How onX Built a Portfolio of Apps to Grow ARR by 10x

Essentially the way we're structured from the product perspective is we have our vertical teams for instance hunt off-road back country and then we have our domain teams which are horizontal. So growth is a horizontal service. It's like an amazing opportunity but also really challenging because you effectively have you know four businesses that you're supporting. One thing that our engineering manager brought in that I loved was like how do we empower the team and almost require the team to be putting forth experiment ideas so that it's not just PMs. So we have this whole process around the experiment idea review where now like it's an expectation that anyone on the team is bringing a one-pager that is an experiment that they want to run. The first problem to solve is the velocity just like get the velocity up. But then once you start to like have your metrics around velocity, impact and win rate,

you can start to then tune the system based on what you're optimizing for. And now we're in like the tuning stage. >> Welcome to Subversive, a podcast dedicated to sharing stories from the best consumer subscription apps in the world. We'll bring you lessons for how to grow your consumer subscription business, including insights and inflection points that led to exponential growth from leaders at category defining companies and innovative startups.

Let's get into the show. My guest today is Brandon Gdor, product growth lead at Onyx. In this episode, I talked to Brandon about the growth levers that have allowed Onyx to build one of the largest and most popular outdoor apps in the world, about its contrarian strategy to building vertical specific products across hunting, fishing, off-roading, and backcountry skiing. And about how this approach has attracted a different set of target customers, allowing the company to differentiate itself versus all trails. All right, welcome Brandon Gdor to the Subversive Podcast. I'm really excited to have you on today, not just because we're old friends. We've known each other many years now. We both lived in Colorado for a while. Uh but also because I'm really excited about Onyx and everything you all are doing in the outdoor space. Uh we had Ron Schneiderman from All Trails in as one of our first guests several months ago

now. And so excited to hear about another rapidly growing outdoor app in Onyx. Uh but before we jump in, Brandon, why don't you just tell us a little bit more about your background and how how you found your way to this company? >> Yeah. Well, first off, thank you so much, Phil, for for having me. I appreciate it. And uh yeah, that was a great episode with All Trails. Uh big fan of everything that you're doing uh with the community you're building around growth and the podcast and your classes. So um thank you for all that and and you know, thanks for having me.

Uh but yeah, I mean um so I joined Onyx in 2023 and for the folks that don't know, Onyx is a basically a digital mapping product. Uh and we we serve outdoor adventurers who are looking to get out uh in the outdoors and enjoy it. And we do this through a mobile app. So, we have um several different mobile apps out there that are geared towards hunters, fishermen, off-roaders, backcountry skiers, hikers, um overlanders. So, we kind of serve a wide variety of users with these different mobile apps that we have.

>> Yeah. And I've been following you guys from afar for a few years now. Um before

we jump into Onyx, would love to hear a little bit more around your product experience at other companies prior to joining the company. And then I know you're an avid hunter and outdoorsman yourself. And so how did that factor into your decision to go work here? >> Yeah, totally. I I uh I have a little bit of a different background, you know, jumping into the GIS and mobile space, but yeah, a lot of my work prior to Onyx was in the fintech space. So kind of fell into product uh through rotational program at into it and that was like an amazing place to learn product and kind of the the focus on on like good foundational PM skills, but then ultimately wanted to move to like a more BTOC type space and that's what brought me to Lending Club.

And it's kind of interesting because like the the companies I've been at now have all been kind of in this like um scaling startup stage and it was like unintentional but the last three jobs I've had have been in that in that phase. >> And so lending club was like I I joined about like being the fifth PM and by the time I left there was about 60. >> And then you know with uh with Gusto you know there was like 12 to 14 PMs at the time and by the time I left there was over 60. And then you know now I'm on that same path with with Onyx as far as like in that growth stage. Um but yeah pre prior to Onyx a lot of the work in fintech and I think what was always hard there is that um like for Gusto like I love the SMB space and that customer but it's really hard to put yourselves in the shoe of somebody trying to run payroll every two weeks. Um, and me being um, you know, a hunter and fisherman, backcountry skier, mountain

biker, like you know, all those types of things that that we can do. Um, I've been a longtime user of Onyx. And so that's what really drew me to the product and the opportunity to come here. >> Well, and one other question I'll ask you because I know the backstory on this. You built your own app at one point in the hunting and outdoor space. So, can you say a little bit around that app and what you learned from that experience and then, you know, what you love about getting to work on your passion every day now with it? Yeah, totally. So, mobile has always like interesting interestingly been a thread throughout my career. Like even at in it, I was working in mobile there as well. Um, >> and then, you know, launched the first mobile ad at at Lending Club. Um, didn't get to do that much at Gusto, but um, I've always had I've always had these like passion projects on the side to scratch my own itch. And yeah, I worked

on a project called Quiver, which was essentially like think of a straa, but geared towards white tail hunters. And it was a chance for me to take like my product skills but apply it to a space and problem that I knew deeply. And then you know I had always had my eye on Onyx and it was something you know I was always just kind of watching them to see like if opportunities would show up because like for me that was always the goal like how could I combine my product skills and that work there to like my own personal passion and interests cuz like again I love gusto but I don't wake up every day thinking about payroll. Um but I do think about these other things a lot and so uh the opportunity came up um you know I had these passion this the side project with Quiver um but really it was like the chance to marry the two when with coming to Onyx.

>> Yeah. Well good for you. I mean both because life is short and getting to work on something you enjoy obviously makes life a lot more fulfilling but I also think as a product leader it's such an unfair advantage when you're working on a product that you intrinsically want to use every day, every week, every month. that just makes makes you so much better at your job. So I think that's a good segue into Onyx and on every episode of Subversive, we talk about an inflection point or a set of inflection points that drive exponential growth for a business. So in your case, Onyx raised it series A in 2018 and since then my understanding is it's grown AR more than 10x expanded the team more than 300%. Um you joined I believe in 2022 or 2023. So

let's let's just start with what what have been some of the most important growth channels and levers for Onyx since they raised that series A back in 2018. >> I think maybe we can start with a little bit of the history of Onyx as well too. So um Onyx started as basically a chip that you could plug into your GPS device. And so Eric the founder uh really wanted to try to solve this unique problem around knowing where you stand on public or private land boundaries. And so he started by with a chip business like basically a chip where he would you know write all the the data onto this chip and you could plug it into your GPS device and then with the advent of you know the iPhone all of a sudden you can now start having a GPS device on your phone.

>> And if you've ever used a GPS device like they're pretty clunky the screen's horrible. >> You can't interact with it. So now all of a sudden you have like a fully featured GPS device on your phone with all the rich you know of the screen and all the interaction which really was like a game changer at the time. And I think like that still like solving that unique problem and being in the right kind of right time, right place has fueled so much of the growth. And I think with all these things when you know it comes to growth it always comes back to like the core product and is it solving a really important problem in an like in a easy way and for the for the Hunt app that continues to be true and so like our word of mouth and just like because the product does such a good job at that is still like our strongest driver of growth because it is solving that problem really uniquely.

>> Yeah, I love that and I've seen that a number of times now on this podcast. We recently had um Albert Sheng who's now the head of growth or chief growth officer at chess.com and he was saying how Eric Alab who's one of the co-founders of chess.com you know he just had this passion for chess from the time he was very young and the company was founded I think back in 2005 so it's one of these that have been around two decades now and I see this more and more in consumer subscription because unlike B2B SAS or marketplaces where you know the competitive realities of those markets is such that you're either growing at hypers speed or you're dying With these consumer subscription businesses, if you have an authentic passion for a space and you can figure out a way to monetize it, then often times it's not necessarily the fastest company. It's the one that sort of sticks around for long enough and builds

a product people really love that ultimately ends up winning. And it sounds like that's been key not only to Onyx's success, but also to all the word of mouth that the company has driven. As long as we're talking about acquisition, I want to talk a little bit about SEO as I know SEO has played a very important role for all trails and I talked to Ron a little bit about how hyper local search queries for uh local hiking trails was really important for their growth both in the US and then later on internationally. To what extent has SEO been an important driver for Onyx?

>> You know SEO has played a role but it's not like you know super critical like it is in the all trails model where they have this large premium base and you really can't go anywhere without running into an alltrails page, right? like I'm we're going to tell you this weekend and like there's no way I was not running into an all trails page trying to figure out what to do and like it's amazing. They do an amazing job with that SEO and then bringing you into the product and upgrading you. Um but for us like we do we do do some SEO work around like our trail content for our off-road product and also for our backount but it hasn't been like a core part of the growth model as in other other products. Like I think another key thing for us from like a channel perspective has been the ambassadors and the community like in the hunting space our brand is up there with with the largest brands that are

there. Um largely because of you know how great a product it is but also just like the ambassadors and influencers are all using it and talking about it. Um so that's been a big part of the strategy for hunt into off-road then into backcountry. Um and then obviously paid too like we we you know we rely on paid as well. Uh but it really is that word of mouth and then within the communities that really drives a lot of that growth.

>> Got it. When you mention influencers in the hunting space in particular as well as you have these other verticals we're going to talk about like fishing and off-roading. Um to what extent are you paying some of these individuals who have a lot of influence in the hunting space through UGC ads to sort of go on Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram and talk about Onyx versus they're just doing it organically of their own valition because they love the product so much or is it a mix of both? It's a mix of both.

Um you have your hobbyists that like are sharing things and again like Hunt is a little unique because you're not always going to be sharing like what you're doing in the app because you don't want to share your spots. Um, but like in off-roading, like if you ran this amazing trail and you had this awesome adventure, you might share that as somebody around this like incredible trip that you had. So like your hobbyists are definitely out there sharing it and then we are paying influencers, you know, to help spread um spread the word of Onyx. Um so it's definitely a mix of both.

>> Got it. Very cool. Well, and then let's talk a little bit about the expansion Onyx has undergone over the last many years from a pure play hunting app >> for hunters to a broader cross-section of outdoor levers and that could be hiking, it could be off-roading, it could be fishing, it could be other outdoor activities. To what extent has the company's uh tremendous growth over the last six, seven years been driven by that core hunting category versus all of these other verticals you're expanding into?

>> It's going to be both. Um I think like um as I understand it like in 2019 a decision was made like instead of building uh a one to many type app like you know a straa or something we're going to build these individual products that are going to solve the unique needs of these types of users in this space and be really tailored to their experiences. And so kind of the birth of that was the the second app that came off of Hunt which was off-road. So, hunt hunt continues to be the most mature and longest standing business that we have.

But like with hunting, um there's only 13 million tags that are bought a year. And so, and for the audience that doesn't know, a tag is your license to go out and and harvest an animal. So, there there's a cap there, right? Um so, like that's what's interesting with the spaces that we play is like there's a certain amount of TAM available. And so we have to figure out if like Onyx, the parent company wants to continue to grow, um, we have to figure out new ways to grow in these other verticals. And so, um, the next kind of adjacent spot that the company went to was off-roading where now you're in the vehicle. What kind of data can we get from a trails perspective to fuel your adventure to go out and run these trails, whether you're like a hardcore off-roader or you're an overlander and, you know, into camping?

Um, and then what came after that then was the humanpowered space, you know, really starting with backcountry skiing. And so that we've had those three apps for the last couple of years. And then this year we launched a fishing app. And so it's really tailored towards um, you know, still water fishermen in the Midwest. So I think you're from Minnesota, right? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Got my Vikings hat right here. >> Oh no. Packers.

>> I married into a Vikings family. is brutal. Um but uh but so with fishing now they're going after like they started with with Minnesota now then they opened up to Wisconsin. I think we're in like five states now. >> But I think what's really what's really interesting it's like your classic horizon strategy where you have these different businesses at different stages. And and then from a growth perspective, and we we'll get into this probably talking about some of like how we're structured, but you know, we work across these businesses. And so we get to see kind of what's working, what's not working and build upon um the different like uh mechanics in these businesses as well as like apply learnings of what's happening over here to to over there. Um so it's really interesting from like just a growth perspective when we're working in that space.

>> Yeah. Well, so I want to dig deeper into this very specific question around multiple apps versus a single app, right? And I think in many ways Onyx took a contrarian approach because the vast majority of consumer subscription businesses I know, even if they function across multiple verticals, they have a single app. It's just much easier to maintain. Uh it's easier to point users towards a single product. But there are exceptions to that. We've worked uh with my client business, we've worked with outside, which now owns Map My Run and Map My Fitness. And so they have run, they have walk, they have cycling, and they have fitness broadly defined. And so there are a few examples you can find. And I'm I'm curious on your perspective on the pros and cons of that approach. What do you like about it? And where are there some challenges that have needed to be overcome?

>> It's fascinating because I get asked this question all the time just by like my peer group and friends because they do multiple activities. they're like I you know I would want one app like why do you have these multiple apps um but it's been a key part of our strategy so that we could go deep in a particular use case so like deep for off-roaders where it's not just like a reskin of the hunt app but it's like built for like what are the problems we solve for an off-roader >> and so you can be way more intentional around the product um you know catering to these particular personas and what are their use cases cuz like >> for a hunter there's different types of personas of hunters and that's just like we should be solving that problem in different ways versus like an off-roader who has it in their vehicle pinned up on the dash.

>> Um, and so I think like what it affords is like deep focus for a particular user and you're not making sacrifices across all these audiences. Um, so that you have like some some part of the experience that just doesn't feel native to like what you're trying to use it for. Mhm. >> Um, but on the flip side, like we're effectively trying to grow four different businesses right now with underneath the umbrella of Onyx >> and that's really hard. Like as a growth team, we work with four different groups of stakeholders and four different, you know, ways that we're trying to grow and and even within those those businesses, we we say vertical. When I say a vertical, I mean like one of these businesses that's like our terminology for them or one of these apps. Um, but they have multiple personas within that. And so like what what ends up working in like the way it works is we bring the growth expertise

and like how to apply it and the learnings that we've been um learning elsewhere and then the vertical brings their expertise on the persona and we kind of bring those two worlds together um to launch experiments and and work on these types of things. But I'm not going to lie, it's not easy. Like it um at at times I crave just being able to work on one and like go deep on one. But um it's also just a really I think it's a a really interesting strategy that we'll see how it plays out over time. Um because you're right, we have taken a completely different approach than some of these other apps. Well, and one other thing I would love to layer into the conversation is I think as AI is taking off and the cost of building a new app or digital product is rapidly coming down. I could see more companies start to experiment with this approach because the cost of maintaining four different app infrastructures and four different

app UIs used to be prohibitively high and so very few companies would go that path even if it was ultimately better for the end customer. But now the game is changing a little bit on that front. So we'll see how it all plays out. >> One other thing to add to that too is like I think now we're getting to the point of the economies of scale of it where like we've been heavily investing in the platform that sits underneath all this. So to give you an example, we launched our fish app this year and out of the box like it comes with uh CarPlay, Android Auto and all these like a rich feature set that would have taken you multiple years to build if you were starting from scratch. So I think, you know, we're, you know, it's still an opportunity for us, but we're getting more and more mature on our thinking around like the platform investments and then how do we scale that into the different businesses. Yeah, I think

that's a great point because even if you have four separate mobile apps, the reality is the UI and the UX might look a little bit different, but underlying those four consumer products, you have shared infrastructure, some cases, shared data models and >> totally >> um shared backend services that can lead to a great user experience like CarPlay integrations for example. So that makes a lot of sense. You already alluded to

this, but the growth team that you took over when you joined in early 2023 has needed to evolve significantly over the last couple years as well. And it sounds like, if I'm hearing you correctly, it's needed to adapt both to the needs of different stakeholders across these four different verticals, but it has also needed to adapt to the company as a whole just getting larger and having more ambitious goals. So, what has that looked like? An interesting thing about our structure and this started to happen right when I joined but essentially the way we're structured from the product perspective is we have our vertical teams which sit in a vertical and like for instance hunt off-road backcountry like those are the vertical teams and then we have our domain teams which are horizontal uh growth happens to be one of those domain teams you know our foundational experiences as a domain team um there's there's about four of us

so yeah so growth is a horizontal service and so that's what makes it really interesting I mean, it's like an amazing opportunity, but also really challenging because you effectively have, you know, four businesses that you're you're supporting. Now, we prioritize based on impact and like where we can, you know, learn the quickest, but it doesn't mean that that fourth vertical is reaching out with questions or they're looking for help in certain areas and that set of stakeholders is completely different than, you know, the largest vertical that you work with. So I think um that has been like an evolution of our team and I like I I constantly go back and forth with like our engineering manager and design leader around like do we go vertical specific like do we start to just pivot our team and have like a PM and group just go deep on a vertical or >> or do we remain horizontal and where we've landed and and how we've

structured the team is um is really kind of around the the key points of of where we could have the most impact. Mhm. >> And so like it started with like trying to just understand like the growth loops where's the most amount of leverage and then how do we start to point you know groups of people at that particular problem and give them the space to run at it. And so um we've really organized kind of around the the customer journey >> today and we've been in a horizontal structure that way. And what that uh affords us is the ability where like if we um we've built it in a way where if we're able if we can find some pater with a certain type of experience in one vertical we can very quickly bring it to one of these other verticals. Same thing goes from the client perspective like iOS and Android and web. And so that gives us a lot of like flexibility and scale to like land a lot of impact that

way when we do find some winners. Now the challenge is is that like what we're learning is not all experiments are going to behave the same across clients and verticals. >> Um so it's really amazing when you can hit something across all like both iOS Android and it's a winner across these verticals but that's rare uh because the personas are different and each of these businesses are at different uh scales or like on their growth they're different stages of their growth curve.

>> Yeah. The other thing I'd say too is like another big part of what we've been doing is really focusing on the experimentation muscle. So, um, the team was already experimenting and very interested in it, but we really had to like lean into experimentation as like our process for delivering impact and learning. And so part of that then was building trust with the rest of the stakeholders around what we're doing. So to give you an example, I I think growth was at a different stage. The term of growth and how growth was treated was at a different stage.

And so like we would get a when I first joined, we get a lot of questions around like well what are you going to build and tell me what your road map looks like and what what specifically things are you going to build? And we couldn't tell them that like like let's maybe let's align on the problem to solve and the metric you want us to move and then through our process we're going to run a ton of experiments against that and try to move that metric. Um, which was pretty terrifying I think for folks up at first cuz like they you know I had I had built no trust or relationship with with some of these folks. Um but really by like amplifying our experimentation process um we've been able to build that trust and relationship and then you know stack wins in there that have given us more and more freedom to operate in these different areas. Um so yeah it's definitely been an evolution.

>> Yeah, two key insights I'm extracting from everything you just said. One is the best growth teams tend to be oriented around the user journey. It's not always the case, but I think often you have growth teams and that can include both product growth and marketing growth that tie to particular parts of the journey. Everything from top of funnel user acquisition to newer registration and activation to engagement and retention and ultimately to monetization, which often means subscriber conversion and retention. And that's just because you're able to run certain playbooks and identify certain insights at different parts of those user journeys that ends up being pretty transferable.

And then the second insight is being a

product leader of any kind, but in particular being a growth product leader is challenging for many reasons, but one of them is you're pulled in so many different directions. And so at any tech company, you're you're being tapped by the marketing team, by the design team, by the engineering team, by the data science and analytics team, by the executive team, uh if if you're a B2B or a consumer product, by the sales team, right? And so you're already pulled in all of these different directions functionally. At Onyx, it sounds like you have the added challenge of being pulled across different verticals. And so really the only way to solve that problem is by developing a set of processes that are highly repeatable and transferable. And often what that means is just getting really good at high velocity experimentation and at interpreting AB test results so that you can drive impact which it sounds like was one of your big focus

areas in your first six months. >> Not first six months. Um I would say first 6 months was just like you know understanding the the business and like really trying to get deep from the customer side. I'd say in this last year we really improved and focused on the experimentation side. And so a couple things there is um >> you know one thing that our engineering manager brought in that I loved was like how do we empower the team >> and almost require the team to be putting forth experiment ideas >> so that it's not just PMs. And so we have this whole process around the experiment idea review where now like it's an expectation that anyone on the team is bringing a one pager that is an experiment that they want to run. Um and we stole this from Pinterest. Um but like it's been a way to really democratize the ideas. Um so that we have so it's not just PMs coming up with the ideas. And then similarly like when

now when a stakeholder comes and they they want to run an experiment or I have an idea it's like great here's here's a template fill it out come join um our idea review and then let's let's see where we go with that. Um and then on the flip side like we've invested a lot in our actual AB testing infrastructure and the results cuz that needed some shoring up as well. Um, and I know we, you know, we were talking, um, throughout this whole process and like the first problem was to solve was the velocity, just like get the velocity up.

>> Um, but then once you start to like have your metrics around velocity, impact, and win rate, you can start to then tune the system based on what you're optimizing for. And now we're in like the tuning stage >> where um, >> uh, we're we're not just like going for like as many experiments as possible. was like what's what's the right win rate and are we putting enough big wins out there? >> Yep. I love that. Well, and I'm glad you brought up Pinterest. If you didn't bring it up, I was going to because what you talked about in terms of it's not just the PMs who are sourcing experiment ideas. It it can be engineers, it could be designers, it could be analysts.

That's exactly what I saw John Eaggan do when he was leading the growth team at Pinterest. and he came from an engineering background like he was I think ultimately he led the entire growth team but uh he was by training a growth engineer and often times the best ideas don't come from the PMs because they're a little bit too close and so being able to democratize the the brainstorming of of AB test ideas is really powerful. Well, let's talk a little bit more around some of the specific experiments and growth levers you all have implemented since you joined the company in 2023. So the

company recently raised uh a series B round. I think it was an $87 million series B in 2022. I guess to start with, how did that impact the company's resourcing pro trajectory and product roadmap? Like you came in shortly after that. And so what was what was your remit coming in on the heels of such a big funding round? >> Yeah. So the other thing that I came in on the heels of was the pandemic and a lot of outdoor companies experienced this like boom during the pandemic where everybody was getting outside >> and so I think at the time there was a lot of like well what's going to happen post pandemic um and you know onyx has continued to grow really strong even post pandemic like from a a revenue and you know active subscriber uh perspective and so like but with that I feel like Onyx has been very thoughtful from the growth side as far as like headcount >> and you know like as I mentioned in the

beginning this is like my third scaling startup that I've been at and so I've been in modes where it's like throwing bodies at problems and you're just constantly interviewing that hasn't been the case here. I think the the leadership team's been really thoughtful around how we think about growth from just like a a human perspective and are we hiring the right people for these different types of roles and then separately like what um what the other like kind of things that we've gone after from a growth perspective are is so last year there was an acquisition of trout routes >> which is geared towards fly fishermen and and women and so that was like a new part of it and then it also helped us spin up and scale our fish product. So, we just launched fish at the beginning of this year. And so, that continues to play into like the horizon strategy of these different types of verticals. And so, um I would say those have been like

kind of the main things that I've been able to see from a a growth perspective. >> Got it. Yeah, that must be so much fun to be I mean, we talked about the challenges, but getting to work across these different verticals and different target customers. Um what are some of

the experiments to the extent you can share what are some of the specific experiments that the growth team has run over the last couple years since you joined and and have there any been any particular successes that drove outsiz impact? >> This is also interesting too kind of um something we touched on in the beginning but you know one folly of being really close to the customer and and in sometimes being the customer is um you can't skip some of those foundational steps of a PM, right? And so, um, yes, there's some shortcuts we can make in some certain areas, but because we think we know who this user is, but like I signed up for this app in 2014, and the people were signing up today are completely different. And so, I think um, one of the things that we've been focusing on a lot at the tail end of last year and this year is getting deeper into the customer research.

>> And I like you just can't skip that step even if you think you know the customer really well. like just there's no there's nothing more valuable than watching people go through your onboarding flow and the questions that they have. And so like I can't stress that enough because like that has unlocked a lot of small and like small iterations that led to outsiz gains but also bigger changes where we're making way bigger swings in certain areas that haven't proven out yet. Um but a lot of that was based on the customer research.

And then, you know, the other like um I'd say the other area where has been like where we've seen a lot of traction and this is going to be obvious to folks that listen to podcasts around this stuff is is around the payw wall. >> Um you know, and it's all the metrics that you hear everyone else talk about, but like that payw wall view rate that that's such a critical thing and like getting that to 100% of all new users seeing that is like one of the biggest things that you can do. Um, and then, you know, I think another key thing that we've been focused on is just like how do we simplify? Just simplify simplify and just like really break down these screens to like what they are.

>> Um, and so, um, and with that, the other thing I'd say too is like, and this is what we always say to our team whenever we see a test that performs around this is like don't sleep on copy. >> Like any cop any copy changes around the CTA like have been have been really successful. And so I like we're always telling our team like just don't sleep on copy experiments. Like if you like again when it goes back to those metrics you're optimizing for on like the velocity like what's your portfolio of experiments that you're running? Like what are the bigger swings that you have lined up and how are you slipping in you know smaller copy experiments along the way?

>> Yep. Yeah. There's so much great stuff in there. I mean one as somebody who's been living and breathing consumer subscription apps for many years now it's funny because you look at all these different products and it's easy to say well they're all special snowflakes. And to some extent they are. But when you really boil it down, there are a handful of things that drive the majority of impact on growth for consumer subscription apps. Pricing and packaging, onboarding, pay walls, life cycle marketing, communications. There are a few others, but like those are the things. Those are the things I work on with all my clients. And and more often than not, when I talk about growth on these podcasts, it comes down to one of those handful of things. And so it sounds like you've seen a lot of a lot of that at Onyx. And then I love your point around don't sleep on coffee because it's so easy to overlook. And

you brought up Pinterest earlier. I mean they built this whole copy tune tool that like iteratively went through millions and millions of iterations on copy not just domestically in the US but across other languages and other markets and it was so powerful for them. So it's it is one of those things that's easy to overlook but it can be really powerful. Um, how do you balance the need to keep

the product simple enough for new users who are coming to Onyx for the first time and you don't want to overwhelm them with too much complexity, but then at the same time serving your power users who maybe do want a little bit more feature richness and functionality. >> Yeah, I would say that's a problem we're still working on. Um, and you know, we we are like a featurerich product like you know our we the our persona is the objective oriented user that's going to go out for like is very goal oriented and wants to go do these things and so we're like there's a deep bench of features there and I think the the problem that we're focused on now is like how do we further simplify this and uh particularly for uh for onboarding this is a problem that we're we're working on where today when you land on the map in our product we throw the kitchen sink at And we really need to start to strip that down. Um so like how do we like you

know >> nudge the user into the right flows so that they can start to gro what this uh what this product is. And it's interesting like when we were doing the research um you know we like that I mentioned earlier like we were talking originally we've been talking about the first 30 days like what is it like for a user in the first 30 days and the research was like you guys it's the first 30 seconds like the 30 the 30 seconds like I don't care about the 30 days it's like the 30 seconds that matter and so this is where it's also been interesting as like a growth team where now we're starting to step into some features uh and partner with these feature teams to figure out how we can have a better um introdu uctory introduction into that feature or maybe how do we start to connect some of these features into a user journey to build some of these habit loops. And so like I'd say that's part of the um one of our

big focuses right now. But yeah, that's I think what's interesting is like if you look at hunt on the adoption curve um we're way later on there and so like the the experience just has to get uh more simple for our users especially for that demographic also skews a little bit older. Like I always think about my dad trying to sign up for this product and like him fumbling through like trying to figure out what these things are. And so that's why we really need to break it down to its simplicity.

>> Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And one of my favorite reports to read every year is Revenue Cat's annual app growth report. And one of the data points that really stuck with me the last couple years is more than 80% of trial starts for premium subscription apps happen in the first 24 hours, which usually means the first session and often times means the first 60 seconds. And so I think it can be so easy, especially if you're somebody who's working on a product that you're personally passionate about and you're a power user. It can be so easy to look past the fact that majority of your users, your new users in particular, like they're just getting started. They're just dipping their toe in the water. And so you really have to focus on the top of the funnel and making it as simple and accessible as

possible. You did say you're starting to work on some more specific features as the growth team has matured at Onyx. So since 2023, my my understanding is you've launched recent imagery, you've launched CarPlay and Android Auto, you've launched Avalanche Terrain Mapping and and several others. So are there any particular features that the company has launched over these last few years that have been most important to the growth of the business?

>> Yeah. So we can maybe step through the verticals on some of the the different features that have been launched there. But um if you think about our hunt product, the hunt product was born in the west and really it was around like the public and private lands and know where you stand. Um but a large majority of hunters live in the east and they hunt private private land or or land that they know really well. >> Um but a critical tool that they use as part of like being on their own on their hunting land is trail cameras.

>> And so for your audience, these are cameras that you set up on your property. They help you understand game movement and kind of what's happening. And so last year we launched the first integration with uh cellular trail cams. And so now that that's a a part of the experience that hooks right into the the product. And so you can view your trail cam data right within the Onyx app. And then just this year we launched a partnership with Moltry, which is the one of the largest trail cam providers.

And so I think for for the audience that is um more in the east around you know uh private land hunting like that's a a big um a big feature for that audience. And then you mentioned uh recent satellite imagery like that that's a game changer. Uh if you like for instance like let's say you're you're planning an early spring um backpacking trip. Well, you can go back into recent satellite imagery and move back through the weeks to see like at this time last year, was there water or was there ice or where was the snow line at this time?

And so like that's kind of a game changer feature um across the apps. >> And then this summer for off-road um a really unique um uh I'd say opportunity where we worked with all the the different land agencies to stitch together um disperse camping. And so, uh, historically, the way you would find dispersed camping is just, you know, camp illegally as you're, you know, traveling along a forest road. Um, or maybe somebody dropped some pins on where there's some dispersed camping, but that spot gets, you know, totally burned up because there's so many people there. But what we did is we worked with a lot of the different land agencies and actually stitched together all this data. So, now a layer within our off-road app is disperse camping. So, you can see where it's legal to camp across the US now. Um, and that's been a really exciting uh feature for this summer that's driven um a lot of excitement from folks. And then um and

then there's like other features around like our turnbyturn and our route building, you know, uh capabilities that have also been really helpful for the backcountry user. >> Got it. All very exciting features. And you know, I've heard some of this with Alt Trails as well. One thing I have to say is with so many tech products, they're leading people to spend less time outside and more time online. And so it's really cool to hear stories about companies that are actually affecting people's experience of the real world and especially people's experience of the real world in the great outdoors where unfortunately we're spending less and less time I think to our detriment.

But real quick real quick on that Phil like it's interesting is like if you think about an activation metric >> right like if our goal is ultimately to get you out >> and and um but how many times a year can you actually go do that? it represents this also like really interesting challenge from a growth perspective of like what is that activation metric that we're trying to drive towards our users because it's not like Strava where you know I can just hop and go do a run right after this call um but then you're also completely offline at that point and so like um I that I think and that's a big part of what what drew me to Onyx is like that is our mission is to like get people out and and into the outdoors.

>> Yeah, I totally agree and the activation metric thing is a real challenge. I think anytime you have a business that isn't purely digital and where there's a lag between when you're exposed to the mobile app and when you can actually have the core atomic experience that the app is trying to support. It does present a unique set of challenges that have to be overcome. Um, so let's

transition to our last topic for today's episode, which is just around the competitive dynamic with All Trails. And I have to bring this up because, you know, you you two are the big companies in the space, right? At this point, it's becoming a more mature market. And so, I don't know what the exact market share figures are, but between All Trails and Onyx, it's got to be at least 90 plus% of the outdoor activity tracking market, I would think. Um, so let's start with how does Onyx think about its target customer or set of customers and how do you all try to differentiate who you are targeting with your product versus All Trail?

>> Yeah. Well, first off, I mean, All Trails is amazing product. Um, and I think they've done an incredible job like as far as uh as we mentioned earlier around their SEO work into like actually using it. And you know, we use their product all the time for inspiration. Like I think their upgrade flows and how they um they think about that is really effective. But like I also think we're we're solving different users where they're going after much more of the casual hiker out on the weekend like >> here on the front range like everyone is walking around with all like looking down at their all trails map um which is great uh because it's getting people outside and then but for us like we're we're really focused around the objective what we call is like the objective oriented user and this is somebody that has a goal in mind.

they're trying to go do something. So whether you're an archery elk hunter and you're um you're e scouting a different area that you're going to go out and use onx hunt, you know, on an 8day backpack hunt um or you're a backcountry skier and there's certain objectives you want to try to um go after in the spring. So it's much more like beyond just the casual use. >> It's kind of beyond that. And I think that's where um the the two different companies play. And yes, there's there's some overlap there, but you know, we're not so much going after that casual use.

>> I love that. Well, and I think a lot of people when they think about Onyx versus All Trails, they probably think of it more in terms of the activity. And so they think of All Trails as hiking and they think of Onyx as hunting or fishing or off-roading. But I think you added another dimension there, which is All Trails has very intentionally gone after a more casual user segment. This was a huge part of the episode with Ron was this pivot from extreme, you know, backcountry skiers and uh search and rescue professionals who are the early adopters to the more mainstream casual audience of folks who just want to get out and hike on the weekends. Whereas with Onyx, and in some ways it is an extension of the verticals you've gone after, hunting and off-roading tend to attract a little bit more of a extreme audience or or at least a more experienced audience. Um, but on top of that, you've made

decisions that have oriented the product around a more experienced and high intent user segment. I guess related to

that, you alluded to the fact that All Trails has this great premium on-ramp where you can discover a trail through a Google search and then you can download the app and use it for free and then eventually maybe you subscribe. Does Onyx have more of a hard pay wall? Like how does Onyx work in terms of free versus paid and and trial versus no trial? Yeah, we we kind of straddle like the trial model and the premium model.

So, we do have we do have free tiers. Um, but they're not as robust as I'd say as like an Alt Trails or a Strava. >> Um, and I'd say we're more heavily focused on the monetization side where it's more of a trial orientation. Uh, but I'd still say like it's an evolving discussion around how we think about this. Um, and so yeah, I it's we're constantly like reassessing where where where to draw that line. Um, but again, it goes back to kind of the uh the TAM that you're going after and for, you know, take Dolingo, right? Like that's a huge TAM to go after and so they can afford to have all these free users in their user base. And like it was interesting to hear in your um your All Trails discussion around like, you know, 90% of their user base is free. Um whereas like for us like >> there's a lot more there's way more casual hikers out there than there are backcountry skiers and so we just we

approach that a little bit differently. >> Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I've I've listened to podcasts with apps like Surf Line or um even chess.com might be a good example, right? If your user if your TAM is narrower, then it forces you to be a little bit more thoughtful around just how aggressive you're going to be with monetization because there aren't an infinite number of people out there who want to go hunt whitetails, right? Um, so that makes sense and it's a good example of how the product ultimately is a function of the target market and the target customer. Um, what do you think the biggest misconception is that people have when they compare Onyx to All Trails?

>> I mean, honestly, I I I just think that like not as many people know of Onyx. >> Um, you know, All Trails, it's one kind of, you know, these Apple awards. It's it's just well way more well-known and also through their like SEO strategy. >> Um, you're just going to you cannot not run into all trails, right? And for us, I think we have this interesting challenge of the different vertical brands. Like you take Hunt, the the red X logo that we have um and all like the communities that are within the different verticals that we have and then you have the global Onyx brand.

>> And I there's still an opportunity for us to continue to grow the global Onyx brand. Like even in Denver here, >> you know, most folks that I talked to have not heard of Onyx. Uh most folks I talked to in the CSS space have not have not heard of Onyx before. Um, and I think that's an opportunity for us around like really trying to grow the brand um, from that perspective. >> Yeah. Well, and it's the double-edged sword of focusing early on on a more high intent specialized user base is there aren't as many of them, but the ones that you've attracted are fanatics, right? They absolutely love the product and that's why Onyx has become synonymous with hunting. And so if you can build on that fervor and that momentum then there's no reason to believe that one day Onyx can be every bit as large and successful as All Trails has been. Um I guess last question before we switch to the lightning round here. So obviously AI is

likely to have an impact in just about every category over the coming years. With that in mind, are there any particular product innovations that you're excited about that could shape Onyx's future whether whether they're using AI or not? I think um you know it's interesting like we were having this discussion earlier this year and it's like you know we often talk of us as being like a map company >> but at the end of the day we're a data company >> like it's all just data points that are on the map that then get brought together to the user um and how they interact with it and so I think for us um as we start to you know reframe our thinking around being a data company and how are these different things connected AI becomes a big part of that >> um and it helps us to all these connections much easier for the user. So therefore then we can have a much more tailored experience for that user based

on their needs where like today um you know for for instance like I'm I'm a archery elk hunter and a backcountry skier. >> Um so I was using two different Onyx apps before I I joined the company. Um but like in the future you can imagine um we were better understanding who these people's motivations are and then how are we connecting our data set to then you know better tailor the experience for those users and then for like particular features that we're building and stuff. Um there's definitely some exciting things in in the pipeline and you know our current customers and and future customers are going to be you know pretty excited about them.

>> Yeah, I'm sure you can't speak to them in in specifics but that's exciting. I'll I'll look forward to those. Um all

right well let's get to our lightning round. So, I'm going to ask you a series of rapid fire questions. You just give me quick two, three cents responses. First one that I always like to ask is just what do you think is the best part about working at Onyx, and what's one thing you would change? And as a hunting enthusiast, I'm sure you'll have a a good answer here. >> Yeah, I mean, I think like, you know, for me it wanted to combine my personal interest and passion with work. And so, like the I'd say there's two parts to it. One is like the culture of people is amazing. Um, like we get to have a ton of fun with the folks we work with cuz we all have very similar interests. So like we can there's a lot of things we can talk there's a lot of commonality that we can talk about before we even get into the work. So like I love that part about it.

>> And then it's also just inspiring cuz like on Monday when you show up and you see in our like our different adventure channels like what people did over the weekend, it's like pretty incredible. So like to have that be part of your you know your kind of everyday work is pretty amazing. Um so like that's a big for me is like you know probably the best part about working at Onyx is just the like-minded folks that I that you know share similar passions. Mhm.

>> And then, you know, um it's not something I would change, but something that was super interesting that like took me a little while to adjust is, uh I knew when I was coming in Onyx, like I knew the CEO was from Amazon. >> I didn't realize that so much of the leadership team was from Amazon >> and so the company has a lot of Amazon processes. So, I've been like learning within like a mini little Amazon. And got it. I I think the biggest shift for me was like the doc culture like creating documents >> and I've come from very heavy deck worlds and so like the first meeting I showed up to was just like 30 minutes of reading and commenting. I was like what is going on here? Like what are people doing? And and so like I've had to like completely shift how I work because I used to just work in decks.

>> Um and so that was just like a unique culture shift for me. I've had that same experience and I have to say once you get used to the dot culture it can be very very powerful because writing really does force you to crystallize your thinking in a way that's much more rigorous and robust than you might in a slide deck but man it is definitely a transition I went through that myself um second question what was it like transitioning from a career in fintech and B2B companies like into a lending club investo a consumer app like >> so lending club was like B toC and and with that lending club I got to work on a variety of different parts of the business and That's where actually I got into like funnel optimization experimentation and stuff like that. So that's where I like started to get exposed to more and more of that work.

And um I was starting to like seek that out more cuz that that's like I love that type of work. Um like the whole process of running experiments and the optimization finding like where the little pockets of opportunity are. Um and so like that transition was easy coming to Onyx. um you know now coming in particular like with a growth team and consumer subscription right like I had my little app on the side but that's nothing compared to what Onyx is right and so for me that was like a really steep learning curve right away to like jump into that cuz I was working on core payroll before coming to to Onyx like those those two worlds could not be further apart >> um and so for me it was like really relying on a lot of the resources that are out there so like it was like hitting up folks like you it was podcasts it I think I've taken over four courses on Reforge. Um, and it was just trying to be a sponge in these different

areas to learn from other folks that have like who've been through this before to then bring back to to Onyx. >> Yeah. I mean, when you say all that, I'm a movie buff, so I have to I have to go here. It reminds me of this scene in Goodwill Hunting where they're at the bar and the fancy Harvard guy is talking about his fancy education and then, you know, Will's just like, "Well, just go to the library and I'll save I'll save all this money and get the same education you did." And more and more, I think that's where the world's going with technology. It's like things are evolving so fast that taking courses are becoming more and more outmoded, at least traditional college courses, because you know, by the time you take the course, the technology has already changed. And so I think there are a lot of benefits that acrew to the the person who takes initiative and is able to just, you know, learn themselves through

YouTube or podcasts or whatever else is out there. And it sounds like that's what you did. Um, third question. As an avid hunter and outdoor enthusiast, what is it like to work at a company that's building a product you're so passionate about and directly serving customers just like you? I think we talked about this a little bit, but you know, maybe what what's one thing that you absolutely love about it and what's one blind spot that it has created that you've had to figure out how to overcome?

>> Yeah. So, um it's it's all the reasons that I mentioned before, but like I we get to solve problems for for these communities that like I care a lot about. And then also there's like um there's a bigger thing there around public land and access that I care a lot about as well. And so like our mission of having these apps um helps to pay for efforts around land land access initiatives. And so like I'm totally aligned to to that part of it because we're not making any more public land.

And so I I feel like that's really important. So that that's a big part of what drives me. And then being able to use these products um and then share with my friends and the different communities and get their feedback on like that's just like that's just a cherry on the top from a product perspective. Um versus to like some of the other products that I mentioned earlier that I've been that I've worked on in the past. Uh a blind spot is um our our busiest time of the year is hunting season >> and I and I and I joined the growth team, >> right? And so like um we need to make sure we land all our impact ahead of that and then things are set coming into the hunting season or otherwise we're really busy. So um I think that's that is like the double-edged sword with working on your passion. Um is >> do you have time under your passion?

>> Do you have time left or or have you given yourself enough uh enough runway that you can get out and do that? Um but I think the the actual blind spot though is like what I mentioned earlier is the like the user research. >> Yeah. like I you know what I want and what I expect is way different than somebody that's signing up today. And so you just can't skip that step and I think in looking back I wish we would have pushed on that sooner to start more of that foundational research sooner.

>> Um and I might have been leaning on that crutch too too hard in the beginning. >> Yeah. No, that makes sense. Well, I was going to say I mean I think you just got to tell your executive team it's a user research project. We've got a few hunting buddies and we're going to go out and it's user research. So I know I know it's an important season but this is critical. Yeah, I will I will say though like the company does a great job of supporting folks uh to get out. And like another funny thing too is like at all my previous other jobs I kind of had to hide the fact that I hunted.

>> Um it was not something I could openly talk about unless I knew it was like something that you were interested in in chatting about. But like and Onyx is completely different. >> Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's great to have that gift in that that community. Uh last couple here. How has Onyx's focus on hunting and other outdoor activities shaped its culture? you you were talking a little bit about that just now, but how do you see that in some of the policies or some of the approaches that you all take to building your product?

>> Well, one like really clear one is like we have um you know specific days called get out and get active that you're allowed to go use to just go you go do the thing. Um, and so that's kind of like there's like no question around like, hey, if you want to go out and, you know, let's say like folks on my team, like one of one of the folks on my team's a big climber and the weather's right and this is an objective that he wants to go do, like, >> you know, he get like go for it. Um, and so there's there's capacity built into like our planning to like support those types of things because we do have really passionate folks on our team. Um, and then the other thing I'd say too is like a a unique thing is we do like a summer app challenge. And so on Fridays, folks need to get out and use the app.

And it's actually where we do most of the debugging and we run into a lot of the kind of the other edge cases that we wouldn't normally expect, >> but you're given time on Fridays during the summer to go out and actually use the products. And then they turn it into a little competition where of folks like basically based on the different base camps that we have like who's tracking the most, who's dropping the most way points or if they've used this particular feature that's been assigned that like needs to be tested. So that's built into it as well.

>> Cool. Yeah. Well, Ron said the same thing at all trails. I think they have trail days they call them, which is one Friday a month everybody gets out and does whatever hike or other activity they want to do. And what a what a great thing to build into your culture. It sounds like Onyx has done something very similar. Um, last question. We danced around it before, but I'll just ask you directly. How do you think AI is going to impact the outdoor activity space?

>> I'll go back to the uh the disperse camping example. >> Like we we still had to work with the different land agencies to get the correct data >> um in order to like deliver that that type of value to the end user. And I don't think that's something that we could just point a AI at right now. Um, and so for us, I think, you know, this is a tool that you take in the back country. You absolutely need to trust it in order to get home safely. And so I think like when we think about the product, um, when I was chatting with some of the team around this, it's like, you know, it for sure needs to be reliable.

>> Like it needs to work. It needs the data needs to be relevant in the product and it also needs to be responsible. And I don't think we're at the stage yet where or would we want to trust just AI to run with that like >> um especially when when with with our product is trusted by our users to to actually get them home safely. >> Yeah. Um, now to that point like kind of the what I mentioned earlier like we have all these different pieces of data like it's a it's at the end of the day a data product and I think AI is going to open up a lot of opportunity opportunities for us to like to start to look at that data differently and maybe bucket it differently than we normally would >> that could then present a different user experience to the user.

>> Yeah. Yeah. >> So I there's certainly something there, but I um I >> I still think that we're at the stage where it's like a solution chasing a problem. >> Yeah. And I hear that from more and more companies. And again, like Ron brought it up actually on the old trails episode, which is there are so many opportunities to use AI to improve product experiences, but make sure that you're not just building technology in a searching problem. start with the customer problem that needs to be solved. And in cases like, well, we want to hyperpersonalize an experience for a particular type of user. Okay, maybe gray AI is a great tool for that.

But in cases like, well, I'm going to be off the grid in the wilderness and I need a product that has been battle tested and proven to be able to get me home, then like maybe not where you want to be using cutting edge AI models just yet. This has been great, Brandon. I I knew it would be and it was a pleasure having you on. Anything you else you want to leave the audience with before we wrap up here? No, I mean, you know, first off, Phil, thanks so much for having me and appreciate all your help over the last couple years and support.

Um, you know, I put a plug in for your course. Like, I I took the course and I I love the the value subscription framework that you have. >> I bring that to like our teams here when we talk about the the different product teams that we have and how it works with growth. So, like um I can't recommend the the content and and things that you put out. And then lastly, I would say just, you know, for folks to check out Onyx. Uh, you know, we we have these three different now four apps. Uh, the hunt, off-road, backcountry, and fish.

You know, given your flavor of outdoor activities, definitely check us out and give us a try. >> Love it. Love it. Well, it's such a pleasure having you on, Brandon. Thanks again. And, uh, looking forward to where seeing where you take things over the next few years. >> Awesome. in Bville.