Subversive
Subversive is 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.
Episodes
29 episodes
How Speak Built a $1B AI Language Learning App
Connor Zwick is the cofounder and CEO of Speak, a billion dollar app that is reinventing digital language learning by getting users into real conversations with AI-powered voices. Connor started Speak in 2016 with cofounder Andrew Hsu. P...
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45:38
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How Margins Built a Viral Reading App
Paul Warren is the founder and CEO of Margins, a beautifully-designed reading app that recently won Apple’s App of the Day award and that reached hundreds of thousands of active readers less than a year after it launched. He is a self-de...
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1:01:21
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How FLORA is Reinventing Creative Design with AI
Weber Wong is the founder and CEO of FLORA, an AI-powered workspace designed to help creative professionals ideate, iterate, and scale their ideas faster than ever before. Prior to founding FLORA, Weber had a diverse range of professiona...
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54:47
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How Fitbod Uses AI to Hyperpersonalize Strength Workouts
Allen Chen is the cofounder and CEO of Fitbod, a strength training app launched in 2015 that has since scaled to $38M in ARR. Prior to Fitbod, Allen started his career as a software engineer building high frequency commodities trading pl...
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1:00:43
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How Opal Reached $10M ARR with 11 Employees
Kenneth Schlenker is founder and CEO of Opal, which has rapidly grown into the world's #1 screen time app since launching in 2020, reaching $10M in ARR with a team of just 11 employees. After starting his career in Product Marketing at G...
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52:13
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How Preply Built the World’s Largest Language Learning Marketplace
Simon Mizzi is currently the VP of Product Growth at Preply, the world’s largest online marketplace for connecting language learners with human tutors. Since joining Preply as a Director of Product in 2021, Simon has been promoted twice ...
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How Calm Added 1.2M Subscribers with Creative Marketing Tactics
After starting his career in derivatives trading, Nick Candler pivoted into user acquisition before joining Calm to serve as Director of Growth Marketing during their hypergrowth period from 2019 - 2022. After leaving Calm, Nick started ...
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53:25
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How OpenArt is Using AI to Reinvent Content Creation
Coco Mao is the cofounder and CEO of OpenArt, an AI-powered creative platform that enables anyone to generate images and videos from simple text prompts. Since launching OpenArt in 2022, Coco has led the company through rapid growth, exp...
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54:50
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How Best-In-Class Retention Propelled Flo to a $1B Valuation
Dmitry Gurski is the cofounder and CEO of Flo, a leading women’s health platform widely known for its period tracking and broader reproductive health insights. Dmitry cofounded Flo in 2015 and has led the company through major milestones...
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1:04:25
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How Noom Avoided PMF Collapse in the Wake of GLP-1s
Brent Zajaczkowski is the VP of Product Growth at Noom, one of the world’s largest preventive health platforms that is widely credited with pioneering a novel psychology-based approach to weight loss. Brent joined Noom in 2020 as a Senio...
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57:23
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How Learneo Leveraged M&A to Build a $3.6B EdTech Empire
Andrew Grauer is the CEO of Learneo, a holding company valued at $3.6 billion that owns multiple learning and productivity businesses including Course Hero, QuillBot, CliffsNotes, Scribbr, LitCharts, LanguageTool, and Symbolab. After cof...
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55:39
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How Honeydew is Reinventing Telehealth for Skincare
David Futoran is cofounder and CEO of Honeydew, a skin health platform called Honeydew that helps people struggling with acne and other skin conditions get effective treatments and expert guidance from licensed dermatologists. Prior to f...
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49:53
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How onX Built a Portfolio of Apps to Grow ARR by 10x
Brandon Gador is the Product Growth Lead at onX, where he has spent the last 2+ years helping to scale and evolve the company’s growth team to support vertical-specific apps across hunting, fishing, offroading, and backcountry. Prior to ...
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58:30
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How Wispr Flow Uses AI to Save Professionals Hours Every Day
Tanay Kothari is the cofounder and CEO of Wispr, the company behind an AI-powered voice dictation app called Flow. Prior to starting Wispr in 2021, Tanay has been a serial entrepreneur for 16 years since he taught himself how to code as ...
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50:59
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How Chess.com Became the World’s Top Chess App
Albert Cheng is the Chief Growth Officer of Chess.com. Prior to joining Chess.com a year ago, Albert served as the Head of Product Growth and Monetization at both Duolingo and Grammarly, two of the world’s most successful consumer subscr...
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54:16
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How Superpower is Reinventing Healthcare
Max Marchione is the cofounder and President of Superpower, a startup that is reinventing digital health by offering patients a comprehensive panel of 100+ labs, an online panel that centralizes all of their health data in one place, and...
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48:05
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How One AI Feature Supercharged Photoroom’s Growth
Olivier Lemarié is the VP of Growth at Photoroom, one of the world’s largest and most popular photo editing apps. Olivier joined Photoroom in 2020 as the company’s second employee and helped it scale to >$50M in ARR in less than 3 yea...
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56:48
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How Runna’s Laser Focus Led to Its Successful Acquisition by Strava
Miranda Paine is the Head of Growth at Runna, where she has contributed to its rapid expansion and recent acquisition by Strava. Prior to Runna, Miranda held growth and marketing roles at two other London-based fitness startups, includin...
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50:39
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How Gamma Grew to $50M in ARR in 2 Years
Jon Noronha is the cofounder and Head of Product at Gamma, where he's creating a new medium for presenting ideas. Gamma allows anyone to generate a presentation, document, or webpage in minutes using AI, just by writing a topic or pastin...
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51:28
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How Tolan Built a Viral AI Companion
Ajay Mehta is an accomplished entrepreneur who is currently cofounder and President of Portola, the company behind a viral AI companion app called Tolan. Prior to launching Tolan, Ajay founded other successful consumer startups including...
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55:31
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How Headspace Expanded from Meditation App to Wellness Platform
Cori Shearer is currently a Lead Product Manager at Headspace, where she has spent the last four years leading teams focused on growth as well as engagement with their full suite of human-delivered care offerings like coaching, clinical,...
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51:11
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How Duolingo Built Duolingo Max
Natalia Castillejo is a Director of Product at Duolingo, where she has spent the last decade since graduating from Yale University in 2016. Natalia started her PM career at Duolingo working on the company’s English Language Test and othe...
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49:49
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Insights from RevenueCat’s 2025 State of Subscription Apps Report
Jacob Eiting is the founder and CEO of RevenueCat, the world’s largest SaaS platform for subscription apps that need help powering in-app purchases, managing customer data, and growing revenue across iOS, Android, and the web. Prior to f...
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Episode 7
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How Grammarly’s Evolution from B2C to B2B Propelled It to a $13B Valuation
Yuriy Timen is a seasoned growth and marketing advisor with 15+ years of experience scaling technology companies. Yuriy joined Grammarly as the company’s first marketing hire in 2012 when it had just 10 employees and left in 2020 as Glob...
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52:11
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How Notion’s Community Helped it Win in AI
Rachel Hepworth is the former CMO at Notion, where she helped the company expand internationally, move upmarket, and grow by 10x. Prior to Notion, she was part of the marketing leadership team at Slack, founding the Growth Marketing func...
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Episode 5
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