Minimum Viable Promise

In 2021, I spent a?lot?of time thinking about community. When?Unreal Collective was acquired?and I was brought in to help build the Community Experience team at SPI, my life?became?community building.

As a result, my community building palette has been refined. I’ve separated the ideas of “community” and “membership” in my mind, created a?Community Building Crash Course?and an?Advanced Memberships & Community Building?workshop, and even launched the?#Tweet100 Social Club.

Every week, I speak with new creators who are building a community or membership. And the most common mistake I see is their starting point.

They want to build a community…because they want to build a community.

But a community is like any other product you create – it needs to serve a purpose for the customer.

You need to start from a place of, “What does this community solve for the individual? What is the job to be done?”

What I see more often is a bullet-point list of benefits to joining the community:

• Access to likeminded people
• Live events
• Tools & Resources

Yada yada yada. And I’ve been guilty of explaining my membership offerings in bullet points too!

But when you do that, it’s easy to fall into a trap of feeling like you need to offer?more?features.?More?benefits to add to the list so that the overwhelming length of the benefits makes someone say, “Boy, what a bargain!”

And that puts you right into a position of needing to constantly fulfill all?those promises you made…and you might not even know which promises people truly opted in for in the first place!

Instead, I recommend you determine your?Minimum Viable Promise.

Your Minimum Viable Promise (yes, the acronym is still “MVP”) is the bare minimum that you need to promise (and fulfill) for someone to be interested enough to purchase membership.

This idea first entered my world in my Creative Elements?interview with Dan Andrews?of Tropical MBA. He said:

One “Guru-ism” that was shared with me, I objected to when I first heard it. And the idea was,?what is the least you can do for your customers? I thought, well, what a horrible, horrible idea. And it took me a while to learn from experience that this is actually a very useful idea to consider, which is, it’s essentially about elegant value delivery. And also not trying to be too smart that there are things leavers that you can find that are like small leavers that move big things for your customers.

The point isn’t being lazy. The point isn’t delivering a?minimal?amount of value…the point is getting clear on the bare minimum you can promise your customers that gets them to buy in.

…and then you can surprise and delight them with more.

Now, anything you sprinkle on top is a fun, added bonus. It’s not an expectation or something you’re accountable to delivering week after week…it’s all just gravy.

This is a?much?more sustainable way to think about building a membership. And it’s something I’ve kept top of mind as I’ve been?designing my?own?membership?for the coming year.

Cultivating community is really, really hard. It’s a long game, and you need to think from the beginning about how you can protect your energy. You want to design the community so that you are incentivized to continue to make it better…which is easier if you don’t over-engineer or over-promise in the beginning.

I’ve shared this all in terms of communities and memberships, but this really applies to any product or service you offer.

The next time you’re creating something for sale, I encourage you to ask yourself:?What is the minimum viable promise that will make this worth $XX?

Once you determine that, you’re set up to blow your customers away with the amount of value you’ll provide on top of that.

Enjoy reading Creative Companion? If so,?subscribe to my Sunday edition.

#86: Mitch Long AKA OG Pickle [Networking] – Building brands for influencers and becoming a professional streamer

Mitch Long (also known as OG Pickle) is a professional streamer, Twitch Partner, and PUBG Partner.

PUBG Partners have an average concurrent viewership of 150 + on Twitch or 50,000+ subscribers on YouTube and they broadcast at least 3 times per week.

That’s a high bar – and being a Twitch Partner has a high bar too. Within a 30 day period, you must stream for 25 hours, Stream on 12 different days, and average 75 concurrent viewers.

Mitch also played a major part in the development of the Maverick brand with Logan Paul and other influencer brands as well.

In this episode, we talk about Mitch’s experience building brands for influencers, the opportunity for creators today to sell merch, how Mitch found initial traction on Twitch, and how Networking played a role in his success.

Listen to the episode ??

Thanks for reading! I hope you had a great holiday and spent some time reflecting on the year ahead.

If you're looking to level up this year, I recommend enrolling in one of my most popular workshops:

• Community Building Crash Course
• Memberships & Advanced Community Building
• Email Newsletter Workshop
• Annual Planning Workshop
• Invisible Selling

Comment below what you thought about this issue, and have a great week!

Cheers,

Jay

Hey, I'm Jay Clouse! And I'm here to help you find?creative independence.

Most of my creative energy is directed towards my podcast,?Creative Elements, and my newsletter,?Creative Companion.

I've created a number of courses and?workshops?including my best-selling?Podcast Like The Pros?and my?Freelancing School Course Bundle.

I want to support YOU on your own journey to creative independence.

The path is long, but you can do it. And I'll be right there by your side, encouraging and inspiring you the whole way.

You can also connect with me on?Twitter?or?Instagram.