Don’t Repeat these Monetization Mistakes
I’m not perfect at what I do.
While I’ve yet to meet anyone who is perfect at their job, I’d rather turn my failures into lessons. I want your community to experience success.
I’m wrapping up this series about community monetization by sharing some lessons learned.
In the last two posts, we covered how to ensure you're prepared to monetize your community. Then, I gave some ideas about how to monetize your community.
Today's final post in the series is a bit different. It’s about mistakes I've made while trying to monetize new communities. I’ve observed key pitfalls from 3 real-world-examples where I've redacted the name of the community to protect the founder's privacy.
Pitfall #1: The "Build It & They Will Come" mindset doesn’t work.
I had the privilege to work with a close friend who had growing respect in his industry as an accomplished chef. Him and I had worked on several projects together and had become co-founders for a new company we both wanted to launch. We each believed we knew who we were trying to reach and how best to reach them, but our assumptions led us astray.
As we were preparing to launch a new community for the business, we skipped a critical moment that now informs how I build communities. We made the mistake of believing that if we loved what we were building, so would everyone else. This was a dumb mistake. As tempting as this thought may be, it set us up for failure. We had the course material ready, the platform prepared, the branding (which I might add was an exciting achievement), yet we lacked the key fixture of the community: interested people. [Major facepalm moment in retrospect.]
As our launch day neared, we wondered where we had gone wrong. Why had only a few people expressed passive interest? Why weren’t people jumping into this incredible opportunity? The reality was that we built it for ourselves – which can work, so long as everyone that you’re trying to reach is nearly a carbon copy of you and your own interests. We skipped the market research phase and our revenue dreams were dashed as a result.
Lesson #1: Do market research. It’s an obvious mistake, but one I see countless communities miss in an attempt to launch fast. A core group will help significantly with this.
Pitfall #2: Vision and marketing are both critical, but not enough.
I approached another founder I met through a community we were both participating in. He had a large following on a few different platforms and decades of experience within his niche. He was getting ready to monetize the community, but upon first glance, I could tell something was off. People we’re joining steadily. There was initial excitement about the idea behind the community… but that wasn’t enough. The community had been “live” for roughly 2-3 months and yet the forum was a ghost town: Minimal engagement, spotty introductions, but no real substance. No events. The community began with an idea to care for his niche. It was a great vision, but there was no playbook to show members how to achieve that vision.
The writing was on the wall. The community didn’t have a clear internal identity. This meant that we needed to spend time clarifying community DNA (vision, clarity, pain points, features). It was like building a plane that wasn’t just mid-air, but already descending. We didn’t have the time or resources between us to get the community to where it needed to be and we lost interested newcomers who found the community through his extensive marketing channels. Despite our efforts, the community declined into disrepair.
Lesson #2: You need more than just vision… you need to show people how to achieve that vision within the community.
Lesson #3: You also need a strong launch strategy and the allocation of sufficient resources to sustain early growth.
Pitfall #3: Value leads to money.
I was already working with this founder in a separate capacity. He’s a tech guru, with a million ideas flying around all at once. He wanted to teach other people to make cash with the same tech skills he learned on his own. His initial goal was to charge a premium price for a community in exchange for offering a little bit of his time, some resources, and an undetermined playbook to copy what he had created. The vision was high, the follow through was not.
In an effort to test the community, he decided to launch too soon in my opinion. He didn’t clarify what the community existed to do, and it became a singular channel dedicated to random questions, ideas, and pitches revolving around the tech world. In sum, the “community” never became one, it was a highly active channel, but monetization was illusive because there wasn’t a clear structure, and there wasn’t a clear value proposition. Over time, it became more of an advice column rather than a vibrant, value-driven community with clear deliverables.
Lesson #4: If you want to charge, you need a strong value proposition that justifies that price. Value received should be 3-4x as much as the price for the membership.
Tips to Creating a Strong Monetization Strategy from the Start:
Be Compelled by Vision. You need a clear vision for why your community exists. It should be about aspiring to achieve something that no one can do alone.
Know what Your Niche Needs. You need to know who you’re working with. Study what matters to them. Go deep into their pain points. Struggle with and alongside them. Learn from them.
Offer a way to turn Pain into Progress. Hypothesizing solutions won’t be enough to get people to engage in your community. You need to offer clarity about how progress can be achieved through the features you offer.
Develop a Launch Strategy. If you want to monetize, you need to treat it like a real business. Don’t assume people will join, you need to think hard about how to get your community in front of your niche and what launching really entails.
Create a Timeline. I’ve worked with founders who think they can launch their community within an hour and others who think it’ll take a year to launch. Aim for 2-3 months.
Hire a Community Manager or Launch Partner. Not trying to be salesy here, it’s just wisdom. If you want to develop a monetized community, you’ll save yourself a few month’s time and a lot of $$ by gleaning from someone else who knows how to do so.
Have Fun and Be Generous. If your community becomes a nuisance, kill it. Communities should be a place where you’re energized because you’re able to create the environment your business aims to create. Lead with generosity, make it fun, and you’ll be way more successful.
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If you have a community you’re wanting to monetize, but you’re struggling to get it off the ground or unsure where to start, I help founders do just that. Fill out an interest form and we’ll be in touch.
