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Consumer Subscription Software Insights September 2020 Consumer Subscription Software Insights Important disclosures appear at the back of this report GP Bullhound LLP is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority GP Bullhound Inc is a member of FINRA 1 Agenda 1 2020 consumer subscription software (“CSS”) insights 2 Key CSS metrics & criteria for investors 3 Building blocks of CSS companies 4 CSS CEO commentary 5 Investor interest in CSS continues to grow 6 GP Bullhound’s consumer subscription software practice Confidential 2 Section 1 2020 consumer subscription software (“CSS”) insights Confidential 3 GP Bullhound’s consumer subscription software practice . GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to category leaders with a robust focus on Enterprise & Consumer Software globally. We publish this Consumer Subscription Software (“CSS”) market report to provide qualitative insights into company business models, technology and customer trends. In this report, we also feature several of the leading CSS companies & CEOs across interesting sub-sectors as well as detail interesting trends in the sector. Our research and report focus on software business models and content and do not include physical products or goods due to different margin and cash flow profiles. GP Bullhound continues to be a leader in the CSS sector from both an advisory and an investment perspective: Current Current Client Client STREAMING ONLINE EDUCATION ACQUIRED BY INVESTMENT BY INVESTMENT BY ENTERTAINMENT PROVIDER Capital Raise Sell-side Fund III Current Current Client Cient JOB SEARCH FITNESS INVESTMENT BY INVESTMENT BY INVESTMENT BY INVESTMENT BY SERVICE SUBSCRIPTION Sell-side Sell-side Fund IV Fund IV Fund III Confidential 4 2020 consumer subscription software perspectives The impact of COVID and the subsequent global lockdown has allowed CSS businesses to Mental wellness apps flourish as consumers look for new ways to access content and services sessions up 66% y-o-y in May . Vooks, a digital reading tool to encourage children to read, has seen tremendous growth as parents look for ways to entertain and educate their children at home. User growth accelerated from January levels and the company now has over 1 million teachers on the platform. Mental wellness apps saw an explosion of growth, according to Apptopia, as COVID caused stress while also restricting access to in-person therapy. With gyms closed, consumers quickly reached for new workout routines. Digital workout apps like Fiton saw paying users climb to over 100k, while demand for Peloton’s workout app and accompanying bike led to the stock doubling from February 2020. Pressure on the Apple Store and resulting Apple tax intensifies . Most consumers download and pay for CSS services through the two dominant App stores – Apple and Google. Apple and Google ensure that those apps are clear of malware and illegal content as well as provide distribution to billions of consumers, giving clear benefits to companies. However, in exchange for those services, Apple takes 30% of a first subscription and 15% of any renewals. Consequently, monopolistic complaints have been increasing and regulators are taking notice – specifically in Europe. The end result of any legal situation is uncertain – however, any changes to the pricing levels would be an immediate boost to CSS services, increasing profitability and generating billions of dollars to funnel into product development and consumer acquisition – fuelling growth. Apple’s recent legal battle with Epic games highlights the building tensions between the former partners. Education subscription services are rapidly gaining traction to improve the student experience . Given the impact of COVID on in-person learning and classroom education, digital tools are flourishing after years of being an after thought for the majority of US schools. Monetization has remained a challenge given school budgets and IT restrictions (blocking YouTube). Recent deals have shown how CSS business models are breaking through that barrier, by selling to parents or IPO students directly: Capital Raised: $30m EV: $100m ‒ Chegg acquired Mathway, a math learning subscription tool, for $100m+ or 9x 2019 revenue Deal Date: 5/2020 Deal Date: 6/2020 ‒ Quizlet raised $30m from General Atlantic at a $1bn valuation Confidential Source: CapitalIQ, Pitchbook, GP Insights 5 INVESTORS REVIEW EACH CSS OPPORTUNITY WITH A FOCUS ON THESE KEY ATTRIBUTES CSS flywheel attributes to drive valuation . A key valuation driver for investors is the concept of winner take all in CSS apps. If the company has the potential to dominate a niche or a broader market through network effects – investors will pay up. It is important for entrepreneurs to understand their competitive positioning and be able to define their market niche. Recurring . Churn of consumer subscriptions . Intuitive UI paired with high quality will be higher than traditional Revenue content enterprise SaaS models . Design and UX is crucial to . LTV/CAC is a KPI to watch convincing the consumer of a Churn / Premium premium product Retention Content . Verticals are expanding as consumers become increasingly comfortable paying for apps CSS . Monopoly in a small market Flywheel . User data is retained and can be lucrative Result of strong utilized within the app . Large TAM apps needs to Niche User Base performance Proprietary . Network effects from existing prove differentiation and vs. Large TAM in all the attributes Data user base, reinforcing moats (e.g. Fitness Apps) proprietary content and/or monetized data Monetization & User Pricing Strategy Acquisition . Creating a compelling benefit to . Efficient user acquisition and conversion with convert users from free to paid a viral element . Free to paid conversion rates are . Targeted ads, call to action, SEO, and critical KPIs sharing content has been proven successful Confidential 6 Public investors’ excitement for CSS continues to grow GP Bullhound has created the first consumer subscription software index to track how public CSS investments are valued . The inaugural index includes Spotify, Match / IAC, Chegg, Intuit, Sirius XM, Shutterstock, Peloton, Gluu mobile, Netflix and DropBox. We expect to add additional companies to the index over the next 12 months (Bumble, etc). A few notes: − Two companies were added in early 2018 – Dropbox (March 2018), which debuted at 10.4x TEV / LTM Revenue, and Spotify (April 2018), which debuted at 5.4x − Netflix raised membership fees from $9.99 to $10.99 in Oct 2017, but still saw record-high subscribed users, beating Q4 2017 analyst estimates and boosting its share price GP Bullhound Consumer Subscription Software Index Source: Capital IQ, Pitchbook, company filings and publicly available data Confidential Note: Given the large market caps and high valuations of some of the businesses, the average of the EV / Rev multiples were used 7 Free+advertising vs. paid subscription – the ultimate test Historically, investors have been conditioned to believe that consumers will always prefer a free option supported by ads vs. paying Paid vs. free . That was true in the early ages of the internet, but consumers are waking up to the pitfalls of ‘free’, including intrusive ads, the sale of personal data and poor product quality. content battles . Pandora vs. Spotify is a great example of consumers preferring to pay for quality. Both started as free apps, using ads to generate revenue. However, that is where the story diverged. Spotify focused on the user experience and added features such vs. as downloading songs and playing music offline behind a subscription paywall. Consequently, Spotify’s amount of paid users quickly accelerated and revenue surged. Meanwhile, Pandora focused only on ads, was late to the subscription game and was ultimately sold off to Sirius. vs. 108 96 $10,855 71 vs. $7,591 48 $5,858 Spotify Paid vs. Subscription $4,556 launched 28 15 $3,288 8 $2,156 7 7 4 6 6 $1,409 $1,385 $1,467 $1,517 $1,607 $1,600 vs. $995 $921 $1,164 $425 $573 $655 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 vs. Pandora-Revenue ($bn) Spotify-Revenue ($bn) Pandora-Paid Users (m) Spotify-Paid Users (m) Confidential Source: Capital IQ, Pitchbook, 2020 estimates from CapIQ 8 The importance of the paywall Success in the CSS space is heavily dependent on the placement of the paywall within the customer’s experience . Gaining users through a ‘freemium’ offering is critical to encouraging people to try a product; however, to effectively monetize them, they need to be converted into paying customers. That means correctly placing the paywall at the correct point to provide the maximum value to paying subscribers but enough functionality to explore the service before paying. Free experiences Paid experiences . One video story . Riding leaderboards . One free class . Download maps . Three free books . Meditation classes . 7-day free trial . Wearables integration Goals Goals 1. Gain the customer contact 1. Monetize and increase customer information, download app and engagement and provide unique enter credit card details value 2. Entice interest in the product 2. Encourage sharing and create User Generated Content (“UGC”) 3. Highlight features that are included in the paid version 3. Continuously improve product to attract adjacent users Confidential 9 Overcoming churn to build the ‘Cohort Revenue Layer Cake’ . As entrepreneurs build out their companies, they can typically invest in growth marketing or product innovation to drive retention.
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