I sold my first membership!
After a year, I decided it was time to start making some money.
www.StripTogether.co is an artist community where pretty much anything goes. Contributors (Strippers) love this, but I know that that's something which might not leave advertisers quite so keen.
That left me looking at the SaaS model. My community had already been completely free for over a year, and to continue growth I knew that free memberships were here to stay. Soo freemium was the way to go.
I thought about what I could offer, and even brought my community in on the brainstorming through my Instagram Story. (I use the story to take impromptu polls and surveys - it really helps me know my customers).
From that I learned that the most desired features were improved drawing tools, and a restricted Strip option to cut out the riffraff).
And so, on Sunday I launched Strip Club!
Today I sold my first membership. The annual option at $80/yr.
I have plans to keep playing with the offering and pricing, but for now - I'm sharing to say thank you. This is such a great community, and I've learned a lot from all your examples.
Cheers! :D
Edit: and while we're at it, critiques on the Strip Club page? I'm all ears.
Took a look, but TBH, I was a bit afraid to click, based on your description/name. striptogether + community where pretty much anything goes + contributors (strippers) + strip club -> made me think it was going to be a NSFW website. I'm sure it's something you can get past, but the naming is just so close to something that could be considered NSFW.
Haha, it's cheeky for sure - but I'd rather go all in on the language than tip-toe. The name is a joke, but it sets the stage for artists to not take things too seriously.
Man I really love this idea. How's your Instagram engagement going out of curiosity? Is it helping you land new users?
IG is my primary channel for growth. I post comics there 2-3 times a day, and engage with my audience through stories on the daily as well. The account gains about 10-20 followers/day. The website then typically sees 5-10 new sign-ups a day.
edit: It's not my only channel though, I make use of others as well that aren't as consistent, but they can bring in waves of artists when they do.
That's brilliant, I never really considered IG as a channel for my own stuff but its going on my Trello board now. Looking forward to seeing more updates.
The key here is that I've tried to grow an IG account for my own artwork in the past (https://instagram.com/strip.daddy) but I found that you need to be crazy consistent to see any progress. IE: daily artwork. I can't fit that into my schedule, but with StripTogether I can outsource that part of the job to the community.
Congrats! The website looks great :)
Appreciate it!
Great job Matthew on your first sale! WOOHOO =)
Thanks Jonathan! We're at a whole TWO now :D
Hey Congratts Matthew. I really like the design of the site.. it has a good comic book feel :) Keep up the good work!
Thank you :) Finding that balance between a comic book feel, and a more modern (airy, shadows instead of borders, etc) UI can be a bit tricky - always tweaking things!
Congrats! Based on the description I was not sure what I’m getting into but looks very nice and useful 👍
Maybe it’s just my phone but the scrolling is really frustrating (iOS Safari) on mobile it just keeps „sticking“. Do you use any scrolling library on your site?
Thank you!
I don't use any scrolling library, hate them myself...but I might have some weird CSS going on. I'll look into it!
Hi Matthew,
I had to solve an issue that sounds very similar. You might want to set the CSS ppty
-webkit-overflow-scrollingtotouch.Good luck!
Awesome, thanks for the tip!
Congrats Matthew! I think a big lesson learned here is to not shy away from asking the community about pricing/monetization.
Thanks for sharing your experience and keep at it!
Thank you. I try to be as open with my community as possible, they're a lot more receptive knowing that it's all run by one guy.
Congratulations! Great work. I like the concept of the website a lot.
How did you decide on the price? Why $8 and not $19 or even $29?
My audience is a largely younger people and artists, neither of which tend to be flush with cash.
Also, through their drawing submissions, the community really brings a lot of the value - and so I'm not positioning this as though I'm just selling to them.
Everyone involved is bringing value and so it's more of a partnership. With Strip Club, I'm actually considering reducing the price a bit to see how it affects pick-up.
I'd test doubling the price, you might be surprised.
Experiment with both a lower price AND a higher one. Let us know how it goes.
Hey matthew, that second link is down for me.
Cannot GET /forum/www.StripTogether.co/clubI love the site btw!
Thanks for the heads up! I forgot the https:// :)
Congrats Matthew!!
Thanks!
Congrats on the first sale Matthew!
Cheers!
hey Matthew, saw you at the last Vancouver meetup : ]
I think this niche is probably all about the community building, maybe you could try emphasizing that just like IH is doing. Your design style is great btw!
Hey thanks! Coming from you that's a great compliment :)
Community building is definitely my focus - I'm looking into more communication options like Discord or a forum. Folks like the idea of a Discord, but a forum would help with SEO... Perhaps both!
pp