Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:04 We all want a business like Netflix or Amazon prime businesses, where once a customer engages with them, it becomes automatic and a part of their lifestyle from then on. But how do you build that forever transaction? I'm Robbie Kellman Baxter, and I have been studying subscription and membership models for nearly 20 years in this podcast, my guests and I share the secrets and strategies of the membership economy. Join us for subscription stories, true tales from the trenches as subscription organizations scale, one of the trickiest challenges they face is entering international markets. While they often focus first on things like managing local currency, translating copy into local languages and ensuring compliance with regulations around privacy security and recurring billing. These tactical steps are only table stakes. Today. We're going to talk about what it really takes to grow your subscription rapidly outside of your home country.
Speaker 0 00:01:08 My guest Renata Nyborg is an expert on going global with subscription and membership models. Prior to her current role, as general manager of the EMEA region for Tinder, she was at Headspace where she built and led its first international product and marketing team. She previously spent over four years at Apple where she led the app store subscription business in Europe, helping both the world's biggest subscription companies and the many small and fast moving European subscription startups learn to compete on a global stage in this wide ranging conversation Renata and I discuss how to staff your first international program. The biggest mistakes American subscription businesses make when scaling into Europe and the most powerful secret to increasing lifetime customer value, not just in Europe, but everywhere,
Speaker 1 00:02:06 Subscription stories, Renata. Hi Robbie. It's great to see you. Great to see you too. You've recently started as a GM for EMEA, for Tinder after working with a pretty broad range of subscription and membership organizations. I mean, when it comes to people, especially in Europe that have deep, deep expertise on the subscription model, particularly with mobile apps and particularly at the intersection of the United States and, and Europe, I don't think there's anybody more knowledgeable than you on subscriptions in Europe and what it takes to be successful there and globally. So I'm really excited to dive into our conversation. You've always worked at that intersection between Europe and the United States and for subscription businesses. How did you end up there? What drew you there for me? I always say the idea of where you work in technology. I work, I like to work working with. I think that the first
Speaker 2 00:03:00 Career choice I had when I was still a teenager was to become a psychologist, but then I got fascinated by technology because it's really a way for people to bring these things into life and to work with subscriptions, to work with member-based models, which go far beyond technology. Actually, you really need to understand people. You really need to commit to what they need and you need to commit to serving those needs. And being incredibly honest with yourself, you can't just sell something to someone once and walk away. And I've always been, it's probably by Nordic side, but I've always been attracted to the, the hard honesty that that brings to the relationship you have with your products and with your customers.
Speaker 1 00:03:37 That's such an important point that when you are dealing in subscription model products, as opposed to more transactional or episodic ones, you really have an obligation both to get to know your customer because you have to have a relationship for a long time and to serve them in a way that is trustworthy, because otherwise they're going to leave and you might be left in a position where you've spent more to acquire them than they've actually spent with you. So I, I think it's really interesting that you came at this sort of with an interest in the human side, as opposed to, you know, particularly in the technology side or the financial side, although I know you have have competence in those areas as well, particularly in your time at Apple, you were kind of working in both directions, you were helping large, mostly American subscription businesses adjust localize for other markets, but you were also helping European subscription startups figure out how to pretty quickly go beyond their own borders across Europe and then into other regions. What were some of the biggest challenges you saw kind of in each direction?
Speaker 2 00:04:40 I think in terms of American companies coming this way, I'm currently based in Switzerland. It's very easy to be overwhelmed by the incredible complexity of operating Europe, which comes into many things, right? Like I think one of those angles is obviously the need to localize the need to translate the fact that often there are local competitors, you know, Europe has done pretty well over the years at coming up with local equivalents to American services before the American services localize themselves. But in addition to that, if you really commit to a markets into Europe, eventually you'll need to put boots on the ground. And I've seen many companies, I've worked with some companies through the challenges of understanding local HR, local recruitment, the differences that there are on a by market basis on how you can hire how you can fire, which you know, is a reality of things as well.
Speaker 2 00:05:29 But even before that, I would say there is probably not, I think the right perspective of how big the opportunity in AMEA is. And, you know, ultimately I think the small kids, they look at a company like Netflix, right? Netflix, you know, we think of it as one of the great, probably the great American subscription company, but even for Netflix international, especially Europe has been the majority of the growth for the last six, seven years. You know, this is not a recent thing. I think for years end, I would amuse myself because they kept missing their American full cost slightly. And they kept massively overachieving on their forecast for international growth. And, you know, if you get it right, and Netflix really invested after a period of time, this should be your biggest growth opportunity. Once you've hit a certain level of maturity in the U S going the other way, I was listening to a, there's a small fireside chat with Daniel X, founder, Spotify recently who obviously really popularized.
Speaker 2 00:06:24 And I think taught Europeans about subscriptions for us all to benefit from. And, you know, he said this thing where it's kind of crazy that with all the money that we spend on digital products and services with all the talent that we have, especially in kind of the more technical side of things that we don't have a single hundred billion plus company founded in Europe, apart from SAP, let alone trillion-dollar companies like we have in the U S and China now. So I'm actually very excited about the work that I do and will continue to do with European companies in the, you know, hopefully we'll be providing some equivalents to the great American subs companies.
Speaker 1 00:06:59 Spotify is probably the most well-known globally of the, of subscription businesses that were started in Europe. What do you notice if anything is distinctly Nordic or European about the way Spotify has launched, expanded and thrived versus let's say, you know, an American counterpart like a Netflix, for example.
Speaker 2 00:07:20 So apart from the fact, I can make all kinds of jokes about it being dark all the time of the Nordics. And so people have done do that. Sit in science, subscribed to things which is partially true. Sweden's tiny, right? Sweden's 9 million people. I think, you know, I can't think of an American state that has just died. Many people living there. So Spotify had to be built for the world from day one. American companies can build for the U S and have a very healthy business there for 10 to 15 years before they reach a level of scale where they need to start to look elsewhere. So I used to manage the, the Nordics at Apple, and I'd often tell people, tell developers from bigger markets. There's something you can learn from these small countries by building for the wealth from day one. And again, if you're half ambitious, you know that you will need to go there eventually after 10 or 15 years, you will always have to go there. Whether you're coming from the U S or from China or Japan, you can avoid many of the pain points that you'll have to solve. If you have to adapt to local audiences localization. And so on later on, then these things are maybe not the sexiest things, but having the right approach to your CRM, to your CMS, all these types of things from day one will definitely help you scale and grab global momentum much quicker than, than people that don't.
Speaker 1 00:08:34 So if you were starting out right now, let's say that you're in the United States or you're in China or one of these larger markets or India, and you're getting started. And you were an organization let's say that had, was lucky enough to have you as an advisor. What would they do differently when you say build for the world from day one, which is an awesome phrase, what would you have them do differently from day one? What would be maybe two or three of what you would say that they might think that they should do and you direct them differently?
Speaker 2 00:09:00 The first thing I would do is to look at tooling carefully, to work with tools, for example, um, you know, when you get accepted as a subscription company, you can hit the ground running by working with different tools to help you, for example, manage your subscription more easily. You're talking about software tools, software tools, that's right. You will be looking at tools to localize strings or to put strings of content into the app. And you would be amazed how many times, like dozens of companies, no matter what size that end up hitting this block in the road, where they're like, Oh, well, we'd really love to go to Germany, but we'd have to basically replace our entire infrastructure in order to do that. And it doesn't take a huge amount of work upfront to make sure that you're working with companies that have the right plugins, have the right tools and features to work with, or to talk to other international platforms as an example, pricing and being able to offer to take payments based on local bottles will be incredibly important over time.
Speaker 2 00:10:01 Even for the app store. I'm a bit like the Netherlands, which is of course, you know, a highly advanced European market people didn't have credit cards. So growth of the app store was really restricted for a long period of time. And of course, for the subscriptions that wanted to sell that because people just couldn't pay for things like that flex and other things are there recurring basis. So that's the first thing, look at tools and services and make sure that whatever service providers you go with have an international outlook, have a track record of updating. If there is a huge new payment methods in Asia in Europe, check that they have regularly created software updates to be compliant and to be compatible. The second thing is just start with doing a competitive landscape mapping, looking at pricing, looking at marketing methods. Even if you want to start by focusing on one market, having a clear sense of where you can foresee friction five years down the road, 10 years down the road, that is really going to put you in a great place from the very beginning. And it will probably inspire you to get things right from the beginning. If you start with a price point from day one, that isn't going to work anywhere, except your core or your initial market, maybe you would want to rethink that before you even launch. Maybe you want to think about the subscription plans that you offer. So, so those would be my two points of advice, tools, and get to understand the global landscape before you start to build.
Speaker 1 00:11:17 Yeah, these are so important on the tools when you're talking to your potential partners, your software providers, your solution providers, even just asking them like Renata, like you said, is so important to ask them, talk to me about some of your clients that have grown globally. Talk to me about how you handled the most recent update and payments in this market or that market. What do you have in terms of boots on the ground in those markets? I think all of those things are just good to ask from an early, an early stage and your other point about having a clear vision of where you're trying to go, even as you're taking your first baby steps is so important that North star really helps you think critically about every little step you take at the beginning and can really set you up, I think, to go much faster. So I think not just in going global, but really in everything you do, attracting new markets, expanding into different services, having that vision is really important. Yeah. You told me the last time we talked that you thought that most American organizations over index on the UK when they are expanding into Europe, I'm curious about that and what evidence you have and why you think that is
Speaker 2 00:12:21 Cause it's easy. So, you know, you don't really need to do anything, which by the way, I think is also an urban legend, but the majority of companies that I would see launching subscriptions the last few years would initially have more than 50% of their revenues coming from the UK. And that is because the product is already localized. The UK is of course, very used to content, culture, even news coming from the U S so if you're a company that has managed to reach the point of mainstream awareness, you're probably going to be on the news and in newspapers, in the UK too. However, just, you know, by numbers, the UK, uh, 67 million people, exact same population sizes, France, the UK actually has a smaller economy than Germany. People currently spend more per average subscriber in the UK, but Germany is 88 million people by comparison.
Speaker 2 00:13:13 And then depending on the kind of service you run the Nordics as an example, they are just as mature, if not more so than the UK, in terms of, you know, mobile adoption in terms of, uh, bandwidth, fantastic fiber everywhere throughout the Nordics and a very high propensity to pay. So the Nordic markets put together, you know, you don't really need to localize depending on the business or service you have at least not for a long period of time. So for me, one of the biggest things, I always talk to people and companies have bounces just how much incredible value there probably is to unlock quite easily in Europe, either based on market size, bigger market sizes, or the same to the UK and markets where you don't really need to translate, but you just need to invest a little bit in understanding and, you know, adopting to the local market.
Speaker 1 00:13:57 Okay. That's great. And I want to, you know, pick up on this thread about translation versus localization, because I think for a lot of people, those are the same thing, but translating your content is not the same as localization. And I'd love for you to talk about what it looks like when you're really thoughtfully localizing for new markets.
Speaker 2 00:14:16 So this is one of my favorite topics. And again, this is why to be a subscription person. You, you need to be part psychologist and part anthropologist for be translation is I'm going to translate my websites. Instead of it being $9 99, I'm going to make it nine pounds, 99 or nine years, 99, I'm going to translate or put some subtitles in my app. And off we go, it's a dumb kind of state version of your product localization, which is where you really see success is if you take the time to understand the local market cultural nuances, like these are so incredibly important, the way that people relate to products and services. So, as an example, you know, you hear about this a lot. There are many companies that will launch a product or a service because thinking they're just tools or it's software, we can just put it out, live as an example, a Pinterest, right?
Speaker 2 00:15:09 So Pinterest doesn't produce its own content. It's not Netflix, right? So you don't have to necessarily dump it or add subtitles. But when it first launched across a variety of European markets, France was one of the markets where it just wasn't really working. And after doing focus groups, they realized that the word pinning just didn't make any sense whatsoever to French people. And all they did was add a little tutorial at the beginning where the first time someone used the app or the product, it basically said, Ooh, here's a picture. Would you like to pin it and just showing them how to do it? And I think instantly France was I think their fastest growing market,
Speaker 1 00:15:46 The word pin didn't translate. Is that why they were having trouble with it?
Speaker 2 00:15:50 The, yeah, the whole concept, like to pin something, to have a pin board, it just, wasn't a concept, I guess, the French pins. And those are often the aha moments. You know, I usually tell people like, honestly, 90% of the work in getting a subscription business to succeed in a European market, isn't necessarily about all kinds of complex things. It's not about, you know, producing tons of new content. It's really getting that first 10 minutes, right? Like, what is that thing about the first 10 minutes that will make it relate to someone that will help someone understand for me, localization is to really invest in understanding what the problem that you're solving is because ultimately that's what that's, what subscription products do do. Oh, I'll give you another example from Headspace. So, you know, I don't think they'll might me sharing this example, but when I joined Headspace, they had already invested in translating the continent and the app into four new languages.
Speaker 2 00:16:42 So Headspace, which is a meditation and mindfulness app had been available as an English language product only for 10 years. And they translated the work. When I joined, you know, I'm lucky I speak a few European languages when I was listening to the recordings, I quickly said, you know, I I've been a Headspace subscriber for years. I just don't have the same relation to the concept that I'm hearing, because we hadn't done the work at the time to understand what is mental health in a country attitudes to mental health, as you'll probably know a completely different on a market by market know has a completely different meaning in France. Mindfulness is not a word you can translate like for like, so we had to kind of go back and do that work from the ground up to say, what is the conversation around mental health and around mindfulness that we want to support. And then we started to invest in tweaking some of the scripts and also co-creating content with local artists and local mindfulness and meditation teachers. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:17:38 It's so important. People are often overwhelmed when they say, now we're going to go international, or now we're going to go to Europe or we're going to expand to this new market. One of the points that you made that think is so critical is that if you have limited resources, focus on that, those first moments that a prospect or a brand new subscriber has with you, that onboarding, helping them understand, make the connection to why they're there and helping them find a way to make it a habit is so critical. And I know you have said before that you think that the most overlooked and important place for an organization to invest, if they want to maximize lifetime customer value is in that place. Can you talk a little bit more about the sales page and the onboarding process for a subscription business and how to, how to think about that, particularly if you're localizing,
Speaker 2 00:18:28 I love sales pages. I know occasionally we'll just email people. I need to tell you about your sales page. I think we can improve it. So your sales page is your first date, right? To use it tend to it. It's the difference between love at first sight and the second day, or, you know, married someday and nothing else at all. And this is the page that if you change nothing else about your product for a year, let's say you don't have the revenues, but you want to be live in Europe or in a mayor, spend your time there because understanding how people react and engage with your sales page, which is where you lay out the benefits of subscribing, which is where you lay out the different options of plans and the pricing. That is where you're going to understand a, whether you need to change anything about your product and B how to make them feel comfortable.
Speaker 2 00:19:17 So for example, in all of the roles that I've had, we spent a huge amount of time testing, even things like the terms and conditions. I need find remarkable things which always tie back to, to cultural nuances, for example, by actually increasing the terms and conditions and saying, please know that after seven days you will, will be charged and, uh, all these types of things, you know, you think that it would scare people off. I've seen a few examples where in Germany, people would actually be more likely to sign up to a free trial or be more likely to subscribe because they really felt reassured that from the beginning, this app, wasn't trying to cheat them or trick them in any way, they were really upfront with what you would do and when they would be charging you similarly, you know, you've really got to think about the local social economic circumstances of a country that you're marketing in, as well as the type of audience that you're marketing to.
Speaker 2 00:20:09 If you're in the Nordics, people have more money to spend and people are very used to subscribing. People probably have a ton of subscriptions that are all $10 a month. So you could probably go straight in with that offer or even try and drive people to an annual plan, which is, you know, what you want to do eventually, if your brand is still super new people, haven't heard of you. If your product is new, your services new, or if you're in a market or marketing to an audience, a generation say gen Z, which doesn't have quite as much suspend, you probably want to focus on slightly cheaper subscription packages or lower time to commit. So weekly plans or biweekly plans, just make it easy for someone to say S so just like that first date, super appealing, not scary, and think about how you're going to make someone feel comfortable going out and maybe holding hands with you. You're a true Tinder
Speaker 1 00:21:00 Using metaphors of dating and romance and your subscription model. Although, you know, I don't know if you know this, but in my book, the forever transaction, my dedication is to my husband, who I call my own forever transaction. So I, I of course love that metaphor. You talked about the sales page, which I think is really important. And the headline benefits being really clear and also letting people know how they can leave if they need to leave. So the opposite of hiding the cancel button, once somebody clicks to subscribe or clicks for the trial, how do you onboard them so that they decide to stay? Because for so many organizations, they find this kind of failure to launch failure to fly, right? They signed up, but then they never used the product or they signed up and they bended on the product. And then they left, how do you onboard them in such a way that you can, can make their habit? And does that differ by region by culture is language part of it. How do you think about that onboarding phase of making your subscription into a habit?
Speaker 2 00:21:58 So I think the first thing is say, you can and should design for engagement. This especially is true for any apps, with a motivation, driven, attend, say education, weight, loss, health, and fitness. We are as human beings. You know, we're incredibly motivated for short periods of time to improve our life. And it's hard, especially when these are things that take a long time to show improvement. So I think the first thing I'd say is where I've seen apps truly have success, is to focus on one thing that has the lowest level of friction as possible. So for example, there's a great app from the Nordics called sleep cycle, which analyzes your sleep quality. It does fun things like record you when you snore. So your husband or wife can prevent all the events. But the beauty of it is that we need to do is set your alarm every evening and it will automatically go on and track.
Speaker 2 00:22:49 And so the barrier to entry while still getting really, really strong value is very low. Similarly, I've seen a number of language, learning apps, health care apps. Often, often, many years of trying other things focusing on, say one action, like one tracking thing or something like learning one word a day in order to build that habit. You know, there's a lot, that's been written about habit creation, but really getting it down to one thing for other apps, because it's hard to generalize, but finding lean back moments to regularly provide value to someone. And this actually goes, whether you're a subscription service that provides access to financial analysis, or whether you're a music streaming service, finding little moments to delight someone. And again, ideally based on stuff they're already doing, you know, if you're using that software to listen to music, let people know what other music they should be listening to.
Speaker 2 00:23:40 So at the end of the day, even though all of these apps and all of these products say it's only 10 minutes a day can become fluent in French in 10 minutes a day. Sure. But if I want to become fluent in French and I want to learn to how to run 10 K and I want to learn to play chess, which are all things that I have on my phone that I would like to do. And that adds up to a lot of 10 minutes a day. So try and make it as lean back as possible, just using stuff that people already are doing on the phone with different apps to provide some value. Number one, if you can do that. And if not, if it's a more intensive, higher commitment type thing, find that one moment recommended them a piece of content, a simple habit tracking thing to keep them coming back before they can get really, really hooked on your product.
Speaker 1 00:24:21 Yeah, no, that's, that's very helpful. This idea of establishing habits with very small bites, BJ Fogg, near EOL, both have written extensively on this. So if this is an area that you're dealing with, people who are listening, I encourage you to check out both of those people and we'll have it in the show notes. So I wanted to talk to you about structuring your team, particularly if you are going into a new market, how do you think about the connection between that team? The kind of people you need on that team and how you track their success and how many constraints you put on them. So I'm based in Sweden and I'm coming to United States. I'm based in the States, I'm going to the Nordics, I'm going to Europe. How do you think about that? How do you staff for that and manage for that? I think
Speaker 2 00:25:03 Operated in and managed, uh, almost every form of setup. You know, I think we also need to think about this differently in a post COVID world, intimate you laugh. I currently have on my desk anywhere future.
Speaker 1 00:25:16 Oh yeah. Yeah. If you're listening, that's the Harvard business review work from anywhere issue, which we'll have in the show notes as well.
Speaker 2 00:25:25 Oh, my caught my attention. So I've worked a little bit all over the place. I've been based in the UK, managing a combination of contractors all over the world. I've been in teams where my colleagues were all in different markets where we've traveled together and Headspace, the majority of my team was based in Los Angeles. Um, and we started to build a team in Europe. I think the main thing I would say as a conclusion, I don't think there was a, unfortunately there's not a one size fits all approach, but I think here are some of the principles that I've learned. First of all, your structure is probably the most important thing to get, right? In terms of driving your culture and your business strategy. And this is why the way I'm thinking about structuring my team at Tinder is distinctly different to what I did at Headspace or the way I worked with people at, at Apple, for example.
Speaker 2 00:26:12 And I think especially when it comes to Europe where we have so many different choices, you know, it's, it's an hour by train to travel between most countries. It's an even shorter flight to travel between those markets. We do have a huge amount of flexibility. A lot of people live in one country and work in another. So I think instead of worrying about the complexities that brings embrace that use that I do think that there is a lot to be said for talent density, especially when you're first entering a market for having people together. That really feel like team that, you know, feel ready to conquer the world. But I think especially in a post COVID world, depending on when we're listening to this, if that ever happens, hello, future, I think that I would really like Europe to set an example, whereby we allow people to split their life, perhaps between cities and between nature, where we go back to a place where economically we can reinvigorate parts of Europe, that we're losing people to the biggest cities, because that's where companies where we're really based and where we probably start looking at things like, Hey, okay, maybe you can live wherever you want, but you, as long as you can take a train there.
Speaker 2 00:27:19 So our environmental impact is limited. So yeah, for me, I'd still say, especially when you're first getting started talent density, or at least the opportunity to meet regularly is important. But outside of that, I think allowing people to find talent where talent is hopefully another good thing about working in a knowledge job and working in a post COVID world.
Speaker 1 00:27:40 How long do you give a team that's getting started to hit metrics or to even define what the metrics should be for what kind of engagement should we expect in Denmark, for example, or how long should we need to Mark it before we build traction in Germany? How do you think about what metrics should be used to evaluate whether or not that team on the ground, that small team that can conquer the world is actually on a path to conquer the world, or if they're kind of failing or struggling or not on the right path?
Speaker 2 00:28:11 I think he should be knowledgeable about it from day one from day zero, from day minus a hundred. Um, I advise a couple of startups, um, that are in the process of launching subscription businesses. And I started doing this work with them, you know, a hundred days ago, by the way. Now I have you a fantastic book.
Speaker 3 00:28:28 Instead of me speaking to all my friends
Speaker 2 00:28:30 That one's a launch subscription businesses. I must admit that I text them the couple of pages you have on subscription metrics you should have. And then they usually biopic afterwards, which, you know, I think you've discussed.
Speaker 3 00:28:39 So thank you for that. Yes. I've had some calls from your friends, so thank you very much. Well, thank you for putting it all on the page. Instead of me getting on zoom every time,
Speaker 2 00:28:49 I'm a big believer that you shouldn't allow yourself to be ruled by metrics because no matter what the business is, if you only do things that can be measured, you'll probably miss out on chasing the really big moments that don't have analytics yet that are too new to really know what they're going to do. And so I think it's really important that you become an expert on metrics on benchmarks that you speak to many people in the industry, especially close to your sphere, but also in different categories because you'll quickly build up and understanding that what's good in your category or in this country may not be good in this other country. Part of my role at Apple was to look at benchmarks by category, by market. And, you know, you'll find that there is a notion of what good looks like that's completely different.
Speaker 2 00:29:36 And the only way to get comfortable with that is, is just to look at it constantly. But in order to get so comfortable with it, that you can almost forget about it. That's how you'll then be able to release yourself and sometimes say, you know, well, I'm happy to take a bit of a nose dive on my engagement metrics for the first six months, because I'm really chasing this thing. Or I'm happy to sacrifice my retention metrics for the first 12 months that I have my little imaginary team in Denmark, because I'm really focusing on this thing. So start with the metrics, get super familiar so that you can forget about the metrics.
Speaker 1 00:30:11 Yeah. So that you're not, uh, not serving the metrics, but that the metrics are supporting your strategy. Right.
Speaker 2 00:30:15 A hundred percent I've seen way too many companies think that metrics are what leadership is. It's not very wise words. Okay. Um,
Speaker 1 00:30:25 Okay. So I want to do a little something fun. It's a speed round. So I'm just going to ask you questions and just answer the first thing that pops into your head. Okay. Sounds good. Sound good? Okay. For subscription entrepreneurs in Europe, what's the most important thing that they should do as they grow? Cool. Roby. No. Wait. Okay. Done.
Speaker 2 00:30:45 No, honestly the real, the real answer is download and go through the onboarding for 10 different apps. Every single day,
Speaker 1 00:30:53 Download an onboard for 10 different apps each day. I love it for fast growing American companies. As they look to go global, what would be your advice? Cool. Robbie,
Speaker 2 00:31:03 Speak to people on the ground and look at companies that have initially failed and eventually succeeded. There's actually a pretty obvious playbook. When you look at Netflix, YouTube, some of these companies, especially as they're still figuring it out. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:31:16 Really interesting point where they failed and where they succeeded.
Speaker 2 00:31:19 I'd also say don't be guilty. I've had so much Mia culpa from some of the biggest subscription companies in the world or being embarrassed that now they're really starting to look at certain elements of Europe localization. It's never too late to start. And then you can just, the way you can let, and you can start letting the piano when you're in your fifties. Like actually most companies, most companies are really just getting to this right now. So there's no such thing as a stupid question. And if you call people in Europe, we're very friendly. I think you'll find a lot of people happy to give you,
Speaker 1 00:31:50 But don't call Renata until you read my book.
Speaker 2 00:31:55 Okay. First subscription you ever had Donald duck magazine? That's the first, um,
Speaker 1 00:32:02 Favorite subscription today outside of your current employer
Speaker 2 00:32:06 With Kayla, but you know, having been stuck inside for almost a year, I use it almost every single day. I never thought I'd like it, but it's a very important part of my routine. Now I pay happily
Speaker 1 00:32:20 A time that you remember feeling like a real member, like you really belonged.
Speaker 2 00:32:26 Yeah. I, I have to say Spotify. I've been a Spotify subscriber pretty much since it launched, I think for 12 years. And I think it's actually the fact that you can see how far back your history goes and they have these fantastic time capsule things now, which served me up my 12 year history with the company. And I just love that. And your favorite way to reward or recognize a customer's loyalty showing them what they got out of it. Yeah. It's funny the impacts. Yeah. Which I've seen in the middle it's different ways, but bringing it to life somehow, if you're a language learning app, giving them a certificate from a dual language learning school, giving them a chance to attend that event with your favorite meditation teacher or these types of things, especially when it's a surprise or a wonderful way. You know, I'm still a very big believer in the power of offline and the power of physical things.
Speaker 2 00:33:16 And I think if you can match that with the investment, someone makes your digital products. That's a wonderful thing. Renata, thank you so much for being a guest on subscription stories. This was fantastic. You know, it's been such a pleasure reading you over the years. Um, getting to know you most recently, and I really have to thank you. You know, this is an area of life that it has been a passion of mine for 12 years and no one else in the world has done the work to lower the barrier of entry to put all of these lessons into a single place. And they're really hope that your book and various other things are going to help us find some more hundred billion companies in Europe with a subscription business model. Oh, I sure hope so. Thanks so much. Great to talk to you. Thanks a lot, Robbie, have a great day. Bye
Speaker 4 00:34:00 <inaudible>.
Speaker 0 00:34:05 That was Renata Nyborg general manager AMEA at Tinder for more about Tinder, go to tinder.com and for more about subscription stories, as well as a transcript of my conversation with Renata GoTo, Robbie Kellman, baxter.com/podcast. Also, if you like what you heard, please take a moment to write a review and give us a star rating and mentioned Renata's interview. If you especially enjoyed it, reviews matters so much in helping others find us. Thanks for your support. And thanks for listening to subscription stories.
Speaker 4 00:34:38 <inaudible>.
