Hey there,

Yesterday I sent out an email from james@productizeandscale.com, thinking it would make things feel more "personal."

There's just one problem... I can't receive emails to that address! 😬

I only have "send as" permissions set up, so despite asking for people to reply and provide feedback, nothing ever landed in my inbox.

Included below is the original message. If you have any patience left for me, I'd still love to hear your reaction to the idea.

So sorry for doubling up on the emails!



Introducing: The Productize Community

The question I hear most often from people interested in buying the Productize course is, "How active is the community?"

The honest answer is "not very," but I think that's more from a lack of attention than a lack of interest.

So, I went to the whiteboard and mapped out what I think a "best in class" community for productized business owners would look like.

Here's what I came up with...

  1. Private, Application-Based Membership – We'll vet every application for quality and culture fit to maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio.
  2. Paid, With A ≥ 10x ROI – Every member will have skin in the game, but we'll overdeliver on their investment or issue a refund. No long-term commitments or lock-in.
  3. Flexible Participation Options – We'll use a combination of Slack-like chatting, forum-like discussions, and direct messaging to suit any schedule or communication preference.
  4. An Ever-Expanding Resource Library – We'll curate the best discussions into a searchable database of guides and playbooks, so the membership gets more valuable with time.
  5. Engaged, Transparent Community Management – We'll have an open forum for feedback and publish monthly retros on how we added value for members. We'll also have a zero tolerance policy for bad actors and politely show unengaged members the door to make room for people who are a better fit.

As promised earlier this year, I started building out the structure for the community on a platform called Circle, and it's in a place where I feel comfortable introducing the concept to others.

You can see a first draft in the screenshot above, but ultimately I'd like to include features like:

  • Free lifetime access to all Productize courses
  • Private guest workshops or Q&A sessions
  • Member spotlights/office hours
  • A searchable member directory
  • Group accountability challenges
  • Business journals & experiments
  • An expansive library of resources and inspiration
  • Mastermind matchmaking & support

And, of course, we could always add even more features based on feedback from active members.


So, what do you think?

As a member of the Productize audience, you're pretty firmly in the target market for this new community.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on all of this, even (especially?) if they are negative.

Here are a few things I'm particularly interested in:

  1. Does this address a need/desire for you?
  2. Which of the features is most appealing to you?
  3. Are there missing features that you'd like to see?
  4. What do you love/hate about other communities you're in?
  5. What are your "Hell yes!" and "Hell no!" price points?

Feel free to reply to this email or, if you'd prefer, share your thoughts through my private ZipMessage inbox.

Look forward to hearing from you!


James Sowers
Productize & Scale