Subscription Product Bundling

3x Thesis: Why bundling boring services beats building a single-product home services company The invisible infrastructure of the American household has a ton of business opportunity Say you’re scaling a single-product home services business, pest control, lawn care, maybe appliance repair. You centralize ops. One call center. One CRM. But you’re still selling one service. One category. One shot at retention. Now compare that to a diversified platform that owns: • Pest control • Lawn care • Water filters • Appliance maintenance • Pool maintenance • Roofing inspections • HVAC Different verticals. Same driveway. Why this wins: 1. You Sell the Whole Household Bundle services into a monthly subscription. Say $299/month covers all routine maintenance. • Bugs gone • Lawn pristine • Pool sparkling • AC humming • Roof inspected • Filters swapped But here’s the kicker: When the $12K HVAC dies or the roof needs replacing, who do they call? You. Zero CAC. Full-ticket revenue. 2. Every Visit Is a Cross-Sell Pool tech spots a cracked shingle. Pest tech hears the AC wheezing. Lawn guy notices water damage. Every driveway is a funnel. One customer. Five upsells. No extra acquisition cost. 3. Shared Ops + AI = Margin Machine Centralized: • Routing • Dispatch • CRM • Scheduling Add AI: • Predictive triggers: “Roof age + storm = offer inspection” • Multi-service routing: One tech, three jobs • Churn detection: Save before they cancel • Smart bundles: Dynamic offers based on home profile You’re not just scaling ops. You’re compounding efficiency. 4. Brand Trust Becomes a Flywheel You’re no longer “the bug guy.” You’re the household COO. The one brand they trust with everything. That creates retention. And pricing power. 5. Not a Roll-Up. A Platform. Single-service businesses? 6–8x EBITDA. This? Subscription revenue, embedded customer relationships, owned channels to $10K+ ticket items. That’s not a service company. That’s infrastructure. So yeah,build the best home service company in your zip code. (Still great. Don't get me wrong!) Or own the entire home and catch the roof and the HVAC before they fail. Which model wins more? #ClaymorePartners #PrivateEquity #HomeServices #RecurringRevenue #PlatformPlay

A direct-to-consumer brand doubled their customer lifetime value in eight weeks. Same product. Same price. Same advertising spend. What changed? Order frequency strategy. I understand how complex customer retention feels when acquisition costs keep rising. Your investment in building loyal customers matters deeply, and sustainable growth requires focusing on purchase patterns rather than one-time transactions. The breakthrough came from analyzing customer behavior after the first purchase. Four retention strategies that transform single buyers into repeat customers: First, create purchase timing triggers based on consumption patterns. Track when customers typically run out of products. Send reorder reminders three days before depletion. Timing-based outreach converts necessity into convenience. Second, bundle complementary products that extend usage occasions. Customers buying skincare need application tools. Coffee buyers need storage solutions. Complementary bundling increases order value while solving related problems. Third, develop educational sequences that maximize product benefits. Most customers underuse products they purchase. Tutorial content increases satisfaction and consumption rates. Educated customers buy more frequently because they experience better results. Fourth, offer subscription flexibility that reduces commitment anxiety. Rigid schedules create cancellation pressure. Adjustable delivery dates accommodate changing needs. Flexible subscriptions retain customers through life transitions. The brand implemented consumption-based reordering with educational follow-up sequences. Average orders per customer increased from 1.2 to 3.8 annually. Revenue per customer nearly tripled without increasing acquisition spending. Your retention strategy should anticipate customer needs before they recognize them. From my perspective, successful direct-to-consumer scaling requires treating every first purchase as the beginning of a relationship. What retention approach has most increased your customer lifetime value?

Data vs Bundle vs Churn I promised not to post this until Monday, but I figured many of you could use something to help you sleep on your flights to #CannesLions, so I’m posting a day early… Sue me! Last week, Antenna released their Q2 State of Subscriptions Report. Their data, as always, is totes telling. The retention rate for Media’s premium streaming platforms has fallen 73% in just two years. Which explains why we see Media CEOs scrambling for bundles to address this crisis. So, since #bundling is the streaming move du jour, today let’s zoom in on the balance of #bundles vs. #churn. Antenna offers cancellation data for Disney Streaming’s bundle (Disney+, Hulu & ESPN+) versus the three services individually; AND for AppleTV+ churn compared to their Apple One bundle. Disney+ averages churns of 4.5%; Hulu 4.8%; ESPN a precarious 7.9%. Together they average churn of 5.7%. However, the Disney Bundle churns at just 3.17% - a reduction of 45% off the total for the three. Impressive. BUT… it’s a 30% mitigation for Disney+; 34% for Hulu; and 60% for ESPN. That’s Bundling Lesson #1: Bundles will ALWAYS benefit the weaker antelopes in the herd. Stronger streamers will also get lower churn, BUT they’ll also get less money per sub, every month, making the bundling benefits murkier over time. The average churn rate for AppleTV+ is WAY above industry norms - a dangerously high 8.25%. Among streamers only Starz is higher. However, when Apple bundles their TV service with Apple One (a smorgasbord of TV, Music, Gaming & Cloud), AppleTV+ churn falls near Netflix levels to 2.9%. That’s a massive reduction of 65% off their total cancellation rate. It’s also 9% lower churn than the Disney Bundle. Which begs a BIG question for Tim Apple: WHY DOESN’T APPLE MARKET APPLE ONE BETTER‽ Seriously. Why are they not all-in on Apple One all the time? In both cases, the convenience of one bill for many services, plus cost-savings, greatly helps lower churn across the board. But the data from some of the lowest & highest churners in streaming offers Bundling Lesson #2 for Media of all colors: Utility (sports services for Disney; audio and cloud services for Apple) are key ingredients for alleviating cancellations - even for already low-churning services. Adding same to same WILL help the high-churners, BUT the data indicates that, for the lower churners like Hulu, Disney+, and Netflix (SEE: Comcast’s StreamSaver), the bundling juice will very likely NOT be worth the pricing squeeze. This will be equally true for Gaming, Audio, News, and any other services looking to partner in order to lower churn. Which leads to Bundling Lesson #3: Bundling is a science. The more data you get, read, and digest, the stronger your bundling thesis will be. To get all the bundling data that’s fit to print, as well as my complete Bundling Dissertation, do your research and hit the link: https://lnkd.in/eZjyquCu Profite de ta semaine!

"The 3-in-1 bundle which includes Disney+, Hulu, and Max has the best subscriber retention rate in the industry according to a report from analytics firm Antenna, with around 80% of subscribers keeping their subscriptions after three months. ... The success of this collaboration shows how combining content libraries helps attract and keep subscribers. While Netflix continues to have a large number of subscribers thanks to its original programming, the mix of Disney’s family-friendly content, Hulu’s variety, and Max’s premium entertainment seems to appeal to viewers looking for all-in-one streaming solutions. ... This is the first time any bundled offering has shown a legitimate advantage over Netflix in a key performance metric. Netflix has long led the market by leveraging a deep content library and global reach, but this bundle shows that users may now value breadth and choice — across brands — more than just depth from one source. ... If Netflix doesn’t respond with something equally compelling — not just more content, but more value — it may find itself isolated as a premium à la carte service in a market increasingly shaped by bundled giants. In this new phase of streaming, value and retention are king. And right now, Disney and Warner Bros. are wearing the crown." #netflix #bundling #disneyplus #hulu #max #HBO #WBD #warnerbrosdiscovery #disneymaxbundle #stacking #streamingbundles #bundling #contentlibraries #libraryIP #catalogcontent

I've been quiet about this for months, but it's time to share. After 8 years running pure ecommerce brands, we've completely pivoted our business model: every product we launch now has subscription component. Not because subscriptions are trendy. But because economics are undeniable. Here's what happened when we added a $27/month subscription option to a beauty brand selling a one-time $59 product (with proper funnel in place too): -Customer Acquisition Cost remained identical -Average first-order value increased by 14% -Customer Lifetime Value jumped by 40% -Retention rate at 49% after 6 months The difference between struggling and thriving in ecommerce often comes down to unit economics. When your LTV is 1.5X your CAC, you're barely surviving. When your LTV is 4X your CPA, you can outspend any competitor. Subscriptions change the entire psychology of your marketing. When you sell one-time product or have sh*t funnel with sh*t upsells you need to convince customers to buy again and again. When you sell subscriptions you only need to convince them once. Then inertia works in your favor. Most brands approach subscriptions completely wrong. They treat them as a minor addition to their business, not a fundamental shift in their model. Our approach: We design products specifically to create ongoing value. Every new product must answer: "Why would someone continue using this month after month?" The first 14 days are also critical. We've built a 9-touch onboarding process that drives initial product usage and builds habit formation. We've built systems that track customer usage patterns and send timely reminders when they should be seeing results or need to reorder. Each subscriber receives exclusive content tied to subscription journey - improving results and creating deeper brand connection. Before each renewal, customers receive a preview of what's coming next and how it builds on their current results. Results: Our retention rates are now 2.7X industry average, and our CAC payback period decreased from 62 days to 32 days. Successful DTC brands of the next decade won't be selling products. They'll be selling ongoing transformations, delivered through physical products. If you're still focused solely on one-time purchases, you're building a business model that's increasingly difficult to sustain. The shift isn't easy. But it's necessary. And not making shift is harder in the long run.