Scott did his rounds in the industry before founding Casa and Churnkey. Most notably, he was the Product Designer of Tinder, and invented the “super like”. 

Today’s podcast takes us to February 2022. 

In a conversation with his mentor, Scott was asked a question that would change his game completely,

“But your name is Churnkey. And you’re not doing all things churn. So, how does that name make sense?”

Scott’s business was product-led. It addressed voluntary churn really well.

But there was a drop-off point where his customers could use their product for voluntary churn, and then go to a competitor for involuntary churn. 

At that time, there was only one instance where this had happened.

And this was Scott’s chance to step onto his competitor’s turf before they inevitably stepped on theirs. 

The involuntary churn market was more mature. And it required a completely different product to address the problems that their audience had.

And to do it, he would have to 3x his business size to make it happen.

It was risky. So they had to be clear on a very important question, 

“What can we do better when entering a more mature market?”

When is the best time to pivot?

After diving deep into research, they found out there was not a lot of innovation going on in the market. 

And their competitors were actually quite young. 

There was a lot of potential for Churnkey to expand here. But they were going to have to do things differently for it to work. 

At this point, there were 3 possible cards that Scott could play 

  • Double down on the initial product — let it do its job
  • Play a different game — go to a different stage in the customer funnel and make a new product to match that
  • Plug the gap — create a new product for that. Stop customers from going elsewhere. And make the products work together. 

Scott’s co-founder essentially made the decision for him. They needed to plug the gap.

But the process highlighted a problem that he didn’t expect to see. 

What was holding him back from making these decisions with confidence?

Where could he find the hardened facts that he needed?

In this episode, Scott discusses all the moving parts of product. And offers tips on how to get to these conclusions faster in what is an interesting and pretty complex conversation!