The community platform Mighty Networks closed on the fundraising round this week. - **Mighty Networks defines "middle class"** as a group of creators making at least $30,000 per year from digital subscriptions and payments. They aim to address income
The community platform Mighty Networks closed on the fundraising round this week.
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Mighty Networks defines "middle class" as a group of creators making at least $30,000 per year from digital subscriptions and payments. They aim to address income inquality in the creator economy, as the top 1% of creators earn 80% of all income produced.
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With over 210 million active daily users (19 million in the US alone), WeChat is the 5th most widely used social app in the world. WeChat's entry into the e-reader and newsletter spaces means new opportunities for founders.
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Founder Tara Reed hit $100,000 in monthly revenue by teaching people to use a no-code tool. Apps Without Code is an 8 week bootcamp that helps users focus on building a sustainable no-code business.
Want to share something with over 70,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing
🤑 Mighty Networks Raises $50M to Build Creator Economy Middle Class
from the Indie Economy newsletter by Bobby Burch
Mighty Networks has raised $50M to build the "middle class" of the creator economy. The company provides opportunities for founders to build their followings without catering to algorithms.
Investing in creatives
Mighty Networks 101: Mighty Networks is a SaaS platform that allows emerging creators and brands to start and grow online communities. The company helps creators cultivate communities, create memberships, offer events, and host live online courses. Mighty Networks has elevated such personalities as YouTube yoga star Adriene Mishler, XPRIZE founder Peter Diamandis, and comedian Amanda Seales.
Fueling creators: Mighty Networks' Series B round was led by ed-tech venture capital firm Owl Ventures. The capital will fund product development, create new payment options, and fuel new market expansion. Mighty Networks has raised $67M total in venture capital.
Creator economy divide: The creator economy has a noticeable income divide between its top performers and the remaining majority. The top 1% of creators earn about 80% of all income produced in the creator economy. The Harvard Business Review notes that only 2% of creators on Patreon made the federal minimum wage of $1,160 per month in 2017. And on Spotify, artists need about 3.5M streams per year to earn a full-time minimum-wage gig of $15,080.
Leveling up: Mighty Networks CEO Gina Bianchini argues that asking creators to rely on content alone is unsustainable, and that platforms have exploited creators for too long:
We can't build a thriving creator movement on an exhausting, unfair dynamic where content creators rent audiences from big tech platforms, are required to produce a never-ending stream of content, and get paid pennies for it, if they get paid at all. Creators need to own their own community on the Internet, where members meet each other and get results.
A mighty mission: Mighty Networks defines "middle class" as a group of creators who generate over $30K per year from digital subscriptions and payments. Part of that effort is demonstrating that creators don't need a huge following to reach $30K per year. It takes about 30 dedicated fans paying about $1K per year, which Mighty Network says is comparable to a year’s worth of therapy, career coaching, or yoga.
Borrowing attention: Mighty Networks aims to go against the traditional methods of becoming a successful creator, particularly in relation to lack of ownership. According to Gina:
Renting attention from Big Tech is a dangerous game. You’re building an asset you don’t own and which you can’t control, where the rules (and algorithms) can change at any time.
Costs: Mighty Networks offers three subscription tiers, including a free option. Its most popular offering, the Business Plan, costs $81 per month when billed annually. Creators retain ownership of their member lists, including email addresses and analytics.
Mighty Network’s growth: Founded in 2010, Mighty Networks has more than 10K paying creators, brands, and coaches on its platform. In 2020, the company’s ARR grew 2.5x and annual customer growth increased by 200%. Mighty Networks also reported 400% annual growth in payments.
Competitors: Mighty Networks faces several competitors hoping to elevate creators, including Tribe, GroupApp, Pico, Disciple, Honeycommb, TopFan and others.
What do you think of Mighty Networks' aims to build a creator middle class? Share in the comments.
Subscribe to Indie Economy for more.
📰 In the News
🍎 Apple's new privacy update goes live this week. The update allows users to opt out of targeted ad tracking.
🇮🇳 India demands that Facebook and Twitter remove posts criticizing the country's handling of COVID-19.
🗣 New Amazon tools will allow merchants to speak directly to customers for things outside of order statuses and returns.
🎶 New Facebook feature streams Spotify within the Facebook app.
📺 Roku customers may lose access to YouTube TV following failed negotiations between Roku and Google.
📱 WeChat Ranks as Fifth Most Widely Used Social Apps Globally
from the China Bytes newsletter by Camellia Yang
WeChat is taking preorders through its social media app for its new e-reader, The WeChat Reader. With over 210M daily active users, including 19M daily active users in the US, WeChat is a space to watch.
China's technology landscape
Due to China's centralized social system, there are not as many indie hackers as there are in the Western world. The majority of developers will join the traditional four biggest tech firms in China: Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi (BATX). Other rising tech companies include Huawei, DIDI, JD, and ByteDance.
WeChat is owned by Tencent ($780.9B valuation), and started as an instant text and voice messaging tool. It has now has become the "app of everything," from payments, newsletters, online shopping, social networking, games, and now, a COVID-19 passport.
WeChat hit over 1B monthly active users in Q4 2020, and ranks as the fifth most widely used social networking app globally.
Here are the numbers:
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330M monthly active users use WeChat Video for video calls.
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There are over 20M WeChat Official Subscription Accounts (newsletters), with the average user subscribed to 10-20 accounts.
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There are over 3.8M WeChat mini-programs (sub-applications) within its ecosystem, with 830M monthly active users.
Opportunities for founders
Content creators:
Make use of the WeChat Subscription account, which provides content creators with powerful functions such as peer recommendations, search, data analysis, CRM, paid content, and e-commerce.
Developer/programmers:
For most of the products that you could find on Product Hunt, there is an equivalent WeChat mini-program available. Founders can make use of the WeChat mini-program, which provides advanced features such as e-commerce, task management, gaming, videos, and coupons within the WeChat ecosystem. WeChat mini-programs are expected to generate $689.9B in transactions by the end of 2021.
Have you used WeChat for growth? Share your experience in the comments!
Discuss this story, or subscribe to China Bytes for more.
🧠 Harry's Growth Tip
from the Marketing Examples newsletter by Harry Dry
100K followers is a lot. It's funny to look back.
I'd hang out on forums, help people out, and tell them about my site. That's how I started.
In the words of Paul Graham:
You can't wait for users to come to you. You have to go out and get them.
Go here for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.
Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more.
🖥 How Apps Without Code Gained Its First 100 Customers
from the Why It Works newsletter by Bhumi
It's estimated that, by 2024, low-code application development will account for more than 65% of all app development activity. The Harvard Business Review contends that empowering today's teams start with low- and no-code training, and recommends that founders seek out tools to strengthen these skills.
Apps Without Code
Apps Without Code is an online school for no-code entrepreneurs. It is structured as an eight-week bootcamp that teaches no-code and provides coaching on the business side from idea generation/evaluation to launching, marketing, and sales.
Founder Tara Reed teaches people not only how to build an app, but also how to make money. Her target audience includes people and teams seeking to learn learn low-code and create an independent income stream with their ideas.
Tara realized that she wanted her curriculum to focus on building a business, not just on building an app. She began incorporating monetization strategies, idea generation, and validation techniques, and positioned the bootcamp as startup coaching in addition to no-code tool training.
Founder Tara Reed
Tara intentionally designed this business to fit her desired lifestyle. She left a "grow at all cost" startup to start Apps Without Code:
I was feeling kind of icky about where I was with my first company. We were making some money, and we had raised money, but I realized that I had chosen the wrong kind of business model and path for what I wanted my life as a CEO to be like. And there was this other opportunity to teach low-code...[it was] a chance for me to redo everything with the lessons I'd learned in my first company.
As a parent, balance is important to Tara. It's important to her to have downtime, and peace is a top priority:
How big do I want this thing to be? With every level, you have to reset the conversation around where are we going, what's the goal, what does success look like?
First 100 customers
Here are some of the actions that Tara took on the road to 100 customers, and the outcomes recorded by each:
Action: While working on another idea, Tara blogged about how she was building an app without writing code (circa 2014).
She also gave a local TEDx talk about how she was building her business.
Outcome: Huge influx of emails from people asking whether she could teach them how to build their own apps.
Action: Tara set a goal to help five people, and emailed 150 of her blog subscribers offering to review their app ideas.
Outcome: This resulted in 20-25 conversations. Tara helped five of those subscribers build their apps for the "randomly made up price of $900."
Action: Tara stopped working on her other business idea and jumped into Apps Without Code full-time.
She opened enrollment again and doubled the price.
Outcome: 70 people signed up for the next round. Tara built the curriculum in real-time, while coaching others.
Action: Tara built an email list of potential customers by doing social media streaming events, free workshops, and webinars every week. She would use the events to show people what was possible by building an actual app during the livestreams.
She also launched affiliate programs with targeted groups of people who already had audiences on Instagram or through newsletters.
Outcome: In Jan 2019, Tara reached $100K MRR by teaching 106 students per month.
You can learn more about Apps Without Code, and Tara's user acquisition journey, on the Indie Hackers Podcast.
What steps helped you hit 100 users? Share in the comments!
Discuss this story, or subscribe to Why It Works for more.
🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick
by Tweetmaster Flex
I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:
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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Nathalie Zwimpfer for the illustrations, and to Bobby Burch, Camellia Yang, Harry Dry, and Bhumi for contributing posts. —Channing
