So you want to launch a subscription box and don't know where to start, girl, you are in the right place. I'm Julie ball and I'm Renee Gonzalez, your host here at subscription box basics, a podcast for new and aspiring subscription box entrepreneurs wanting to avoid overwhelm. So grab a coffee, some pen and paper, and let's have some fun.

Hey everybody. And welcome back to subscription box basics, the podcast. I am Julie ball, your head coach, and I'm here with Renee Gonzalez, your marketing coach. Hey Renee. Hi everyone. And we are here today to share some bittersweet news. You may or may not have seen this coming, but we have some news on this podcast. Yes, the one that you are listening to, and we're going to give a little bit of backstory and we're going to share about what we've been up to and where we're going with things. But we want you to be the first ones to hear it. So we're sharing it on today's podcast and we can't wait to hear what you guys think about it. So where do we begin? Like long story short, we believe in seasons of change and pivoting when necessary. Right? Correct. Yeah. So it's, we practice what we preach and. That is definitely how, how we feel about life and about business as well. Yes, exactly. Okay. So take us back. We started this podcast back in December, 2019, and you Renee joined the podcast as my cohost in October, 2022, and that was just after we sold Sparkle Hustle Grow. And so you can see kind of. Some pivots already and then fast forward to now four and a half years into running this podcast And for lack of better words. I'm just going to say we're sunsetting the podcast. We're not Closing it. We're not burying it, we're not putting it away forever, but we are in a season of change and we just want to be really up front with that. Now, spoiler alert, we're not going to reveal some amazing next thing that we have on our plate because we're still working on that and If anything, we hope from this podcast episode that you embrace change and you embrace the idea of pivoting when necessary. And after four and a half years of having a podcast called subscription box basics, you'll still be able to listen to the basics. The episodes will still be available. Julie and I felt that having the podcast on a weekly basis wasn't something that was necessary anymore, because there is four and a half years of content If you are hearing this episode, and this might be the first one you're hearing for whatever reason, go back. Start at the beginnings start in the middle, there's still so much good content that you can have. And we felt like based on the season that we were in, in life and in business, and based on the content that was already put out into the world, that it was okay to pivot because we always encourage everyone listening and ourselves to pivot when needed. Well said. And so what I got to think about too, like the season that we're in, we talk about seasons all the time. And when we say season, that just means, maybe you're in your twenties and you're single and you're career driven, or maybe you're in your thirties and you're building your family or, or we're in the season where my daughter is in middle school. Renee has a now middle school and a high schooler, and we want to be really, really involved parents. I also homeschool, which puts things on my plate in a different way. And so when we go through different seasons, we sometimes are able to put ourselves first. Sometimes we have to put other things first and we feel like we have completed the assignment. I feel like that's the best way to put it. Like we understood the assignment and we have completed this assignment when it comes to the podcast. So like Renee said, there's so many great episodes to go back and listen to. We've had over 220 episodes, but I think probably maybe a third or a half of them have had guests on them. So there's so many people you can meet through this podcast. But as Renee and I brainstormed about, okay, how we talk about this? We're both ready for something new, and we have a lot of ideas cooking, a lot of seeds planted, which we're really excited about, but we're not ready to talk about those yet. The point here is, even if you don't know what's next, it's okay to take action, it's okay to pivot, because, I love this quote, Old keys won't open new doors. I'm going to say it again. Old keys won't open new doors. And so that's kind of the quote that Renee and I are hinging these changes on. Now, there are going to be some changes with subscription box boot camp. If you're a student, don't worry. You'll still be able to access all of your content, all of your materials. You will get an email if we decide to move the content anywhere else. But don't worry about that. You can still get Subscription Box Bootcamp, the workbook, on Amazon. And, I'm just going to plant this little spoiler without giving all the details, Subscription Box Bootcamp, the actual framework, is going to live on In some other people's programs. I'm so excited about that. when we get the details, we'll make sure to share. So if you're on our email list, then you'll hear about it. If you're not on the email list, you can jump onto subscriptionboxbasics. com and get on the email list. And if at any time that website goes down because of this pivot, then you can reach me at mrsjulieball. com. You'll be able to join the email list there to stay in the loop. With all that being said, even though things will be changing, we'll still be on social media as well. So the Subscription Box Basics Instagram page will still be living. It might start to look a little different or have content that is static but We'll still be there. Julie and myself will still be available there as well as our own social media and Instagram platforms too. Mine is at sub box creative and Julie's is just like her our website it's at mrsjulieball so you can find us both and kind of keep up with what is next in our lives as they start to unfold. Yeah, we'll put all those links in the show notes that you can follow along, but don't worry guys, we're not going anywhere. We love the subscription box industry and all of those seeds that we've planted are still here in the industry. And so I encourage you to follow along and I know that we're not going into a whole lot of detail because we don't have everything ironed out yet. But I want to take a minute to celebrate this podcast with a few of the statistics. I was sharing some of these with Renee before we started recording. I'm just really excited that we've been doing this for four and a half years and I thought it would be a good time to share some of those statistics so that you guys can celebrate with us, too. And we're so grateful because none of this would have been possible if you didn't tune in. So, thank you, first of all, for tuning in. Okay, let me look at my post it notes for all of the statistics. So we started the podcast in December 2019, so that's over four and a half years ago. We have had over 220 episodes, over 310, 000 downloads, which blows my mind cause I feel like we're such a niche podcast. Like it's not just for any entrepreneur and it's not just for product entrepreneurs. It's specifically for new and aspiring subscription box entrepreneurs. Okay, let's shift here to see where in the world are they listening from? 81 percent of our listeners are in the United States. Not shocking. I'm in North Carolina, Renee's in California, so not shocking at all. 6 percent are in the UK. Oh, hey UK. 4%, shout out to Canada. 3 percent to Australia. And then the rest are just kind of a 1 percent here and 1 percent there. So, but those are the, the major countries people are listening from are the U S the UK, Canada, and Australia. Julie, do you remember a couple of years back? At sub summit we met people who listened to us from different countries and I feel like always when we meet people that listen It's so amazing and meeting people from out of the country too, I feel like was one of the highlights for me to be like Oh my gosh people People are listening to us that are on the other side of the world. So we are grateful for each and every one of you, but it's, it's really cool hearing where everyone listens from. So if you're wondering what device they're listening from, you probably guess this 82 percent are listening from, can you guess? iPhone. Yep. And so 82 percent iPhone, 10 percent Android, and then the rest are on computers. So different types of laptops or desktops or whatnot. So then I was so curious, I looked into what app they're listening to. And so 63 percent are listening on the Apple podcast app. 11 percent were unknown, which was wild to me. So there's just unknown apps out there that people are downloading podcasts from, and then 9 percent we're listening via Spotify, which is funny because I used to listen to everything on Apple podcasts. But now that we upgraded to our Spotify membership, I don't, I don't know if it's like Spotify premium or something. And I listened to all my music and all my podcasts on there. Now, I thought you were at Spotify. I'm still, I'm Apple podcasts still. I, even if I start to listen on Spotify or on a website, I'll always end up going back to the podcast on my phone. So, yeah, that's so funny. Again, thank you to everyone for each and every download, each and every listen. We are Shifting but we're not disappearing. So make sure you still keep in touch with us look at the show notes for all of the links But again, i'll be at mrs. Julie ball both on instagram and dot com and then renee is at sub box creative. Please if you have been impacted in any way through this podcast Please DM us and let us know. As you guys know, change is hard. We're, part excited, part nervous, part asking ourselves like, what's next? So we'd love to hear from you and hear how we may have impacted your subscription box journey. So I guess Renee, this is it for now. Thanks everyone for listening and we'll see you when we see you. Bye.