#147 How I Built An MVP Membership For Affinity Clients
I officially kicked things off in The Collective this week – our new membership for advanced community builders focused on scaling.
Someone on Instagram asked me "what made you decide to build it?" and my answer (which is so product leader of me) is... because there was a good balance of customer demand and business value.
After 3 years of building we have enough of a client base that there are plenty of past clients I want to continue supporting and bring together, and plenty of people that want to work with us that can't afford our full membership management packages.
This is our done-with-you solution that we didn't have before. Given I'm running an agency model business with a team, it will also increase my margins – especially as we scale it.
But it's kind of terrifying building a membership for membership builders when we're known to be "the experts". I've been dragging my feet on officially opening doors because I've just been nervous and feeling a lot of imposter syndrome.
So I thought today I'd share with you how I moved past this, and we still launched a scrappy MVP product that people are *really* excited about.
Let's get into it –
The people that joined my pre-sale are amazing. 80% were former clients, 20% colleagues I respect (that I met through community of course). I learn a lot from these people.
And that's kind of the whole point. It's a membership for advanced community builders so that we can learn & grow together... but that is also what makes it so scary! What if I fail at running this thing? We do great work for our clients, but can we do great work for ourselves?
The reality is that the first version of a product is never quite right. I know that we'll be in the thick of the learning and experimentation phase for a while, and thats how the game is played, friends.
So this week I officially sent the "The Collective Is Ready!" email to everyone that had purchased... after staying up till midnight perfecting event banner template designs because hyper-fixating on details to stall a launch email is my version of imposter-syndrome-hyperventilating.
Anyway... I'm doing my best to walk the talk and follow all my own rules.
Here's my approach so far:
We don't have curriculum right away – I'm sharing our templates, SOPs, and tools (of which I'm adding most of them next week) but training for our framework will come as we teach live so that we can get feedback along the way.
I'm qualifying members – Before inviting anyone in, I'm checking that they're a good fit. They have to care A LOT about member experience and building the best product on the market, and they need to have an existing program or membership. This protects the culture and makes the experience better for everyone.
I'm experimenting with programming & events – I surveyed my buyers on what times work best for them, what event topics were most interesting (their top 3), and what types of events were most exciting. The event type I thought would be most popular was least popular. That's why this research is important. I have a ton of unique events scheduled in the coming months and we'll see what works best to do again in future months.
I'm keeping the forum simple – In the screenshot above you can see I only have 6 spaces to start. Over time it might make sense to add more, but for now the structure is simple. In fact, I have 4 spaces hidden to add as a value-add later if it makes sense.
I planned a challenge to create group momentum – We're starting with a 6-week challenge on March 30 so that everyone has the same baseline data on their members, and we can use this to build upon in our future months as we train our members on their scale strategies
I designed an onboarding experience – It's an MVP approach and simple to start (my emails are coming from my Gmail with everyone BCC'd 😂), but I set very clear expectations around how to get the most out of their membership, everyone got a personalized strategy from my team, and I gave them a clear next step (join the challenge!). This will evolve over time.
I sent the invite email on Thursday and so far 80% of members have joined the platform and created their profile, 60% have accepted the invite for their group welcome call, and we'll see what % participates in the challenge. I hope it's 70%+!
Along the way I'll be collecting feedback and tracking metrics (of course). I'm excited to share with you what works and what doesn't and see how the membership evolves. All I know is I that I don't have it right to start – no one ever does – and that iteration is how we build something great.
Next week I'll be sending invitations to my next wave of people that I think are a great fit... which will be easier now that I have a programming schedule and a visual to show people! I'm excited.
I still have a few spots available for my first members at 40% off, so if you're interested book a free discovery call and we can chat if you're a good fit!