Attaboy Scaled to $1M ARR in Under 4 Weeks with Middle Out and Skio

High-Velocity DTC Brand Meets Strategic Subscription Partner

Nick Lawhon launched Attaboy in 2025 to cut through the noise in men's wellness. 

It's the anti-supplement supplement brand for the average guy, the men overwhelmed and over-sold on wellness routines that cost more than rent. The pitch is simple: one clean scoop, once a day, with no gimmicks, no fluff, and no guru energy.

Nick understood velocity matters in DTC, and the brand would acquire customers aggressively through intro offers before transitioning them to full-price subscriptions. But he lacked subscription management experience, which meant the aggressive growth model demanded both strategic guidance and the right technology stack to execute without drowning in manual work. He needed a partner who could design the entire acquisition model, select the right platform, and implement everything hands-on. 

That's where Middle Out came in.

The Risks: Economics, Automation, and Platform Choice

Before Middle Out, Attaboy faced three compounding challenges.

Intro Offer Economics: The offer had to drive velocity without blowing payback periods. Too aggressive meant burning cash, too conservative meant stalled acquisition, and getting this wrong from the start would either kill growth or kill the business.

Automation at Scale: Manual subscriber management wasn't an option at the scale Attaboy was targeting. Transitioning thousands of subscribers from intro offers to full-price products, handling billing changes, and managing retention flows would require automation from launch. Retrofitting it after churn spiked would be too late.

Platform Selection: Nick had never managed subscription software, and with rapid growth projected within weeks, he couldn't afford to fumble through a clunky interface while growth compounded daily. The wrong choice would create an operational nightmare.

"Before Skio, I was literally lost with how to navigate subscription portals," Nick explained. "I've tried other providers which were confusing and didn't want to give full support to the little guys." Middle Out brought a decade of subscription commerce experience, exactly what Attaboy needed to navigate these critical decisions.

Why Skio's Journeys Feature Was Non-Negotiable

Middle Out partnered with Attaboy for their go-to-market launch. After modeling the intro offer economics, they needed a platform that could automatically transition thousands of subscribers from intro offers to full-price products. The entire business model depended on it.

Platform Selection: Why Skio's Journeys

Most platforms handled basic subscription management, but only Skio had Journeys. Journeys is a visual workflow builder that automates how subscriptions change over time. Set up logic that responds to customer behavior and automatically adjusts products, pricing, and timing based on where someone is in their subscription lifecycle.

For Attaboy, this meant subscribers who finished their intro cycle automatically moved to full-price products with updated pricing. No manual tracking, no spreadsheets, no operations team managing swaps.

Brian from Middle Out, who handled growth strategy and media buying for the launch, found that Journeys made his job easier. Scaling ad spend on intro offers requires confidence that subscriber conversions happen automatically on the backend. Journeys delivered that.

Implementation

Middle Out configured Journeys for Attaboy's subscriber transitions and built out the retention infrastructure from day one. Cancel Flow and Payment Recovery went live at launch, and they integrated Klaviyo with Quick Actions so customers could manage everything from email. Support tickets stayed low even as subscribers multiplied. With the foundation set, Middle Out and Attaboy scaled their media spend confidently.

From Zero to $1M ARR… in Less Than a Month

The results validated Middle Out's strategic approach. Attaboy scaled from $5K MRR to breaking seven-figure ARR in less than four weeks, combining product-market fit with the operational efficiency Middle Out engineered.

Middle Out's intro offer economics drove acquisition velocity while keeping payback periods healthy. Attaboy could scale aggressively without burning cash, and with product-market fit meeting operational efficiency, the results compounded quickly.

Automated Journeys handled product transitions for thousands of subscribers, eliminating what would have been hundreds of hours of manual work. Instead of getting bogged down managing subscriber lifecycles, Nick focused on what mattered: building the brand and developing the product. Meanwhile, the Klaviyo integration Middle Out configured let customers self-serve directly from email (skipping deliveries, shipping early, or changing dates without ever logging into the portal). CX tickets dropped to nearly nothing even as the subscriber base exploded.

Middle Out's platform choice made a huge difference for Nick personally. 

Skio gave him the confidence to manage thousands of subscriptions with zero prior experience, providing full visibility and control without requiring constant external support. What could have been an overwhelming operational burden became something he could handle directly.

But Attaboy's success wasn't just about hitting $1M ARR fast. It was about building a subscription foundation that scales sustainably, with the right partner guiding every strategic decision along the way.

What Strategic Partnership Looks Like

The Attaboy story demonstrates what's possible when a founder partners with experts who bring both strategic depth and hands-on execution. 

This wasn't a typical agency engagement where Middle Out delivered a deck and walked away. 

They designed the intro offer economics from scratch, evaluated and selected the technology stack, configured every workflow personally, and stayed engaged through launch and beyond. Nick got a partner who understood subscription commerce inside and out, and that partnership delivered exactly what was promised: $1M ARR in under a month.

For brands looking to scale aggressively through subscriptions, the lesson is clear: platform selection matters, but strategic guidance matters more. 

The best technology in the world won't deliver results without the expertise to configure it correctly, model sustainable economics, and implement retention infrastructure from day one. That's where Middle Out excels. They bring a decade of experience across dozens of subscription launches to help brands avoid costly mistakes and scale with confidence, providing the strategic expertise that turns Skio's platform capabilities into actual business results.