HP Instant Ink’s Anthony Napolitano: Reinventing the Razor & Razorblades Model by Focusing on Subscriber Outcomes

Anthony Napolitano, VP and General Manager of HP’s Instant Ink Subscription Service, joins Robbie to discuss his role as an intrapreneur, and what it’s like to be the subscription guy in a transactional business. They cover running a physical subscription business, ensuring customers get full value from their subscriptions, and managing a business in times of change.

Highlights from this episode:

1:40 -- Anthony’s journey at HP

4:13 -- The birth of Instant Ink

6:42 -- Additional challenges of being a physical product subscription

10:57 -- The metrics used to diagnose problems or anticipate opportunities within the business

13:05 -- Addressing and solving Instant Ink’s key consumer issues

18:43 -- How Instant Ink caters to its superusers

21:54 -- The importance of a company continuing to evolve with the needs of the customers

23:21 -- Onboarding to ensure a customer gets the value they are paying for

28:26 -- Anthony’s contribution to HP as a whole

30:26 -- Advice for fellow intrapreneurs who are leading subscription in businesses that don’t typically do subscriptions

34:37 -- Anthony’s lessons learned and business approach during the COVID-19 pandemic

38:20 -- Robbie’s Speed Round

Links:

• Anthony’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonynapolitano/
• Hewlett-Packard’s Instant Ink: https://instantink.hpconnected.com/us/en/l/
• Podcast Website: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/podcast
• Robbie’s Book THE FOREVER TRANSACTION: https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/the-forever-transaction/

Anthony's Bio:

Anthony Napolitano specializes in profitably scaling subscription businesses. Anthony joined Hewlett-Packard in 1997 as a financial analyst in the Notebook Computer Division. Over the next 23 years he progressed through various levels of management in the areas of Finance, Global Supply Chain, Procurement, Quality and General Management. For the past five years, he has served as the Vice President, General Manager of HP’s Instant Ink Subscription Service. Anthony earned a BA from Loyola Marymount University and an MBA from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.