The Naked Truth About Subscription Startups: The Good, The Bad & The Scams

I like your article and you do bring up some really valid points, however your portrayal of Science seems overly critical in that their subscription products don’t make any sense.

You say:

“Their strategy has been to focus on unnecessary subscription start-ups with vanity customer acquisition proof points”

and you talk about Dollar Shave and ELLIE as examples.

Theoretically, subscriptions for razor blades do make sense because it’s something you buy often. I’m not a user so I’m not qualified to speak on their product and quality, but as far as the model goes, there’s nothing wrong with it and it’s not unnecessary.

Subscriptions for clothes on the other hand does not make sense because like you said you don’t really need two pairs of workout clothes every month. However, what you failed to mention was that ELLIE is not solely a subscription based company. They do sell their products for set prices, and you can choose to not receive products on a given month and simply roll your credit over.

Note: I’m not affiliated with Science in any way; in fact, my start-up competes directly against one of theirs.