Thesis: There will be a rise of $1M/month “paid communities” over the next 5 years. Even a handful of $5M+/month paid communities. A few probably go IPO. It’s SaaS-like MRR returns without having to compete against Microsoft. No investing millions to create... See more

It may be more likely to be pay-to-play. Design takes time and effort. Content creation takes time and effort. Everything that goes into a shiny digital footprint – website design, hosting, platform service subscriptions – costs money. Compare this to a random book club meet-up advertised through a single flyer made by hand and stapled to a few... See more

New social networks have typically struggled to monetize due to their small audience sizes, as they are unable to achieve the scale to make meaningful revenue from advertising. Paid communities, however, supply an engaged and paying audience, providing an alternative route to sustainability for independent social networks.

Instead of building a community around a business, a company should strive to create new business models around its community. Why place community before market? Because if you focus on making an insanely good community, the profits will follow. I’m not saying you should throw away your GTM plan; on the contrary. Instead, it would be best to have a... See more