Some Words on Growing the Subscription Program from Cravebox CEO Kitty Kolding

I’m relatively new on the job – I’ve been CEO of Cravebox for about 4 months. Every day I read all the funny, smart, passionate posts and incoming emails from our dedicated band of Cravers. It is fascinating, sometimes exhilarating, occasionally irritating, and in general an extremely effective way for me to truly gauge how we’re doing as a business.

My general objective with these posts is to share my perspective on a couple of things each time I write, in hopes that at the very least I can weave together a clearer picture for all of you about the way we’re thinking about our business, and give you a look at what we think about and worry about and get all excited and charged up about at Cravebox. In a word, I guess, I’d like to offer you some context on some of the more common questions that we get and the plans we’re rolling out for the business. 

Today’s question is: How come you’re growing your subscription program so slowly? This is a very good question, especially when you consider that we have literally tens of thousands of Cravers who would gladly pay us for our boxes if we’d let them sign up for one right this minute. The answer for our slowness is very simple: we want to get it right.

We’re not that big a company…yet. It takes a surprising amount of time to review all the possible products for a box with our Curators, coordinate the details with the product manufacturers, and then execute the careful packing and shipping of our boxes. And from day one, we knew we’d rather have a smaller number of truly happy customers than a larger number of customers who are less than delighted by our boxes, and the fun, unique combination of products that we bring them.

Don’t get me wrong. I want to grow Cravebox like crazy – like right now – and make it the biggest, best product discovery company in the history of the world. I’d say I am an incredibly ambitious person and I see amazing things ahead for us and I intend to make every one of them into reality. But because we’re still small, we have to do it the right way and build each box thoughtfully. And if it means we go slower at first, just for a little while, as we build out and carefully test all of our systems and processes and the very important relationships with our brands, we’ll go slower. We’ve finished a lot of important infrastructure and technology work in the past 30 days that will let us start moving a *lot* faster, and that is a good thing. But I guess if you and I were sitting together somewhere over a cup of coffee , the thing I’d want you to walk away knowing is that when the chips are down, and I have to make a Go/No Go call about shipping a box, I will always choose slower and better over faster and, well, crappier.

So hang in there Cravers. There are more subscription slots coming, and, don’t forget about our RIGHTEOUS Limited Edition boxes, which are insanely fun and filled with the coolest selection of stuff I’ve ever seen on a crazy variety of themes. We have some really great ones planned for the fall, so stay tuned. My goal is to get at least one Cravebox into the hands of every single Craver by the end of the year. Which means we’re gonna be busy. And now, back to work. Crave On!