Natal · B2C · pregnancy and postpartum fitness app
Reply to every DM, comment and email with a real expert within 24 hours
Trial-to-paid ~68% vs 38% typical; not isolated
What they did
What happened
- Stage
- ongoing
This shipped together with other changes, so the result can't be credited to this alone.
In their words
How Removing the Free Trial Grew Monthly Subs 2000% – Nancy Anderson, Natal
Nancy Anderson… more,' like, 'DM me to chat.'" That's what I want. I just want the connection first because I want people, before they get to the paywall, before they're asked to start a trial or even asked to sign up, I want them 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.
Nancy AndersonI think that this is crazy, but I don't think that a lot of brands 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 in-app post, comment, and DM gets answered within 24 hours and has been for eight years.
David BarnardAnd by a human, not by an AI system.
Nancy AndersonBy a human. By a human, and it's not canned responses. These are real people. And yes, we have like SOPs and workflows to make it efficient and make it scalable and make it digestible for a spend, how much it's costing us, but our clients deserve to have a human talk to them. These are women that have been ignored by their doctors or they have been not given resources to help them through a very personal phase of life. The least I can do is give them a real expert to talk to. And that's the other thing is we don't have just customer service reps. Our coaches, 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.
David BarnardThat's awesome.
David BarnardAnd it's expensive, 25 bucks a month.
Nancy AndersonYeah. I really think it's actually just a signal. Those stats are just a signal that trust has been built before the paywall. So when they get to the paywall, it's not feeling risky to them, it's not feeling scary, they're not feeling hesitant or sketchy like, "Is this legit?" 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. And there's a lot of other stats that we have that kind of just go back to that same thing as like, "Yeah, it looks that good because we have a real connection with our client, and I think our brand comes through as authentic, and I think..." That's my founder led-growth approach.
David BarnardNo, that's so awesome. Honestly, I think so much of the industry right now is trending toward short-term 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, I don't think people think deeply about the trade off they're making. You're making a very different trade off. You could go scale with tons of UGC, and not that that's a wrong approach. You can scale quickly, you can …
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More from this episode
- Sell a program as a monthly 30-day group challenge with before/after photos100 signups in month one, 125 in month two; kept growing
- Run paid social ads before Apple's tracking changeWorked well for a couple of years, then Apple's tracking change hurt it
- Post funny, relatable personal content, not just product postsStories get ~50K views; organic beats competitors' by 90%
- End posts with a soft 'learn more' instead of a sales pitch
- Turn down brand deals and affiliate links to keep audience trustGives up an estimated $0.5-1M/year; benefit not measurable
- Turn the questions people keep asking in DMs into your main programOver 1M users; still the top traffic driver
- Merge several niche apps into one app users keep across life stagesLess confusion and a lower price; ARR +20% in Q1 2026
- Narrow to pre- and postnatal fitness and rename the brand away from the founder
- Have your in-house expert coaches film the brand's videosFounder says it's working well; no numbers
- Ask 10-15 onboarding questions and show only content for the user's stage
- Build a new program for every client requestBiggest fail of the year: too many choices, users didn't start
- Offer a free posture check by a real expert that picks the first workout68-70% who finish it complete their first workout
- DM every new user personally and invite them to a coach-run community31% of community joiners return on day 2; no baseline
- Never give away free workouts or freebies
- Let people pay with their health savings account (HSA) at checkoutTens of thousands of dollars in two weeks, unpromoted
- Push 'spend your HSA dollars before they expire' at year end
- Drop the free trial on the monthly planMonthly subs up ~2,000%, annual +21% (founder's rough recall)
- Raise subscription pricesARR still grew 20% that quarter
- Pay influencers to post about the brand
Tags: instagram, tiktok, facebook, email, in-app, 24h-response, human-support, expert-support, trust