Launching & Scaling Simpl Select
Built India's first BNPL subscription by testing pricing hypotheses and discovering status-based positioning outperformed savings.
Vidyadhar Sharma
Founding Member at Stealth Startup
From their time as
Senior Product Manager
Simpl • 2024 - 2025
Overview
Owned the entire product lifecycle for Simpl's first subscription offering. Started with the hypothesis that Indian BNPL users would pay for premium features, which was unproved in the market. The counterintuitive move was packaging existing features behind a paywall rather than building new ones.
The Story
Owned the entire product lifecycle for Simpl's first subscription offering. Started with the hypothesis that Indian BNPL users would pay for premium features, which was unproved in the market. The counterintuitive move was packaging existing features behind a paywall rather than building new ones.
Ran over 12 pricing experiments to find willingness-to-pay, including a pay-what-you-want experiment that validated users would pay even when given the choice not to. Discovered that positioning around status (exclusive access, higher limits) outperformed savings-based positioning (cashback, discounts) by 3x. Set anchor pricing at 69 rupees per month, low enough to experiment with but meaningful enough to signal value.
Designed the feature bundle, set pricing tiers, and worked with design and engineering to ship the MVP in 8 weeks. Distribution was app-led with smart touchpoints on the homepage, key flows like bill payments, and CRM activities (email, WhatsApp, SMS) with novelty in messaging that drove traffic spikes. Iterated on activation and retention loops post-launch, introducing free trials at the 150K member mark when early adopters plateaued.
Scaled from zero to 100K paying members in 3 months, then to 250K members by month 10. The product was transparent and easy to cancel, yet users stayed.