A New Chapter for Smartrr

It is with overwhelming enthusiasm that I share we’ve raised a $10 Million Series A led by Canvas Ventures with participation from seed round leads Expa and Nyca! The last two years have been a humbling yet incredibly rewarding experience and I’m excited for all that lies ahead. There are three overarching truths behind my optimistic outlook for the future of Smartrr. 

First, we have unequivocally found a great partner in the Canvas team. It is a privilege to be included in their portfolio of visionaries and to be in their corner. Beyond their monetary investment, I’m confident Canvas’ influence and partnership will make us stronger by the day. 

Second, we are disrupting traditional subscription offerings by building an LTV platform for brands to unlock repeat purchases in ways that leverage consumer behavior like never before. We’ve made a promise to ourselves and to our merchants to never lose sight of the end-customer’s experience. This guiding light has never led us astray and landed us in a state of constant innovation and differentiation. 

Lastly, I am a big believer that ‘Good people, build good product, build good business’. There isn’t a day that goes by where I am not astonished by the team we’ve built here at Smartrr. The caliber of collective talent is exceptional, we all hold ourselves to a higher standard, and yet we act without ego. I’m as proud as I am grateful for the Smartrr team, merchants, investors, and partners that make up our ecosystem and finding myself reflective and eager to share what's in store for this next chapter of Smartrr.

As for what’s next? The team here likes to think of Smartrr’s journey in chapters. I’m excited to share a glance of our vision more broadly, today.

Chapter 1: Building the best subscription technology 

Initially, we set out to make it easier for brands to implement tailored subscription programs. All our market research pointed to the fact that brands were opting out of offering subscriptions because subscription apps at the time were overly complicated and still required expensive custom development work. However, we were privy to the notion that subscriptions are a critical way to establish a steady drumbeat of recurring revenue and that repeat purchasers have the potential to be 22x more valuable than someone who purchases one-time. With those two facts in mind, the focus of our first chapter was to make subscriptions more accessible. We did just that with out-of-the-box subscription programs brands could set up in minutes. Going above and beyond the standard ‘Subscribe & Forget’ models, Smartrr’s technology opened doors for brands to choose a program that was more strategic to their brand and products. Offering build-a-box, sequential, prepaid, giftable, and many other subscription models so brands have the best chance to reach their optimal potential. Chapter one was a huge success as we achieved everything we set out to and learned even more. This was just the beginning.

Chapter 2: Reinvent the subscriber experience 

We quickly realized there is an untapped opportunity to reinvent the customer account portal experience. When loyal customers are managing their subscriptions, brands should be empowered to give them a reason to stay and engage further. We acknowledged this as uncharted territory in the eCommerce community and got to work. We asked ourselves: How can we help brands drive more subscribers, more purchases, more engagement, more loyalty? The response to those questions led us to our biggest differentiators to date. 

Give Subscribers More Choice

Smartrr offers a variety of subscription management options built to put subscribers in control of their own customer journey. Surpassing standard options such as skip, pause, and cancel, Smartrr also offers the option to expedite next order should a subscriber run out of product too quickly. Gifting is one of our most popular subscription options where many customers will gift their next order to a friend in lieu of skipping their next order. Additionally, our swap feature is a great way to introduce loyal customers to new products across a brand’s product line. 

Delight Subscribers with Exclusivity

There is a section in Smartrr’s customer account portal where brands can offer their subscribers one-time add-ons. While this is incredibly impactful in increasing average order value, our brands are using this in much more creative ways. There, they are offering subscriber-only discounts on select products and early access to new products. This level of exclusivity goes a long way in enhancing the overall customer experience. 

Add more touch points designed for engagement

At the end of the day, your subscribers are your most loyal customers and they are already more engaged than the average customer if they are actively managing their subscription. We wanted to introduce more opportunities for engagement so we added social feeds built directly into the customer account portal so subscribers never miss a campaign or a viral moment. In the same vein, Smartrr now has creator upsells so when a brand is working with a specific creator and/or influencer on a campaign they can seamlessly incorporate it across one cohesive omni-channel brand experience. 

For example, Bubble, an affordable, science-backed skincare brand, saw sales skyrocket in stores and online from a viral Tik Tok video featuring one of their products. Offering subscriptions with a beautifully branded account portal experience allowed them to keep the viral moment more sustainable by building in a retention aspect into their acquisition strategy.

Amplify your most loyal customers

We are now the first subscription app to have loyalty rewards and referrals built directly into the subscription experience. The main driver behind this feature was to incentivize certain behaviors and retain customers longer. If a customer wanted to refer their favorite product to a friend or family member, they would be able to see the direct allocation of loyalty credits in the same account portal experience. From there, the subscriber can exercise those points however they see fit whether that be discounts, free shipping, free product, etc. In addition, if a brand were to see an increase in churn after a subscriber’s third month they could incentivize that subscriber at the 3rd month with additional loyalty credits to ensure longer retention rates.

Chapter 3: Become the first LTV Platform in the Shopify Ecosystem 

We are now in our third chapter and find ourselves with a product that has revolutionized the eCommerce post-purchase subscription experience. Brands using Smartrr are seeing a 5X increase in revenue over the lifetime of a subscriber. Everything we’ve built to date has proven to deepen the relationship between customer and brand for better subscription revenue, AOV, and retention over time. We’ve raised the bar on the standard subscription experience and made it feel more like an all exclusive VIP experience. Thus, making us an organic fit to expand our offering beyond subscriptions and into the membership space. We are very excited to be spearheading this new initiative particularly at a time when brands are looking for new ways to lean into their loyal customer base and combat rising CAC costs. Adding memberships to this robust lineup of features will evolve Smartrr into the first comprehensive LTV platform in the Shopify ecosystem equipping brands with everything they’ll ever need to build lasting, long-term relationships with their loyal customers. 

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Whether you are a current partner of Smartrr’s or new to what we are doing, thank you for taking the time to read about our journey. We are so excited for our next phase of growth and are grateful to all those who have joined (and will join!) this journey with us.

With much gratitude,
Gaby