Bootstrapping with Angel Money: Josh Levy, CEO of BeenVerified (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You started finding these use cases and segments as you launched in 2010. What did you learn about the business model and the pricing model? How did those decisions evolve and how did that turn into revenue?

Josh Levy: It’s a good question. Subscription models have been around forever, but they’ve also gotten much popular. We were on the earlier side, but probably still part of the trend of subscription models picking up. I would say, for a long time, we were committed to the subscription model because we wanted to stand out in the market in saying, “Maybe subscription isn’t for everybody. But for the people it is, we think you’re going to get more value.”

I’m fascinated by how we are constantly adapting and learning. What I didn’t know a year ago I know today and I am fascinated by the excitement around what am I going to know in a year that I don’t know today. That always amazes me. Every time you think you’ve the next level, you’re always like, “Now, I think maybe I got it figured out.” You keep going and then it’s just like, “How did I not know that?”

For us, it was about truly understanding the subscription model from a business standpoint. Not all customers are created equal. That is probably the biggest thing that took us really a long time to understand. When we first started and when we signed up a customer, we were like, “Great! We signed up a customer and it cost us $X.” Today, we might be willing to spend two times more for a customer if they’re the right customer. They might stay a subscriber and get three to four times the value.

Truly understanding retention rates and how marketing drives retention rate, and how marketing plus product plus price drive retention rates. That’s the journey that we’ve been on. It’s never-ending and it’s constantly evolving.

Sramana Mitra: How many subscribers do you have today?

Josh Levy: We do have over 100,000 subscribers. On a monthly basis, we have millions of visitors that visit BeenVerified.

Sramana Mitra: What is an average duration that a subscriber would subscribe for?

Josh Levy: Different segments subscribe for different time periods.

Sramana Mitra: What is the subscription amount? How much are we paying to get subscribed to BeenVerified?

Josh Levy: Depending on the plan length, it could be anywhere from $15 to $25 a month.

Sramana Mitra: Where are you now?

Josh Levy: I think the thing that I’m most proud of is that we’ve built a great foundation here that understands customer acquisition and subscription models and businesses that are driven by data – not just on the analytics standpoint but also on the product standpoint. The thing that I’m most excited about is we have been doing BeenVerified for a while but my gut tells me that 50% of that time, we’ve been truly investing in BeenVerified. 50% of that time, we’ve also been investing in our infrastructure and our underlying technology. I’m really excited to see what it is that we can build over the next two to five years, product-wise in servicing different segments.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Bootstrapping with Angel Money: Josh Levy, CEO of BeenVerified
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