As co-founders of the AI-powered note-taking app Coconote, Brett Bauman and Zack Hargett bootstrapped their way to $6.7M in ARR and an exit to Quizlet in under two years. In a recent episode of Sub Club, they explained the counterintuitive growth engine that got them there: a disciplined focus on organic content, a premium pricing model that built trust, and a series of small product bets that delivered huge conversion wins. It’s a playbook for anyone trying to build a durable consumer subscription business in a world where paid acquisition is no longer the default answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg70HlO-5gY

The growth engine wasn’t ads — it was creators

From day one, the Coconote team made a critical decision: they would not rely on paid ads. Instead, they went all-in on organic content, building a small, agile team of about 25 part-time content creators. Their insight was that in an algorithm-driven world, the quality of the content matters more than the size of the audience.

“The strategy wasn’t to find an influencer who had an audience,” Zack explained. “The strategy was to find a content creator who produces great content.”

They actively avoided creators represented by agencies, which they saw as a signal that the “alpha” was already gone. Instead, they looked for creators with 5-10K followers and a personal email in their bio — a sweet spot for finding raw talent. This hands-on approach allowed them to build a growth engine that was not only cost-effective but also more authentic and resilient than a traditional ad-based model.

For retention, trial extensions beat discounts

When it came to retaining users, the team tested the standard playbook of offering discounts to users who tried to cancel. But the data revealed a more powerful strategy: offering a trial extension. They found that many users weren’t canceling because of the price; they just hadn’t had enough time to fully experience the product’s value.

“We’re able to retain 25% of people from canceling,” Brett noted. “And [the trial extension] was the most successful one by far, and it really keeps people on that auto-renew.”

By offering seven more days, they addressed the user’s real objection without devaluing the product. It was a simple, non-obvious insight that had a significant impact on their conversion and retention rates, proving that sometimes the best way to keep a user is to give them more time, not a lower price.

Small onboarding changes, big conversion wins

Coconote’s growth wasn’t just about marketing; it was also driven by a relentless focus on product optimization. The team ran numerous experiments to improve their onboarding flow, and two changes, in particular, stood out.

First, they doubled the length of their onboarding to 15 screens. While this might seem like adding friction, it actually increased trial starts by 16% by giving users a more personalized and value-driven introduction to the app. Second, they moved the login screen from the beginning of the onboarding to after the paywall. This simple change eliminated a 10% drop-off from users who were unwilling to create an account before seeing the product’s value.

The takeaway

In the full episode, Brett and Zack go deeper on their pricing strategy, the psychology of building a premium brand for a student audience, and the emotional journey of navigating an acquisition while still running the business day-to-day.