Notes on Craigmod's Running a Successful Membership / Subscription Program
Craig Mod's 2021, second-year review
Main take-aways:
- May want to start a membership program (patronage) at some point.
- In the meantime, focus on creating (writing, livestreams, products) in order to build the muscle that you will eventually be paid for.
- Members can themselves be additive to the creative process.
- Do the work you must do.
- Launch a membership program with a 5-year intention in mind. It takes that long to start generating value.
"I thrive on external formalities and my work lives and dies by deadlines. So for me, a membership program has an accelerant in the best possible way."
Craig observed that he took on more ambitious projects due to the nature of the membership program.
Horizon Goals
It's really important to ensure you have long-term goals that you're working towards.
Horizon goals are goals where you never arrive. Goals you can work on until you die. Goals that you bring your whole self to, every day of your life.
Start a membership program only if it helps you make progress towards your horizon goals.
Beware that the membership program can become a distraction. Make sure not to pick metrics aligned with the membership program, but metrics aligned with horizon goals that are enabled or accelerated by the membership program.
His metric: "archetypes" - intriguing inbounds from people he respects.
On Twitter
"A billion tweets fade instantly."
"But, the path to the book – collimating experiences into book form – nourishes and challenges in ways I fail to believe a million tweets ever can."
I need to have a strategy for how I'm planning to use My Twitter.
On Scale
Scale has become a big topic for me the past few years. Craig found that working on businesses at Silicon Valley scale doesn't do anything for him, and I find that I agree.
He decided to "refocus my life and work on a scale that excited me. Namely, my current scale, which has a direct reach of some 30,000 people and a secondary reach of a few hundred thousand."
I believe I want to work at a much smaller scale on much longer time horizons.