BattlBox - Surviving and Thriving in the Subscription Game

The Story of a Brand

Ramon Vela

Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 145 Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When I sat down with John Roman, it was clear this wasn’t just a story about subscription boxes—it was a story about grit, evolution, and building a brand that speaks directly to a passionate community.

As the Co-founder & CEO of BattlBox, John has transformed a niche outdoor and survival subscription into a DTC powerhouse, boasting millions of YouTube views and a hit Netflix show to boot.

But behind the curated gear and rugged packaging is a founder who deeply understands performance marketing, customer acquisition, and what it takes to scale through constant change. In this episode, John opens up about lessons learned, bets that paid off, and how BattlBox continues to thrive by listening to its community and leaning into its identity.

Here are a few key moments from our conversation:

* The “aha moment” that turned a hobby into a full-fledged business

* How a loyal Facebook group became a strategic growth lever

* Why BattlBox scaled back from 30+ employees to a lean, high-performing team

* The story behind the Netflix show and its unexpected impact

* How John approaches data, storytelling, and building real brand loyalty

Join me, Ramon Vela, in listening to the episode to hear how one brand embraced its niche, built a community of superfans, and turned survival gear into a DTC success story.

For more on BattlBox, visit: https://www.battlbox.com/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	So community and content, that's our remote.
0:03.2	No one can compete with us in our space on our social reach, the amount of quality content
0:09.8	we're putting out, the amount of educational content we're putting out.
0:13.3	It's just not possible.
0:14.2	And we've been fortunate enough with a combination of the content and the quality products
0:19.7	to build a ridiculously amazing community
0:23.5	that appreciate the time and effort we put in.
0:27.4	And what the community has been built into is extraordinary.
0:33.3	And yeah, so because of that, the community and the content, that's the mode.
0:38.2	And we've had, at one point, we had probably 10, 12 competitors.
0:41.8	There's ebbs and flows.
0:44.8	You know, immediately, once we had success, we had a handful pop up.
0:48.3	I don't think any of them were even around anymore.
0:50.2	You know, we have a new competitor in the last year or so.
0:55.1	I've already read this book. They won't be around next, right? Because they're just doing things wrong. They're,
1:02.3	they're not looking at how they should position themselves. And the reality is, we've built a
1:08.6	mode. We've been doing this for for over 10 years at this point.
1:11.8	Yeah.
1:12.2	And we were first to market and, you know, can't replicate.
1:16.1	It's not like someone can see our content in community and replicate it.
1:20.4	Mm-hmm. Hey everyone, this is Ramon Vela, and this is another episode of the story of a brand.
1:36.7	Like always, we have an amazing guest in brand that we're going to feature on today's show.
	...

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