower because you're buying a single pack of diapers. And it's like not the aha, like, Sleep benefit because like a swim diaper is not absorbing the way. Speaker 2: It's not your hero skew, right? Correct. Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the main point of this. Like you have to know your heroes and you have to guide people. People will buy what like, what's just in front of them. And so, yeah, they're going to churn and like this might not be what they're telling you with their words, but it kind of tells you what their actions like, oh, if you buy this product, the churn rate is very different or like the return, you can't subscribe to it. So like, obviously the retention will be different. This is like, the product's amazing. This is another thing. I think this is very tempting for a lot of people, especially, again, in subscription businesses. Every single data point is like, well, the majority of people don't want to subscribe. Yeah, good news. You have like 2% market share. If you build a product that works for 20% of people, that is still success beyond your wildest dreams. And you have to give them a good reason to subscribe. So yeah, if your product is not super, super head and shoulders above the competition and Maybe it can't survive that friction, but just building for the majority like that, people will buy what's in front of them, they'll buy a one-time purchase, and they don't think about your product the way you do every day. They're just going to forget, even if they loved it. And this is also true with the trial pack. So like a lot of people, sorry I'm rambling, but people are really tempted to be like, well, if they just try it and they buy the $5 satchel, then they're definitely gonna love it and come back. And like, yeah, a couple percent of people do. But it turns out that that's not being enough time to value. Maybe just using the diapers for like two days is not enough to be like, this is part of my routine, I see it. Customers will tell you implicitly and explicitly is the main point here and knowing your hero products, the products that make it the easiest to acquire are not the products that build retention, which is part of that thing of like, I know your retention based on what you buy and that's the quality piece. If you make your CAC 50% lower because you're acquiring too much of travel packs, our business will be way worse and we have to put that guardrail. Speaker 2: Really interesting. Speaker 3: So, so powerful. I want to have time for, you had a pretty insightful moment and discovery between the size 4 diaper and I want to get into a little bit of that. So if you can talk through what you learned from this discovery and a little bit even about like the life cycle pattern and stuff that came out of it. So if you want to touch on that and set up the stage of what exactly you ran into. Speaker 1: This was more about how I was better understanding the role of his lifecycle marketing at Coterie. This is a retention-focused episode, but I'm actually like an acquisition person that has now become a retention person. So I was trying to figure out what's the role of lifecycle, where do you deploy it the best? And so SIZE4, that's where your potty training happens. And back to what customers told you, we have their cancellation reasons. We were like, oh, cancellation reasons for potty training start at SIZE4. And with our product, listen, we are happy for you. We are happy that you get to potty train. If we can support that journey, that's fantastic. And so it's inevitable. But at that point, that was a key change in their experience. How do we introduce lifecycle? Maybe we can use lifecycle marketing to further engage them. And so a lot of people at that point didn't know we had a product that would help Help them through that process, our pant. So, when you size up to size four, how do we, like, let's trigger a bunch of stuff there to let you know, like, what coterie looks like now that you're potty training. Hey, now that you're potty training, maybe you can add, like, pants, like a pack of pants to your order because they're gonna be doing this during the day, but still in the diaper at night. Like that kind of stuff. And so I think finding those key moments When the experience changes. And then, frankly, part of it is just engaging them is a good enough metric to start. It doesn't cost you a heck of a lot to send those emails anyway. So it's good enough for me. The ROI is there. And then you kind of get that canvas to then maybe do some selective upsell for the appropriate products like the pant. What's also interesting with size four is like, we don't know in anyone's body training. No one like tells us, although we're gonna figure out a way to change that. But like you have something like sizes that is a really cool proxy where you have complete data on. So That might just be a fortune of diapers, but I think other products have those implicit signals that you can use without having to get a survey data. It's not gonna have full completion, that kind of stuff. Speaker 2: That's really cool. Speaker 3: I think on that last point, I was just thinking about it too. You guys get to see progression. Compare that to, let's say, a weight loss product at Opvy, which is one of our hero SKUs now. For us, progression actually is when you stop using a weight loss product, right? And there's usually only one or two reasons you stop. It didn't work or it worked so well that you're happy with where you're at. And so, you know, I think the part that becomes interesting is like sometimes I think we also do this, we over invest in time of thinking about what are they going to get next and what are we going to sell to them and instead of just saying how long can we keep them on the journey. Because I think sometimes just extending it is enough, not so much worrying about like, well, we don't ever want them to leave or we want to, you know, keep them here forever. And I think there's this fine balance between like On your journey to finding out what your LTV is probably going to end up being versus, you know, trying to actually push it and figure out how to keep extending it, you have to also know when that timing and balance is right. But I don't think enough people know how to really process that or at least strategize around which methodology should we use. One side is kind of saying, I'm kind of becoming content. This is where we're going to be and whatnot. And the other side is like, no, let's push it more. How do we extend this, you know, seven more dollars in the next three months? Like, I don't know how you guys go about it, but any good tips on how to think about it differently? Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, well, let me just tell you a little bit about how I thought about it, which is, you heard me say size four, later stage stuff. This is engagement and this is a little bit of like gravy on top of for a pretty low-cost thing. You didn't hear me say I'm investing a ton of money behind this thing because the reason is most of the gains that you can actually that you can make and that you can actually realize happen before acquisition and within your first impression in your first month. I only felt comfortable even thinking about this long-term thing and like directing my team there. After this other stuff was in really good shape. Because the number of people that make it to that point in the journey, in general, our retention curves are really good, but like in general, it's a very small segment. And it's like it's happening as those cohorts mature. So the impact will be really, really small. And if you're investing all this time and focus here, you are missing the big thing. The long-term stuff, I don't think about it until you get the short-term stuff right. That's at least how I've approached it. Maybe the other stuff works, but I don't want to say that that's what I've done. And I think about it as like, it's kind of the word-of-mouth thing. I don't think, I don't know if a ton of engagement or even like, A congratulations, you've potty trained graduation note. That's fun. It doesn't cost you anything. It's probably not gonna boost retention, but those little things are actually what people talk about. So I think that's the mechanism that I'm looking for to influence, not this AB test retention number. Speaker 2: Right. No, it was really cool what you said. How can we support your new coterie journey when you've been potty trained? I think for us, it's like, We want to think about it in a different way now, as far as like, you know, okay, you've done this weight loss journey, you either gave up or it didn't work for you, or you reached your goal. But instead of trying to get you on a bunch of other products, how can we actually support them on whatever their journey is next? And I think, I mean, what you said just now, that has me thinking. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 3: I think it's really powerful. I want to touch a little bit back on email, because I think part of email has been something that is It feels like it's so, as a thought, it's so commoditized, it's like, oh yeah, we do email, like everyone does email. Are there certain things you guys have done, you know, I'll give you a couple of examples, like something as simple as tactical as like, you know, this one brand that was on here, it's a Hydro machine, it's a workout machine, and they do where their discount codes are word searches and emails, right? Speaker 1: That's awesome. Speaker 3: And that's the only way, you have to find the word, and that's the only way you'll actually earn the discount, otherwise you can't. I'm just curious, have you guys done any cool campaigning when it comes to email? Part of it is you're also selling the same thing to the same people. You can't go and contact them five, six times a week because they get it, you're there. How do you balance then still keeping things fresh and exciting when it comes to email? Speaker 1: Yeah, so the way we've approached email is exactly that. When you're at a multi-skew, part of your job is to send a ton of emails and that moves the business. I'm probably the first person to be like, do not, I don't think you can give that up right now. Like your job is kind of like, it's kind of the bizarre, like show your wares and just like keep on showing what you have today. This was me opening like my thing of wares if that wasn't clear, like my like briefcase of wares. But like in this single SKU subscription business model, just applying that one-to-one will result in a Probably higher cancellation rates and a bad experience. So our approach is be really judicious and high value with your emails. So we have these series with experts every week on general parenting, diaper-related stuff. We also understand, by the way, that the role that we play in our parents' lives is just like It's not everything. Coterie is not the best parent. That's not our personality. It's just like, we will help you be the parent, whatever version of the parent you want to be. So we will give you stuff that we're experts about. We're experts about how diapers work. We're experts about how wipes work. And we give really cool education about that as a campaign perspective. We have a Coterie council that can talk about, they're comprised of doctors and experts, so there's, you know, and those are really high engagement emails, because people just, they're curious, especially hearing from an expert on that. So we're really judicious. We are sending a couple of emails per month. But then it becomes, and the rest of the email becomes triggers, right? So it's like, we have progression. Whenever you hit a new size, something's changing. It's a pretty good opportunity to know that something's changing. Your baby's growing up, so there's probably a pretty happy thing that's happening here, if not bittersweet, and so you can have triggered flows around that. Or, you just added your first swim diaper. Amazing. Here's how to use a swim diaper. By the way, the swim diaper is not going to absorb the main diaper. It's not supposed to, otherwise the pool will get absorbed. Triggered stuff makes it really, really relevant and not just this spammy, here's our new launch, because we don't have a new launch all the time. If you're hearing this after June 4th, we will have a lunch. Speaker 3: That's a great, great call out. I do want to touch a little bit on, if we can, when it comes to not being distracted, right? Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 3: I, you know, we actually just had the founder of Dude Wipes on, Sean Riley, and it's been 11 years of him just selling Dude Wipes. And he's like, we've tried a couple of other things like shampoo, this and that, and we quickly shut it down because we realized it was a distraction. I think it's like, especially when you have a parent that's like staying with you guys for, you know, months and months at a time with their baby growing up and stuff, you can easily get into the mindset of like, guys, we have this parent on the hook, let's sell like baby food, let's sell this, you know, let's sell baby furniture, let's sell, you know, whatever else a baby may need. I'm sure you guys may be tested or toyed around with the idea, maybe you've even launched some stuff, but overall, outside looking in, ...ridiculously focused on being really good at diapers. So, and how and why does that culture come? Speaker 1: Yes, so thank you. I really, really, this is so true and I think everyone is like, oh yeah, to start up like ruthless prioritization is almost like meaningless because I have often it said and then not done. It's true if you do it right, but it is really, really hard to say no to things. And more importantly, to get an entire org to consistently say no to things. Or say yes to the right things. What I will say, thoughtful product innovation, I would be remiss if I didn't say thoughtful product innovation is a huge LTV lever. I talked about the pant. I talked about, even our wipes was an expansion at the time that they were launched. If you want to improve LTV and create that step function, the right product can do it. But part of its focus, if you have a ton of products in the categories, you don't have someone on the hook, right? Especially with a premium brand that's focused on, hey, we're better. You only have someone for the thing that you're excellent at. Because in today's world, Everyone can get access to the best. You can just Google something else and find the best X. And then whatever happens with MCP on ChatGPT, your agent can get you the best. So you just have to be the best. I view it as you get one shot to be meh, before people are like, eh, well, I'll buy that thing, because you fooled me once. But how often are you going to be able to do that? And then it distracts you from, what do I acquire on? I have a portfolio of 50 products. Am I just going to be doing like DPAs? You're turning a single SKU strategy and subscription, your edge, into a multi-SKU, showing them your new launches every time strategy. You're giving away your whole edge. And so that for me, that's why it was so important. And that's where the brand building happens. And that's why people will actually take our new products because they know We're being thoughtful and we only launch them when we, like, we test them in-home with users only when they're like, wow, that's better than the other options out there. We've delayed launches if the product's not there. Speaker 3: Wow, okay. Speaker 2: That makes so much sense because I feel like, you know, obviously it's tempting to get into multi-skews, but what you said there is so right. For a subscription brand, you have to stay focused and you have to stay thoughtful. You can't be a subscription brand and have a hundred SKUs. It's just not going to work. Speaker 1: In the diaper space have, and beyond, have like, it's tempting. And I just said this, yeah, like last week. Like it's tempting, oh, if we just have this one more SKU and we get this like X percent take rate, that's just money in the bank. No, it's not. It is now your email team having a whole lot more work to figure out the journeys. It's like a ton more noise in your data so you can't make decisions as quickly because you're like, well, is it this product or that product that's going down? Think about operational complexity. You might be the right SKU away from a big jump in your business, but you're not just any SKU away. Speaker 2: You can't just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Speaker 1: Oreo, by the way, is. Oreo, the name of their game is take over the aisle. They should launch whatever crazy flavor they have next because that's actually their strategy. Speaker 2: That's what they're doing. Speaker 1: If you think about critically, Okay, here's why that thing works for them, by all means. But for like an online brand, where like shelf ownership is not really a thing, think twice. Speaker 2: No one's subscribing to Oreos. Speaker 3: No, this is awesome. I'm gonna wrap up with you. Yeah, cool. So, Ankur, first of all, we've had, you know, 50 plus guests here, and we don't say this to everyone, but extremely tactical. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 3: Like, you went right into it. No fluff, no nonsense. You really, really know your stuff, and I've known that for years now, getting to know you. Thank you. But out of all the things you shared, and you shared a lot, I'm really excited to even clip this up. Out of all the things you shared, what's that one thing you want people to take away? Something to chew on, something to go either apply to their business fundamentally, psychologically, philosophically, whatever it is, what's that one big takeaway? Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the thing that I would want the audience to know the most Is that that piece I said about acquisition or retention starts at acquisition. And what that means both like tactically and strategically is figure out what are those markers of things that acquisition that create your best customers and orient your strategy there. And don't think of them as separate teams. It's not a handoff. It is It's whatever you do, it's an assist. Unknown Speaker: Chew on that. Speaker 1: If you want more from us, follow us on Twitter, follow us on Instagram, follow us on TikTok, and check out the website ChewOnThis.io.