Nathan Barry walks through launching a membership community in two phases: start private with 5-10 early members at a discount, then go public. Use a waitlist, live sessions to build connection when the group is small, and lock in long-term pricing for founding members so they stay.
I tell people if you're launching a community, try to get 10 people in. And I have like this two-phase approach that I call private opening, public launch, because you have this chicken and egg problem when you launch a membership or a community and try to get people in. Why would people join if they're joining for people and there's no people in there? If you're going to launch a membership a couple of months beforehand, just talk about it in your emails, use link triggers, build a waitlist, and ultimately offer some incentive for the people who are paying the closest attention to jump in early. So we have members in the community who have been there for 4 years. We're paying 25% of the current price. Basically, you build this understanding that the best time to purchase something new from Jay is immediately. You only need 5 to 10 people in the beginning. And if you have a small group, I would really over-index on the number of live sessions that you do.
