How to deal with a shrinking customer base

Western economies may be stable, but many of the economic undercurrents, like tariffs, global trade unpredictability, elevated debt, tightening real wages, suggest that this stability is fragile. Couple this with shifts in technology, changing user behaviour and sentiment, and wider industry shifts, and product leaders and managers are up against a pace of change that has, in recent years, shifted from fast to relentless.

So how can product teams adapt their strategy, communicate shifting realities to stakeholders, and stay relevant when external change is inevitable? Let’s look at a couple of affected industries and at how some businesses within them are reacting to changes in their customer base.

From print to digital

Over the past decade, there have been massive transformative shifts in newspaper and magazine publishing, driven by digital disruption, evolving consumer behaviour, and changing revenue models. Newspaper print circulation has dropped by over 50% in many Western markets. In the UK, for example, over 300 local newspapers closed between 2009 and 2019, and the print circulation of the UK’s national newspapers has dropped by as much as 65% in the last 20 years.

With their business models founded on printed copy sales and print advertising, publishing businesses have looked to combat the decline in printed copies by shifting to digital strategies and exploring new revenue streams. Most have implemented digital subscriptions, focused on local digital advertising, and diversified their content offerings. Some are even developing platform-based tools and seeking philanthropic funding to support journalism. And some have made a better fist of it than others.

The Guardian’s strategy

The Guardian's transition from print to digital is a case study in successful media adaptation. The past 10-plus years have seen it shift from a print-first to a digital-first model with global reach and a focus on reader engagement. The Guardian invested heavily in its website and online presence while also adapting its print product. This meant restructuring newsrooms, fostering global reporting, and prioritising digital innovation.

The Guardian's leadership recognised the potential of the internet early on, and committed to building a strong digital presence. A 2021 article about the paper’s shift to digital by former editor Alan Rusbridger, It was exhilarating’: how the Guardian went digital – and global, is full of interesting nuggets. For example, he recounts a 1993 trip to the US to “see the internet” and notes that the New York Times didn’t think news would work well on computers. 

The Guardian prioritised online investment, allowed the website to focus on breaking news stories and quality journalism rather than taking the clickbait route of many of its competitors. It then worked to expand its global readership and now has established editions like Guardian Australia and Guardian US. Again, unlike many of its competitors, The Guardian chose not to introduce a paywall, instead introducing a membership program

me that allows readers to contribute financially to supporting The Guardian’s journalism.

This edition of Simon Owen’s media newsletter looks at the many clever steps The Guardian has taken to build relationships and foster a sense of community to keep its readers engaged without introducing a paywall – and it’s paying off: turnover to March 2025 increased nearly 7% year on year to £275 million, with digital reader revenue increasing 20% to over £100 million.

Out of love with dating apps

Online dating is another industry dramatically affected by changing customer behaviour. Dating app usage probably peaked in 2021, as the Covid pandemic triggered a surge in app installations and daily active usage. But by mid 2023, growth was faltering, with market saturation, user dissatisfaction and dating app fatigue leading to flattened growth, lower engagement, and a decline in paying users.

Bumble’s strategy

Women-first dating app Bumble was as much affected by changing customer behaviour as other dating apps. In Bumble’s case, its growth plan had prioritised scale over quality. Bumble founder and on-and-off CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd has admitted that expanding performance marketing had the effect of diluting match quality on the app. Fewer meaningful connections, therefore, led to decreased referrals and engagement. This, coupled with growing disenchantment with dating apps, means that Bumble’s performance has stalled, even declined. For example, Bumble’s average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) in 2022 was $28.9, in 2023 it was $27.97, and in Q4 2024 it was $25.17.

In this article, What to do when it’s time to pivot in product: Lessons from Bumble, we looked at some of the innovations from Bumble to try to combat this decline. The company’s then Senior Product Manager, Dara Alsulayman, explains that the app’s foundational women “make the first move” principle was first conceptualised for a very different dating app world. It had led to what she calls an “outsized labour” for women, because, while women had control of every interaction, they also had to initiate every interaction. Dara’s work eventually led to a new “opening moves” feature, which allows women to set prompts that their matches can answer to begin the interaction. This preserves choice and lightens the emotional load on women. This feature has had some success – chat initiations are up 26%, according to Bumble. 

The dating app market remains difficult, so the company has also taken steps to become more lean and agile. It has laid off about 240 people (20% of its workforce) and is prioritising user quality over scale. ARPPU ticked up slightly in Q2 this year to $21.69, signalling better monetisation of its smaller remaining user base.

Bumble’s transformation is still in the early stages – it’s expanding beyond dating with its Bumble For Friends (BFF) app and is building a personalised matching algorithm powered by AI designed to reduce mismatches and improve the user experience. Its most recent quarterly results show some hopeful signs of a turnaround – while its revenues and paying user numbers are down, the company is more operationally efficient and is moving to a more engaged, intentional community.

What do these stories tell us?

The above stories are lessons from big high-profile products but the underlying approaches taken apply to any product that faces market challenges. Broader analytical skills beyond product frameworks and an awareness and understanding of market dynamics are critical.

It may sound obvious, but you should focus on retaining the customers you have and work out why they are leaving. Then you need to get back to customer development fundamentals. As Pendo’s Chief Product Officer Trisha Price comments, when facing challenges, go back to the basics: "What is the problem you're trying to solve for your customers?" You should stop thinking inside-out from your product and start outside-in from customer needs. It means overcoming any hubris of thinking you know better than your customers, and focus on solving their problems rather than the features you think they want. As Spencer Rascoff, CEO of Bumble rival Match Group, told Business Insider: "The category challenges have been due primarily to a lack of innovation and our failure to recognise and respond to changes in the younger demographic, especially Gen Z and what they want.”

Early warnings of broader market changes

Product managers must act as sensors of broader market changes – so a product manager should be able to translate the warning signs they see from macro shifts into actionable insights, rather than just flag them up to others internally to act on.

To stay on top of broader market changes, product managers need to constantly go beyond user feedback and feature requests and develop strategic awareness and pattern recognition across industry, society, and economics. This means:

• Regularly scanning the external environment by staying on top of industry trends and regulations
• Monitoring competitor movements and consumer behaviour
• Listening for what your customers don’t say as much as what they do say.

Structure for business impact

Product coach and author Matt LeMay has written a lot about structuring teams for business impact. He warns that teams can get stuck in a “low-impact death spiral”, churning out features that don’t move meaningful metrics, without advancing strategic goals. He says that high-impact teams set objectives that are no more than one step removed from critical business goals such as revenue or retention targets. He’s written a book, Impact-first product teams, and has spoken about this at #mtpcon London 2025.

His advice is to keep impact front and centre at every stage of the product process, from strategy and discovery through to implementation, and always to ask the following questions to maintain the link between the work of product teams and tangible business outcomes.

• Who will this work reach?
• What action do we want them to take?
• What’s the value of that action?
• How likely is it to happen?

Monitor the decline

In a declining market, monitoring the right metrics is less about proving how great the product is now, and more about spotting when and where to pivot before it’s too late.

• You can’t afford vanity metrics, so think about what your metrics are really telling you.
• Companies often track “feel-good” indicators like downloads, signups and social buzz during a growth phase, but these can mask reality in a declining market. 
• Decline can often first be spotted in behavioural metrics like declining session length, repeat visits or renewal rates, so the sooner you catch these shifts, the sooner you can adapt your strategy. 

If dating apps had responded faster to falling swipe engagement, for example, they might also have formed strategies to combat their falling ARPPUs faster than they did. The key is using leading indicators to anticipate and influence future outcomes, while using lagging indicators to measure whether your strategies ultimately worked.

Metrics also keep the team aligned, help to minimise any bias for optimism and cut through wishful thinking. They’ll also support any difficult conversations you may need to have with stakeholders. Metrics is an enormous and important topic for product managers, and you can find all the Mind the Product articles on metrics here.

Communicate the change

No one loves bad news, so be sure to use evidence, rather than anecdotes. This means leaning on qualitative and quantitative data like customer quotes, user research and declining metrics. It's important to frame your narrative around external forces rather than internal blame, so that your stakeholders and investors see the shift as inevitable, and not optional. Mind the Product has plenty of advice on ways to manage stakeholders – this article, Tips for successful stakeholder management and this talk, Stuck in the middle: Mastering stakeholder management by Emily Tate, are good places to start.

Adapt your strategy

Product managers need to find new value propositions or pivot to adjacent opportunities before the decline becomes irreversible.

The key here is to be proactive about business alignment. Bumble’s female first policy, for example, initially paid off by forging a unique, trust-based user experience. Like other dating apps it now faces fatigue-driven pressures that are eroding that advantage and the requirement for women to always initiate chats needed to be re-examined. Bumble’s "Opening Moves" feature, giving women more flexible prompting mechanisms, aims to uphold empowerment while adapting to shifting user needs.

This Mind the Product article, How to face the challenges of customer retention, looks at some of the common mistakes made in smaller B2B and SaaS businesses. As product coach Dave Martin comments, there are a couple of crucial elements in B2B products that are often ignored and can contribute to high rates of churn, namely poor onboarding and the expectation that your customers will be proactive.

Stay humble

Finally, it’s so important to be humble in your conversations with stakeholders and customers. This means acknowledging the decisions that went wrong and position the shifts you’re making as necessary recalibrations.