This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Today's listener wants to start a membership community centered around self growth. So far so good, but what's the best way to introduce it? That's what we are talking about today. Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau, your host.
I would like to look at this question using a tool from one of our other stories recently called A Statement of Future Intent. Okay, so you can use this activity for any idea you have, or even just for thinking about your overall life. Okay, but let's focus it a bit more tightly, and we're gonna look at it in the context of the answer to this question, how to start a membership community around self growth. It comes to us from our listener, Chase. So quick shout out to our sponsor, and then we'll hear from Chase and my answer.
Stay tuned. [Music]
Hi Chris, this is Chase from Miami, and I started listening to the show after a friend recommended it last year. I'd like to start a membership community focused on self growth. My plan is to charge $10 a month for basic access and $25 a month for premium access. What's the best way to introduce this community?
Also, do I essentially need three levels where one is free for potential members to check out before signing up? That seems to be the common model, but it would be a lot more work. So I'm wondering if it's really necessary. Any tips or guidance would be appreciated. Thanks Chris.
[Music]
Okay, so I'll get to the practical part of this question, but let's start with that statement of intent. So Chase wants to begin a membership community. He's got an idea to create this site or this platform around the concept of self growth. He also has a general idea of pricing, $10 a month for basic access, $25 a month for premium access. So just roughly here, let's imagine that he has 50 people in this community.
We're looking ahead and we're projecting and saying, okay, he's got 50 people in this community. 10 of them are paying for premium access. So 40 for basic access, 10 for premium access. If my math is right, that's $650 a month in recurring revenue. So how is he gonna get to this point?
Okay, how does he, as he said, introduce this community? Does he need three levels? Well, to get 50 people who are paying at least, he needs to start with a pool of many more people. So that's where the free tier comes in. That's where the free content that we're all familiar with, whenever a company or an individual is offering some sort of service or access to a community, there's often like a teaser.
Well, you can watch this many videos for free, but you have to pay if you want more. Or here's how the forum works for premium members and so on. You've got free content, you've got paid content. So if he has 500 people, let's say, accessing the free content, maybe he could hope to convert 10% of them to join his members, which is how we're gonna get to the 50, okay? 500 people with the free content, 50 who are paying.
That's actually a pretty high number. You know, the 500 people accessing the free content would have to be pretty engaged to get to a 10% conversion rate. But let's go with it for the sake of the example. You can see that the first question isn't how to convert the 10%, but rather how does he attract interest at all? Because you really need the 500 people or whatever the number is.
And this is a more important question because increasing your conversion is largely a scientific process. There are some things you can do to improve it, make it easier and so on. But without the interest in the first place, you could never succeed. Doesn't matter how good the conversion rate is, doesn't matter how amazing the content is without that audience. That's why in all these situations, building a platform, building relationships with followers, readers, subscribers, listeners, viewers, whatever the term is for whatever medium you're using, that is paramount, okay?
So if some of these details seem a little bit overwhelming or kind of in the weeds, there are a couple of things you can do. You know, to simplify, you could leave the premium access version for later and just develop the two versions, like the what you offer for free and what people pay for. You might also not wanna start with a membership model if you don't have followers in the first place. So if Chase doesn't have that base of 500 people or even 100 people or whatever, like maybe start with attracting followers and perhaps introducing a paid product that doesn't require as much ongoing support from you. That's important since you don't wanna be locked into supporting something on a monthly or a regular basis when you only have a few paying members.
All right, I think I ran through this whole scenario that Chase is facing with his membership community. Good luck Chase, let us know how it goes. I don't know that all three levels are essential, but it's pretty tough to just have a paid product with no free content whatsoever in this situation because then you have the question of how are people persuaded to be interested in the first place. But of course, let us know what happens. And listeners, if you've got a question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions.
We will be featuring them throughout the year, along with updates from other listeners as they launch their projects. I am honored to be able to make this show for you every single day, I'm so glad you're listening. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
