CJ nails the hilarious truth that some businesses aren’t about repeat customers; they’re about recurring moments. You don’t build loyalty with a wedding planner; you create a one-time miracle and vanish. SimpleClosure helping panicked founders close shop? Genius. “We don’t have power users. We have panicked users.” might be the best SaaS tagline of the year. Forget customer LTV; this is all about life-to-value, baby. Sometimes, the best churn is the one you celebrate. (Looking at you, Duolingo—still can’t order tacos in Spanish.)
CJ, I can't thank you enough for this article! This is exactly the business model we are building with Kithli.com. You provided clarity and talking points I can use when talking to investors.
Don't really want to back the hearse up to the front door, but the funeral business is definitely any excellent analogy with elements of a dating app. With Kithli, there is repeat business, albeit at unpredictable intervals.
Sometimes the industry dictates the model, but it seems to come down to user needs.
For example, some people who use cloud storage for sharing don't want to use it for the long term.
All storage SASSes charge monthly by capacity, and the price is proportional to the total size.
For most small businesses, dealing with hundreds of gigabytes is something that happens once a year or so, and the monthly subscription cost for that amount is prohibitive.
Services like https://file.kiwi/en have a billing model that is tailored to this need and can be used for short periods of time. They offer unlimited storage for a short period of time and then part ways with the customer. There will be another day, but not the next day or next month.
Interesting take - I'd add a key feature to make these businesses win, is to have very strong word of mouth. For instance of all app relationships I've heard from my friends - including my own - Hinge is cupid
On point as usual. I love referral rate as a metric for these one time use customers. If you can get these customers to refer someone else, that’s almost like recurring revenue.
CJ nails the hilarious truth that some businesses aren’t about repeat customers; they’re about recurring moments. You don’t build loyalty with a wedding planner; you create a one-time miracle and vanish. SimpleClosure helping panicked founders close shop? Genius. “We don’t have power users. We have panicked users.” might be the best SaaS tagline of the year. Forget customer LTV; this is all about life-to-value, baby. Sometimes, the best churn is the one you celebrate. (Looking at you, Duolingo—still can’t order tacos in Spanish.)
Thanks CJ, really interesting article. There's gotta be something out like Hinge... but for divorces? I wonder what incentives look like there :O
I had a lawyer friend who used to joke “I do marriages for x and divorced for 2x”
Simple Closure is B2B funeral. Genius.
Good ideas like this are candy 🍬 for my brain.
Thanks, these types of business models are like candy for my brain as well. had to really think about it. and it's genius
CJ, I can't thank you enough for this article! This is exactly the business model we are building with Kithli.com. You provided clarity and talking points I can use when talking to investors.
Don't really want to back the hearse up to the front door, but the funeral business is definitely any excellent analogy with elements of a dating app. With Kithli, there is repeat business, albeit at unpredictable intervals.
Wow so glad this hit home. Appreciate you
Sometimes the industry dictates the model, but it seems to come down to user needs.
For example, some people who use cloud storage for sharing don't want to use it for the long term.
All storage SASSes charge monthly by capacity, and the price is proportional to the total size.
For most small businesses, dealing with hundreds of gigabytes is something that happens once a year or so, and the monthly subscription cost for that amount is prohibitive.
Services like https://file.kiwi/en have a billing model that is tailored to this need and can be used for short periods of time. They offer unlimited storage for a short period of time and then part ways with the customer. There will be another day, but not the next day or next month.
Interesting take - I'd add a key feature to make these businesses win, is to have very strong word of mouth. For instance of all app relationships I've heard from my friends - including my own - Hinge is cupid
On point as usual. I love referral rate as a metric for these one time use customers. If you can get these customers to refer someone else, that’s almost like recurring revenue.