Dave Selinger, Founder of Deep Sentinel, shares insights on the booming world of paid communities, revealing that successful ones can generate revenue quickly with low startup costs. He discusses examples like Tiger 21, emphasizing the balance between exclusivity and member engagement. The conversation also dives into the intricacies of modern home security, spotlighting Deep Sentinel's innovative tech that combines AI with real-time monitoring to combat neighborhood theft. Selinger's experiences from Amazon shed light on fundraising challenges and the evolving landscape of security solutions.
01:29:06
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
menu_book Books
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
question_answer ANECDOTE
Tiger 21
Sean Ellis discovered Tiger 21, a paid community for high-net-worth individuals.
It costs $30,000 annually and boasts roughly 850 members, generating substantial revenue.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Tiger 21 Meeting Format
Sean Ellis's friend, Keith, shared his experience in Tiger 21, describing the typical four-hour meeting format.
It involves portfolio defenses, guest speakers, and exclusive events.
insights INSIGHT
Paid Community Pros
Paid communities can grow quickly, especially with an existing audience, and be fun to manage.
They require minimal startup capital and can be highly profitable due to lean teams.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
The book follows Arthur Dent, an ordinary Englishman, whose house and planet are about to be demolished. He is rescued by his friend Ford Prefect, an alien researcher for the 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. Together, they embark on a journey through space, encountering various characters such as Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed president of the galaxy, Trillian, a human woman, and Marvin, a paranoid android. The story involves their adventures on the spaceship Heart of Gold, which has an Infinite Improbability Drive, and their quest to understand the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, which is revealed to be '42'. The novel is known for its humor, satire, and imaginative storytelling.
MFM #160
The guys breakdown paid communities
Why paid communities are good businesses:
You can make them kinda fast (much faster if you have an audience)
Fun to run if you like the interest
Don’t need a lot of start-up capital and can have a lean team
Quite profitable
Cons:
Churn can be high
Likely can’t scale to me huge
Won’t get better with size necessarily (if user content-driven, deal-driven, or otherwise, more can be better. If connection related, less is better)
Seem challenging to sell if there’s a leader
To make a successful community:
The amount of money you’ll make is directly proportional to the amount of revenue the members will make being connected to each other multiplied by the amount of people who’d sign up.
Enthusiasts of RC cars? Likely don’t make much value from it, so you can’t charge a lot. But if it’s huge (and get better with size) then can work
Underdog, us vs them, united interests, info that wants to be private, highly disjointed online,
Communities the guys like:
Tiger21: A peer group for people above with a net worth of at least $10m.
Numbers: It boasts ~850 members. They generate revenue through a $30,000 membership fee and also run ads to its members. Do an estimated $24m at least in sales
Sold to private equity recently
Why join?: Learn and make connections.
Evanta
Was known as CXO Acquisition Co. and Sports Leadership Acquisition Co...so maybe started in sports?
Evanta derives most of its revenue from event sponsorship. Event sponsors pay a fee to advertise at each event with pricing dependent upon the quality and level of executive attendance.
121 Unique communities worldwide 6,500 Participating organizations 253 C-level programs across 10 countries 83% of Fortune 100 represented 18,000 Participating C-level executives 87% companies with revenue of $1B+
Sold for $275m in 2016 to CEB and then Gartner
Had $17m in cash when bought
12x income...so made $23m in profit!
SoleSavvy
A SoleSavy membership provides you the tools and resources you need to successfully purchase the products you want for retail (starting with sneakers)
Raised $2m
Started as a Slack group (the waitlist for the group grows by 400 people per day)
5,000 members. They charge $33 a month so $160k MRR
Cook groups. AK Chef is a big one. 2000 ish members at $50.
NurseLifeRN
Instagram meme page with 1.2m followers
BALA (a shoe for nurses company) uses this as the main advertising channel.
Shaan predicts these niche communities can launch brands and hold equity in companies who need their captive audience to grow.
Inertia
Shaan explains inertia:
Are you doing what you are doing just because or does it make you happy and are you chasing what you actually want
---------
Have you joined our private Facebook group yet? Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion and join thousands of other entrepreneurs and founders scheming up ideas.
My First Million 