PSA: Be aware of data hostage practices
Burn Box is a subscription box that delivers tools, gear, and apparel to some of the world’s bravest people: firefighters.
reached within 3 years
served within 3 years
Sourcing all of their products from firefighter-owned companies, Burn Box empowers aspiring and professional firefighters with everything they need to succeed in their heroic profession.
“Lots of my fellow firefighters were already running their own businesses, making tools, apparel and more. Finding hundreds more firefighter-owned companies on social media, I thought it would be a great idea to combine all the products into a monthly package.”
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A subscription model was a natural choice for founder Thomas Ansu — as there were so many different companies out there producing high-quality kit, a subscription model gave him the chance to support the biggest amount of businesses.
But when he launched on Cratejoy, not everything went as expected. Burn Box’s original debut on Cratejoy wasn’t as well-received as Thomas had hoped, with only 5% of people who’d initially expressed interest during the prelaunch actually converting on launch day.
Furthermore, Cratejoy lacked a lot of crucial features - without the ability to offer commitment terms (as well as configure automations and sales funnels), he was in a sticky situation!
“Ecommerce was new to me as a firefighter — I was really surprised by how much of the business Subbly could take care of. From automations and analytics to emails and dunning, it’s been very helpful to have everything in one place. The help center and subscription university were also extremely helpful when it came to figuring out how to set up all the features and integrations.”
Being a husband, father, and full time firefighter — and then an entrepreneur — was a challenge for Thomas, as he had to do the market research, customer services, website, email, social media, and fulfillment all on his own.
An all-in-one platform that he could scale his business with was no longer just a potential option, it was a necessity! Thomas needed to ensure his user experience was seamless and that he was able to control everything behind the scenes - he didn’t give up hope.
Reaching out to his community, Thomas connected with his fellow subscription-first entrepreneurs for some advice — and all of them pointed him towards Subbly.
Thomas decided to take the plunge in June 2020, reaching out to our migration team who made all aspects of the transition smooth as could be, from the data transfer process to the initial setup, and the rest was history.
Since then, Burn Box has enjoyed a meteoric rise to success, with 2,200+ active subscriptions across the USA and Canada and a $130k+ MRR.
With Subbly, Thomas was also able to create a frictionless customer journey with a huge amount of flexibility — diversifying his shipping cadence to both monthly and quarterly, allowing customers to manage their accounts via a secure portal, and even offer shipping outside of the US for his Canadian supporters as well!
Burn Box’s success is proof that it’s possible to both empower a community and run a profitable business at the same time, using a subscription model to both emphasize a varied offering and maximize recurring revenue.
“I’d like to thank the Subbly team for helping a firefighter's dream come true. I'm very excited with what the future holds – especially when it comes to creating upsell funnels, affiliate and referral programs, and optimizing my one-time products."
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