How Removing the Free Trial Grew Monthly Subs 2000% – Nancy Anderson, Natal

0:00When someone gets to our web checkout, 93% of them actually download the app, which is a really strong number that we recently found. I think our trial conversion rate is like 68% up against our industry average, I think, is 38%. It's not because our offer is amazing or our checkout page is amazing or the copy of the button or the countdown timer and it's expensive at 25 bucks a month. I really think it's actually just a signal like those stats are just just a signal that trust has been built before the payw wall. So when they get to the payw wall, it's not feeling risky to

0:31them. It's not feeling scary. They're not feeling hesitant or sketchy. Like, is this legit? Like, they already trust us cuz they've already been connecting with us, whether it's connecting with our content or connecting with us on socials or in DMs or emails. And there's a lot of other dots that we have that kind of just go back to that same thing is like, yeah, it looks that good because we have a real connection with our client. And I think our brand comes through as authentic, you know, and I think that's my founder growth approach. [laughter] Hello, I'm your host, David Bernard. My guest today is Nancy Anderson, founder of Natal, a fitness app for women. On the podcast,

1:09I talk with Nancy about why authentic founder content outperforms, tapping into HSA payments to unlock a whole new audience, and the growth lever. No dashboard can measure. Hey Nancy, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. Thank you for having me. We've been looking forward to it. It's super fun to have you in person. We are at the MAU conference in Vegas in a little podcast studio just off the strip. Uh and I always love doing these in person because it's just so much fun having a human here face to face with the Zoom in the flesh. Yes,

1:44it's great. So, thank you for making the time and uh really excited to chat today. Yeah, I'm stoked. Yeah. All right. All right. So, I wanted to kick things off with your origin story. We don't always dig into kind of the origin story of apps and try and, you know, jump right to some tactical stuff, but I think you have a really interesting origin story that really relates to, you know, how you've built your business. And so, I did I did want to start there. So, what's what's your background and then what led you to to build apps? Yeah. So, I'm in the fitness industry by trade. So, I started

2:13when I was 18 working in gyms and I realized very early on that like I wanted to be in the fitness industry, but I didn't really know how I was going to make a living in the fitness industry. Like I think I googled like how much does a trainer make when I was like first thinking about it and like the average was like $18,000 a year and I was like not great, but I'm going to figure something out, you know? Um, but yeah, I started in person working with mostly women but gen pop one-on-one and I did a lot of group training, a lot of big classes, worked for group fitness studios and

2:47did that for a very long time. Um, and the type of trainer I was was really just like I really like to connect with people in person, you know, figure out what motivated them, what built their confidence, what they needed, what resonated, and then most importantly like what kept them committed and coming back over time, you know. So for 10 years plus years that's all I did in person full book locally. I did it in Baltimore which is where I started and then moved to California and built a new book in California. And then um over time I started realizing actually early in my 20s that there was this big gap in the market. Um, like a lot of women that were starting to get

3:26pregnant or thinking about pregnancy or rehabbing post pregnancy or getting back into fitness after having a baby were having all these like issues and symptoms and there really wasn't any support for them. You know, there wasn't really any programs out there that were doing it well based off of science, there was a lot of fear and misinformation that was out there. And I realized way before I even thought about having kids myself that I wanted to serve this population. Like my goals always been, you know, I wanted to go in the fitness industry, but not just to make a living and to do whatever, but really add something to the industry where I felt like when I was done

3:59my career, it was leaving the industry a little bit better than I found it. That's always kind of been like my goal, I guess. I like that. Um, and I just was gravitated towards that niche, like that population of like pre and postnatal, like they don't really have what everyone else has. like Genpop, you know, all the options that Genpop has for fitness. It's like pre and postnatal don't have that. And what they did have was like so outdated and misinformation and was not even following the science. So I started working with them more and more. Still Genpop though. And then

4:27eventually I um went to working with only relate with moms mostly and then I wanted to go online. So I started with like digital programs online first and I still had my full book in person. So I was basically doing like you know both. And and did you start first as an influ? Like did you start posting fitness content and that started to grow or you started right away with courses? Yeah, I think I had like 5,000 followers on Instagram like when I started my like business online and it was all like high school friends, college friends, and then just people from the community

5:00that knew me through fitness, you know, through my gym or training with me or friends, whatever. And I would post like fitness quotes like back then like you just had still images you know and you were posting like motivational workout Wednesday stuff. Um so yeah it just went small. But what I did when I first launched my first digital program just because I had done it so much in person I was like I want to get a group together to do this together. Like group training there's just like a momentum behind getting a community active and engaged with each other in any capacity. And I thought well I do this in person all the time. I'm a run challenges

5:35in the gym and I do group training like I sell my classes. It's like it's this like family mentality like why can't I create that online? I think I can you know. So then I launched a challenge for my first digital program that I launched and I had 100 people sign up. And I was like wow like that's like so many people. And immediately I was like I need to capture before and afters. Like day one

5:55take your picture, day 30 send it in. Whoever wins a challenge wins x y and z. I forget what I did. 100 bucks or whatever it was. And you know, I had like 50 people complete it and like submit these before and afters that were like incredible. They had like amazing transformations and I coached them every day online in Facebook groups. Like I was coaching in Facebook groups back then, not like in an app, you know? Um and then that just kind of snowballed. I was like, "Okay,

6:17I did that in January." Like I thought New Year's resolution that'd be a good time to launch this. And then it went so well I was like, "Let me try it again in February." And in February I had 125 signup and I was like, "Okay, let me do it again in March." You know, and then it just kind of like snowballed. and the before and afters I used as marketing obviously, but just all organic to 5,000 followers. Nothing paid, nothing sponsored. Like I don't even know if Instagram brand ads honestly back then, you know what I mean? It was a long, it was like 10 years ago. So it kind of snowballed

6:41into that, you know. I did more programs, more challenges, and I was just in Facebook coaching them. I was coaching them, only me, party one, like no one else was working for me at that time, you know, and it just gradually grew word of mouth. They told their friends about it. They had a good experience. It was no ads for years. I didn't do anything paid, you know, right? M uh no paid media I mean and then you know after I did the digital program thing for a while then I went into launching white label apps so then I had a few different apps like actually four to be

7:08honest with you um which in hindsight mistake I shouldn't have done [laughter] that you know that was a lesson I should have just done one from the beginning we've had a lot of conversations about portfolios and and struggles with the multiple apps and it's a lot to maintain a lot to drive people to all the different apps and you think you can crossell but it's actually really hard so hard it's really hard and it's confusing for the user which like creates kind of like decision fatigue and they're like I don't know which app to go to what do I do you know um so yeah so then I did

7:35white label apps and then eventually a little over a year ago we finally launched our first custom fitness application which is one ecosystem that everything else lives into those other apps still live and we still service them and there's clients on those apps that we still coach every day but we're just not actively like investing on growing those anymore we're just kind of servicing them as they are and maintaining them and then Natal which is our custom application we launched about a year and a half ago Um, and that's kind of was like the evolution. And like through that time period, you know, my following on social media, Tik Tok, Instagram, Facebook, whatever,

8:05grew and grew and grew. And a few years in, we started doing paid ads, which killed it out of the gate for a couple years until they did that big update which kind of like hamstrung everyone. Targeting transparency, the big Apple one. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I would have hindsight's 2020, but I wish it would have invested so much more before they did that. But yeah. [laughter] would have been further ahead. But yeah, and then about a year, a little over a year ago, we launched our custom application. So now we're just focusing on growing and scaling um and really just pouring our hearts into that. Yeah. So So I know a ton of fitness influencers sell courses,

8:42end up building apps and you know, it's it's hit or miss depending on their audience and stuff, but it sounds like you kind of had an edge and figured that out early. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's funny cuz like I everyone kind of calls me a fitness influencer, but I've never really viewed myself as a fitness influencer. I just think that I'm like a trainer, you know, an entrepreneur, you know. Um, but I I'm starting to accept that like that's just the label that I sort of live under, fitness influencer. But, you know, a lot of times the fitness influencer to me kind of represents someone who looked really fit or got themselves really fit and then they developed a program and

9:18now they're going to help other people get fit. Like, that was never my trajectory. You know, I have a master's degree in kinesiology. I've been in the industry for 20 years. Like, I started out training people one-on-one and in person for 10 years. I saw hundreds of people train them every week. You know what I mean? the different bodies, different goals, different motivational types. And

9:40I when I went online, you know, in the beginning, everyone was starting to do like sponsored posts. This was before you even had to like disclose that you could do sponsored posts. Like you could post anything and you didn't know if they were getting paid and I mean they were making bank. I mean, I have paid influencers to post for us and we pay them a lot of money, you know. So, I knew how much money was like available, but for me, I just could never really uh like make that like leap to to like putting I don't know, putting someone else's brand out there instead of my own because I feel

10:16it kind of dilutes your audience. But something that I also found was like really interesting was that the quality of the audience is actually what matters the most. So, When I was starting out, like I was just running my challenges and kind of growing and I would look at like peers, you know, other fitness influencers that had much bigger followings than me. Like I had a friend who had like 30,000 followers and then like his girlfriend had like 300,000 followers. And I remember I would see her and she looked so fit and her workouts she looked like beautiful and like had great form. And I was just like, man, like she must be killing it. like she must be just like selling so many

10:53programs and like have such a demand for her training online. And I found out that actually like she couldn't sell anything. Like she was trying to promote one-on-one training and programs that she was releasing and like no one was buying anything. She had 300,000 followers and actually she had like a big sort of like endorsement deal I guess from this fitness clothing brand that would pay her to like post a certain amount every month and then she would get kind of like this lump sum every month you know but she couldn't sell any programs and at the time I think I had like 10,000 followers maybe on Instagram and Facebook combined and I was doing like 10,000 a month in

11:29sales and it was just a party of one like just me and Shopify and running Facebook groups and PDFs. Yeah, [laughter] exactly. Um, and that was such a big lesson for me because I was so hard on myself of like I'm I have to like make it to this number of a following to like be able to be successful or whatever. And really, I realized like at 10,000 followers, I was already succeeding more. But

11:53the difference was in my opinion was not just like the quality of audience that she built. I'm not sure how how people get their audience. Sometimes it's like a quick viral whatever and then you just have this audience, but they don't really know you. and aren't really engaged. But the way I like nurture the relationship with my clients, like I treat them like they're friends and family. Like I treat them like they were be my clients in real life, which like I was invited to my clients weddings and I would go to their house for dinner and we go out together and it's like we're really have a real connection and I love them and you know I think of my audience online

12:25in the same way. And and I think that when you have that mindset going into building an audience, like people can feel that you genuinely care and you really want to connect. Yeah. Um and that kind of sets us apart. And then the other thing is there's so many fitness influencers that they look amazing and maybe they were so good at training themselves and giving themselves a specific body, but when you don't have practical experience or a real education in the field, it's really hard to make an effective program to scale for the masses because everybody is different. People are motivated differently. People are going to hit different plateaus. Different things are going to

12:59go on different people. You know, you h you can't train everyone the same. And when your only deal story is yourself, well, I lost this weight and I did this thing. It kind of is like yeah but like are you going to be able to give results to everyone because you only have this like sliver of experience where luckily when before I went online I had 10 years of experience and a master's degree and all these certifications that gave me I think the ability to not only uh build like a real connection with my audience but also deliver programs that deliver real results that like lasted and then that once you have both of those things that kind of just snowballs because

13:37people want to share their success uess with their own network and their own communities whether it's big or small or it's just in person and you know over the years like the biggest compliment that I receive when people come up in public and be like oh my god like I use your program like thank you so much they often say like I tell all my friends about your program and to me that's just like such a good sign that like we're doing things right like if someone cares and had a good enough experience to tell people in their real life about your product like that is a major Yeah. sign that

14:08you're doing something right, you know. Um, so yeah. How have you seen the audience building shift with the move to more algorithmic driven content? So like you know fewer user uh fewer of your followers will actually see every post of yours. You know uh reals, Tik Tok, so many of the platforms now are more algorithmically driven. Um, but it sounds like once if you actually built a good audience, the audience still sees a lot of your content, right? Yeah. I mean, I think it depends on the platform for sure, but like let's talk about Instagram. I guess that's like an easy one to reference. Um, you know, stories if you for me like my audience is so engaged that they

14:53want to come watch stories. So, like if my story views are, you know, 50,000 views and they're all my followers, you know, very rarely am I getting nonf followers that are viewing my stories, but my story numbers are high. And that's where a lot of the intimate like interactions happen where maybe you wouldn't even see it on the outside. Like I'm in DMs every day chatting with people. Um, my coaches, customer service are in business manager chatting with people and connecting with them. So, I think a lot of it happens there. So, even if they don't see my post on the feed, they're seeing my stories and they're engaging with me in DMs. Um, but also I try to like for me,

15:29I don't always just post about product cuz I noticed when you post only about product, you don't perform well on the outcome, you know? And then you have to try to achieve the system, which I just can't get behind. Like the excessive many many chat stuff like I just can't get behind that. Like it just feels so inauthentic to me or like having, you know, those Instagram groups where you're like it's like your fit follow. I don't even they like label them different things like you know like my fit club like join my fit club and then like you have 20,000 in your fit club. So when every time you post you send it there and you're like go comment and then I'll

15:59send you $500 one winner and it's like I just I just can't get behind that. You know what I mean? So, I just try to keep it authentic. And one thing that I do personally is I post content that I know is relatable and funny and engaging or um you know, entertaining to my target audience, which is going to be my following, but also could be other people that aren't following me, you know. So, I'll post like some viral like viral ideas that I know like moms will be able to relate to or something funny happened in motherhood where I'm like, I think people will get a laugh

16:30out of this. I'm going to share it. Or like my husband will do something stupid. I'm like, I'm going to clip this from like our home cameras and like put it up because I think it's relatable and it gets it let pe it lets people get to know me, the founder. And like my whole strategy is like founder growth. So like I want them to get to know me. Like I want them to feel safe with me. Um and like I'm one of their friends. And I think if you read through our comment sections, you get that vibe too. Like they talk to me like I'm their friend and I talk to them like

16:56they're my friend because they are, you know, um in a parasocial relationship. So, I think that's one way to kind of navigate it is like don't only post about your product. Like don't have to be so business. Like you're allowed to have a voice and you're allowed to have personality and you're allowed to be, you know, vulnerable with your audience. Like it doesn't have to be this like professional living in this box and I only talk about expertled things, you know, I want to connect with them and that connection goes far beyond fitness. So I think that's part of how I navigate that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I would imagine having such an

17:29authentic engaged audience does give good signals to the algorithm so that some of your like one-off posts do end up getting a lot of attention and a lot more reach than they otherwise would. Yeah, it totally does. Like I think we we did an audit recently, which I never do these numbers until recently, but we did an audit and it turns out like our organic content outperforms our competitors by 90%. Jeez. [laughter] which I was like I knew it was better but I didn't realize it was that high and I was like okay yeah like that makes me feel really good about my mentality around this whole strategy that I have. Yeah. And it really is such a different strategy than a lot

18:04of people are working on right now. And like I mean and and not not that those others are invalid and and they work and they work for different kind of businesses, but I was excited to have you on with this mindset because I think it is a great way to build a great business with this mindset of building trust, building an audience who really cares, engaging directly. like so many of the things you do uh let you outperform in that way. Like the other uh organic content that you're out performing is like their manufactured like UGC team that's doing stuff and it can work but like

18:40being a real person real like like you're saying all the experience and everything else you have uh comes across differently in a way that's more authentic that's more relatable more trust building and stuff like that. So, yeah. I mean, my kind of philosophy is like I never want my audience to feel like I'm selling to them, right? I mean, even my own app, like I just want them to know what I do and that I'm an expert at this and if they ever need me, I'm here and I would love to help you. Like, that is what I want them to feel when they when they consume our content, when they

19:13talk to me. Like, I'm never in DMs pushing stuff. Like, if they're asking me a direct question, of course, I'm going to share our product and I'm going to say, "Hey, here's the link if you want to check it But like and I train our customer service team to never hard sell. Like in fact I hired recently, you know, I've tried to hire so many people to help us with content production over the years and it just like doesn't really work. I have a very specific brand voice that like we have to nail like words really matter especially and emotionally sensitive topics or niches like pre

19:43and postpartum fitness and health and healthcare in general. I think it is a very sensitive area. So, you have to be careful with what words you use and what you say. But, yeah, I'm just like super picky with it. But recently, we we are trying something something new, you know, we're bringing them on and I'm trying to get them to understand the brand voice, you know, and they're sending over these scripts to like review. And I'm like, I'm like, are we rewarding this? And he's like, "Okay, so what I'm hearing here is you never want to sell." Never. You you never want any copy that's going to sell. And I'm like, pretty much yes. And at the end, you just want to end it with

20:17like a soft cell. Like, click here to learn more. Like, DM me to chat. Like, that's what I want. Like, I just want the connection first because I want people before they get to the payw wall, before they're asked to start a trial or even ask to sign up. Like, I want them to to know who we are, to feel comfortable with us, to feel safe with us, to feel that we're credible. And in order to have her feel those things, we need to connect with her. We need to build rapport. We need to have responsiveness. like every and I think that this is crazy but I don't think that a lot of

20:49brands do it but this is just I mean maybe it's my niche I don't know maybe it's my personality type but every DM and comment across all social platforms every email every inapp post comment and DM gets answered within 24 hours wow and has been for eight years and by by a human not by an AI system by a human and it's not canned responses like these are real people and yes we have like SOPs workflows to make it efficient and make it scalable and make it digestible for like a spend like how much it's costing us, you know. Um, but I I our clients deserve to have a human talk to

21:26them. Like these are women that have been ignored by their doctors or they have been, you know, not given resources to help them through a very personal phase of life. Like the least I can do is give them a real expert to talk to. And that's the other thing is like we don't have just like customer service reps. our coaches like real life DPTs, real life public floor therapists, real life trainers that have tons of practical experience or are still practicing in person are in talking to them. Like that's who they're connecting with. You know what I mean? And yeah, they cost more per hour than a low-level customer service rep, but think of the value and the connection that we're

22:01building with our client before we ever even tell them that they should buy or ask them to sign up, you know? And I just think that like softelling for us is just my growth approach is soft selling. Like it really is because in my opinion like the soft things are actually what determines whether or not someone stays, you know? And like retention is what matters. Like it matters more than acquisition, you know? So for me it's like why aren't we pri you know why wouldn't we prioritize that? Like sure I can't clearly measure it. I can't clearly measure how powerful it is to invest in all this trust building and relationship building before the payw wall or

22:42before the trial or whatever, but I mean our our stats kind of speak for themselves. [laughter] I feel like you know when someone gets to our web checkout 93% of them actually download the app which is a really strong number that we recently found. Um, I think our trial conversion rate is like 68% up against our industry average, I think, is 38%. Yeah. So, it's like stuff like that. And I don't think it's it's not because our offer is amazing or our checkout page is amazing or the copy of the button or the countdown timer and it's expensive at 25 bucks a month. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

23:18I really think it's it's actually just a signal like those stats are just it's just a signal that trust has been built before the payw wall. So when they get to the payw wall, it's not feeling risky to them. It's not feeling scary. It's not feeling they're not feeling hesitant or sketchy. Like is this legit? Like they already trust us because they've already been connecting with us. Whether it's connected with our content or connecting with us on socials or in DMs or emails or wherever they have kind of connected with us. But um I think and there's a lot of other you know stats that we have that kind of just go back to that same thing is like yeah it looks that good

23:52because they we have a real connection with our client and I think our brand comes through as authentic you know and I think that's that's my founder growth approach. [laughter] No, that's so awesome. And honestly, I think so much of the industry right now is trending toward, you know, shortterm maximization over building long-term sustainable value. And I don't know that, and this is why I'm so excited to have you on, is I don't think people think deeply about the trade-off they're making. And so, you're making a very different trade-off. you could go, you know, scale with tons of UGC and and like not that that's a wrong approach. You can scale quickly,

24:37you can dilute your voice, you can do those things and like build a great business. So I'm not saying but there's another approach which you know I I I just really like that mindset of like really building trust. There's a a quote I'm actually in my talk tomorrow at MAU. I'm going to quote uh Silon from a from a podcast we did a while back and it's um uh your payw wall is only as good as the story leading up to it. Oh my gosh. I have a sim I don't have that quote but in my speech tomorrow I'm saying something like that. Yeah. And and and and the truth is and and what I'm going

25:10to say is is that the story begins with the you know Tik Tok video they saw. It begins with the meta ad. begins with searching prenatal in the app store and then that story continues usually on the app store or on the web with them seeing screenshots you getting sold a little downloading the app and then getting to the onboarding and the more you can pack the story ahead with trust with relatability with believability and all those things by the time they get to the payw wall they're already sold and like your your your payw wall conversion numbers are insane. [laughter] Um, thank you. Yeah, our download to trial I think is 17%. I get against like a 6% health and fitness

25:54average. Yeah, it's like stuff like that, you know, and we don't have any growth hacks. I mean, like the hack the hack is build trust. Yeah, build trust. Like be consistent and, you know, reliable for your your audience over time and it will pay off. I believe I find that a lot of even like brands will do it, but a lot of times it's founderled brands or fitness influencers are doing all these brand deals or affiliate links and they're cashing in. And people ask me all the time, you know, like management agencies or like whatever. They're like, you're leaving like a half a million dollars on the table every year or a million dollar on the table every year

26:31like if you just did brand partnerships. And I'm like, yes, you're right. Yeah, but that would be like cashing in on my audience and like that just doesn't feel right for me. There's nothing wrong with it. I'm not trying to say that, you know, it works for some people. Just for how I have built the brand and the the relationship I want to have with our audience. I never want them to feel like I'm using them. I want them to lean on me, you know? I don't want to feel like I'm leaning on them to support. You know, obviously our app is not free like we have. It cost a lot of money

27:03to build and maintain and like develop all these features and stuff. So yeah, in a perfect world, we would everyone gave everything away for free. But I just never have felt right about doing the affiliate link thing or doing a brand partnership and to have hashtag ad at the end of it. Like I just can't trade I just feel like over time that will dilute my brand and will dilute the trust and the like they they look at me as so authentic and like is that authentic pushing even if I use the brand? The thing is is like I I'll post about a brand if I love it just just for free. Like I'll

27:35just if I think it will help my followers, you know, and they could relate. But that's like one thing that I notice a lot. And even brands partner with other brands and it's like I don't know like are we is this doing what you think it's doing long term and I don't know how we would measure that. Maybe you can't. But just my intuition and gut and everything I have seen is like it's not going to pay off. Like I want to continue to invest in our app and our audience and the results and programs we can deliver to our audience to help them and hopefully it, you know, improve

28:05the offerings in the fitness industry for this population and over time add value to the company, not to Nancy Anderson. You know what I mean? Well, and and I think the the 500,000 you're leaving on the table is really an investment in that audience, an investment in trust, an investment, and really, you know, the the trajectory you're on with the business. I mean, you know, you shared with me y'all grew 20% in the first quarter of this year. Uh, and so like that kind of growth happens, you raise prices or that time, which is kind of crazy to think about, but that happens as a as a snowball. And so, you're snowballing that trust into a much bigger thing. Whereas

28:43if you did dilute the message, dilute the brand, dilute your messaging, dilute your audience, you could cash in in the short term, but it's probably going to be worth way more to you in the long run, building that trust and leaving that money on the table. And again, that's where I think there's just, you know, just deferring enjoyment of it, I guess. I don't really know. You're not Are you leaving it? Maybe not. You're just rolling it into something else. Well, and and and you know, again, I think there's a time and place to just like make hay while the sun is shining. Um, but I think,

29:13you know, I think again, as I said earlier, too many apps aren't taking that whole picture into account when they're making these decisions. And those decisions that ultimately do increase revenue in the short term aren't building that kind of snowball that is going to snowball. even, you know, I mean, we talk about on the podcast about like uh retention offers and like, you know, it's really popular if you uh um dismiss the payw wall then to offer like 80% off and like those things work and but but they also do kind of feel a little icky sometimes and like and so, you know, it you just have to figure out for your own business, you know, where you want

29:55to draw the line. But I I love hearing from you building your business this way because it's it's it's a very conscious choice that not as many app builders are are choosing that. I I felt like the whole industry has pushed harder and harder and to monetize as quickly as big and move as fast as possible instead of like building this long-term trust and growth engine that does pay off in the long run and really snowballs instead of just like burning through users and having high churn

30:23and like all those kind of things. Yeah, I know. I mean, I think trust actually drives monetization. Yeah. Personally, when you think about it, but you just you have to be patient, right? And you have to be okay with not being able to measure every single thing. Like, you just you can't measure when you're when you're investing in trust and relationship building with your customer. Yeah, you're not going to be able to measure everything, but you'll see the downstream impact. 20% increase in AR growth in Q1. It's like, okay, well, the investment seems worth it to me. You know, when you look at it like that, I know you you spend a lot of time talking to users,

30:57right? And like the uh uh something you put in our notes was uh uh dashboards can give you numbers, but talking to users tells you why. And I think that I mean that's exactly that that mindset is I mean that's that's actually how our hero program got built is it's called App Rehab and it's our most popular program inside of our app. It drives like the most traffic to our app. And at the time I was we had digital programs that were launched and I was coaching them in Facebook groups or whatever, but I was only doing postpartum core rehab like ab rehab stuff in person still because

31:30it's kind of complex. It's like hands-on work. You need something kind of different for each person. So I hadn't yet figured out a way to like build it into like an effective scalable online program. But I kept seeing like a trend come in with comments, DMs, and inside the Facebook groups that I was coaching is like women were coming to me asking about getting back into fitness postpartum, asking about symptoms that were directly related to postpartum core rehab. And I realized because I was like so close to those conversations and so close to those clients, like, oh, this is not this is not a one-off. This is a gap. Yeah. That like no one is serving or they're not serving well for

32:04it to be effective. So, I'm going to like I'm going to figure out how to make this scalable, you know. So, I did I, you know, buckled in and I I figured it out and I launched it and we've had over a million users use this program. It's eight years ago is when I launched it, maybe a little bit longer now. Um, and it's still our hero program. It drives the most traffic to our app. It's what we're most famous for. Like, it's the program that most people stop me in public and talk about, you know, like it's that one. Um, and I never would have built it if I wasn't close

32:34to the customer because I never would have heard that feedback. That never would have showed up in my Shopify Yeah. reports. Yeah. You know what I mean? And and it doesn't show up in an AB test. Like you could AB test up and down and price and all the different things, but you're going to lose the why if you're not in that community. And that that's another thing I love about the business you're building too is that you're you're almost building a community first and like and and then that the app is just a way to like make money to build the community. It there's like

33:04a famous uh I think it was Walt Disney like uh I make movies to make money so I can make more movies. [laughter] And it's like that's exactly right. That's exactly our approach. Like before I got into fitness I actually have an undergrad in fashion merchandising. I was in like the fashion world for a little while. Not really glamorous, but I was like a manager at Nordstrom. And that was the first place that I worked that really had hightouch customer service. Like you could not say thank you. You had to say my pleasure. You'd have to walk the bag around the counter to hand it to them. You couldn't hand it over the counter. Like you would have to take any return

33:35back. You would take it back like with grace. You would never question them. Like you just were so respectful and honoring to the client. And that was like such a good lesson to me. I'm like people should be treated like this. Like if people are coming in to like buy a high-end product, I mean, ours isn't really high-end, but you know, they should be treated with this kind of like appreciation and respect and like really feel valued and served. And that work didn't work out. I think I actually got fired from that job, but I did learn that how important that high-end customer service was. And I took that with me. And that is what like I train our team on is like

34:07hight touch customer service. Go the extra mile. Get her the link. If she want if she wants to know what pants I'm wearing, ask me. I will like think about that like a half a million million followers across social platforms and they're like I want to know where NY's necklace is from. I will find

34:21the link and send it and it's not going to be an affiliate link. I'm just sharing it to share it. You know what I mean? Like I'll tell you the brand of whatever. Like even has nothing to do with my product. Like I will take care of her because I want her to know that I care about her, you know, and I value I mean people have a lot of choices. They can follow any fitness influencer they want, you know, but if they choose to follow me and be a part of our community and engage or use our products, like I want her to feel valued and seen and heard. And if I can do a small

34:49part by just answering a DM, like it really it's crazy to me that brands don't answer their DMs, right? Or answer anything in their comment section or they just like it and they don't actually rip out. Like these are people that like took the time out of their life to ask you a question about your product even and you're not answering it or about something else or they're just trying to connect with you and you just ghost them like so. [laughter] It's like talk about leaving money on the table, honey. Like to me that is leaving opportunity on the table. Yeah, absolutely. Um I I did want to step back. you you talked about having um four apps across different things and then

35:27niching down and something like we've been talking a lot about at RevenueCat and and then just in the industry more broadly is that with vibe coding and and the ability to build more quickly there there is an opportunity to to very deeply serve a smaller niche and do really well and it sounds like that's kind of the path you were on like trying to serve a lot of different needs but then by niching down is when you really saw the growth. How did how did that all come together? Yeah. So, I mean, we had basically four apps. We had a pregnancy app, a post pregnancy app. We had

35:57a general population fitness app. And then we had a Nancy Anderson Fit app, which was basically for like if you fit in none of those buckets, but you want my nutrition programs, or you want whatever, whatever, and you don't want to see postpartum content, you can go Nancy Anderson fit app. And it's just like it's so much. And what we found is like clients want to be in all of it, you know? Like, and I don't know, it's just it's just like so intuitive now. I don't know why. Like I feel like I'm so good with intuition usually, but in hindsight it's like duh. But someone that's like

36:24working out in your pregnancy app and then she doesn't want to leave that app to go to another app to do post pregnancy and then leave that app to go to another app to do gen pop. It's like it should just all be in one ecosystem, you know. So we kind of made that mistake. And I also realized that you know in general population there's so much competition which I think if we tried really hard we could compete. But I'm only one person and it's a founder brand and I'm so picky about how the customers are taken care of and how our brand is perceived and what we put out there that I just

36:58wanted to be too involved to be able to actually scale four apps. It's just like crazy. We actually had like two other apps scoped that we never even I like I like went to Max, my husband. I'm like I can't do it. We have to just we have to tell him no. Like we can't do it. [laughter] Like I have to draw a line somewhere. So yeah, it was really that it was just realizing that everyone really just wanted one ecosystem where they could just stay in for longer. And by doing that, we could actually lower the price. Yeah. So we could not only give them more content in one place, we could do it at

37:24a lower price, which just created like more value for them really. And then the and then the name speaks to the the niche you've niched down on is natal. So prenatal, postnatal. Um and then imagine that that like resonates so much more. It's like this is the fitness app for me because I'm going to have a baby. this is the fitness app for me because I just had a baby and like that tells a different like we were talking about storytelling. It's like that tells a the name of the app tells a story that that that's who you care about. That's the community you're building and that's what

37:54you're working toward and that's what you're going to get when you download the app versus like if you're a Gen Pop, you know, Nancy Nancy Anderson fitness app. It's like what is that? Like I don't know who Nancy is, but Natal is like oh I like Yeah. And that's actually one I think mistake I

38:09did make early on is Nancy Anderson Fit was like the brand for a long time and that's tough. Yeah. Like in hindsight I probably wouldn't have spent so much time building a brand with my name across it. Like I would have had another name like Natal for example. So that's kind of been a a a soft pivot that we're trying to sort of make because I have like you know 10 probably coaches like amazing talented very experienced coaches DPTs physical therapists working for me too. So it's not the the Nancy show like you come in and maybe you're getting coached by Lindsay or Britney you know or AIA or like these other coaches that work for us who are incredible you know. So I I also

38:55didn't want to keep using my name cuz one I just don't want to be the face of the brand forever because there's other faces and I want them to shine too. Which talk about like UGC like I have my coaches create content for us which I think is a way to do UGC without like making it kind of that like diluted way of doing it. So we scope ideas for my coaches and they shoot those. Um, and that's been something that we're trying to maintain. It's working well. Authenticity because they were and they know the client the clients know them. I mean, so it's it's very authentic,

39:27I think. But yeah, so that would be like one lesson. I definitely if I could start over and do it, I wouldn't have done Nancy for them again. I would have had a different name that I would have done. But yeah, pre and postnatal is is is what we um niche down to because that's really where I think we can make the biggest change, the biggest mark. I can leave the biggest like improvement on the industry there. But I love it all. Like I I can train anyone, men, women, whatever. But

39:52I niche down to pre- and postnatal because I think that that population is most underser underserved. The biggest demand is there for us. Um and we have like the expertise and the experience to fill the gap. So I want to do that for the industry. So yeah. Yeah. And I'm I'm excited to see more and more apps launch that take that approach. It's like, yeah, there's there's hundreds of fitness apps out there and so many of them are trying to, you know, be a massive business and so then they have to reach everybody, but then when you reach everybody, like you're just competing against everybody else, too. Very difficult. And so, uh, so yeah, I'm excited to see all the different

40:27uh apps that get built over the next few years as it's gotten easier to build apps. I imagine y'all have struggled uh built maintaining four different apps and you're white labeling and like I tough. Yeah. cuz you're just you're so hamstrung by the the software that you get, you know what I mean? So, it's been nice to have a custom app where we can basically kind of do do and build anything that we want. But Max is actually talking about this earlier today. We were talking about how inexpensive it is to build an app now as opposed to like 10 years ago. It would have cost like so

40:55much money. So, the barrier to entry to build an app is like so low now. Like basically anyone can do it. Anyone that I'm doing I'm coding an app right now and it's crazy how much I can get done. Exly. Yeah. Which is awesome, right? because it gives us even playing field to so many more people. But I think you know what we'll find is as the the barrier of entry is lower and how it's less expensive to like create these apps, there's so much competition in the space, so much noise in the space, what's going to set your app apart from the rest. And that's where I think the community

41:26and the branding piece comes into it because well and the practical experience which is kind of for the fitness industry specifically. Um because you you look at these big brands that have like Under Armour is a great example, right? They just they've built this reputation for themselves that kind of like carries, but they're I mean I love Under Armour. I used to work there, so I don't want to like say anything bad, but you know, if their products aren't as good as their marketing, it only works for so long. And I think if you look at like the stock market for them and you know,

41:57you can see that it's they've had a big challenge, you know. Um, so that's just like another example. I always try to like learn from other brands mistakes. I try not to make all the mistakes myself, you know? So I kind of like look out and like what can I learn from other people that I don't have to go through that same thing. But I think it just that that's a good example of like, you know, your brand, you know, your brand can be really strong and your product can be weak and like that's going to fizz out eventually, right? Or, you know, your product can be strong, but your

42:22branding is really weak and like that kind of is hard too, you know. So you kind of have to do have both. have a really good product, but also have like really good branding and a strong connection with your target audience. And I think that will give you the most longevity for growth over time. I love what you said there because um and and it's really bring it back to something we've it's been a thread throughout this whole conversation is storytelling is that like you said something along the lines of like if you're going to build an app, why like why will people care? And that's

42:50the story like what's the story behind it? What's and so you know if if you're building a new app, if you're adding features to your existing app, what's the story behind like why does it matter? Why will it matter to people? And you really need to think through that deeply and and that's how you've built your whole business is that you actually started with the story and the app is just like the the the culmination of the story that you were already building and already telling which is really cool. Yeah, 100%. And like the insights really have to come from the customer, you know, like we're really just building what she wants. Like she's telling us the product road map,

43:22not me, right? You know, and I think that if you have close proximity to your user, it's so much easier to map out your product road map and know what features to build, what fe I mean, the last thing you want to do is spend 50 grand building a feature no one uses, you know? So, it's like when you can hear from your audience like, oh, there's a real pain point here. What can we do in the app to like fix this? You know, one that we've done recently is like a posture assessment where they can come in and get their posture analyzed by an expert, real person, not AI, and it tells

43:50them what they need to work on and then gives them that first activation, you know, step like, okay, this is the program to start on. These are the custom custom routines to add in based off of what we found in your posture assessment. And we found that when women come in and do that, they're um they're like 68 or 70% of them go in and complete their first workout after that, which is like a really high I think that's high, right? That's really high. Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Um so it's like things like that where it's like we knew that they would probably benefit from this just from

44:20all the conversations we've had with the user. And you know, part of it is also in the fitness industry is like waiting for people to be ready for certain things. Like for a long time there was a huge fear around pregnancy fitness. So people didn't want to work out because they were scared. So it was this whole educational period of time where we're just educating on the science. It's safe. It's beneficial. It's going to help your baby. It's going to help you. It's going to help your recovery. And then you know people learn and then they're kind of ready for it. It's like the

44:46wave is coming, you know. Um so like the posture assessment is kind of like one of those things. And that's just been one of the activation pieces that we're currently working on cuz that's one thing that we do are struggling with probably we need to work on the most is um getting more wins for them earlier. Getting them in to complete the first workout earlier to get them seeing you know then once they complete the first workout then they feel a difference and they see how it's going going to go and they're more likely to come back. But it's like getting that first hurdle. How how

45:13do you approach that in onboarding and that early storytelling you know since you do work you know prenatal postnatal posture like all these other things do do you have like a branching logic where you ask a lot of questions early on and then you you take the onboarding a different direction and they end up at a different payw wall or like is a posture assessment part of onboarding now for for the right person or is it just a web thing or like yeah how are you approaching like because you you even though you're in the niche you are serving so many different needs and that gets complex Lex

45:43and then leads to confusion and decision fatigue and even in a single app because you do so much it can have similar kind of decision fatigue as having four different apps. So how do how are you thinking about approaching all that and simplifying it for the user? Yeah. So I mean one thing that we definitely see is when women come in and they are overwhelmed or confused of where to start, they don't start, you know, they have like this decision fatigue. They're like, "Well, I actually could probably I think I could do all four of these programs. Which one do I you know, so we try to help them not have that decision fatigue when they come in. So when they go

46:15through onboarding, we don't have a super long onboarding. I think it's probably 10 slides, 10 questions, maybe maybe 15. That's one of the many contrarian things [laughter] about your app cuz they don't have time for that. They don't they don't want to waste time filling out all these things. like we ask them what we need to ask them and we're actually this is a big project we're working on right now because we do need to optimize it in certain areas that I think we can improve but you know we have split the app so you come in through onboarding and you tell us are you trying to conceive are you currently pregnant are you postpartum have you ever had a baby before

46:48and based off of that answer the content that's populated in your app once you get in there is completely different so if you're pregnant you're not seeing any postpartum content if you're TTC you're not seeing any pregnant content it is only for your faith days of motherhood is what we call it. Um, so that's a big piece that slices it down. You know, I have 50 programs and now only you have 15 or something. You know, it's a big slice down. Um, but then throughout we're asking about symptoms they're having, goals they're having, how much time do they have to work out, like those kind of things that help us recommend the right programs for them to get started. Um,

47:21the posture assessment is only for postpartum right now because we we just launched it a couple months ago. We will we will roll it out to everyone else eventually. Um, that kind of goes handinhand with like you had a baby, you're trying to rehab your body, not like I'm coming in to like gain muscle and strength and I'm done rehabbing kind of thing. It's more of an earlier postpartum thing. So, based off of when you gave birth last, we'll give you the posture assessment kind of thing. Gotcha. Um, so yeah, we kind of filter it down like that. And we have found that too many onboarding questions, people can't get through it and they just get frustrated and not

47:57enough they're confused when they get in there. They don't know where to start. So it's like it's this constant like balance of like how much. So we're kind of playing with that right now. We're adding a few more slides that kind of niche down a little bit more of you know where to put them. Uh because we don't want people being confused when they get in the app. But we also are reaching out to them as soon as they get into the app. like a real person is reaching out to them like, "Hey, just shooting you a DM D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D DM like welcome to the app like let

48:22me know what I can help you find and that first if they if they connect with a coach or they go into our community and connect we find through like our stats that they're more likely to come back like in our inapp community if if you if they get in there um that like 31% of them are coming back on day two and 14% are still returning by day three." You know what I And so what we find is it's not really the feature. It's just like an inapp community, you know, something special. But

48:46I think it's the the validation, the support, the feeling of like, oh, I'm not alone here. There's expert coaches in there that are coaching all day, every day, answering your questions, pelvic floor questions, whatever you need. Complex things that you'd have to pay a couple hundred for a session with a doctor of physical therapy to even get your answers. Well, we're answering them in the community. And by the way, it's for free. You can come in. Anyone can answer those. Anyone can ask those questions for us, you know. So, it's like that, you know, um, and helping them kind of get to where they need to be through the community or through coaching

49:13or connecting with the coach. Yeah. Yeah. And then I would imagine that that help that that's part of why you have such great conversion to paid is because you get people to that moment of feeling heard and understood and that they're seeing the right content so that they'd start a program instead of being overwhelmed by 10 different programs. Uh, so it sounds like that that is pretty key to why you see the numbers you do. And then and then when they feel engaged and and cared for and listened to and like supported and and related to and all those things, then then retention is so much easier because they feel part of something instead of like it less transactional

49:51even. Another thing I I was curious about with the with the posture thing specifically, but you know, feel free to use any other example. How do you think about individual features as kind of like lead magnets? You probably wouldn't ever say lead magnet. [laughter] I know you mean but but but like the posture assessment is a kind of thing I could see a Facebook ad and you do run some paid ads and everything. So then how are you thinking about like specific features as those kind of like draw and like something exciting that an ad could be like are are you thinking even in that way or is it just like how can we Yeah, I have we actually released um the posture assessment

50:26to be free. So you can download the app and you can just do it for free like you don't have to be on a trial or anything to use it. Uh, but we don't like promote it. It's kind of just like a soft launch that we kind of threw out there because sometimes, you know, if we get inundated, it's actually real humans. These are real coaches that are doing it. So, I don't want to like over overwhelm them necessarily because we have that 24-hour role. You they have to get responded to within 24 hours. But, yeah, we think about it all the time. You know, it's funny because we talk

50:53about like lead magnets and stuff. It's like we as a brand like I've never done lead magnets. Like I don't post free workouts, right? I don't you know and it's not because I don't want to give anything away for free. It's because I think it um attracts the the wrong type of audience personally I found and I think that you know the work we do is really valuable and it's complex and these are real experts that are coaching and that are developing these programs and when you just throw something out for free you're kind of like devaluing them too in my opinion you know like and also

51:31it's complex so me giving you something for free doesn't mean it's going to fix your problem you might need custom coaching And that's why we want you in the app so that we can work with you and we can customize your approach. You know, it's that high-end customer service thing. How can I give you high-end customer service if I'm just giving you a free workout on Instagram? Yeah. Or in a blog post kind of thing. So, we don't typically do that. But the posture assessment specifically, I do want to try to use as a lead magnet. we just haven't found we haven't built it basically in a

52:00way where they can just like click and be there right because it's like inside the app and they you know so that's that's something that we do want to explore um and I guess we could like test and see if that works well I don't know but we do find that a lot of people use it and once they get inside the app and organically I promote it does really well like if I promote it on stories but we haven't had anything anything paid yet for it sounds like an opportunity Sounds like an opportunity. Yeah. One last thing I wanted to talk to you about is accepting HSA payments and

52:32this this is something pretty new. Uh you know, Revenue Cap, we just uh did an integration with a company called Flex. Uh ladder has rolled it out u but but very few and and your app Natal is one of the early adopters of this which I think is a really cool opportunity for the health and fitness industry to be able to accept HSA payments. Um, so what was what was the like h how did that all come about? Well, it's kind of interesting because for years people have been submitting their subscriptions to insurance and getting it covered for pre and postnatal fitness for our app. So I knew that that this women were looking for this because really we we we're in fitness,

53:16but we also sort of blend into like healthcare a little bit because we're doing pre and postnatal corrective exercise. um and some physical therapy protocols, you know. So, I always wanted to like implement something like this where it would be easier for them because we always had to say, "Oh, yeah, just you pay for your subscription and then take your receipt to your insurance company and if you have, you know, dollars, they'll cover it kind of thing." And so many clients would come to us

53:42because I'm in DMs and I hear all the time like, "Hey, just so you know, my insurance covered this. My insurance I never heard one client say that it didn't get covered." Wow. So, when this came up and Max brought it up in a meeting and said like, "We can do maybe" and I was I was like, "Yes, 100% yes." Like, "Our clients are already doing this. They already want this. They ask us all the time if we accept it." You know what I mean? So, we're super excited to roll it out and we just launched it like two weeks ago and we've had like tens of thousands come of revenue come through it, but we

54:10haven't announced it. Like, people are just find, you know, finding it at checkout and using it. Um, but it's cool. They did a really good job because when you go through the like checkout process, which it is long and a little bit more like annoying, I guess for the customer, but it's tax, but pre-tax money, pre-ax money, and it's, you know, it's HSA, so it's like so great for them, you know. Um, I I switched my ladder account from app store billing to HSA billing. I I because I I know the CEO and you know the team and everything and so I knew they were doing this and they had

54:42they would talk to us uh about it as they were working through it and I had to dig around and like find it and like so it was exactly like that but it's like it's so yeah saving whatever 30 40% on a subscription I would already pay. So, it's like even though it's a a slightly bigger hurdle, there's like massive incentive to pay through that method. And then, you know, you're so early, but I would hope and imagine that that retention on that is even better because Oh, yeah. because it's going to come out of those pre-tax dollars. It's like not part of the the the budget that,

55:18you know, when somebody's looking at their monthly budget like Yeah. And I would look at this because like I don't take freebies in the app industry. And so, my wife's on ladder for $30 a month. I was on ladder for $30 a month. I was thinking about, you know, the the annual, which I, you know, we should have just gotten on the annuals, but that's like 170 bucks and then like that comes out of the budget. Uh, and so like I see those charges every month, but but the HSA now it's it's like just free money that's sitting out there in my uh revenue c HSA. And I think the customers

55:47understand like what this is like, okay, it's going to be a little bit maybe more painful to get through checkout, but it's worth it. But what we did is we were offering a free trial for it with it. I mean, uh, but we only are offering it on our annual subscription. Yeah. Which I think makes a lot of sense, like considering. Um, so I guess we'll see how that like pays off. But I'm so glad people have found it and are using it cuz it to me that's just like a sign that like once we start promoting it or running ads around it or whatever, like it's going to do very well if this many

56:12people are using it already and we haven't even said anything about it. So, we're super stoked for it and I'm so happy to be able to offer it to our clients because I mean fitness is expensive, you know, and people it's a tough time for a lot of people right now, you know, and when something has to go a lot of time fitness, right? And um you know, women write me all the time. They're like, I want your program so bad, but I can't afford it. So, it's really I love that we can offer something that maybe it will open up our resources for like a new audience that maybe couldn't afford it

56:42before, but if they have insurance that this gives them like another avenue. So, that was another big piece of like why I wanted to offer this is like it's right there. So, when someone says like, "Hey, I really want to use this but I can't afford it." We can just be like, "Okay, well, if you have HSA, you know, you can do it through here. It's at checkout." So that's another big reason why I like was like immediately like yes, we need to put it on the road map like right now. Let's let's put it in. So I didn't realize it was super new though. I thought that we were finding out about it late,

57:09but I guess no. Very new. Very new. Yeah. And I I think there's been some like regulatory changes and you because HSA I mean it's all like federal government and tax and like it's pre-tax dollars so they're picky about what you can spend and not spend and all that kind of stuff. Uh and so I think it's just just in the last couple of years that that started happening where

57:30you you could use HSA and then um we uh revenue integrating it. I think we're pretty early. I I hadn't heard of many other apps out there accepting HSA until uh uh Ladder signed up and and we did this partnership with Flex. Um so yeah, I think you're you're actually pretty early on this on this journey and it'll be interesting to see. I don't I don't know exactly where they're drawing the lines and I think that's between the app and flex not between you know revenue cat and the app uh for like what it's classifying the category for what it's classified and like whether it's covered whether it's not covered and stuff like that. Yeah. For us, I think at checkout they are

58:07selecting things related to postpartum fitness. Like there's a diastasis recti, there's a pelvic floor exercises. There's like many options for that, but I didn't see a there's just like a general fitness one. I guess there must be that ladder's using. Yeah, I didn't see that on there, [laughter] but that's great. I mean, it should be covered like it's how you stay healthy, you know? And and I have seen like there's more um like there's there's other programs out there. I think True Med is one where they it's like you can buy healthy foods through your HSA and it's like oh you know and and the insurance companies and the US government like everybody should

58:41be incentivized to like let people uh spend that money to make themselves more healthy not just on the care once they're not healthy preventative. So, I think it does seem like the tides are shifting. And so, then hopefully more and more health and fitness and mental health and other apps. Um, if you're in that space, you should totally check this out because if you qualify, it it potentially could be a huge unlock. So, yeah, I'm fascinated by it and it's really cool that y'all started and uh yeah, we'll have to follow up in a year or two and see how the see if they retain at a higher or lower rate and, you know, see what the conversion rates are and things like

59:16that. And I think the big push for it will be end of year, right? because those dollars don't roll over. So, people have to use them. So, that's like a great time to push campaigns around like don't lo don't lose your HSA, you can use it to buy to do our programs, to use our app. Marketing idea. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, as I do with uh all guests now, uh I wanted to ask you three questions. The first one, what is the biggest uh fail of the year? We'll start with fail and then we'll go to the biggest win. So, okay. the experiment that bombed, uh tactic that fell apart,

59:50uh a content that that bombed or or you felt like didn't appropriately represent your brand. Any any uh fails that you learned from the last year? Yeah. So, it wasn't an experiment, but I think probably the biggest fail for us was um just like, you know, we'll get a lot of feedback from clients. We're looking for different things. So, we like build all these programs to like fill the needs and it's almost like too many programs where they come in and they're just like, "Okay, whoa, like where what program do I do?" You know, kind of thing. Especially with like postpartum fitness, obviously, we do a lot of postpartum rehab. So, we have like multiple programs that focus

1:00:27on like prolapse, a hypertonic pelvic floor, early postpartum, ab rehab, ab rehab plus, you know. So now there's like five, six, seven programs centered around postpartum rehab where we were listening to the needs of everyone, right? And building those things out. But I don't think we did a great job like we talked about earlier with like the onboarding piece of like, okay, we're asking you these questions and now you need to start with this program, you know, or like you need, you know, wherever you need to go. So, I think that was probably our biggest fail because it just creates decision fatigue and then they end up not activating, you know, and like my big thing

1:01:02is not to just get subscribers. Like I want to get results and value for the people that subscribe. Like that's the app I'm trying to build. So for me that's like a big panic button where it's like oh my god they don't know where to start so they're not starting. No, no, no. We have to figure this out. So that's a huge initiative we're working on right now to fix that failure basically. Very cool. More content isn't always, I guess, the answer. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Um, so then what's your biggest win of the last year? Uh, experiment, price change, anything that shifted the needle for you? Yeah. This is so funny because our biggest win this year came from taking advice from your

1:01:37podcast. Thank you. [laughter] You had Zumba on. Yeah. And they talked about removing the free trial from the monthly option. Oh. So, we listened to that episode and we were like, "Huh, that does make sense. We should try that." And we did. And it crushed. Wow. Like I think our um monthly our monthly subs like went up by 2,000%. And our quarterly went up by like 46%. Our annual went up by 21%. And it just again sort of validated again for me how much trust is being built before the payw wall. Yeah. That then they come in, they don't even want or need a trial. They're ready to

1:02:23buy. So, and it also kind of shows you that like each customer is different, you know, like some people they know what they want. They come in, they're ready, and they just want to commit and get started. So, that was just like a huge thank you to you actually for [laughter] having them on and sharing that knowledge. We ran a lot of experiments. We learned a lot this year. We had a lot of wins, but that one was like I was shocked that it worked personally. Like I was like, that's not going to is that going to work? I don't know. But it worked and it worked really well. So that's

1:02:52what we've continued to do and we adapted that as like a permanent offering. So thank you. That's awesome. Thank you for that. Uh and then lastly, as a fill in the blank, growth would be easier if [snorts] I could get tech bros to buy into it. [laughter] What do you mean the trust? The trust piece of my founder growth approach. Like if I could get everyone in meetings that focuses on data and stats to [music] prove and make every single decision and back up every strategy we have. Like if I could just have stats around how valuable trust is, [laughter] then those meetings

1:03:31would just be so much easier and then growth would just be easier because I could prove prove it. Because a lot of what I talk about today I can't black and white prove, right? So you can't run an AB test on trust. Yeah. Growth would be easier if I could though. Growth would be easier if I could. So I would say probably that like the a big, you know, I come obviously I I bring a lot of intuition and like an empathic sort of vibe to how I lead the company and how I show up at work. And um that doesn't work well in tech, you know. So you go to these meetings with you know men

1:04:06and women who are just so data driven all about analytics and spreadsheets and what's the data say and well why would we do that we can't measure it and it's like you can't measure everything in your dashboard like not everything that's important in business will be in your dashboard. So for me um that has definitely been a big challenge throughout this journey. Um cuz I want to do both, right? Like I want to be able to do both really well. Um so if we could measure trust clearly in data, that would make growth so much easier. Yeah. Well, I think that's a fantastic uh encapsulation of our whole conversation and a great place to wrap up. So thank you so much for joining

1:04:42me. This is a blast. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It's an honor. [music] Thanks so much for listening. If you have a minute, please leave a review in your favorite podcast player. You can also stop by chat.subclub.com to join our private community. [music]