By Kevin Harris, Marketing
Steven Woda has more than 15 years of experience in Internet security, but as the CEO of uKnow.com, he also knows a thing or two about running subscription businesses. Woda’s parental intelligence system company has offered its online behavior monitoring services to parents via a subscription model since its founding back in 2009. But recently they’ve expanded beyond just selling directly to consumers and now are establishing strategic partnerships with well-known distribution channels.
Woda recently wrote an article for Zuora’s new eBook, “Accelerate: Success in the Subscription Economy,” in which he states that none of their expansion would be possible without a “flexible, scalable, and reliable” subscription management system. Luckily, they discovered that Z-Business from Zuora could handle all of their complex billing needs.
In his article, Woda describes how every customer and partner is different, creating requirements that can only be handled by a super flexible billing platform. uKnow.com’s B2C model has dealt with everything
from evolving products, bundles, and prices to prorated invoices and rapidly growing customer traffic. But their B2B growth has been even trickier at times, as “every partner wants and needs different pricing structures and packing plans,” Woda reports. With Zuora’s flexible subscription management platform, they’ve been able to constantly test different prices and packages, even launching insightful pilots for partners quickly and easily. Woda believes that without the ability to quickly adapt to partners’ preferences, his company’s rapid expansion would not be possible.
Although Woda stresses the importance of “flexibility” in his article, he argues “reliability” is even more important in a subscription management platform. Woda has found that billing reliability can play a decisive factor in their negotiations with new partners, and Zuora’s platform provides the company an important level of credibility.
To learn more about uKnow.com and how they help keep kids safe while operating a growing subscription business, sign up for Zuora’s free eBook. In addition to CEO Steven Woda’s article, “Growing Your Subscription-Based Business,” on page 62, you’ll find more than a dozen more articles in the book about how to run a successful subscription based company.