How Changing Direction and Niching Down Led to 400 New Subscribers

One subscription box owner gained 400 subscribers by niching down and following her passion. Learn how changing direction with intention can fuel your subscription box success!

Why would a subscription box owner with a successful subscription – 100 subscribers kind of successful – decide to change directions and start a completely new subscription box? 

Meet Julie Harkin of The Pilot Wives Club and member of Launch Your Box and Scale Your Box. 

Julie’s first subscription box business was a tea towel subscription. And it was successful. Her subscribers LOVED her tea towels. And why wouldn’t they? The quality was excellent and they were adorable! Julie reached 100 tea towel subscribers and found herself stuck. 

She found herself wondering, “Is this as good as it gets?”

Like the dedicated student she is, Julie dug in to figure out why she was stuck and how to move past that 100 subscriber plateau. She kept thinking about something I say A LOT. 

The riches are in the niches. 

Listen to your heart… and your subscription box coach. 

Tea towels were such a broad audience. Young women, moms, grandmas, anyone and everyone can and will enjoy tea towels. But having such a broad audience makes it difficult to speak directly to them in a way that makes them want to become part of your world. To become a subscriber. 

Julie could have niched down further with tea towels. Funny tea towels, Victorian tea towels, farmhouse tea towels, tea towels with puns or snarky sayings… The possibilities are endless. 

There was only one problem. 

Julie wasn’t all that passionate about tea towels. 

She was passionate about building community. And not just any community. A community she was part of and one that has particular needs and wants. 

Julie’s husband is a pilot. That makes her – and so many women like her – a “Pilot Wife.” 

So many of the most successful members of Launch Your Box chose niches they are truly passionate about. Niches they just happen to belong to themselves. 

Check out this post for more on leaning into who you are to find your ideal customer! 

When we can niche down to one specific ideal customer, we can go deeper and more specific with our messaging which makes it easier to find more of our target audience. 

We become known for something which makes us easier to find. 

Look to your community for the answer. 

More than 10 years ago, Julie started a Facebook Group. She was inspired by an online conversation with another pilot wife. They enjoyed talking about the shared experiences and challenges, juggling careers and mom & home duties with husbands who were gone a lot of the time. 

That conversation inspired Julie to find more women like her. She started a Facebook Group for pilot wives. It quickly grew and now has nearly 7,000 members.  

Julie’s intention when starting this Facebook Group was simply to serve other women just like her. She felt the need for understanding and community in her life and knew others in her situation needed it, too. And while Julie was surprised it grew as quickly and as big as it did, I’m not. 

We all crave community. Something to belong to we can feel part of. Something bigger than ourselves. Julie tapped into those feelings and her audience responded. 

Check out this blog for more about the power of community in your subscription box business. 

Turning passion into subscription box success. 

When Julie decided to change directions, she leaned on all she had learned inside Launch Your Box. She already had an audience – this amazing community of fellow pilot wives. But there was one important thing she didn’t know. 

Did her audience want a subscription box? 

I teach my members the most effective way to find out an answer is to ask the question. 

That’s just what Julie did. She surveyed her community and found out something exciting. They were interested in a subscription box tailored to them! 

Julie started planning her new subscription box, curating an experience tailored to everything she had learned about her audience. She sold out her initial 100 spots quickly and grew organically for a few months. 

When she was ready, Julie did a “real launch,” following the detailed launch plan I teach inside Launch Your Box. She gained 140 more subscribers during her five-day launch, bringing her total to 400 subscribers. 

By niching down and serving people whose wants and needs she truly understands, Julie was able to quadruple the subscriber count of her tea towel subscription in only nine months! 

The Pilot Wives Club subscription box continues to grow. And Julie continues to serve this community she is so passionate about. 

Changing direction does not mean chasing squirrels.  

There’s one thing I want to make clear. There is a difference between changing directions with intention and what I call chasing squirrels. 

Chasing squirrels looks like bouncing from subscription box idea to subscription box idea without working through the process, doing the work and giving it time. It looks like reacting to a setback – and there will be setbacks – by deciding the issue is the idea or the niche and deciding to go in a completely different direction. 

Don’t chase squirrels! 

Changing direction with intent, like Julie did, can lead to success.  

• She niched down, choosing a niche she deeply understood and was passionate about serving. 
• She surveyed her Ideal Customer before she started planning her box.
• After initial success and organic, controlled growth, she planned    a “real launch,” showed up and followed the plan. 

Julie’s story is an example of what’s possible when you listen to your heart, trust your niche, and stay the course with intention. By following her passion and serving a community she truly understood, Julie was able to grow to 400 subscribers in a matter of months.

Sometimes changing direction isn’t a step back — it’s the leap forward you need to create something truly special. If you’re feeling stuck or uninspired, consider niching down. Your perfect audience is waiting, and when you find them, the possibilities are endless.