Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth

VIDEO - Jay Clouse Podcast 3rd Draft (FINAL) on the Growth In Reverse Podcast with Chenell Basilio and Dylan Redekop

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[00:00:00] Jay Clouse: That month was the highest month of membership revenue. The following year, February, was our highest month of churn ever. The strongest marketing levers sometimes are not exactly what people actually need.

[00:00:11] Chenell Basilio: How do you think about scaling a membership like that? It's doing really well, tons of engagement, people are loving it, but do you settle in for a little bit and then think about growth?

[00:00:19] Jay Clouse: I really care about retention more than anything else. When somebody discontinues their membership, like, I do feel it sort of personally.

[00:00:27] Dylan Redekop: What is a strong marketing lever for a [00:00:30] community?

[00:00:30] Chenell Basilio: Who shouldn't launch a membership?

[00:00:37] Dylan Redekop: Welcome, Jay.

[00:00:37] Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

[00:00:38] Jay Clouse: Hey, we're doing it.

[00:00:38] Dylan Redekop: We're doing it. We're doing

[00:00:39] Jay Clouse: it. We're doing a whole collab. I love it.

[00:00:40] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Chenell, you've been on Jay's podcast one, two- Twice Three times ... two, if not three.

[00:00:46] Jay Clouse: Is that true? You guys

[00:00:47] Dylan Redekop: did like a Becky-

[00:00:47] Jay Clouse: Oh, okay ... Becky as well. Count the Bucky... The Bucky. Bucky. Count the Becky collab.

[00:00:51] Jay Clouse: Yeah. Then yes, three times.

[00:00:52] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:00:52] Jay Clouse: And arguably three of our most popular episodes.

[00:00:56] Dylan Redekop: Wow. That's awesome. There you go. Well, maybe this will be our most popular [00:01:00] episode.

[00:01:00] Jay Clouse: I have a strong feeling it will be.

[00:01:02] Dylan Redekop: Love it. I love the confidence.

[00:01:03] Chenell Basilio: That's awesome. Yeah. Well, I thought it would be fun to get you in here and talk kind of memberships, offline events, in real life stuff-

[00:01:10] Jay Clouse: Sure,

[00:01:11] Chenell Basilio: sure

[00:01:11] Chenell Basilio: 'cause I was just part of your second annual offline event for the Lab-

[00:01:15] Jay Clouse: Yeah ...

[00:01:16] Chenell Basilio: which is your flagship community.

[00:01:18] Jay Clouse: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:01:19] Chenell Basilio: What

[00:01:19] Jay Clouse: did you think?

[00:01:20] Chenell Basilio: It was amazing.

[00:01:20] Jay Clouse: Okay, great.

[00:01:21] Chenell Basilio: It was fantastic.

[00:01:22] Dylan Redekop: It sucked, Jay.

[00:01:24] Jay Clouse: Yeah, I, I feel like it was an improvement over last year, which is hard because it was rated a 9.4 out of 10 [00:01:30] by the people who attended last year.

[00:01:31] Jay Clouse: So, like, not a lot of room for improvement, but I feel like it was. Um, I haven't heard any constructive feedback yet, which means people are either being really nice or I'm missing something, or it was great. I don't know. We'll, we'll send out the survey this weekend and get some data on it. But from my eyes, everything went without a hitch, and I was more calm and in it, but I thought it was great.

[00:01:54] Chenell Basilio: I like it. So yeah, how did you... I guess let's go back a little bit. How did you start, decide to start the Lab? Hmm. Like, [00:02:00] what was the transition point where you were like, "You know what? I think it's time to launch this"?

[00:02:05] Jay Clouse: I've been doing community in some fashion since 2012, and at that time it was all in person.

[00:02:10] Jay Clouse: Like, I was an organizer for Startup Weekend, and I facilitated global Startup Weekend events. And so those events were, like, weekend long. We would have, like, 100 to 120 people in Columbus every time we did this. We did three a year. And we, like, really galvanized the Columbus startup and tech community through this.

[00:02:29] Jay Clouse: And then [00:02:30] when I left tech and started doing my own thing, I was facilitating mastermind groups, mostly online, but also most of the early folks who were doing that in 2017 were in Columbus. So through that mastermind program, at the time, I mean, this sounds crazy, but in 2017, doing community on Slack and video calls on Zoom, both uncommon- Hmm

[00:02:56] Jay Clouse: things, I had to literally teach people how to download and use [00:03:00] Zoom. And on the back end of our weekly calls and our 12-week cohorts, we just continued to let people hang out in Slack. So over the course of four years, we had 120-ish people who had gone through a 12-week cohort, and they were all in Slack.

[00:03:19] Jay Clouse: One of the people who went through that program was Matt Gartland when he was independently running an agency, and he had, like, a, a product idea. And so he went through that 12-week program, [00:03:30] experienced the program itself, experienced how we were doing things in Slack. He was later acquired, like, joined forces with Pat.

[00:03:37] Jay Clouse: They got an early access beta to a platform called Circle, decided they were going to use that in 2020 when the pandemic hit. Mm. They're like, "Okay, pandemic is hitting." They had done FlynnCon the year before. FlynnCon's not gonna happen with the pandemic. Let's accelerate our plans to do online community.

[00:03:52] Jay Clouse: We're gonna use this platform. He brought me in to consult on that, so we designed and built, which was at, at the time was called SPI [00:04:00] PRO, in 2020. They asked, "Hey, uh, can we just hire you to lead our community team?" 'Cause this launch went really well. The launch of SPI PRO did really well. Uh, and I said, "No, I'm kind of busy.

[00:04:11] Jay Clouse: I'm doing this mastermind thing." They said, "What if we acquire that, absorb it, and you just lead the community team?" So we launched SPI PRO. We hired Jillian Benbow at the time. She was a great community manager. Oh, I know Jillian. I was leading the community team as a whole. And in 2021, I worked within SPI, but part of that acquisition was I'm gonna keep doing my [00:04:30] own content like we had.

[00:04:31] Jay Clouse: I was very explicit in the contract, like, these are the things you are not buying, which is- Hmm ... all of my Still going digital properties. And of course, as it goes, 2021, the year I didn't have time to focus on anything besides making content in the business, like I wasn't doing any services, I wasn't doing weird freelance projects, that's when the content started taking off.

[00:04:51] Jay Clouse: So I was suddenly forced with, like, this I'm essentially doing two full-time things moment of, uh, SPI [00:05:00] and my stuff. I'm, of course, gonna bet on myself, so I transitioned out at the end of 2021, started 2022 back out on my own with a big community-sized hole in my life. Mm. And so I said, I learned a lot.

[00:05:14] Jay Clouse: Circle's a platform I wanted when it didn't exist, and I was using Slack, so I'm gonna do something with that. And if you recall, I think you were around at the time, I was, like, batting around different designs of this community.

[00:05:24] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:24] Jay Clouse: I had this experience in Discord where it was like, watch me design this community, uh, because I wanted to [00:05:30] try out Discord.

[00:05:30] Dylan Redekop: I remember being in that.

[00:05:31] Jay Clouse: Yeah, that was actually kind of fun.

[00:05:32] Dylan Redekop: It

[00:05:33] Jay Clouse: was fun. And, and then we, we started as a Twitter community, but I realized I don't wanna just focus on Twitter for forever.

[00:05:41] Chenell Basilio: Good

[00:05:42] Jay Clouse: move, Jay. Turned it into... At the time, it was called something completely different. It was called Creative Companion Club because- Right

[00:05:47] Jay Clouse: the newsletter was called Creative Companion.

[00:05:49] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:49] Jay Clouse: And eventually it became The Lab. So super long answer. But, uh, I would say I've always been a community person. At the time that we started what became The Lab, I just had, like, a hole in my life [00:06:00] of a community that I felt like I was leading or even belonged to, and because Circle was just, like, the perfect platform for that type of thing, I, I had more experience with Circle than just about anyone else on the planet at the time.

[00:06:14] Jay Clouse: Yeah. So I, I figured this is, this is what I'll do.

[00:06:17] Chenell Basilio: That's awesome. Wow.

[00:06:18] Dylan Redekop: And so that was Circle 2022. I think Chenell and I both were, that year at least, part of-

[00:06:23] Jay Clouse: Yeah, yeah ...

[00:06:24] Dylan Redekop: Creative Companion Club.

[00:06:25] Jay Clouse: Totally. That's

[00:06:25] Dylan Redekop: actually

[00:06:25] Chenell Basilio: how we met.

[00:06:26] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Well-

[00:06:26] Jay Clouse: I don't know if

[00:06:26] Chenell Basilio: you know that.

[00:06:27] Jay Clouse: Interesting. Yeah. No, I mean, it would've been, it would've been early [00:06:30] 2022, but yeah.

[00:06:30] Jay Clouse: Yeah. Um, yeah, and it's still going. And, you know, in the creator journey generally, I've seen so many waves of people come and go, and now I've seen so many waves of communities come and go. Mm. And it's like, I'm still standing. Mm-hmm. The Lab is still standing. Like, there's, there's a longevity to the business and the community that I think is pretty rare in the content space.

[00:06:54] Jay Clouse: Yeah. Um, and I get it. It's hard.

[00:06:57] Dylan Redekop: And it's evolved too, right? A

[00:06:58] Jay Clouse: lot,

[00:06:59] Dylan Redekop: yeah. Like, when you first launched it, it [00:07:00] was a certain price point. I think you had, like, a cap on-

[00:07:02] Jay Clouse: Yeah ...

[00:07:03] Dylan Redekop: members-

[00:07:03] Jay Clouse: Yeah ...

[00:07:03] Dylan Redekop: and all that.

[00:07:04] Jay Clouse: Yep. Yeah, we, we initially had a cap because I wasn't sure I could get above 200 people and have it be the experience that I wanted.

[00:07:13] Jay Clouse: Right. Because at SPI, we had- I think close to 600 when I left, and that creates new positives and new challenges Mm-hmm And so I wasn't sure if I was gonna be able to do that. So I, I capped it at the time, which was an fantastic marketing [00:07:30] move, and, uh, eventually I realized that number was maybe directionally correct, but arbitrary and, uh, limiting of course.

[00:07:39] Jay Clouse: So I moved to an application model, but the marketing of the cap was so good that there are a lot of people who still ask me, like, "Are you still at your cap?" Like-

[00:07:47] Dylan Redekop: Right.

[00:07:49] Jay Clouse: So i- that's been a difficult thing to actually overcome in retrospect, is, like, letting people know we don't have a cap anymore. Yeah. We do have an application, but there is, there's not, like, a hard cap on it anymore.

[00:07:58] Chenell Basilio: I remember that when you [00:08:00] were getting close to hitting that cap, you would, like, tweet out. You're like, "All right." Yeah. "We're at 196."

[00:08:04] Jay Clouse: Totally.

[00:08:04] Chenell Basilio: And, and it was amazing marketing.

[00:08:05] Jay Clouse: It might still be my high- no, it's not, but it, it's the highest month of membership revenue ever. Uh, it's not the highest month of business revenue, but that month was the highest month of membership revenue.

[00:08:16] Jay Clouse: But, you know, the thing that I learned about that, scarcity and urgency both in play there. Mm-hmm. Great marketing drivers, but the year after, I remember we sold out in February, and it was Valentine's Day, because I was at a hockey game on a [00:08:30] date when I was tweeting out that we're running out of space, and Hal was not happy.

[00:08:33] Jay Clouse: Um, but the following year, February, was our highest month of churn ever.

[00:08:39] Chenell Basilio: Wow.

[00:08:39] Jay Clouse: Because people joined because they're like, "Yeah, I gotta do it." Yeah. But it wasn't necessarily from this, like, considered, what does that mean? Do I have space for it? Do I really wanna do it?

[00:08:47] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:47] Jay Clouse: And so I struggle with marketing generally, not that I'm bad at it, but that, uh, the strongest marketing levers sometimes are not exactly what people actually need, [00:09:00] and yeah, that's an example of seeing that in action.

[00:09:03] Dylan Redekop: What is a strong marketing lever for a community?

[00:09:06] Jay Clouse: Well, scarcity and urgency always matter. Uh, I would say that status and affiliation matter, you know? Like, I would say probably that a place like Hampton is really good at- Mm ... leading into, like, status and affiliation. Or, uh, uh, Sean's new thing, Aspen, I think is probably a little bit more status and affiliation than, than what we have in the Lab.

[00:09:29] Jay Clouse: But [00:09:30] generally, you do need some level of urgency to get people to make a decision, because decisions are stressful and feel high-stakes, and if I don't need to make a decision right now, then I'm probably not going to make a decision right now. Mm-hmm. And so you need to create some- Real genuine tension that says you need to make a decision right now, for better or worse.

[00:09:50] Jay Clouse: Yep. Otherwise, people just stay on the fence forever. So as an evergreen membership, typically, that has created some challenges, but things that we've tried, we'll do, uh, [00:10:00] sprints every now and then where it's like for the next four weeks we're all gonna focus on this. We're gonna have some live sessions around that.

[00:10:04] Jay Clouse: That always works.

[00:10:05] Dylan Redekop: In terms of like, sorry, advertising that publicly that we're doing this? Correct. Yeah.

[00:10:08] Jay Clouse: Correct. Yeah. Folks that have like indicated some level of interest or putting it on the sales page or something. Mm-hmm. Uh, we'll do masterminds three to four times a year. That's always a strong pull for folks.

[00:10:18] Jay Clouse: Yeah. Kind of reason to join now rather than later. If you just do open and door- close doors, that also works, but I look at that and I'm kinda like, ah, that's... Most of the time that's kind of a faux urgency. It's not [00:10:30] quite genuine. Mm-hmm. But it materially works that well. We are as a team thinking about doing an open and close doors, and as we're recording this right now, we're currently on a wait list because there is some benefit to everyone joining at the same time so that you can- Yeah

[00:10:47] Jay Clouse: have some like kickoff activities and, uh, connection between folks. Depending on how many times per year we did that, we could say like maybe we only open doors four times a year. Right. And that's also when we do mastermind [00:11:00] matching, we have a kickoff call. There's some benefit to doing that for sure.

[00:11:04] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:04] Jay Clouse: There's also a cost. If, if people are at peak excitement when they apply, however much time passes between that moment and opening the doors, like there's probably a degradation of that.

[00:11:14] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:11:15] Jay Clouse: And maybe they were in a moment where they wanted to join something and they found something else.

[00:11:19] Dylan Redekop: Right.

[00:11:19] Jay Clouse: So evergreen doesn't drive urgency, but we do have a super high conversion rate for people who apply and are accepted who join. Like- [00:11:30] I'd say close to 90%. Nine out of 10 people who apply and are a fit, they join, because I send them an email pretty quickly and let them know like, "Hey, this will work for you based on what you said in your application."

[00:11:41] Jay Clouse: Uh, it's all... It's a personally recorded video from me specifically to them. So that works, and I think part of the reason that works is because I am replying near the point of peak excitement, which may not be true if we do open and closed doors.

[00:11:55] Dylan Redekop: Hmm. Some trade-offs there.

[00:11:57] Jay Clouse: Trade-offs, for sure. Yeah.

[00:11:59] Chenell Basilio: So you mentioned [00:12:00] before that you feel like the Lab is kind of rare in the space because it's just so different and-

[00:12:06] Jay Clouse: Old Enduring.

[00:12:06] Jay Clouse: And, and dog ears. Enduring. Yes. Yeah.

[00:12:09] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Why do you think that is? What makes it so, I don't know, sustainable in a way?

[00:12:14] Jay Clouse: Well, it's exhausting. Like, uh, a community is never done. It's not passive revenue really at all. Um, and it demands a lot of you, and it, it also... I don't know. People probably have healthier relationships with their business and products than I do, but [00:12:30] when somebody discontinues their membership, like, I do feel it sort of personally.

[00:12:35] Jay Clouse: I don't think I should. I don't want to, but I do. And if there are ever times that I think, like, "Maybe this isn't for me," it's when we have, like, a slew of people who don't renew. Hmm. You know? Mm-hmm. Because it just, like, it, like, hurts.

[00:12:47] Chenell Basilio: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:48] Jay Clouse: Um, but you know, a community is never done, and depending on the design of the space, you might end up putting a lot of time into it.

[00:12:56] Jay Clouse: But you can design for anything. If you don't wanna put a ton of time into it, you [00:13:00] just design the experience differently. Mm-hmm. Uh, and that's where a lot of folks fail with memberships, is they aren't thoughtful about their own design constraints, the expectations that they set, the experience that they're creating, but they pull people in.

[00:13:13] Jay Clouse: Those people have their own set of expectations that may not be aligned with what you actually wanna deliver because you didn't set the expectations. And if their expectations aren't met, they're gonna leave, and you're gonna- Mm-hmm ... conclude, "I guess people don't want this." And you're gonna feel personal pain when they leave.

[00:13:29] Jay Clouse: So, like, I get [00:13:30] why this all fails, but I think- The more time you spend in pre-production, I would say, of your membership, the better off you are, to a point. Mm-hmm. There's, of course, diminishing returns where you're just overthinking and, and not taking action. Yeah. But a lot of people are like, "Ooh, Community Tool exists.

[00:13:45] Jay Clouse: I have audience. Let me throw the two together." And that's not really a recipe for success.

[00:13:49] Dylan Redekop: Needs to be more well thought out.

[00:13:51] Jay Clouse: Yeah.

[00:13:51] Dylan Redekop: Um, elephant in the room, I was a Lab member, and I did leave.

[00:13:55] Jay Clouse: And I felt it personally. I don't recall.

[00:13:58] Dylan Redekop: And okay, so, [00:14:00] um, and it wasn't... Again, it was like the, you know, the it's not you, it's me thing.

[00:14:04] Dylan Redekop: And it was just like, I felt, I think you had a cap at the time. I wasn't contributing a lot, and I wasn't in the space enough, and I felt like I was taking a pos- a spot from somebody who could benefit from that.

[00:14:13] Jay Clouse: That was also an interesting- Mm ... unintended consequence of having- Mm-hmm ... a cap. Yeah. Because a lot of people who left said that.

[00:14:19] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:20] Jay Clouse: Which I'm a little bit of a skeptic, so when I hear that, I read that as, like, a convenient excuse. Excuse,

[00:14:26] Dylan Redekop: yeah.

[00:14:26] Jay Clouse: And, and most of the time, you know, still today when people leave, a lot of times it's like, [00:14:30] "Oh, I don't have time to use it." Which to me is, I mean, it all comes back to cost and perception of value.

[00:14:36] Jay Clouse: So there's, if, if you are not renewing, then your perception of value is lower than the price of remaining. And the price is not just the, the, the financial cost. Mm-hmm. It's also, if you've been here a year, you are aware of what is required of me to get the most out of this. That's also a cost. Yeah. So it's, it's the financial cost plus the, the cost of effort, [00:15:00] and if the perception of value is lower than that, I get it.

[00:15:04] Jay Clouse: Of course you would come to that conclusion. And usually that's, like, that's how I read every reason for leaving, except for the ones where it's like, "I'm no longer doing the creator thing." Right. In which case it's like, obviously. Yeah. Then this doesn't make sense. But, you know, my mandate to the team, because we're growing now, and we're on a, a sprint-based system.

[00:15:22] Jay Clouse: We're starting a new sprint, uh, at the end of June, and that sprint is gonna be all around improving, upgrading, [00:15:30] changing the Lab experience based on a ton of feedback we've been gathering for the last month. Mm. And the goal is reduce the effort, increase the impact. Because forums, which are just a part of the experience, inherently effortful experience.

[00:15:44] Jay Clouse: Mm. If you're requiring people to do this call and response, you have to ask for help to receive help, and that's where the value is derived, if that's, if that's the only way you're extracting value from the community, that's a pretty effortful thing, um, and vulnerable thing. Mm-hmm. For people to be like, "I'm stuck."

[00:15:58] Jay Clouse: Yeah. Um, [00:16:00] not everyone wants to do that publicly. So we, we've created a bunch of different, uh, means for extracting value, the offline event being a big one of them.

[00:16:09] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:10] Jay Clouse: And, uh, arguably maybe we've created too many.

[00:16:13] Dylan Redekop: Hmm.

[00:16:13] Jay Clouse: Like, I think, I think there's some complexity that we also need to reduce now because we've tried a bunch of things, and all those things exist in some form, and maybe it's too much now.

[00:16:23] Jay Clouse: So yeah, it's a dance. This is why a lot of communities fail is like- Sometimes things that were valued [00:16:30] and were useful and were competitively differentiated no longer are either. Mm-hmm. And you gotta, you gotta change, you gotta evolve, you gotta recalibrate.

[00:16:40] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:16:40] Chenell Basilio: How do you think about promoting the Lab in a way?

[00:16:44] Chenell Basilio: 'Cause, uh, I mean, it's not a low-ticket thing. Mm-hmm. Like, it's definitely an investment. But so it's gotta take time for people to decide, like, "Hey, this is for me. Right now is the time for me." How do you think about promotion and, like, getting people on, like, ready to join?

[00:16:59] Jay Clouse: Well, the [00:17:00] nice thing is the Lab is pretty much the only product that I talk about consistently.

[00:17:06] Jay Clouse: Um, have a bunch of other, uh, courses. We have Creator HQ. But every week that I'm releasing content, usually there's some reason for me to mention the Lab, and I just think of it as repetition, awareness, and over time I hope you're thinking of, like, "Hmm, that's interesting," becomes, "Yeah, I think I wanna give that a shot."

[00:17:28] Jay Clouse: Uh, repetition is just the [00:17:30] key to anything.

[00:17:30] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:31] Jay Clouse: I don't think we go far enough on campaigning for it, though. And what we have done over the last year, especially around masterminds, is doing campaigns around joining the Lab. And lo and behold, when you specifically say, like, "Hey, you should join the Lab in the next two weeks," more people consider it more strongly.

[00:17:49] Jay Clouse: So should do that more. Yeah. But, you know, there's diminishing returns to any campaigning strategy. At some point you kinda reach the, uh, the threshold of, okay, I'm aware, and the people who are [00:18:00] interested are interested, and the people who are aware and not interested are kinda like-

[00:18:03] Dylan Redekop: Enough ...

[00:18:03] Jay Clouse: shut up.

[00:18:03] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:18:04] Jay Clouse: Um, but I just, I try to be persistent, and I would even say, like, constant, without being annoying. Like, awareness is the big thing for me. Yeah.

[00:18:16] Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

[00:18:17] Jay Clouse: Uh, because we're not... The Lab is not a prescriptive linear journey, at least not as it- Mm-hmm ... exists today. The Lab is a place you op- you opt into to say, "I want a close private network of [00:18:30] people who are like me that I can bounce ideas off of, I can pull ideas from, I can learn from their experiments."

[00:18:35] Jay Clouse: And generally just, it's kind of a social place now, too. Mm-hmm. So I don't wanna make big promises like, "If you join here, you're gonna double your income next month." Might happen. Mm-hmm. I've had some folks who have gotten, uh, I think the peak is a- 48X return on their membership. It was somebody who, uh, she was, like, fairly active.

[00:18:59] Jay Clouse: She's an [00:19:00] author. I don't, I don't know if I can say her name specifically, so I won't. But she was like, "Hey, I'm writing a book and I need introductions to an agent." And I introduced her to an agent, and she got an advance that was way higher than what she was doing on her own, and she's like, "This is a 40X return, 48X return on my membership."

[00:19:14] Jay Clouse: Someone else just told me they had a 16X return on their membership this year because of a connection in the lab that led to a speaking event that led to a relationship. So, you know, the, the dirty little secret is a lot of the return comes from the relationships that become an introduction, that become something [00:19:30] incredibly lucrative.

[00:19:31] Jay Clouse: But if I marketed it that way, I think it would also invite people who are coming for the wrong reasons.

[00:19:36] Dylan Redekop: Yes.

[00:19:36] Jay Clouse: So I don't. Um, so I, I just kinda try to do this subtle, like, signaling and filtering, and the people who are intrinsically or, like, kind of naturally interested, they just tend to be the right fit.

[00:19:51] Jay Clouse: Yeah. You know? Like, that was the biggest point of feedback I got at our offline event this, this week. People were just like, "Everybody here is so nice." Well, the other thing everyone says [00:20:00] is, on every welcome call and in the conversations this week, people are like, "I feel intimidated to be around this group."

[00:20:06] Jay Clouse: But everyone feels that way. Yeah. Everyone feels like they don't belong because everyone is so impressive. But then you spend time talking to any individual, and they're so nice, and they're so accommodating, and they're so helpful. That's true online, that's true offline. But it is something I'm taking a note of to go back to the team and say, like, "We need to actually address this in onboarding," to say, "You might be feeling like you don't belong."

[00:20:28] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm. "

[00:20:29] Jay Clouse: [00:20:30] And you do."

[00:20:30] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm. "

[00:20:31] Jay Clouse: And you were, you know, invited for a reason." Because we don't have any assholes. Yeah. Like, we don't have transactional people. Mm. And the people who, like, skew a little bit transactional, they end up not renewing. And those are the ones that actually don't feel pain. Yeah. You know?

[00:20:45] Jay Clouse: Because it's like the, the, the community is not worse off when they leave. When it's somebody who is very active and they don't renew, that I feel pain, not just for me, but for the community as a whole, but that's very uncommon.

[00:20:56] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah. Do you see any kind of ratio like the more [00:21:00] somebody engages, the more they're likely to renew?

[00:21:01] Dylan Redekop: Or is-

[00:21:02] Jay Clouse: 100%.

[00:21:02] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:21:02] Jay Clouse: 100%. Yeah. It's, it's very, it's very rare that I'm surprised by somebody who didn't renew.

[00:21:07] Dylan Redekop: Right.

[00:21:08] Jay Clouse: It's like, "Mm, haven't seen him in a little bit."

[00:21:09] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. "

[00:21:10] Jay Clouse: This makes sense." So, you know, there's, there's a lot we could be doing proactively because if you're not seen as active, most of the time that probably means that you're not super engaged, which means you're probably not extracting value from the thing, so why would you put more costs into the system?

[00:21:25] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:26] Jay Clouse: And we actually have, like, flags that are raised internally [00:21:30] based on people's activity and risk scores. But then there's a lot of people that surprise me, people who renew and I'm like, "I haven't seen you in weeks-" Yeah ... "months," and I think like, "I'll probably get an email asking for a refund," which of course I'll grant, and they just never come back.

[00:21:43] Jay Clouse: And I look at the profile and it's like, they were active yesterday. Oh. Oh, I had no idea. Yeah. So it's really interesting the, the different ways people extract value and are a part of- Communities.

[00:21:55] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:55] Chenell Basilio: Totally. I see the same thing in our community. I'm like, "Oh, it feels kinda quiet today." And then I [00:22:00] look, and there's, like, DMs flying everywhere, and I'm like, "Oh, well, they're just getting value differently-" Totally.

[00:22:03] Chenell Basilio: Yep ... and I just don't see it.

[00:22:04] Jay Clouse: Totally.

[00:22:04] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, it's behind the scenes a bit.

[00:22:06] Jay Clouse: Totally.

[00:22:06] Dylan Redekop: Totally. Oh, uh, just one last note on what you were saying about the engaging. We talk a lot about re-engagement campaigns for newsletter subscribers, right? Mm-hmm. To get people, to make sure they're, they're wanting to still receive your, your emails if they have gone cold.

[00:22:18] Dylan Redekop: So, um, you mentioned red flags. What do you guys do? Like, do you have certain, um, automations or anything set up in the back end that it's like- No ... somebody hasn't hung out, like, send them an invite to, [00:22:30] uh-

[00:22:30] Jay Clouse: We should, and now that we have the capacity we probably will put something like that in place. Okay.

[00:22:34] Jay Clouse: But, like, the temptation is, you know, if someone's renewing in the next 30 days and they've been inactive, try to reach out to them, which is better than nothing- Yeah ... but also probably too late.

[00:22:42] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:22:42] Jay Clouse: Like, we wanna go upstream further. I th- the term that's in my mind is, like, mid-boarding. Mm. 'Cause our onboarding is fantastic.

[00:22:49] Jay Clouse: Yeah. And we do have, like, literal off-boarding automations as well, but there's this middle period in the middle of the year where, like, you had a great initial experience, you probably had some wins, and then it's not [00:23:00] obvious what to do next- Mm-hmm ... without being, like, pretty self-driven- Mm-hmm ... in terms of using the forum, coming to events.

[00:23:08] Jay Clouse: Uh, so I, I often think, like, what can we do in the middle of the 12-month journey to make sure that you have a plan, or we help revise that plan, or give you more prescriptive steps?

[00:23:21] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:23:21] Jay Clouse: To a degree, people like to be told what to do next. Um, I think we could do a better, a better job [00:23:30] there, for sure. Um, but no, we don't have anything active right now, because when the team was more resource-constrained, meaning there was a smaller team and it was mostly just me-

[00:23:40] Dylan Redekop: Yeah

[00:23:41] Jay Clouse: it's kind of like, should you, uh, f- uh, improve your weaknesses or just double down on your strengths? There was a point where I was like, "Maybe we should just try to super serve the people who are most active," and that's kind of where I landed for a long time. Mm. Um, but you could make a good argument either way, I think.

[00:23:58] Chenell Basilio: You had a cap on the [00:24:00] member count before at 200. You removed that. How many members are you at now?

[00:24:04] Jay Clouse: Standard and VIP have, I think, 220 combined, and on the basic tier we have, I think, 120 right now. Okay. So we're at about 340 in total in the community.

[00:24:13] Chenell Basilio: Okay. How do you think about the size of the community moving forward?

[00:24:17] Chenell Basilio: Like, do you want it to grow to

[00:24:20] Jay Clouse: 600? I th- I'm up for the challenge. Um, I think people need community spaces they value, and I think [00:24:30] most community experiences, and I'm using an intentionally broad term, because I think the same is true for, like, in-person experiences. I think most community experiences are under-considered and poorly designed.

[00:24:40] Jay Clouse: And so if there's going to be community experiences that exist- I hope people trust me to make a better one. Yeah. And so if the lab were to double, it would cause some problems, and I would have fun trying to solve those problems. So I do think, what I realized and the reason I removed the cap was because [00:25:00] I wanted more density in a lot of different ways.

[00:25:02] Jay Clouse: I wanted niche density, I wanted ver- uh, platform density, I wanted geographic density because communities, they benefit from diversity, but they also benefit from some level of sameness.

[00:25:18] Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:19] Jay Clouse: I would love to empower more in-person events, and if I'm not gonna be on the ground at all of them, it would require some geographic density.

[00:25:26] Jay Clouse: I would love to have more productive, [00:25:30] like here's super nitty-gritty on what's working on Instagram right now- Yeah ... requires platform density. Yeah. Uh, some people come in and they're like, "Hey, I teach guitar on YouTube." And when they meet other musicians on YouTube, that's a different level of shared experience and knowledge transfer than somebody who's a movement coach.

[00:25:50] Jay Clouse: You know? Like, there's... You can learn from anybody, but there are some things you just learn better from people who are even closer to what you're doing. So it was [00:26:00] very hard to have a 200-member cap and density in any of those areas because if we're at the cap and we have 20 people who are really focusing on Instagram, really hard to create more density around Instagram- Yeah

[00:26:14] Jay Clouse: without kicking people out. So, um, yeah, removing the cap allows density, and I think density allows for smaller group experiences which, as a community grows, I think you just need to think of it as concentric circles- Yeah ... where you have different levels of experiences that are smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller groups.[00:26:30]

[00:26:30] Dylan Redekop: That's very, that's very thoughtful, and it makes a lot of sense. Um, in, in some ways, the more those groups form, they don't require your involvement as much, and it becomes just like a member-driven community to some degree- Yeah ... that you're comfortable with.

[00:26:46] Jay Clouse: I saw this when I was at SPI. I carried it over when I started the lab.

[00:26:49] Jay Clouse: The interesting thing about masterminds in particular, a lot of people stick around for years because of their mastermind group. And so we see that retention goes up when [00:27:00] someone's in a mastermind that's meeting, but engagement in the community as a whole goes down. So it's an interesting tension because the more people I get in mastermind groups, the more people renew, but also it removes some of the highest value, most potent posts in the broader community because they're just sharing it with their small group.

[00:27:20] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:27:21] Jay Clouse: So it's an interesting It's an interesting challenge to do- Mm-hmm ... to do masterminds and keep people engaged in the broader [00:27:30] community, especially for folks who are not in a mastermind. Yeah. You know?

[00:27:33] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:27:33] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, and creators are busy people, so it's like- Totally, yeah ... how do you expect them to do both?

[00:27:37] Jay Clouse: Totally. That's, that's like the core tension- Yeah ... in the community is like this is a uniquely busy person, so making an experience that is gratis- gratifying and fairly effortless to extract value is a challenge.

[00:27:52] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. You kind of alluded to having basic members, so how long ago? I think it was, like, a year and a half ago or two years ago [00:28:00] that you introduced that basic tier.

[00:28:01] Jay Clouse: Yeah.

[00:28:01] Chenell Basilio: People get access to, like, the content, but not necessarily the forum. You've changed that a little bit, I think, but.

[00:28:06] Jay Clouse: It's evolved, for sure. In the beginning, it was just, like- Well, first it's called the starter tier

[00:28:11] Chenell Basilio: Okay

[00:28:12] Jay Clouse: And, uh, people didn't like that because they're like, "I'm not just getting started."

[00:28:15] Jay Clouse: And I was like, "Okay, fair." And then I called it basic, and I don't think that's better. And going back to change the name of the basic tier is something that, like, I genuinely want to do, but the downstream automations and copy- Right ... and all the things I'd have to unwind and [00:28:30] fix with that, the switching cost is high.

[00:28:32] Jay Clouse: Yeah. So I haven't made the switch of the name yet. But the, the tier initially was basically just a bundle of all of my paid products.

[00:28:37] Dylan Redekop: Okay.

[00:28:38] Jay Clouse: Because, like, together all the paid products were, like, $1,300 of stated value, and it's like, you can join the basic tier for 699 a year. The people joined, but there was no, uh, there was no real community experience with that, and they would extract all the value from those products in year one.

[00:28:56] Jay Clouse: There's no real reason to renew, so why is this a membership? So [00:29:00] over time, we've added a community forum aspect to that. We've added monthly office hours to that, and that's certainly helped. Like, there are people who find real value in the basic tier and have renewed more than once. That's great, but I do find that folks who are early in the journey want a little bit more structure.

[00:29:19] Jay Clouse: So part of what we're doing in the next team sprint, changing things in the Lab, is we're going to be restructuring the basic tier. We're gonna restructure the VIP tier, uh, both pretty significantly, [00:29:30] I think- Hmm ... uh, to make those experiences better by meeting people where they are a little bit more.

[00:29:37] Chenell Basilio: Have you found that people upgrade from basic to-

[00:29:39] Jay Clouse: When they become eligible, yeah.

[00:29:40] Chenell Basilio: They do?

[00:29:41] Jay Clouse: Yeah.

[00:29:41] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Oh, there's an elig- eligibility factor.

[00:29:44] Jay Clouse: Right. That's the application. Yeah. So the eligibility criteria for the Lab is either earning $10,000 per month of, like, non-service revenue, so meaning, like, if you're running a services agency, that revenue I wouldn't really count in the equation of, of whether you meet that criteria.

[00:29:59] Jay Clouse: Okay. [00:30:00] Or having 10,000 followers on any individual platform. Could be email, could be Instagram- Okay ... could be TikTok, could be whatever. So one of those two things needs to be true to be eligible for standard and VIP. And I tell people that if you are eligible, you should join standard and V- VIP 'cause it's going to surround you with people like you.

[00:30:16] Jay Clouse: It's gonna be a better experience for you. So people who are in the basic tier who do end up getting to that area of eligibility, a lot of them have upgraded, which has been really cool to see.

[00:30:25] Dylan Redekop: Hmm.

[00:30:25] Jay Clouse: I don't think the basic tier is yet designed [00:30:30] to help people go from where they're at to meeting that without a lot of self-direction.

[00:30:35] Dylan Redekop: Right.

[00:30:36] Jay Clouse: Um, so that's what we would like to do, is try to be a little bit more prescriptive in the basic tier to meet people where they are and help them create a plan that hopefully gets more people to that point of eligibility and, and joins that. Um, yeah.

[00:30:49] Dylan Redekop: Is there a lot of moderation with your team in the basic tier, or is that a really, like, you joined and now it's your own-

[00:30:54] Jay Clouse: It's not as active as standard and VIP either.

[00:30:56] Jay Clouse: Yeah. Which is surprising to me because generally, [00:31:00] part of the reason we have an application and have separate tiers- It's 'cause if you think about, uh, if you have a membership where people are on different stages of the journey, typically folks who are in earlier stages have slightly more basic questions.

[00:31:17] Jay Clouse: Mm-hmm. They have nearer, they have, like, closer wins. Um And they also tend to ask for the most help.

[00:31:26] Dylan Redekop: Right.

[00:31:26] Jay Clouse: So in a space where you have, uh, people on different stages of the customer [00:31:30] journey, even if a small number of those people are on the earlier end, they will have a disproportionate amount of airtime, let's call it.

[00:31:39] Jay Clouse: And so folks who are a little bit more advanced feel like what they're seeing is mostly conversations that they're past. And so those folks start to question, "Is this space for me?" And I wanted the standard and VIP, really the core Lab experience, to be for folks who were doing this full time- Mm ... or could be doing it full time, which meant [00:32:00] that I had to create a threshold of being there- Yeah

[00:32:06] Jay Clouse: with the application. I thought that just pricing alone would be a threshold, and for the most part it is. Yeah. But, like, it's enough of a non-threshold that it wasn't, it just wasn't effective enough as a filter. But anyway, in the basic tier, it's just not as vocal as I would've expected. Mm. We have a good crowd that shows up to office hours, but yeah, I thought we'd s- be spending more time there.

[00:32:27] Jay Clouse: And, you know, [00:32:30] as a community builder, I think to myself, "We should try to create, uh, more conversation here." As a resource-constrained individual, I've kind of let it go, but that's another reason why we want to reevaluate and redesign the basic tier experience because if you're not participating in the forum-

[00:32:47] Chenell Basilio: Right

[00:32:48] Jay Clouse: and especially if you're not coming to office hours, then you're really just saying, "I just want access to these paid products." Mm-hmm. And hopefully you do that, and hopefully you extract value. But if, if not, then it's not gonna be [00:33:00] the best experience for you.

[00:33:01] Chenell Basilio: How do you... I always think of you, when I think of you, I think of, like, incredible onboarding, and I think you do an inc- a great job at that.

[00:33:08] Chenell Basilio: Thank you. You also do a good job at retention, obviously. But, um, how do you design a community, anything really, for an incredible onboarding experience, orient people, let them know what they should be doing? Like, how do you think through that, and how has it evolved for you?

[00:33:23] Jay Clouse: We've probably redone our onboarding, like, four or five times.

[00:33:26] Chenell Basilio: Okay.

[00:33:26] Jay Clouse: So every one of those times I would hope gets a little bit better. [00:33:30] But it is, it is important because a lot of people tell me that they just have a hard time getting people to engage and name your tool, and it's because people do what they wanna do, and for whatever reason, if they're not using your thing, they don't want to.

[00:33:46] Jay Clouse: And so why is that? Is it because they had a negative experience? Is it because they've had no experience? You can't have a good experience without having experience. Yeah. So onboarding solves, hopefully, both of those issues, to [00:34:00] say, "We're going to give you a positive ex- we're gonna give you an experience, and it's gonna be positive."

[00:34:05] Jay Clouse: And so what I try to do is periodically figure out, okay, what makes our happiest, most successful members happy and successful? And how do I try to tip the scale in my favor for everyone who comes in to be more likely than not to be that type of person? And the happiest, most successful members in the community are people who make friends.[00:34:30]

[00:34:30] Jay Clouse: Uh, they're people who are, um, engaged in our live sessions. So when I did onboarding most recently, I made two changes. Actually, I made three major changes. Number one was I shortened the onboarding, uh Course, we'll call it, where, like, people get in and I say, "Watch these five videos." That was getting a little big, so I shrank it to make it feel like I can do this in the same session that I just signed up in.

[00:34:59] Jay Clouse: [00:35:00] And in that onboarding experience, I'm hitting a couple of key highlights. One being, like, make sure you subscribe to the private podcast feed, because those people, even if they're not in circle, are more likely to feel like they're in touch with the community and they're extracting value. Yeah. A second one was, um, here's how to use the member directory to find people like you and things that you care about, because it's not obvious, the, like, kind of customizations we've done in the member directory to find people who are specifically on Instagram and running memberships.

[00:35:28] Jay Clouse: Right. I also set up a couple of DM [00:35:30] automations to ask people, "What are you trying to solve?" Or, "Who would you like to meet?" Because I recognize that introducing two people together who can learn from each other is a really high value, high leverage thing. So as we continue to improve this as a team, we're gonna be looking at, how do we make personal one-to-one introductions for new members a, just a standard part of their onboarding experience?

[00:35:56] Jay Clouse: I think it's still gonna be fairly manual. And [00:36:00] we just did our n- our latest round of mastermind matching, uh, kicked off this week, and my mandate to the team is, let's be really nosy about have they met yet? And, like, let's make sure the leader is supported, that they have found a meeting time, that they have met.

[00:36:16] Jay Clouse: I, like, overhauled here's how to run this mastermind. Because again, like, masterminds are a hugely positive part of people's experience if they meet. But a lot of groups just, like, fail to coalesce- Right ... because either a li- leader doesn't step up, [00:36:30] or one or two people kind of don't respond, and the leader is being too kind and, like, waiting for them, and so the whole thing fizzles.

[00:36:37] Jay Clouse: So short of hiring, like, staffed facilitators, we're still trying to say, like, "Let's try to make this member-led." But we may end going up the route of hiring facilitators. Hmm. Um, TBD. Extra costs, but, like- Yep ... probably worthwhile.

[00:36:53] Dylan Redekop: Yep.

[00:36:53] Jay Clouse: Uh, but now that we, again, have more capacity on the team, it's like, can we just be more ev- [00:37:00] involved in the two weeks following mastermind matching to make more groups more successful?

[00:37:05] Jay Clouse: So anyway, for any community, it's like figure out what makes your members the happiest and most successful, and then try to make it more likely that new members become those people.

[00:37:16] Chenell Basilio: I like that. Yeah, I remember when I joined the lab, actually it was pretty early. It was still Creative Companion Club.

[00:37:24] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:37:24] Chenell Basilio: But I do think- For sure ... you had the welcome video, and that, that always stood out to me. And so that's something I've le- Mm-hmm ... implemented for mine, 'cause I'm like, [00:37:30] "This is just brilliant." Like, it makes so much sense. Yeah.

[00:37:32] Jay Clouse: If I were to share two more secrets that, um- Please ... I feel very clever and pleased about, and now people...

[00:37:39] Jay Clouse: The, the challenge is everything that I do, like- Yeah ... a whole host of other memberships are like, "Yeah, we should do that, too." Yeah. And it's no longer special and unique. Mm. But I'll sh- I'll share these. The moment somebody purchases something, they have, uh, taken all the risk and extracted none of the value.

[00:37:56] Dylan Redekop: Right.

[00:37:57] Jay Clouse: And so, like, their peak excitement followed by peak anxiety. [00:38:00] And so after somebody joins the membership, the first thing they see is a, like, glowing testimonial from Andrew Connell saying, like, "This is the best investment I've made in my business." So that at least at that point they can be like, "Okay," like, other people, again, have s- have seen positive results from this.

[00:38:19] Jay Clouse: And then after they watch that video, they schedule a 20-minute welcome call with me. And those have been awesome. Yeah. Um, I think that's a really key part to the member experience because then I can learn a lot about these [00:38:30] people. It makes me better at mastermind matching. It makes me better at making introductions.

[00:38:34] Jay Clouse: Doesn't scale super well. Mm-hmm. But if somebody renews, I don't do a sec- second welcome call. Yeah. And I really, I care about retention more than anything else. So I'll do the welcome calls for as long as I can stand to do it. Um- But those touch points I think help a lot in onboarding, and is a big reason why people are like, "This onboarding is amazing."

[00:38:55] Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

[00:38:55] Dylan Redekop: Hmm.

[00:38:56] Chenell Basilio: Totally.

[00:38:57] Dylan Redekop: We are in Boise right now at Kit Studios [00:39:00] for... You're here for the Lab Offline, which you've talked about, as my voice is, like, dying on me here. Um, we did karaoke last night. I will not reveal any other details, but, um, how important is offline events, in-person events to really grow a community?

[00:39:18] Dylan Redekop: C- do you th- do you think your, um, the Lab would be where it's at without your t- last two events?

[00:39:22] Jay Clouse: I've come to Craft and Commerce now three years in a row, and the first year we didn't have, like, a full offline. We just did a [00:39:30] dinner on Wednesday night.

[00:39:30] Dylan Redekop: Like, a meetup kinda thing.

[00:39:31] Jay Clouse: Yes. Yeah. And even just that dinner led to...

[00:39:36] Jay Clouse: It was, it was open to folks in the Lab to come. And even just that dinner, people got connected and had friends throughout the rest of the event, and they started conversations. So I think three years ago, that first event, we had more people join directly from Craft and Commerce then than we did last year.

[00:39:51] Jay Clouse: And I'm not entirely sure why that is. I do know that the first year I also did the sticker thing on the badges. Um- Mm ... and I didn't do that last [00:40:00] year. So this year I was like, "Gonna do it again- Yeah ... this year." Hope it starts some conversations, hope some people reach out. So I don't know if it's important for growth.

[00:40:09] Jay Clouse: I do think it's important for attention.

[00:40:10] Dylan Redekop: That's what I was... Yeah.

[00:40:11] Jay Clouse: I think, I think there are a lot of people who come to the offline events, and for them, they're like, "This is enough. This more than justifies the cost of the year of membership." And that's part of the reason why we do it, because some people just aren't forum people, but if they can set aside two days on their calendar and take the plane and show up in the room, and [00:40:30] then just kind of surrender to the experience, they get a lot out of it.

[00:40:33] Jay Clouse: And at the level of folks that we have in the community, I really believe one or two conversations per year can more than pay for your membership, because there's huge leverage-

[00:40:43] Dylan Redekop: Yeah ...

[00:40:44] Jay Clouse: in certain things. Like, on, on day two we had probably a 20 to 30-minute conversation all about sponsorship that we almost skipped because, like, I, I started the conversation like, "Okay, who here has something to share that's working for them in the realm of sponsorship?"[00:41:00]

[00:41:00] Jay Clouse: And nobody said anything. And it became very clear, like, oh, most of you aren't even, like, really pursuing sponsorship. So then it became a conversation of how the people who are using sponsorship are doing it, and I think that's going to result in a lot of people in that room Trying out sponsorship in their business for the first time and probably paying back their membership very quickly.

[00:41:19] Jay Clouse: Yeah. 'Cause, like, the rates that you can charge on LinkedIn right now in particular, like you're gonna pay for your membership and one or two sponsored posts. So I think that's very, very productive, and that's exactly the type of thing [00:41:30] that I just try to, uh, emulate online too, is I hope that one or two of these experiments, one or two of these ideas just clicks for somebody and they're like, "Yes, that was the 16X return on- Yeah

[00:41:44] Jay Clouse: on my investment." So offline events are just a lot easier to, um, create more positive touch points in a very compressed period of time, and it just appeals to a different type of person. Like, there's just [00:42:00] a segment of people who just want to be in person and just want to take two days out to engage with us, and they're not gonna be super active in the forum otherwise, and that's totally fine.

[00:42:07] Jay Clouse: Yeah. So I think it's super key to retention. I don't know about growth.

[00:42:10] Dylan Redekop: Okay. Yeah, I've, I've... My mind was going at, like, if I was part of the lab and I came to this event, it'd be like, "This was so much fun. I'm, I'm gonna renew for this reason alone, let alone all the other benefits to joining." Um- Yeah. Hmm.

[00:42:24] Dylan Redekop: And I feel like, uh, we, we have Growth Reverse Pro membership. Uh, we don't have [00:42:30] a, like, offline event like you do, uh, or in-person event, but we do... When we come here, we host meetups and-

[00:42:36] Chenell Basilio: Yeah ...

[00:42:36] Dylan Redekop: and it's a great opportunity to meet people, and there's people who, you know, have renewed their memberships a few years in a row, and we hardly see them in the community, but they come here and it's like we're f- we're friends, and we, we chat and, and sure enough they show back up the next year and everything.

[00:42:51] Dylan Redekop: So I think it's a pretty powerful lever.

[00:42:53] Jay Clouse: Yeah. And I think you can do that. I think piggybacking on events that your community is already gonna go to is a good idea, and I don't think you have to have, like, a [00:43:00] full two-day dedicated experience- Right ... up front to do it. I think you could do, like, a dinner one night.

[00:43:04] Jay Clouse: You know? Mm-hmm. I think, I think that's like a very low-lift way of doing it. Outside of Crafty Commerce, that's what we do at, or did at CEX, it's what we did at VidSummit. Mm-hmm. Anywhere that I'm going, it's like, "Let's, let's see who's in town." Mm-hmm. "Let's pop something up." Um, and that's probably a good 80/20.

[00:43:19] Dylan Redekop: Are you gonna do more in-person events?

[00:43:21] Jay Clouse: I would love to. It's a particularly challenging season of life to do that

[00:43:24] Dylan Redekop: in. Yeah. Yes, you have a, a- But- ... young daughter and another one-

[00:43:27] Jay Clouse: Yeah ...

[00:43:27] Dylan Redekop: maybe on the way.

[00:43:27] Jay Clouse: Yeah. It's- Yeah ... it's just challenging. [00:43:30] And so part of the conversation Mal and I will have is, is, like, how do we make this feel less intense and unblock ourselves?

[00:43:40] Jay Clouse: Like, sometimes we get so overwhelmed by our vision of what would make this amazing that it becomes so big that we just end up doing nothing. Right. And it's like maybe we should actually just do smaller scoped things- Mm-hmm ... more often, and make a trip out of it. Like, maybe she and I should plan a vacation, and then part of that vacation is, by the way, [00:44:00] the f- the first night we host dinner.

[00:44:01] Jay Clouse: Like, it doesn't have to be that crazy, and I, I wanna do more of that. We, we had pr- uh, I think we only had one or two folks come internationally to this event, and last year I think we had at least a half dozen. That's

[00:44:15] Chenell Basilio: a lot. Wow.

[00:44:16] Jay Clouse: Um, folks outside the US don't wanna travel to the US right now, and I don't blame them.

[00:44:22] Jay Clouse: So I would like to- I do ... I would like to Yeah ... I would like to do a international event, but we were gonna do that in November this year, [00:44:30] and our due date is late October. So like that- That happened ... that blew that up. Yeah. Um-

[00:44:34] Dylan Redekop: Yep ...

[00:44:35] Jay Clouse: but yeah, next year I would like to do an international event. Mm-hmm. Will it be- Our, like, flagship op- flagship offline event in June.

[00:44:43] Jay Clouse: I don't know. Hmm. We'll see what the, we'll see what the feedback and the data says.

[00:44:46] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:44:46] Chenell Basilio: I have a friend, Mallory. She-

[00:44:48] Jay Clouse: Rowan?

[00:44:49] Chenell Basilio: Yes.

[00:44:49] Jay Clouse: Yes.

[00:44:49] Chenell Basilio: So she recently launched a membership. It's going great. Um, she's wondering how, how do you think about scaling a membership like that? Like, it's [00:45:00] doing really well, tons of engagement, people are loving it, but do you settle in for a little bit and then think about growth?

[00:45:06] Chenell Basilio: Do you not take your foot off the gas? Like, how do you-

[00:45:09] Jay Clouse: Um, there's context here that matters, I think, but let me try to speak in terms that can be abstracted. Yeah. I think it's risky for a community if- A significant portion of members in a short period of time are new. So let's say, [00:45:30] let's say you have the Lab, and there's 200 members.

[00:45:32] Jay Clouse: If something, if this podcast goes viral on YouTube and 200 creators wanna join, and so now suddenly the community is twice as big, but one out of every two people is brand new, the culture of the space is a little bit at risk because you don't have, you don't have enough culture protectors relative to people who just don't know any different or, or better.

[00:45:56] Jay Clouse: So I do think depending on the design of the experience, [00:46:00] if it's very peer-to-peer, I think you want, uh, thoughtful integration of new folks. If there's not, like, a big peer-to-peer component, and it's, it's more prescriptive, linear learning journey, I don't think that consideration is the same. I think, I think scale as much as you can and want.

[00:46:22] Jay Clouse: But if a lot of the, the value of the space is in the relationships between members, I think you, you wanna be [00:46:30] thoughtful about the speed of integration to protect the culture of the space. But if it's early, like, maybe that culture does- also doesn't exist yet, and you can co-create it with new folks. So I think it's important to look at, okay, the design of the space currently, the number of people who are in here, and it's going well, what is the bottleneck to protecting this experience?

[00:46:48] Jay Clouse: Or what are, what are, like, the risks of, of this? If it's going great, but she's also hyper-present, hyper-accessible, hyper-responsive, that doesn't scale- Yeah. Yeah ... [00:47:00] her individually. So you have to be thoughtful about that. You might have to change the, the design of the experience. If you change the des- the design of the experience, you have to make sure that you're setting correct expectations when people come in and not doing some sort of accidental bait and switch.

[00:47:14] Jay Clouse: So those would be the things I would look for. But otherwise, you know, if people like it and it's working, I also am prone to overthink things. So maybe just, maybe just go for it. Yeah. You are not alone. And then, like, solve- ... solve the, the, the good problems that come up.

[00:47:29] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. [00:47:30] Um, I'm curious, just a few more things on my head.

[00:47:33] Chenell Basilio: Common mistakes people make, or who shouldn't launch a membership?

[00:47:37] Jay Clouse: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Common mistakes are not setting, just not setting expectations, and allowing people coming in to name their own expectations, and not knowing what those expectations are, which makes it very hard to win with those people. So I think it's really important to start your membership and say, "What is the purpose of this space?

[00:47:55] Jay Clouse: What is our purpose for... Yeah, what is the purpose for this experience?" [00:48:00] And then making sure you deliver on that. You know, not overpromising and under- under-delivering in that way. People who should not do a membership, I don't know that's a... I don't know that there's, like, a person who shouldn't do a membership, but you should know what is true about how you wanna spend your time, and make sure you don't design a membership that is counter to those design constraints, essentially.

[00:48:23] Jay Clouse: Like, you should know, okay, here is what I want my relationship to this space to be, and then design it [00:48:30] to have those boundaries in place. 'Cause I think a lot of people create a space and it's like, "You get to hang out with me." And depending on how big your platform is, you're gonna have a lot of people who are now here expecting a lot of time from you.

[00:48:44] Jay Clouse: And if you're a people pleaser, you'll spend all of your time pleasing the people. Yeah. Which is a problem. So you have to be thoughtful about the, the s- the size and scale, aspirations, your ideal relationship to the space in terms of how you are inputting your [00:49:00] time and energy into it, and design the experience to fit that.

[00:49:03] Jay Clouse: I

[00:49:04] Dylan Redekop: like it. And I don't know if I can continue talking. But, but- The

[00:49:09] Jay Clouse: Adaptogens, they need

[00:49:09] Dylan Redekop: to adapt ... wait, I know. Come on, man. Um, this is very off-topic, but I think it's funny, because you have a lab fantasy football league.

[00:49:18] Jay Clouse: Yes.

[00:49:19] Dylan Redekop: And you did not win it this year. I did not win it this year. No. But somebody in this room did

[00:49:26] Chenell Basilio: Jay, I tried so hard to find space in my suitcase to bring that home. To bring the [00:49:30] trophy? Yes.

[00:49:30] Jay Clouse: Oh my gosh, that's so funny. Uh, I am pumped about doing that again this year.

[00:49:34] Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

[00:49:35] Jay Clouse: I love to do stuff like that. We did a, a Survivor fantasy league as well. Ooh,

[00:49:39] Dylan Redekop: okay.

[00:49:39] Jay Clouse: Uh, which was very fun. Uh, yesterday I was with Liz Wilcox, and we recorded a video to send to my wife.

[00:49:45] Jay Clouse: Mm-hmm. But then she was like, "Can we send this to the Lab Survivor chat?"

[00:49:48] Dylan Redekop: Love it.

[00:49:48] Jay Clouse: That was very fun, too.

[00:49:49] Dylan Redekop: So- Liz was on Survivor.

[00:49:51] Jay Clouse: Liz was on Survivor. Yeah. Yeah. Liz was a finalist on Survivor.

[00:49:53] Dylan Redekop: Right.

[00:49:54] Jay Clouse: And she's also, like, one of the most meme-able modern players, [00:50:00] because, like, she had kind of an epic meltdown, uh, that just won't leave the internet.

[00:50:05] Jay Clouse: So yeah. It's, it's fun.

[00:50:08] Dylan Redekop: Check it out if you haven't. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's great.

[00:50:11] Jay Clouse: Yeah. That

[00:50:12] Dylan Redekop: is great. Nice. I thought I ha- I had to bring it up since you were both in the room. And Chenell was the reigning champ. I could have, like, brought it

[00:50:17] Chenell Basilio: and had it

[00:50:17] Jay Clouse: sit right here. I know. It's, it's the- Yeah ... the silent, um-

[00:50:20] Jay Clouse: fourth party between us.

[00:50:23] Dylan Redekop: You have to go for a back-to-back.

[00:50:24] Jay Clouse: We will never let fantasy football come between us. Yeah. But we will continue to compete.

[00:50:27] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Totally. Oh. That's [00:50:30] awesome. Awesome. This has been awesome.

[00:50:31] Jay Clouse: Cool.

[00:50:32] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

[00:50:32] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, thanks for coming on the show finally. Yeah. We'll have you- For sure ... do it again and- Long time for

[00:50:35] Jay Clouse: sure

[00:50:35] Chenell Basilio: talk through everything else that-

[00:50:36] Jay Clouse: We just had to come all the way to Boise to do it.

[00:50:38] Chenell Basilio: I know. Right, that's it.

[00:50:39] Jay Clouse: Just three folks who never record in person recording in person. I love it. How about

[00:50:43] Chenell Basilio: that?

[00:50:43] Jay Clouse: Thanks for having me.

[00:50:44] Chenell Basilio: Awesome. Yeah. Thanks, Jay.

[00:50:45] Jay Clouse: Yeah.

[00:50:45] Chenell Basilio: Appreciate it. Where can people go to find you, and what's your main-

[00:50:48] Jay Clouse: Creatorscience.com.

[00:50:49] Jay Clouse: Search Creator Science in your podcast player. And my- Hey, Jay has a

[00:50:52] Dylan Redekop: podcast, everybody.

[00:50:53] Jay Clouse: I have a podcast. Yeah, very good. Um, yeah, creatorscience.com.

[00:50:56] Chenell Basilio: Cool. Awesome.

[00:50:56] Jay Clouse: Oh, actually, let me say, we have a [00:51:00] full teardown of how we think about memberships and build the Lab. It's a new free lead magnet at creatorscience.com/teardown.

[00:51:08] Dylan Redekop: Perfect.

[00:51:08] Chenell Basilio: And we'll put links to the episodes with you and I below as well. Yeah. Great,

[00:51:13] Jay Clouse: yeah.

[00:51:13] Chenell Basilio: Cool.

[00:51:13] Dylan Redekop: Thanks, Jay.

[00:51:14] Chenell Basilio: Thanks. Of

[00:51:14] Jay Clouse: course.