Is your retention making or breaking your lifetime revenue?

After the first purchase, most e-commerce brands go quiet — or start blasting discount codes. But the brands that win long-term treat every purchase as the beginning of a relationship, not the end of one.

In this episode of Data Beats Opinion, SegMetrics founder Keith Perhac sits down with Ishita Agarwal — founder of Tapp — to dig into why retention is the biggest untapped lever in business, why CAC is breaking for most brands, and what it actually looks like to turn one-time buyers into loyal fans.

Watch the full episode →

Meet Ishita Agarwal

Ishita Agarwal is the founder of Tapp, a post-purchase engagement platform that helps e-commerce brands turn one-time buyers into loyal fans. With roots in M&A consulting and emerging technology, she went on to study design and behavioral science at Stanford before zeroing in on the post-purchase gap in commerce. Ishita brings a tech-world playbook — onboarding flows, habit loops, and gamification — to the e-commerce brands that need it most.

Connect with Ishita at Tapp or on LinkedIn.

Show Notes

[00:00] Meet Ishita Agarwal
[01:15] How she got into e-commerce
[04:59] Why retention is so broken in e-com
[07:08] The math isn’t mathing — CAC vs LTV
[09:01] Customers vs members
[11:14] What Tapp actually does
[14:38] Engagement numbers and what they mean
[17:01] NFC tags and the omnichannel opportunity
[20:14] What brands do with the data
[22:06] How personalization works over time
[27:36] How engagement turns into sales
[28:55] The rewards model (and why discounts don’t cut it)
[32:03] Stories that make it click — Solidcore and Nintendo Club
[36:05] Connecting with customers through Amazon’s black box
[40:20] The biggest mistake brands make
[45:42] The Weber Grill principle
[47:32] Where to find Ishita

About Data Beats Opinion

Data Beats Opinion is SegMetrics’ monthly podcast exploring what’s actually working in growth and marketing today. Host Keith Perhac, founder of SegMetrics, sits down with domain experts to uncover practical strategies you can implement — not just theory.

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Data Beats Opinion — Ishita Agarwal

Transcript

Keith: Here’s an interesting question: How would your business change if your success depended on whether or not people bought more than once? That era is getting closer. Customer acquisition costs are skyrocketing much faster than you can raise your prices. That means each new customer you bring on is worth less and less — and for some businesses, they’re already losing money on every new customer unless they buy a second time.

In today’s episode of Data Beats Opinion, we’re diving into this wild new landscape where retention is king. Our guest is Ishita Agarwal, founder of Tapp. She’s on a mission to transform how brands engage customers after the purchase. We explore how to shift your customers from liking you to loving you, how to treat your customers like members and not just customers, and why the first time someone uses your product is such an underutilized touchpoint.

If you’re ready to unlock a new profit lever in your business, let’s start the show.

Keith: Thanks for joining us, Ish. I’m really excited that you’re here.

Ishita: Thanks so much for having me, Keith. I’m pumped to be here.

Keith: So for people who are tuning in — we’ve done the intro, so they should know who you are — but give me a little background. Who are you? What is Tapp, and how did you come into this?

Ishita: Great question. My background is a little different than most people in commerce. I started my career in consulting — very traditional consulting, M&A, all that stuff. I learned what it felt like to be a professional in the corporate world and honestly enjoyed it a lot.

I eventually ended up on the emerging technologies team, which was truly a dream role for me. I was doing projects ranging from 3D printing and drones to AR, VR, and AI — back when AI was simulation and not all the LLM stuff we’re doing now.

I really fell in love with that space. I realized I loved operating at the intersection of technology, design, and behavioral science — disciplines that, together, can create really great experiences for consumers. I did that for a couple of years, then wanted to keep building expertise at that intersection, and ended up going to business school at Stanford.

While I was there, I took design classes from some incredible professors, did internships at places like Google X, and it was truly the best two years. I became more and more curious about how all three of those disciplines come together to create the greatest experiences that you and I have probably had when it comes to technology and the world we live in.

It was actually in one of our startup classes — called Startup Garage, where the whole point is to figure out how to start a business — that things clicked. We started with a completely different idea, but as we were researching it, I stumbled into the world of commerce.

I had never really been in e-com. I’m a consumer, but outside of that, I didn’t know much about the economics or the problems or what was and wasn’t working. Something I became curious about through a bunch of customer interviews was that people kept talking about how excited they were when they first purchased from a brand — but then, once they’d bought, they felt kind of distant from it. Like there was nothing really happening in terms of engagement. I became obsessed with that. What does that mean? Why is there an issue there? What’s happening?

That curiosity eventually turned into what Tapp is today.

Keith: That’s very cool. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves with e-commerce — once you buy the product, so many brands just don’t think about the post-purchase experience. A lot of times it’s, “Oh, we have a great post-purchase experience — we’ll send them a card on their birthday, and we’ll send them sales information every time we’re doing a Christmas sale.” And I’m like, great, just like every other e-com brand out there.

At SegMetrics, we really focus on that nurture sequence — on the post-purchase, on how do you get the data to turn customers into lifetime loyalists. That’s one of the reasons I was so interested to talk with you and with Tapp, because that’s essentially what you’re doing: going beyond just sending a postcard every six months. So what does Tapp actually do? In a perfect world, what does it allow e-commerce brands to do to create that engagement?

Ishita: Do you mind if I step back and explain why it’s important first? I think that helps frame the conversation.

Keith: Let’s do it.

Ishita: So when I came to commerce, the first thing I did was look at the tech stack. I come from tech, so I’m always focused on tooling. I literally looked at a landscape of e-com, and it was very clear — even visually. On the acquisition side of the funnel, there were thousands of tools that existed for brands. On the retention side, there really wasn’t a lot. It’s much more bare when you put it on a screen. There’s email and SMS, and subscriptions kind of form the foundation of what retention looks like today.

Beyond that, there are loyalty programs and referral programs — but what those are really targeting is the top 10% of your customers. Those are the people already referring you, already involved in your communities, already in love with your brand.

There really isn’t much happening for the rest of your customers. So the first thing I realized was: A) there wasn’t a lot happening in retention overall, and B) what retention was happening was aimed at the top 10%. Coming from tech, that’s not how we approach things. In tech, everything is about retention. We’re tracking onboarding flows, habit loops, MAU, DAU. If you’re working on Instagram, you’re not just looking at the top 10% of users — you’re looking at every single user and figuring out how to get them to engage with you, because

Keith: In tech, we live and die by retention.

Keith: Exactly. The idea is that everyone’s buying month after month, and retention and engagement are how we stay in business. If we lose that, we lose everything.

Ishita: Exactly. And I knew that from the tech world. The next thing I always do is look at the economics. Maybe retention doesn’t matter in commerce — maybe it truly just isn’t as important. But as you know, that’s not true.

Keith: LTV to CAC is always the key metric for any business — how good is this business model for you?

Ishita: Right. And the math just isn’t working in e-com anymore because CAC is as high as it’s ever been. In the beauty industry, for example, the average cost of acquisition — at least a couple of months ago — was $61. That’s often higher than the purchase price of the product, which means these brands are losing money on acquiring a customer. If you don’t buy from them again, they’ve literally lost money on you.

At that point I felt I’d validated a couple of things: retention is an enormous part of the math for any e-com company, and there wasn’t much happening to increase the LTV side of that equation — and what was happening was only focused on a very small subset of customers. Things were starting to come together, and the next question was: why does the problem exist?

Because I’m never one to assume people don’t know these things — people are smart and they understand their businesses.

Keith: I would often assume they don’t know, or don’t care.

Ishita: I think people are very limited by the tooling that’s available to them.

Keith: Yes.

Ishita: 100%. If all you have access to is a loyalty program that rewards people for buying more stuff, that’s all you can do. There’s not much more you can do beyond that.

But as we dug deeper, we found what we think is the core problem: brands are treating their customers like customers instead of treating them like members of their brand. What I mean is, when someone’s a customer, you have a transactional relationship. You’re sending them five emails a day to stay top of mind. You’re throwing discount codes at them because you want them to keep purchasing. But you’re not cultivating a relationship. When you’re acquiring someone, you’re courting them — “Look at all this cool stuff we have, we’re solving all your problems.” But then once they buy, that relationship stops. You’re just throwing stuff at them and hoping they come back.

Keith: It’s almost like the purchase is treated as the finish line instead of the starting point of a relationship.

Ishita: Exactly. And there’s a crazy stat: in every single category today, there are six times as many brands as there were just five years ago. So when someone buys your product, they’ve chosen you over the other 50 or 100 brands they could have purchased from. That means your product has to be good — but at this point, a good product is basically table stakes. The real reason they’re buying is that something about your brand resonates with them — the ethos, the mission. So why, instead of inviting them into a membership experience exclusive to buyers, are you just broadcasting at them? Throwing emails, SMS, and discounts, without inviting any real engagement?

What we discovered is the real problem: brands don’t have a way to make customers feel special and continue that relationship.

Keith: So what’s the solution? How do you fix something like that?

Ishita: We know brands are very busy and don’t have a lot of time and resources to spend on new things. So we take content that brands already have — social media, email campaigns, ad campaigns, websites. We run it through AI models that analyze what your brand is, what problems you’re solving, who your customers are, and what journeys they need to go on.

What comes out on the other end is a web-based interactive hub of challenges. We turn those images and videos into tutorials, games, quizzes, polls, and community modules that people can actively engage with — all wrapped in a programmatic experience.

So if we know you’re a supplement brand and people need to stay consistent with using your product for 90 days to even start to see benefits, you’d get a 90-day program where every 30 days there’s a new set of challenges to complete. Customers go through polls, games, and quizzes designed to help them get more out of the product. They’re fun and delightful — a more interesting way to engage. You earn points for completing them, and those points can be redeemed for rewards as long as you continue to stay subscribed or purchase from the brand. Instead of random communications after a purchase, you’ve created a program for the customer to follow.

That’s kind of what the Tapp experience is — an interactive way to communicate with customers in a way that’s much more engaging than what emails and SMS can do on their own.

Keith: It’s interesting, because I’ve seen strategies like this before — not for e-com, but for info products — where you give people access to a free course or some kind of membership welcome experience. Not a PDF, not something small, but something valuable that builds community. There’s a psychological trigger that goes off when you receive something like that. It’s that give-and-take — quid pro quo. I receive something, now I have a better feeling toward you. Almost like the parasocial relationships we see on YouTube and social media.

So what kind of results have you seen? I think a lot of people listening are thinking, “That sounds great, but how do you get people into it?” What’s the engagement rate, and how does it translate to sales?

Ishita: There are a few parts of the funnel we look at: how many people are engaging at all, how many are engaging actively and earning rewards, and how many stay engaged, subscribed, or buying.

We have a couple of different ways for customers to enter the experience, and we talk about them from simplest to most effective. The simplest is through email and SMS, because brands are already doing a lot with that — we can easily plug in through Klaviyo. Funny thing is, we tried to stay away from email and SMS for a long time. I was not a believer. I thought it needed to go away. Current CTRs for normal e-com emails are around 3%. But our emails, which focus on the program and the rewards you can earn, are getting around 20% engagement. That was shocking for us — for a long time I was saying, “Nope, we’re not doing email.” Wrong decision. It ended up working really well.

Keith: And it was the data that showed you that, right?

Keith: For me, it’s kind of obvious, because I come from the creator and info product world where email rates are 25 to 50% — that’s how creators connect with their audiences. That’s always the divide I see between e-commerce and the creator world: e-com is so focused on the front end, and because their emails get 2 to 3% because they’re all sales, they assume there’s no value in the back of funnel. But what you’re showing is that there definitely is.

Ishita: Yeah. 50% is like a dream. I love your face right now — “Email?” I was like, “Whoa, I had no idea people were actually opening these.”

We also have even better rates with SMS, but it varies so much brand to brand that we don’t talk about those metrics publicly. And then the most effective entry point is actually why the company is called Tapp. We believe in a future where the software experience is coupled with the physical product experience.

I’m sure you’ve seen QR codes on packaging — they’re not effective. Scan rates are around 1 to 2% for a lot of reasons. But I come from an emerging technology background, and I’m a big believer in NFC tags. For anyone who’s not familiar, it’s the same technology as Apple Pay — little stickers that can go anywhere on your packaging. You just tap your phone on it, and it launches the web-based experience we discussed.

Keith: I do want to mention — a lot of people who haven’t used NFC tags think they’re expensive. You can buy 1,000 of them for close to a dollar. They’re very cheap, programmable, and

Ishita: they’re stickers, so they’re easy to put on your packaging. And unlike QR codes, you can print anything on top of them. Brands using NFC tags with us are seeing tap rates of about 40%.

Way higher than QR codes. And what it unlocks for us is omni-channel, because 90% of commerce in the US is not done through a brand’s website — meaning brands don’t know who 90% of their customers are, let alone trying to have a relationship with them.

This unlocks a really interesting space where you can start to create a brand relationship even when you don’t know who that customer is. So we always say: simplest entry point is email, most effective is the tags. Our goal is to move everyone into the Tapp experience at some point — though we’ve realized the tags are something to work toward rather than lead with in our selling proposition.

You can also use packaging inserts and other touchpoints. Brands sometimes want to put us on their websites too, and they can — we’re a web app — but we actually think post-purchase deserves its own separate space. Your website is meant for shopping. This is meant to be a space for engagement. Those are two different things.

In terms of active engagement within the experience, around 20 to 30% of people complete everything. There might be 13 or 14 modules to get through — they’re quick, not hours of content — but people are completing the quizzes, community modules, games, and tutorials.

Keith: That’s impressive.

Ishita: And beyond the engagement, the brand is getting zero- and first-party data they’ve never had access to before. Something as simple as “why did you buy this product?” — most brands have no idea. We make it fun: take this little poll and see what other people answered. But the brand is getting real data on why people are buying, and they can segment their communications from there.

Our north star metric is the number of points earned versus the total points available across all users. We want that as close to a 1:1 ratio as possible. Still working toward it, but it’s a good starting point.

Keith: And are you then pushing that data back into Tapp’s system? Are you pushing it back to Klaviyo?

Keith: Is that something brands then use in their email sequences?

Ishita: All of the above. The data belongs to the brand — we’re not going to gate it the way Meta and others do. It goes to Klaviyo, it’s your data to own. But we also know brands are busy, so the Tapp experience personalizes over time on its own. As we learn that Keith bought this product because he’s trying to solve problem A, and Ish bought it because she’s trying to solve problem B — the content, the challenges, the framing should be relevant to each of them. Otherwise it feels generic.

What we’re building toward is something like Instagram — where it just feels like it knows you. You’re completing challenges that feel genuinely relevant to you, so you keep coming back.

Keith: And this is a drum I beat all the time — personalization in marketing. Ramit Sethi always talked about “the special snowflake syndrome”: everyone thinks their unique situation is completely unique and doesn’t relate to anyone else. But the core of sales is overcoming those objections — “You’re a 40-year-old schoolteacher in Kansas. This product is for you because this other 40-year-old schoolteacher in Kansas got success with it.” It’s about understanding what problems people are trying to overcome, what their objections are, and presenting that in a way that naturally leads to the next purchase.

Ishita: Exactly. And I think it seems like a small thing, but where a lot of companies go wrong is that once they have that data, they hand it off and expect the brand to act on it. Building a website is a perfect example — you’ve made it easy for me, but it is still so much work.

Keith: As many drag-and-drops as you have, as much AI as there is, it’s still a lot of work.

Ishita: The weekend I had to build our website, I was in such a bad mood. It’s just so much work to figure out. There’s always too much functionality and not enough functionality at the same time. So with Tapp, we thought hard about how to make it feel seamless for the brand. We’re creating a new category — brands don’t have time and budget earmarked for something like this. They’ll only do it if we make it feel like, “You don’t have to do anything. It’s very easy to get up and running.” That’s why we’ve built what’s essentially a white glove service — but on our end, that white glove service is powered by AI so we can deliver as much as we promise in the timeframe we promise.

Keith: If you give brands all the data and say “personalize however you want,” you’re now relying on them to find time to rewrite all their copy. And then you come back and say, “Here are the different customer avatars we’ve identified — now write eight versions of every piece of copy.” That’s where AI shines. Whatever you believe about AI, taking existing content and turning it into something else is where it really delivers.

Ishita: Exactly. Which is why we want the Tapp experience to self-personalize. The brand doesn’t have to do a lot, but it feels tailored. The special snowflake syndrome — I love that term. That’s what we’re trying to make people feel: I’m engaging with this brand, and it feels like they know me. They understand the problem I’m having, they want to help me through it, and they’re giving me content that’s actually relevant and useful. That’s what we’re building toward.

Keith: That’s something we learned early at SegMetrics too. We started as just a tool with support — no services, no agency layer on top. That was a mistake. People know they need this stuff. They know they should have it. But they don’t have the time, the effort, or the know-how. If you go to an e-commerce brand and say, “You need a back-end engagement platform with quizzes and community modules,” they’ll look at you blankly — they don’t have the knowledge set to implement that. That’s where Tapp comes in and says, “You know you need it. We know you need it. Here’s how we string it all together into a package for you.”

Ishita: At the end of the day, it’s all about experience —

Keith: Exactly.

Ishita: — the end user experience, yes, but also your customer is the brand, so how do you make their experience great?

Keith: Exactly. So we’ve talked about why it’s important to keep engagement, why it’s important to keep the brand top of mind, and how to do that in an organic, personalized way through something like Tapp. How does this then translate to sales? Is it just top of mind? Is it educational? In your ideal world, what’s that next engagement step — from “I’m a part of this community” to “I want to buy everything”?

Ishita: The structure varies by brand, but let’s use a supplement brand with subscribers as an example. Every month, there’s a fresh set of challenges that follow the customer’s journey — month one looks different than month three. As you complete those challenges, you’re earning points, and those points can be redeemed for rewards. And we always tell brands: don’t make it a discount code. No one cares about discount codes anymore. Make it merch. Make it something they can’t buy anywhere else — something they can only earn by engaging in meaningful ways. And they get it with their next purchase.

That’s the retention mechanism. You’re earning something you’re genuinely excited about, but you can only unlock it with your next purchase.

Keith: That’s a very visceral thing. Do you know Nintendo Club, by any chance?

Keith: So Nintendo Club — I thought it was only in Japan, but I think it might be worldwide now. Basically, when you buy a Nintendo product, you register it to your account and earn points.

Ishita: My cousin is really into video games, so I know all about that world.

Keith: Everything in the Nintendo Club Store is only available in the Nintendo Club Store. It can be small things — I have a Goomba handkerchief, a clear Zelda file folder. But I also had a Super Famicom-branded Wii controller that was only released through the store. They also did a special release of Legend of Zelda I and II on the GameCube — also store exclusive. And here’s the thing: when you’d buy a used game, people would always take the code out first. Everyone wanted the code because you could get things you can’t get anywhere else. It built real behavior — “I want to buy this game new, not used, so I get the code, earn the points, and get something from the Nintendo Club Store.”

Ishita: I love it. And I give a very different example, but same idea. There’s a workout studio in New York — and a few other big cities — called Solidcore. It’s like Pilates meets HIIT, it’s intense. Every holiday season they run something called The Solidays, where in two weeks you have to complete 10 classes. Full price, no discount. All you get if you accomplish it is a hoodie you cannot purchase anywhere. The only way to get it is to earn it. And I have never been able to book a class during those two weeks — the waitlist is full, and the waitlist for the waitlist is full. That’s how much people love exclusive things they can only earn.

Keith: People really underestimate the fervor that goes into programs like this — The Solidays, Nintendo Club. People hear “post-purchase experience” and think, “Oh, it’s just more emails.” But more than data, more than ideas and explanations, people respond to stories. The Solidays story, the Nintendo Club story — these are tangible things that people get genuinely excited about. And they’re not that hard, right? That’s the magic.

When someone thinks, “What does a post-purchase content experience actually look like?” — it doesn’t have to be complicated. You just need the right tool to leverage it, something like Tapp, and something to pull in the data and understand your customer base.

Ishita: When you don’t have the tools for it, it’s hard to do.

Keith: It is hard, and I think people overthink it. People go crazy over something as simple as a sweatshirt. We give out Yeti tumblers with our logo and “Data Beats Opinion” on them, and people love them. I have a giant sack of them I give away. I also have an Apple sweatshirt you can only buy inside the Apple Store. Just knowing you can’t get it anywhere else makes it feel special.

Ishita: For sure. One of the brands we work with is a nootropics company — they help people focus. One of their first prizes is a hat that says “Thinking Cap.” It’s just so good. It needs to be on brand, and it doesn’t take a lot. Where a lot of brands go wrong is they lean on discounts, and the new version of that — milestone rewards — has the same problem. “Make five purchases and you get a reward” — the concept is fine, but people aren’t surprised or delighted by it anymore. They feel like they deserve it. As a consumer, it feels like it’s already priced into the subscription or the product. It doesn’t feel like something extra.

But when you have to earn a reward through engagement, that changes everything. People get excited: “I earned this. Not everyone got it. Only the people who showed up got it.”

Keith: It’s the IKEA effect — something you work for, you value more. There’s something about putting together the furniture yourself that makes you like it more than something you just bought and brought home.

One thing I find interesting: do you know what percentage of e-commerce happens on Amazon versus off Amazon?

Ishita: I looked at these numbers about a year ago, so they might be different now — but back then it was around 40% of e-comm done through Amazon.

Keith: So Amazon is notoriously a black box. This seems like a way to connect with your customers outside of that — where you’re no longer just part of a fulfillment machine. You can keep your brand experience even through a mass-market channel like Amazon or Walmart, where you normally don’t get that.

Ishita: Absolutely. And just to clarify, that 40% is just e-commerce, not physical retail. And actually, that’s where Tapp started — the problem we wanted to solve was that 90% of commerce is not done on your website, meaning you don’t know who most of your customers are. That’s why we developed the tag functionality.

And there’s a huge opportunity there. When someone buys from you on Amazon, there’s no relationship. And with six times as many brands in every category, if you’re emailing customers five times a day, so are your competitors — everyone fighting for the same attention with the same discounts. What we want to create is a gravitational pull toward the brand. Ideally, the Tapp experience becomes the brand’s real home. Websites are kind of old school for this purpose — they’re great for shopping, but not for brand engagement.

Keith: Brand websites, yeah. They’re meant for shopping.

Ishita: Exactly. Brands have a very limited set of places to bring their brand to life — social media, website, and that’s about it. But how many people are actually following you on social? What we hear from our customers is, “Your team just brought our brand to life. I can engage with the brand in a way I’ve never been able to. Before, customers were just buying from us — that’s it.”

Keith: There’s a Bain & Company quote I love: “An increase in customer retention rates of 5% increases profits by 25 to 95%.” It doesn’t take much to move the needle. People who love you really love you and will keep buying from you. Go look at any brand’s subreddit and you’ll see a passionate community constantly talking about those products. Those are the people you want to cultivate.

Ishita: I’d take it one step further — those people will always buy from you. The real question is how you increase LTV

Keith: across the board.

Ishita: Across the board. Exactly. And those superfans are great, but what we want Tapp to do is focus on the middle 30 to 40% — the people who like you because they bought from you at some point, but don’t love you yet. They’re not in the subreddits. But how do we nudge them from liking you to loving you? How do we slowly move them toward becoming a true fan?

Keith: How do you up-level them to someone who’s just a fanatic about your brand?

Ishita: That’s where a lot of tools today fall short — they’re focused on the top 10%. But the low-hanging fruit is that middle group. Maybe you move them from 10% to 20%, maybe 30%. That’s what we’re building toward.

Keith: I have one final question: other than brands doing nothing on the back end — which we’ve covered — what’s the other biggest mistake you see direct-to-consumer brands making?

Ishita: Man, we’ve talked about so many of them. But honestly, I don’t think it’s the brand’s fault — the tooling just doesn’t exist. You can’t expect brands to build this from scratch.

Keith: The tooling, yeah.

Ishita: The tooling just doesn’t exist. So you can’t expect them to figure it out on their own.

I think the biggest mistake brands make is assuming their customers don’t care about them — that customers want a purely transactional relationship. So they think the thing that’s going to incentivize a repeat purchase is a 60% discount. In the world of acquisition, that works beautifully — 60% off, sure, I’ll try the product. But once I’ve already bought it, a discount is not going to make me fall in love with your brand.

What would make me fall in love is this: you know for certain that I bought your product because I’m trying to solve a problem. So become the trusted source I turn to for everything related to that problem. You’re the expert, and there’s so much misinformation out there. Take magnesium — it’s a hot product, I hear about it all day on TikTok. But once I’ve bought from you, Magnesium Brand, become my source of truth. Educate me. Make it fun. Make it interactive. Help me engage with this problem in a way where I feel better walking away from it. Defaulting to a discount assumes I don’t care — but I do. I spent my money to buy this product and solve this problem.

Keith: I fully agree. There’s a societal assumption that consumers are fickle — that they’ll go wherever the price is lowest. But I think you’re right: fickleness is really a pre-purchase phenomenon. Before I’ve made a decision, there are so many similar products and I’m comparing. But once I’ve decided and I’m in, I’m not looking to jump ship unless something goes wrong. What I’m looking for is help getting more out of this product.

Weber Grills did a great job of this — they released a Weber cookbook. All it is is how to use your Weber grill as well as possible. But they know: the more someone is grilling, the more they want a rotisserie, then new brushes, then a smoker. You up-level through the experience once you’re committed to the ecosystem. I’m in the Weber world now — teach me how to use it.

And this is exactly the same in tech. When I sign up for a piece of software, I’ve made the decision, I’m in. I want you to teach me how to use it so I’m getting the most out of it. We signed up for a bug and project tracking tool, and all I wanted was a call with someone to say, “I’ve already made the decision — what’s the best way to use this so we can be productive?” We’ve been using their software for six-plus years. In tech, this is obvious. But it doesn’t always grok to people when they’re dealing with a physical brand.

Ishita: Totally. And with your Weber example — wouldn’t it be so cool if they put out monthly challenges? “Here’s the grill challenge of the month — upload a picture or video of you doing it with your family.” Now it’s a community. These are all the people who chose Weber. It doesn’t take a lot.

Keith: It really doesn’t. Here’s a great example — there’s a person on Reddit who’s just been cutting up chives and posting it every single day, asking Reddit to approve or disapprove of their chive-cutting quality. They’re at day 70. And it is consistently at the top of Reddit. You log out, go in as a regular user, and it’s at the top of the feed every time they post. It’s crazy. But it’s something like that — just showing what you’re doing. People love talking about themselves. And when you tie that to a brand, it all connects.

Ishita: Makes a lot of sense.

Keith: Ish, thank you so much. This has been an absolutely wonderful conversation. I love that you’re doing something about back-end nurturing in e-com — it frustrates me so much that people don’t focus on it. It genuinely warms the cockles of my cold, dead heart. Where can people find you?

Ishita: You can always go to our website — thetapp.io, that’s T-A-P-P dot io. You can email me at ish@thetapp.io, and definitely find me on LinkedIn.

Keith: Awesome. Ish, thank you so much for your time.

Ishita: Thank you so much, Keith. This was so fun. Really appreciate you having me.

Keith: Definitely. Talk soon.

Ishita: Cheers!