
Why Jay Clouse Designed His Community to Stay Small
Jay Clouse’s membership community has 135 members and has already made him $96,000. He shares why he’s going to cap membership at 200 people.
Why Jay Clouse Designed His Community to Stay Small
Jay Clouse’s membership community has 135 members and has already made him $96,000. He shares why he’s going to cap membership at 200 people.
How to build a great community
“This episode is super tactical and specific about building community and some of the pitfalls to avoid. If you’re interested in community-building, I think you’ll really like it.”
The Laws of Community Building with Natalie Ellis
Boss Babe founder Natalie Ellis talks with Sahil Bloom and Greg Isenberg about building her community of 9000 paying members.
Big Ideas:
► An audience is not a community.
► Are you able to sell out your merchandise? That’s a good sign that your community self-identify around your brand.
► Create clear rules of engagement so members know how to interact.
► There is a cost to creating content. You need to understand the ROI of that investment.
► Sales funnels to segment your audience is very important.
► Building a company that doesn’t revolve around you.
How to Build, Launch, and Run a Money-Making Membership Program
We talk a lot about the importance of revenue diversification for video creators on this show. Beyond brand deals, selling merch, or creating your own physical or digital products, another source of income for creators is memberships.
In this week’s episode, we talk with someone who can help you jumpstart your own.
Jen Matichuk oversees strategic partnerships at Memberful, a software platform that empowers creators to sell memberships to their audiences. It was founded in 2013 and was acquired by Patreon five years later.
In her role at Memberful, Jen educates and assists creators on how to best grow their businesses using the platform. She brings a wealth of experience to her role, having previously spearheaded the Mythical Society, a membership program launched by long-time creators Rhett and Link.
In this episode of The Videocraft Show Presented By Video Husky, Jen talks with Jon about all things memberships. You will learn:
The differences between Memberful and its parent company, Patreon.
Where a creator should start if they’d like to launch their own membership program.
How to design a membership program that your audience will want and purchase.
And so much more!
“What are Token-Gated Communities? How do the work? What are the risks and opportinities to build a web3 business?” |
Trends.vc has a large collection of links and examples covering Token-Gated Communities.
Token-gated communities align incentives.
Traditional communities suffer from noise, spam and other extractive behaviors.
Token-gated communities build deep alignment between members.
Members are incentivized to protect and add value.
From Minimal Viable Product to Minimal Viable Community “Web3 has flattened the power hierarchy and changed the dynamics of the network. Consumers aren’t just buyers in the market — they’re shareholders. They now care about the well-being of the companies they buy from, even if it’s a startup.” |
“The buying process isn’t as simple anymore. If consumers want a product from a promising web3 initiative, they’ll need to acquire products by investing in the project.
So now, the firm isn’t at the top of the buyer-seller relationship. They aren’t cutting-out consumers from development, selling them a basic product, then tinkering with the product until it reaches the consumer’s standards. Rather, they’re integrating the consumer in the development process. As a result, the Minimal Viable Product ethos is being thrown out the window.
Enter Minimal Viable Community: A concept linked to grassroots initiatives. You could think of it as crowdsourcing. It’s all about curating community and inspiring a community-owned business model in the new and improved web3 firm.
It isn’t as easy anymore for startups. They can’t just target the consumer’s needs; They need to involve the consumer, the developer, and the creator in the company’s processes and decision-making. Building a Minimal Viable Community is all about rethinking the “we” mentality in the business ecosystem.”
Gina Bianchini, CEO of Mighty Networks, discusses the burnout and frustration creators are going through to keep up with the treadmill of creating content every day.
Big Idea: Forget the creator economy, a community economy can be much more sustainable.
You don’t need thousands of people in a community to make a living. Whereas, you need millions of followers to make money on the big platforms.
Related Links:
Why Community Might Be The Answer to Creator Burnout
“Alexis Ohanian (@alexisohanian), Founder of Reddit and Seven Seven Six joins the show to share his early lessons from Reddit, stories from Y Combinator, and why he’s betting big on Web3 communities and technologies.”
“The minimum viable community is going to become the new standard… Everyone is overwhelmed with options and attention is scarce as a result. and one of the best moats for that is community.”