What if the most expensive moment in your customer acquisition funnel is also your most ignored opportunity?

Agility requires seeing a user’s “no” not as a final endpoint, but as a data point that signals a need for a different path. It demands that we pivot in real-time to offer alternative forms of value, rather than simply writing off the investment and the relationship.

Today, we're going to talk about one of the biggest blind spots in the subscription economy: the paywall. For most apps, this is a binary, all-or-nothing moment where up to 95% of hard-won users say "no" and are effectively treated as a lost cause. We’ll explore why that moment of decline isn’t the end of the customer journey, but potentially the most valuable opportunity to build a different kind of relationship and unlock new revenue.

To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Michael Gants, Founder and CEO at Encore.

About Michael Gants

Michael Gants is the Founder and CEO of Encore, an iOS SDK that helps subscription apps monetize the 90–95% of users who decline the initial paywall.
Michael studied economics at Harvard College, where he graduated as a John Harvard Scholar, and later earned his MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. His career spans consumer product development, growth strategy, and venture capital, with a focus on sustainable, user-first monetization.

Before Encore, Michael founded Yaw, an AI-powered shopping assistant. He has also worked in innovation consulting at Innosight (Clay Christensen’s firm) and sourced early-stage ML investments as a Venture Fellow at Hyperplane. He brings a behavioral lens to product monetization, drawing on his background in consumer psychology and his experience building products that align business incentives with user value.

Through Encore, Michael works with mobile app teams to rethink what happens when a user says “no” to a subscription: turning that moment from a dead end into a monetization and retention opportunity.

Michael Gants on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelgants/

Resources

Encore: https://www.encorekit.com/?ref=agile

This episode is brought to you by Encore, an iOS SDK that helps subscription apps monetize paywall declines. 

More than 90% of users decline a subscription paywall. And most apps treat that moment as the end of the customer journey. Encore turns those declines into revenue by presenting brand-safe partner offers that keep users engaged and improve lifetime value. 
Learn more at https://www.encorekit.com/?ref=agile

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