Dose #94: Why the Right Product Decisions Will Save Your Business

Matt here with your weekly Subscription Prescription 💊

This week’s dose is about the power of a quality product. Based on a recent interview with the founder of Bumpin Blends, I share their story and how focusing on quality experiences drives social sharing and improves retention.

This week’s dose is powered by Recharge. Recharge just released the first report in their State of Subscription Commerce 2024 series, with some juicy stats from last year.

It's full of great takeaways, like how brands who made their products part of customers' daily routines came out on top.

2023 was the Year of the Routine. How will that affect your business this year? Get the full report at rechargepayments.com/SubRx to find out.

This week’s dose is also a full interview with the CEO and Founder of Bumpin Blends, Lisa Mastela. We dive deep into her journey, the product, and how she continues to innovate a great subscription experience.

Sometimes the wrong product decisions for your business are the right ones for your customers. It may sound cliche, but marketing, offers, and price can’t solve every problem. Sometimes it comes down to the product. That’s the vision behind Bumpin Blends and this week’s dose dives into how they’re growing.

Without any paid ads.

Lisa Mastela is a dietician by trade. Throughout her personal life and career she’s used smoothies to supplement her diet, moods, and the needs of her body. She’s done the same for patients, recommending different nutrients based on need.

She’s always wanted to start a company, and Bumpin Blends was born during her first pregnancy and the year before COVID-19. While many brands iterated the product over time, she knew right away what she wanted to make: a frozen smoothie that you could make just by adding water or milk.

Simple. Better tasting. But a lot harder to store, ship, and sell. There’s a reason most drink and smoothie brands sell powders. That’s easier for the business to execute.

Lisa, however, isn’t backed by a big business degree or investors. Again, she’s a dietician, and she focuses on what works for people. Frozen, premade smoothies. Furthermore, she doesn’t market Bumpin as healthy. She markets based on flavors that just happen to be healthy.

Flavors like Bangin’ Banana Split, Cherry Dreams, Cookie Dough and Feeling Peachy. Sounds more like Ben ‘n Jerry’s flavors than a smoothie.

But that’s the point: people love the smoothies because they taste great.

Lisa and her company focus on the experience. No one drinking a smoothie will forget hers. The taste and texture are just what you’d expect from one you’d made yourself (or even better based on what I’d make).

She focuses on the quality of the product. The experience. As they’ve grown, she has iterated the process of how much you get and how often you get it, so customers can easily swap out flavors and never run out (or have too much, either).

Focusing on experience is more than just how people buy.

Experience is how people try and keep using the product over time. Powders, or hard-to-make methods, are difficult to convert initial buyers. Something as simple as “add 6 cubes to water in a blender” that also tastes great means you can win someone on that first sip.

Her growth is a testament to that experience. She had some celebrities in LA introduced to her product, and they loved it. They shared all about it. Customers share all about it all the time. It’s their #1 channel. They don’t run ads.

A product so good you’ll want to share it with friends, and when they try it, they’ll be won over immediately. Instant gratification.

Keeping up the quality is important, and they release new flavors to keep subscriptions from getting stale. This includes limited releases with celebrities to keep subscribers engaged - and these releases always sell out.

Ultimately, this is how Bumpin both grows and retains subscribers with an amazing product. That’s the focus of everything they do.

Looking for ways to improve subscriptions? Schedule a free chat to learn more about my consulting services. Even a quick conversation can accelerate growth. Schedule time with me here.

What This Means For Your Brand

In subscriptions, we are constantly fighting against the convenience and taste of alternative products. We have to win again and again to be part of our subscribers’ everyday lives.

Marketing helps - obviously, we need to get in front of people and remind them of what we do and what they get with our product. But the product is what brings people back again and again.

So, keep focused on building the best twofold experience: the first is how people buy and the mechanics of the subscription itself. Price, how often, what arrives, and how they can manage it over time. This needs to be tied directly to a great customer experience.

The second part of a great experience is the product itself. How do they use it? How do they first interact with the product? How do you create an instant win the first time they try it? How can you make those interactions so good people want to share them with friends and family?

I can assure you that with my family of smoothie drinkers, I bought a 14-pack after our interview. We’ve tried enough alternatives that don’t deliver. So keep building on something that people will want to share and try!

That’s it for this week’s dose. Stay tuned for Dose #95 next Tuesday!

 - Matt Holman 🩺

The Subscription Doc