Dose #144: The Rise of Pretty Boy Skincare

Matt here with your weekly Subscription Prescription 💊

Yo Pretty Boy is the ultimate example of how a great product and a compelling offer will scale a subscription program. The offer gets them in the door, and the product keeps them there. We’ll cover in this episode how they niched down, built a great offer, and made retention easy for their customers.

This week’s dose is also a full podcast interview! Give it a listen on YouTube, Apple Podcast, or Spotify. See a highlight of what we cover here - raising AOV by 23% with better retention.

This week, we’re diving into Yo Pretty Boy, a men’s skincare brand that has built a highly effective subscription model around a hero SKU. Their story contains lessons on niching down, optimizing offers, and increasing retention.

Here are three big takeaways from our conversation:

1️⃣ Niching Down Can Unlock Growth—If You Do It the Right Way
2️⃣ Your Offer Matters More Than Your Website (But Both Need to Align)
3️⃣ Retention Starts With the Right Subscription Structure

Let’s break them down.

1. Niching Down Can Unlock Growth—If You Do It the Right Way

Most subscription brands face a key question: Do we go broad and appeal to everyone, or niche down and own a specific problem?

For Yo Pretty Boy, their most effective ads and best customers come from targeting men with redness, eczema, and sensitive skin. This makes sense—when someone has a skin issue, they’re highly problem-aware and actively looking for solutions. But the challenge? They also want to build a lifestyle brand that appeals to a much broader audience.

Here’s the key: Niching down doesn’t mean limiting your brand forever. It means focusing your ads, messaging, and onboarding on the people most likely to convert first—then expanding later.

For any brand struggling with this, the best approach is to:
✅ Find your best-performing customer group. (Look at conversion rates, retention, and LTV.)
✅ Double down on marketing, messaging, and content for them. (Use their language, solve their problems.)
✅ Once you’ve built a strong base, expand into adjacent audiences. (This could mean targeting more general skincare buyers.)

Niching down isn’t about limiting your potential—it’s about getting the most efficient growth before scaling up.

2. Your Offer Matters More Than Your Website (But Both Need to Align)

One of the biggest growth levers for Yo Pretty Boy was optimizing their offer—not just tweaking their website.

Before we worked together, their pricing was more standard: one bottle, one price, take it or leave it. But by introducing multi-month bundles (1-month, 2-month, and 3-month options), their AOV jumped by $23—a huge win for a single-SKU brand.

If you’re looking to optimize your own offer, ask yourself:

• Are you making it easy for customers to commit to a longer subscription? (Larger bundles, better pricing tiers.)

• Are you anchoring pricing in a way that makes your best offer feel like the best deal? (Showcase higher savings on longer commitments.)

• Are you reducing friction in the buying decision? (Clearly communicate why your subscription is worth it.)

That said, the post-click experience still matters. If your ads, emails, and product pages don’t feel premium, your pricing and offer won’t land the same way. Yo Pretty Boy is now revamping their website to reflect the high-end quality of their product, and that’s something every brand should consider—does your brand’s online presence match the price you’re asking people to pay?

3. Retention Starts With the Right Subscription Structure

Many brands assume retention is all about what happens after someone subscribes. But in reality, it starts with how you structure the subscription from day one.

A few things that have worked well for Yo Pretty Boy (and can work for other subscription brands too):
✅ Framing subscriptions as a “30-, 60-, or 90-day skincare plan” rather than just “one bottle per month.” This sets expectations and reduces churn from people who feel like they’re running out too soon.
✅ Testing a 3-month starter bundle to encourage long-term commitment right away.
✅ Exploring ways to offer even larger bundles (like a 6-month supply) for higher AOV customers.

The reality is, subscriptions with longer commitment periods retain better. If you can shift just 5-10% more customers into a quarterly or biannual plan instead of monthly, you’ll see huge improvements in retention and profitability.

Final Thoughts

Scaling a single-SKU subscription isn’t about adding more products—it’s about getting smarter with your audience, your offer, and your subscription model.

If you’re struggling with retention or AOV, the best things to test are:
1️⃣ A multi-month pricing structure that encourages commitment.
2️⃣ More focused messaging that speaks directly to your best customers.
3️⃣ A website experience that reinforces quality and trust.

And if you need help figuring out how to make these changes work for your brand, you know where to find me.

That’s it for this week’s dose—see you next Tuesday for #145! 🚀

 - Matt Holman 🩺

The Subscription Doc