Notes and Takeaways from How to Earn 100 True Fans and Your Financial Independence
When I listened to it: March 2021
Why I listened to it: I have a general interest in community building. One of my previous companies, GroupCurrent, played in this space. You typically don’t see communities get acquired. They’re tricky investments. One weird thing about communities is that they often get worse as they grow. And they’re typically built by a single individual instead of a scalable system. This podcast episode provides an inside look at a unique community (Unreal Collective) that gets better as it grows and was recently acquired.
Go to the podcast episode for the recording or scroll down for my notes.
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My notes
About Jay Clouse
Jay Clouse (@jayclouse) is the founder of Unreal Collective, a Y-combinator for creators. Unreal Collective recently sold to Smart Passive Income (SPI). Jay’s superpower is building communities.
How to become a creator
Start with services (e.g., freelancing), or if you have authority, start with coaching, writing, and teaching (e.g., books, courses, workshops). Don’t start with a podcast ⇒ it’s a long game.
Generate income to buy runway and time to build what you want to.
Jay’s Unreal collective example:
Started a 12-week program for free
Used testimonials from the free 12-week program to sell first paid one
Got customers via cold outreach.
Email: “Hey, I have a membership opening. I think it would help you go from A to B. Can we get on a call?”
Call: Qualify then, if a fit/qualified, “I can tell you this will work for you if you want to do it. And if you do, that would be great.”
Over time, it got easier with more social proof (success stories/testimonials) and word of mouth.
How to build a thriving online community
High touch and connection ⇒ Get to know everyone really well
Integrate new people
Get the pricing right with membership fees ⇒ Know who your people are and what they can pay for membership dues based on where they are. (E.g. YPO ⇒ $3,500 per year per member ⇒ $100M / year total)
Put a lot of energy into things that don’t scale ⇒ Community scales when the community scales itself.
In an online community, the cost of leaving is near zero (compare this with when you drive across town to an in-person conference) ⇒ the key is to get people to see other people they know and knowing that if they leave, they will be missed.
Relationships are key ⇒ The value comes from the connections. You have to do a ton to make sure people are building those connections.
There’s a difference between fans and community members
Fans go to see the Beatles
Community members go for the other members ⇒ you gotta make sure they’re talking.
Treat Twitter like a community to get more out of it:
Ask questions
Get people’s opinion
Engage with people when they engage with you
Be helpful to people
Connect people
Clubhouse
Your success on Clubhouse depends on who your friends are (join rooms with people you know ⇒ they might invite you on stage).