Subscription Management for Boomers
Baby Boomers, those born in the 40s and 50s, are on their way to later life, winding down work and enjoying the spoils of their labour. That’s increasingly true of early Gen X too. They’re the wealthiest generations in society yet they’ve proven tough to do business with for tech startups. We believe that many of those failures have a root in trying to transpose products that work for the commonly touted startup panacea of “cash-rich 30-somethings” onto their older peers. Focusing in on particular use cases, which are specifically affecting the older people in society should yield better results.
What are the big anxieties?
From first-hand experiences with my own parents and their friends I know a few things about their generation.
Most, if not all, have high-spec smartphones. However, their willingness to download and experiment with new apps is low, unless needs must. Elderly parents and grandparents grappling with chat and video apps during lockdown comes to mind.
Something that I also know is that (a) people don’t like to be ripped off and (b) as you get older you become less able to identify scams/a bad deal and most people are aware of this either implicitly or explicitly.
There have been a number of studies that have sought to evidence a decreasing ability to detect a bad deal or a scam. When you mix this with a world containing the internet, social networks and an ever-increasing array of subscriptions and it’s easy to see how things can get out of hand for those of advancing years, without having any effective recourse.
Zero-ing in on a particular use case; I’ve come across a number of stories and news reports of the elderly getting a bad deal from media providers like Sky. Here’s a screenshot that I took from MoneySavingExpert having done a very quick search.
In the scenario above someone’s Grandpa, as a result of poor subscription management, had been paying way over the odds for their Sky bill. I get excited when I come across stuff like this. The issue reveals a real-world problem and so a space for a solution or an entrepreneur to step in.
The Opportunity?
There’s hope for all of us
We’ve passed on a number of subscription management startups over the years, as for now it just doesn’t seem like that big of a problem for most markets or a younger generation. With a re-orientation to the older members of society, there’s a chance that entrepreneurs can unlock a more acute use case. Older folk are increasingly addressable too. By this point, in many Western economies, it’s likely that smartphone penetration is over 70%, in the US almost all will have a cable subscription, with increasing numbers having further digital media subscriptions. That’s to say nothing about all of the other direct debits and standing orders that will be coming out of their accounts on a regular basis.
Relatively speaking though, there’ll be a challenge with acquisition. There might be a temptation to sell through children of the target market, though our experience with businesses attempting two-step conversion isn’t positive. So, perhaps this is a timing game where you acquire people as they head into the ages where things like this can be a problem….and perhaps the time is now.
If you’re working on an idea in this space, I’d love to hear from you. You can get in contact with us here.
