🚀 Member-driven businesses you should be following

Hey there,

You might remember me mentioning in my last email that there's never been a better time for member-driven businesses and communities.

It's a trend that's here to stay.

We're witnessing a shift in power right now, from institutions to *individuals*, across various industries.

The creator economy is growing — 50 MILLION (yes million) people became creators in the last decade (source: Maven) — and it doesn't look like it's going to slow anytime soon.

Today, I wanted to share with you some member-driven businesses that were founded by creators and are doing incredibly well. Some are established, some are burgeoning.

Why's this interesting, you ask?

Because if you're thinking of starting your own member-based business, you need to follow others in the space to see how they've done it. You'll gain inspiration, pick up key tips, and importantly, learn what NOT to do.

Let's dive in. Oh and thanks to folks on Twitter for these awesome recommendations!

​Lenny Ratchisky​

I'm subscribed to Lenny's weekly newsletter, so I speak from personal experience when I say it's packed with gems. Lenny writes a weekly advice column about product, growth, working with humans, and anything else that stresses you out at the office.

​The Designership​

The world's leading community for designers to meet, share, learn and grow. At Designership, members can meet, share, learn and grow with over 80+ ambitious UI, UX, Brand and Freelance Designers from all around the globe.

​Tropical MBA / The Dynamite Circle​

Tropical MBA is a podcast for location-independent entrepreneurs, hosted by Dan Andrews. Offshoots of the podcast include a community for entreprenuers (The Dynamite Circle) and a job board for remote posts (Dynamite Jobs).

​The Stack​

Built by Sharmadean Reid, The Stack connects women across a network of topics including wellness, business, beauty, culture and society. They just launched their first community app.

​Net Ninja​

Shaun Pelling started Net Ninja 6 years ago to teach people how to code through YouTube tutorials. Shaun now offers pro membership for access to his courses.

​Traffic Think Tank​

Traffic Think Tank is an accelerator for your SEO skills, network, and career. Its founders, Nick Eubanks, Matthew Howells-Barby and Ian Howells, monetized an email list they had already grown. To date, they have 761 members each paying at least $99/mo.

​Stratechery​

Stratechery provides analysis of the strategy and business side of technology and media, and the impact of technology on society. Weekly articles are free, while three daily updates a week are for subscribers only.

​2PM Inc​

Founded by Web Smith in 2016, 2PM is a newsletter curation of up-to-date analyses and summaries of key news reports covering the intersection of media and commerce, and how those principles are applied elsewhere. Executive (paying) members also get access to a forum hosted on Discourse.

​Somewhere Good​

Founded by Naj Mahal, Somewhere Good is a mobile app that connects people and then fosters that connection in a solely group setting, across a diversity of interests — such as a birdwatching collective for people of color or an anti-capitalist book club. They raised $3.75m in a recent funding round.

​Weekend Club​

A virtual co-working support group, Weekend Club is where ambitious founders cane come to stay motivated, get helpful feedback and ship side projects faster with like-minded people.

The takeaway:

Even though this is just a small selection, it proves that member-driven businesses can take all sorts of forms.

What form could yours take?

Well, before you launch into building a member and/or community-based business of your own, try and establish what your unique value proposition (UVP) is, and how your members would want to receive it. Once you know that, you'll be able to start taking the tools and building what you need to launch.

If you're thinking "that all makes sense on paper but I've no idea where to really begin", I'm running a live-learning cohort in August for people curious about launching membership-based businesses. In just 21 days you'll have a capstone member-driven project ready to launch — all using no-code tools.

​➔ Here's more info on the cohort and how to join.

I want to help as many people as I can take their ideas and turn them into ready-to launch businesses.

If you're ready, join us in August and I'll see you there 👋

Cheers,

Ben