The Subscription App Industry Rebound — Eric Crowley, GP Bullhound

Offer a free period-tracking product to users from their mid-teens and keep serving them free for as long as they need, building a data layer over their whole life (18 to 35-50, into perimenopause and menopause). Add paid modules (e.g. perimenopause, menopause, partner features) inside Flo Premium that users subscribe to when a life stage makes them relevant. Investor thesis: each new module widens the surface where the 60M MAU find a reason to subscribe; capturing 1-3% per module means hundreds of millions in revenue.

Flo worked with GP Bullhound to raise a growth round, going out for $100M. Multiple investors competed and the round was doubled to $200M, led by General Atlantic. Pitch centered on the freemium data layer and module expansion thesis.

Once churn has flattened into a stable base of long-term subscribers (2-3+ years), raise prices periodically like Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu (roughly every 2 years). Don't sneak it in: send an email with the old and new price (e.g. '$29.99 to $35.99') and list the benefits users are getting for the extra money. A/B test on a slice first and watch retention. Cohost adds: only worth it after you have compounded a sturdy long-term base for a handful of years; expect some users to be upset.

Launch a family plan: acquire one family member (e.g. the mom), who then adds the dad and kids under a higher-priced family subscription, expanding revenue from one acquired customer.

onX launched global maps as a higher tier versus the base state-by-state maps, so existing subscribers can upgrade.

Quicken added estate planning tools to its financial management subscription: wills, trusts, and a locker to store important documents, sold as an upgrade to existing users.

Tinder sells baskets of super likes that are not part of the subscription but enhance use; Duolingo sells one-time items such as streak recovery. Guest's caveat: keep the subscription as the main focus and only add one-offs if they don't distract from it.

When Apple added hiking maps to iOS 18 Maps, the answer is to keep shipping depth the platform won't build: more photos, more reviews, and now social features, aiming to stay '10x better' than the broad, shallow OS feature.

GP Bullhound sold Nutracheck to Immediate Media, a content company with an ad-driven model and many MAUs that wanted a subscription product. Pitch: the buyer's audience solves the app's customer acquisition cost, and the app gives the publisher a subscription offering.

Tractive added GPS to dog collars, then leaderboards and other features so owners can see how much their dog walked versus other dogs of the same breed, nudging them to walk more.

Fi, a GPS dog collar with step tracking and leaderboards, shows an in-app ad for a pet supplement ('add this to your pet's dog food to keep them healthy, make their coat shinier') to existing collar owners, expanding into the wider pet spending market.

Offer a web subscription path using third-party tooling that handles user management, taxes in every jurisdiction and payments at roughly 5-7% commission instead of the App Store's 30%. Give consumers a 10-20% discount to sign up on the web and return to the app. Guest says every one of his clients is looking at this; don't assume the savings simply flow to profit.