Creating Blue Oceans After the Sale: Ken Rapp’s Product Experience Revolution

Can you create blue oceans after the sale?

In this episode of The Disruptor Podcast, host John Kundtz sits down with Ken Rapp, CEO and co-founder of BluStream, to discuss how to escape pre-sale “red ocean” battles by winning the ownership moment. 

Born from a cracked acoustic guitar and a missing post-sale experience, Ken’s Product Experience (PX) playbook shows how to activate, engage, and nurture customers across the unboxing, usage, and care phases.

You’ll hear why e-commerce commoditizes pre-sale behavior, why the first 30–90 days decide retention, and how two-way, context-aware journeys lift repeat purchase, customer satisfaction, and revenue.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

1️⃣ Why the post-purchase window is where growth (and churn) really happens.

2️⃣ The three phases of product ownership: activation (unboxing/onboarding), engagement (usage), and nurturing (care/renewal).

3️⃣ How to design two-way, personalized journeys that time education, prompts, and offers to real usage.

4️⃣ Why asking for reviews too early backfires and what to do instead.

About our guest:

Ken Rapp is the CEO and co-founder of BluStream. He’s a commercialization leader and repeat founder focused on unmet needs, now helping D2C and subscription brands reduce churn and drive revenue by “owning” the product experience after the sale.

Want a Deeper Dive?

👉 Connect with Ken on LinkedIn

👉 Visit BluStream.io for blogs, white papers, and access to the platform

Buyer Experience Mini-Series: The Disruptor's Practical Steps to move from the Red Ocean to the Blue Ocean.

🎥 “Become an Experience Disruptor” 

🎥 “Swimming in the Blue Ocean.” 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to the Disruptor Podcast
• 0:44 Meet Ken Rapp: Disrupting the Post-Sale Space
• 1:13 The Blue Ocean Strategy
• 1:41 Ken Rapp's Background and Career
• 3:18 The Birth of Blue Stream
• 5:36 Challenges in Traditional Product Experience Strategies
• 6:56 The Importance of Post-Sale Engagement
• 13:28 Leveraging Technology for Personalized Customer Experience
• 16:14 Measuring Success in Post-Sale Engagement
• 18:09 Blue Stream's Unique Approach
• 22:16 Conclusion and Contact Information

Transcript

John Kundtz: 0:00

Creating Blue Oceans after the sale. Ken Ramps Product Experience Revolution. Hi everyone, I'm your host, John Kunz, and welcome to another edition of the Disruptor Podcast. For those that are new to our show, the Disruptor Series is your blueprint for groundbreaking innovation. We launched the podcast in December of 2022. Our vision was to go beyond conventional wisdom by confronting the status quo and exposing the raw power of disruptive thinking. And today's guest embodies that spirit, Ken Rapp, CEO and co-founder of Blue Stream, where he is disrupting the forgotten post-sale space by helping brands build loyalty, reduce churn, and create hyper-personalized product experiences. Today we'll explore how companies can discover their own Blue Ocean by putting product experience and not transactions at the center. Welcome to the show, Ken. Thank you. It's great to be here. It's great to have you. This should be fun because we're sort of dabbling in an area where we sort of self-discovered during our prep call, which was creating blue oceans. And so, as I think we both discovered, we are big fans of blue ocean strategy and the whole concept of trying to not be swimming in the bloody red ocean and really starting to create an experience and a product or service that is a blue ocean. And I think that's what we're going to be talking about today. But before we get into that, tell us a little bit about your background, your education, your experiences, how'd you get here? Feel free to start anywhere you want.

Ken Rapp: 1:51

Thanks. That sounds great. And yeah, I think you'd categorize me as an unmet needs guy. So I really enjoy finding needs that we all might have as latent pain, you know, not really driving us crazy. You get you just start living with it and you and you get used to it. But then if there is a solution, it's acute pain. And so my history, my career has been very lucky to work with great teams on unmet need problems or blue ocean opportunities, as you described, in science and then now in consumer products and B2B to C businesses. And so uh very excited to be here on the show. That's great.

John Kundtz: 2:33

I sort of had the same passion. I when I was at IBM, we would always tell people you know, if you're gonna do something new and innovative and different, most of the times the buyer or the consumer or the client doesn't even know they have that unmet need, as you said. And so trying to help them discover it uh is a key critical skill in my mind. So I think anybody that can do that has got a really good competitive advantage. So, based on that, what do you think are some of the biggest mistakes business leaders make when trying to scale their companies with a more traditional approach to building product a product experience strategy?

Ken Rapp: 3:16

That's a great question. If I could, I'll tell you the story of how we started BlueStream. I'm a rock and roll guitar guy and I have a lot of guitars, don't tell my wife, but I had never owned this particular type of acoustic guitar, which is very sensitive to humidity or the lack of humidity. And one day I went up to play and there was a big crack in the body of the guitar. And I said, Jeepers, you know, I I had so much communication with that brand, that this wonderful brand, and I did all the prep work. I went to their website, beautiful. I got campaigns from them because once I hit the website, then we all get information sent to us about products we look at, whether we want to or not. They did a good job there. Went to the e-commerce store, found what I wanted, went and picked up the guitar, or in any case, could be shipped right to my door. And then what I got was coupons for like discounts on straps and cases, and asking if I'd leave a review, neither of which were really on my radar. What I really wanted to do was learn how to play that guitar and take care of that guitar. And that really struck me and some of my colleagues that it's the after-sale product engagement from unboxing it, quote unquote, and all and learning about it, to then using it and and taking care of it that is missing. And, you know, we've done a what we all have done a great job investing in getting customers, but we also know that it's it's 10 times harder to keep your customer buying than it is to get a new one. And so we we are so passionate about going after helping companies connect to their customers post that post-sale. So around the product experience, and then they just become super fans of your product. And in this case, I would have known that the guitar was in distress, and I would have been able to proactively provide the humidity it needed before it was a problem here in the cold, dry Boston winter.

John Kundtz: 5:31

I could relate to that living in the cold, dry, gloomy Cleveland winters. That's a great point. So you buy this super cool, probably pretty rare, probably fairly expensive, and then all of a sudden, instead of helping you have an Uber grade experience with that, they start to try to upsell you and post-sell you on new stuff, but don't really give you the experience you needed, which those things probably would have all come if you had had, you know, once you gotten to a point where you you had it, you learned how to play with it, you learned how to care for it, and they sort of nurtured you along the way. Is that sort of the the right idea?

Ken Rapp: 6:09

It is. We really see have defined product ownership as activation, which is the unboxing and onboarding, engaging, and then nurturing exactly your word. And you can imagine when you're small and have a local store, let's say it's whether it's dog treats or supplements or beauty products, you know, your customers come in and your consumers can talk to you, and you will know their names and their pet names, and you can help guide them through products that that you provide in a way that you can prevent problems and keep your best customers coming back. But as you scale that business, it's harder and harder to have that personal experience. So the more successful you become, the less connected you are to your customer. And so we really see this opportunity to connect, help companies and brands connect with their customer post-sale around activation, around engagement, and around nurturing the relationship through caring for the products and their use of the products as the way to then drive repeat sales, revenue, great reviews, and reduce support costs, because now you can prevent that problem from happening. Because I went back to that guitar manufacturer, which is a bigger purchase than what BlueStream today, our product experience platform, where we're using it across the board and beauty and wellness and much less expensive products to start with, but much more of an ongoing lifetime value. And you know, we the the opportunity to keep the customer coming back for a more frequent purchase is just amazing once you have that connected customer.

John Kundtz: 7:52

Right. Makes sense. We always used to say at IBM, it's a lot easier to sell to your existing loyal customer base. I'm assuming it's still true today. It's got to be much, much more expensive than trying to sell more stuff to people that already know you and trust you. But that becomes extremely difficult in a in this age of digital marketing, I'm assuming.

Ken Rapp: 8:18

I actually think that talk about disruption, which I love about your podcast. Thank you for doing this. Over the last decade, even more, e-commerce really changed the the pre-sale buying behavior. So we we used to be able to go to a store or know the name of you know the company and the people in the store or the people we bought from. Now, if you even after you've done all the homework to decide on that supplement, because this summer I want to run at 10K at the end of the summer. And so I'm going to take I'm going to try some supplements. Even if you used to know the store that you went to, now you go online and you type in the name of that supplement, you'll get a hundred more alternatives at var at a variety of pricing. So for brands, it's become very hard in the pre-sale environment to retain the customer to come back to you. Even Amazon, which we all use, they'll give you 10 alternatives at the bottom of the screen, even though you thought you knew you wanted to buy that brand of sneakers. And so we really believe that the landscape has completely changed. So e-commerce disrupted the buying process, the pre-sale buying process. And your point about CAC, you know, the customer acquisition costs has skyrocketed because there's so much commoditization and competition in the pre-sale. But then imagine if you could connect to that customer post-sale and engage them in dialogues around the product and why they bought the product and why they're using the product and and have them freely give you information about why, because they want the brand to help them get the most out of the product. And we see this curve where the buyer buys something and it's those first 30, 60 days where you lose them because they don't they don't have a great experience. And right there and then is where you they continue to buy.

John Kundtz: 10:26

Great points. I agree with that when I do some coaching, particularly on entrepreneurs and some uh I'll call it early stage career people. I don't know what the exact statistic, but I think something like 60 to 70 percent of the buyer's decision is now made. This is an enterprise space, is now made before they ever talk to a salesperson. And certainly in the consumer space, I'm guessing close to 100%. We need something, we go someplace, we do a search, we pick it, we buy it until we have a problem, we talk to somebody in customer service or on sales. So the key there, I think, from what you're saying is let's let's make a the buying experience is the buying experience, and that's how it works today. And I think people have pretty much figured that out. It's really how do you now pull that, build that relationship post sale digitally, because it's not like you said, it's not like we're going down to the corner store anymore, but 99% of the buying is just I get it. Next time I need it, I may not even remember where I bought the thing the last time. And so you've got to keep that buying experience and post-sale sort of on top of mind, I would assume.

Ken Rapp: 11:47

There's two key statistics that I find amazing that we all face. One is that less than 30% of customers actually make it to a second or third sale, typically from you these days. And the other is in the subscription economy, which is a massive economy, we all see it every day, less than 50% of your customers will be your customers after 90 days. And so those numbers just completely blow my mind because you work so hard and spend so much money to get a customer, and then within three months, roughly, you've lost half of them. So simple math. If I have a cohort of a thousand customers who I could be generating $500 a year from, you're talking about a half a million dollars, and I lose $250,000 within the first 90 days. I have to make that up just to keep my business growing. What we're super proud of as we work with companies to change that equation. The post-sale retention and repeat buying goes up by 30% every time that you can engage your customer after the sale and help them succeed with the products they're buying for the reasons they have. And I find that to be really uplifting for our team. And we measure this and help our customers measure that post-sale retention and repeat purchase. And what I find also to be really terrific is the CSAT or the NPS goes through the roof as well, you know. And I'll give you an example of how technology is helping us. So the way to use technology in that post-sale environment is to nurture that activation or or unboxing and onboarding of your product. And what I mean by that is is teach your customer a little bit about reinforce with education and tips what the product is about to help them. So ask a question like you bought our sneakers, thank you for that. Are you planning on jogging in those sneakers, wearing them every day, or are you going to run a marathon? And you know, you get a response. Maybe it's it's I'm gonna jog. And then asking, geez, how many miles do you plan on jogging a week? Because we'd love to help you take care of them and maintain them and and give you some tips as you get to some of the higher mileage. And I say 10 miles a week, I'm gonna try and jog because I'd like to do a 10K at the end of the at the end of the summer. And then have the dialogues. The technology allows us to power dialogues, these two-way dialogues. The company and brand already knows at 100 miles, it's a perfect time to change the inserts and cross-sell for some new inserts. And so by knowing it's 10 miles a week at about 80 miles, which is eight weeks out, you know, a recommendation on with a video educating what's happening to the foam in the sneaker. And it's a perfectly timed recommendation to cross-sell on those inserts. And so that's where technology has really enabled this new level of personalization. Because I might say 10 miles a week, you might say it's 15 miles a week. I might not answer in that first question. I might answer a few questions later. Our journeys that we're on actually will be personalized to us at scale rather than a campaign that'll run everybody through the same set of questions. Technology is really also enabling this very personalized at-scale experience around for us the post-sale engagement of your customer. Excellent.

John Kundtz: 15:31

That that's actually a great segue into my next question. So, what is one mindset or mindset shift, so to speak, or habit you wish every marketing leader would adopt before pouring more money into acquisition instead of, as we have been talking about, fixing retention?

Ken Rapp: 15:49

That's a great question. I think our marketing colleagues are doing a great job with the tools they have. And this is where we open the show saying, I'm a blue ocean kind of guy, looking for an unmet need. There was not an easy way without a lot of human resource to contact your customer post-sale and really engage around the product unboxing, onboarding, usage, and care. So I would encourage all of us, and I think most of us do, to measure the churn rate or the lost customer rate, measure the repeat rate, and measure your support costs. Three three numbers really hard, like sharpen pencils, really understand after spending all that customer acquisition cost funds, the CAC, which I know we all measure. Now go back and measure what are my post-sale metrics around churn or or retention, repeat sales on revenue, and support costs of calls coming in because your customer or consumer weren't able to succeed on their own, they needed some help. And you're lucky if they're calling, right? We're all lucky if we get the call because if they don't call and they're just upset, that's worse. So by measuring those things up front, applying any kind of tools and thinking and strategies of digital post-sale, you're starting from a position of measurement and you can see the impact quickly. I know most of us in sales and marketing, we're looking for ways to test new thinking. It's been amazing to me how great the whole customer base is that we work with. If there was something that could impact the revenue, our revenue, and drive you know, repeat sales, we're we're game to try something. So A, measure and B, try new things. And and we really do believe in the post-sale. We have lots of resources, blogs, white papers, you know, to help you look at how to really manage that after sale engagement and affect the business. The bottom line. That's excellent.

John Kundtz: 17:56

Great advice. I agree. I mean, we used to always say you can't fix something that you can't measure, so you got to be able to measure, but you got to have the data to be able to measure it. Once you want to measure it, then you can figure out how to fix it. And all right. So you've built Blue Stream to solve this overlooked sort of what we're calling, I'll call post-purchase gap. What makes your approach, your disruptive approach, and different from traditional CRMs or support models, especially for marketing leaders, as we've talked about trying to scale loyalty in a very crowded marketplace?

Ken Rapp: 18:32

Oh, great question. I actually think that what we're doing requires two-way dialogues and contextual historical view of the personal, you're that consumer, in order to know what the next message is. And that's what creates the the magic that that we've developed in our IP. It's to have ongoing dialogues that are based on two things. As consumers or customers, we start at a beginner level of any new product, and then we advance our experience base, which will drive different needs. I'm no longer a beginner. I've had this supplement now for six months. I know what I'm doing. I'm intermediate, or I've been doing it for three years, and then I'm using it very specifically. So beginner, intermediate, expert, and then super user. And then the product itself has a life cycle. So supplements might have a 30-day pack, or it has some shelf life, or it should be stored in a particular spot, or it should be eaten or used with certain other complementary products, like with almond milk versus water. And and so the what's very unique about what we've done is we look through the lens of the product in the center and the owner of that product or user of that product, the ring around the center. And then our technology is monitoring the customer's life cycle, their experience level and skill, and the product's life cycle in terms of how often to use it, or is there any maintenance and care, like the original story of a guitar? And then we have the right message delivered at the right time as a result of monitoring very active and alive. Our database is actually a dynamic database and it changes and evolves with the responses from that, those consumers. And I'll give you a great example of this. So, in the unboxing or activation of a new customer, rather than sending a question for a review before the customer has even maybe unboxed the product yet, or maybe they needed batteries even before they got the box. So that's another that's another story. But if you think post-hitting that purchase, you know, in Shopify or WooCommerce or some other, you know, system, that you're going to start them on a journey that gets them to five-star satisfaction. At a certain moment in that process, asking the customer how they're doing is the magic. Because that's where if they say they're doing great, you move them on to the review question with the link. But if they're struggling on a scale of one to ten, they're at a seven or less or a six or less, run them into a remediation algorithm, which will ask them, hey, is it X, Y, or Z? Are the reasons why you're struggling or other? And if if they say X, Y, or Z, you've got some educational videos to help them come back into the fold. If it's some other thing, send them right to your support desk. And wouldn't you rather talk to a customer who's wants to be successful but is struggling, rather than have them leave a bad review or no review. And then what happens is at the end of that 30-day period, you're just getting more great reviews, and those customers are ready for more engagement and revenue to your company.

John Kundtz: 22:01

I drives me crazy when before I even get something, I ordered and it's being shipped. Before I even get it, they say, Hey, here's the survey. Tell us how great we did. I haven't even started to use your stuff yet, no matter what it is. That's fitting advice. All right. Well, let's sort of wrap this show up. This has been such great, rich conversation. Again, I always love talking about that how people can get out of the Red Ocean and into the Blue Ocean. So it's been a lot of fun. How can people learn more about you, your product, your services? What are your socials? What's the best way for people or our listeners to get a hold of you?

Ken Rapp: 22:38

Yeah, we'll provide you some links, and but I'm certainly excited to talk with any of your listeners if they'd like to have a chat and see if we could be helpful. A, just with some some of our content and information on our website, Blue Stream, Blue B L U Stream.io. And you can go up there, help yourself to all of the experiences that we've got and whatever we as we're learning and and growing, we continue to publish blogs and white papers. And then if you'd like to evaluate your product, we have some technology that we can in less than five minutes put your company name in and your your product name. We call this the Journey Builder. And the product product experience journey builder will build for us a roadmap of engagement opportunities for you and your company. And we can just do that and for you. And it actually also builds the first activation and onboarding journey that will run on our system if you want to try it and give it a shot with a cohort of your customers.

John Kundtz: 23:41

You're eating your own cooking, as we like to say. All right. Well, of course, we will put all of those links into the show notes and any other socials that Ken provides. And so feel free to you know reach out to him as needed. I'll Ken, I'll give you the last word before we wrap up the show.

Ken Rapp: 24:01

I I'd just like to say thank you to you for really viewing the world through what are these unmet needs out there that you know innovation and next generation thinking could really help the world. And when we look at all of us byproducts and, you know, the experience of what we want. And even though I'm only 35 in here, my body is much older than that. You know, the next generations they want personal connections. They they demand personalization. And so we've got to change the game and look forward. And that's what your show is all about. So thank you so much for having us on the show. I appreciate you being here.

John Kundtz: 24:40

I have a couple of links where I talk about the buyer's experience, a couple of videos, and how do you get out of the Red Ocean and into the Blue Ocean? We'll include those links in as well. All right. Well, that's it for our show. Again, I am John Kunz. Thanks for joining us in this edition of the Disruptor Podcast. Have a great day.