10 Lessons I Learned After 282 Days of Managing a Paid Online Community

I am Younes Ben Amara, a content entrepreneur from Algeria.

A longtime lurker here, I have something to share with you today.

I think there is not sufficient content about African founders here, let alone the Algerian ones.

I think I am among the few Algerian here if not the only one who post something at all.

First of all, I think that this type of content on real true experiences in managing paid digital communities is rare in the Arab world.

Therefore, I am happy to contribute my experience in this field with my journey in building a paid digital community called Radeeff.

Fortunately, I documented as much detail as possible about my launch and management of the project in my newsletter issues, starting from this one "I will launch my own project soon, God willing", which will give you an excellent overview of how the idea formed and I provide the outline till the implementation stage.

Overview of the community

Before mentioning this information, let's see an overview of the community and its details.

Radeeff Community Details:

• Community name: Radeeff.
• Number of paying subscribers: 90 subscribers.
• What it offers: Training in writing of all kinds, translation and the basics of freelancing.

Tech stack:

• PayPal (for payments and automatically renewing subscriptions).
• Telegram (channel and group closed to subscribers only).
• Zoom (paid account).
• A Google One account (because the space for the exclusive library of Radeeff on Drive is large, thankfully).
• WordPress (On which we built the landing page/website of Radeeff community).

Available plans:

• 3 months - $20 (the most popular).
• 12 months - $60 (the second according to popularity).
• 6 months - $35 (the least chosen by subscribers).

The most effective marketing channels:

• Word-of-mouth marketing (existing subscribers bring others...many thanks for their support), Twitter, Quora, my blog, respectively.

The number of freelancers I cooperate with to manage the community:

3 (a community manager, a Radeeff's Twitter account manager, and a freelancer for various miscellaneous tasks such as the design and coordination of digital books…).

Costs

• The initial launch of the community cost me an investment of approximately $4,500 with working full-time (+8 hours per day) for the community for all these months.

Here is cost breakdown:

• Building a website that is a landing page.
• A personal stipend + monthly personal expenses so that I devote myself to the community.
• The costs of recurring technical tools such as Zoom, books, specialized courses in communities and developing my personal skills, which are paid once
• Advertisements, sponsorship and various partnerships (e.g. sponsorship of content writers, tools or people who contribute to reinforcing the community's reputation).
• Costs of freelancers and those I deal with constantly + costs of workshops presented by trainers outside Radeeff that are exclusive to Radeeff.

Lessons I learned:

If paid communities provide value, they will thrive.

According to what I know until now, if paid communities provide value, they will thrive.

Read The Elements of Value article by HBR to know what value is because value, commercially, already has an ambiguous concept for many people.

Hire the early adopters of your community.

Regarding recruitment: I mean who will help you. I recommend you hire the early adopters of your community, that is the first to subscribe, and interact or your followers before you launch your community. Those are the best candidates.

It is difficult however, it is possible.

The community building and management is so difficult; however, it is possible if you organize your time, are self-disciplined, and take your community seriously.

Include your existing product in the benefits of subscription to your community.

If you have products (books, software, or other consulting services) before you launch your community, include them in the benefits of subscription to your community.

Not convinced?

Read: Frame your product as the ‘gift’ in a bundle (Newsletter of Ariyh).

Do not make discounts.

Personally, I don't make discounts because I believe that the value I provide is worth a hundred times more than what the subscriber has paid.

Also, I don't commend you to open the doors for free subscriptions unless absolutely necessary and for a good reason. It be better that the one who joins the community for free, has the following requirements:

1. She already knows the value of what she gets, and that the community is not just another Facebook or Whats App group.
2. She already provides a great value for the society, and increases the value that the members get.

Building in public as a marketing vehicle.

Building in public helped me promote Radeeff community. This very post almost reveal everything about building my community.

Talk to your subscribers, a lot.

When you launch a community, have an interview with every subscriber to talk with her, and to know the reasons why she subscribed, you have to provide what they need in the future.

In Radeeff, we ask every subscriber in the first session: what are the 3 most important goals you want to achieve through subscribing in Radeeff?

No problem if she changed her aims afterwards. The point is that you set the initial goals, and if they changed later, adapt to them.

the three factors of community building success.

Many success factors of a community are boiled down to:

1. Warm-hearted communication
2. Integrity and transparency
3. Clarity

Failure to plan is planning to fail.

Provide a clear blueprint for the workflow in your community by answering these questions:

What does your community provide in detail?

For example, in Radeeff we provide the following:

• Our specialty: all types of writing , translation, and the basics of freelancing
• Two sessions for every subscriber per month, each of which is 45 minutes. The topic of the session is defined by the subscriber.
• Complete access to the exclusive library it includes previous sessions, workshops, and files.

What does not your community provide?

It is a significant question for clarifying the vision. For example, in Radeeff, we didn't provide:

• Content writing services for companies or individuals. we help you to find perfect freelancers but I do not provide the service itself unless you contracted with me as a freelancer apart from Radeeff.

• Recruitment services: that is to participate as a freelance writer to work for a company. We help qualify you to be a writer whom many employers want to hire. We do not guarantee you a job; however, some Radeeff members need to hire freelance writers and we nominate the qualified members for them.

Start even if you are not ready yet.

It is not necessary that everything should be ready to launch your community.

Here are some examples:

• Literally, It's me who started to promote Radeeff and I actually launched it while the website was not ready.

Only Telegram group was created! I even explained what is the community when it was just mentioned in PDF file and the slogan wasn't defined.

• I wrote the vision and mission after the launching of Radeeff.

Radeeff was launched on 22nd of February 2021, the vision and mission were written on 17th of October 2021.

Younes asks

What is the idea of the community you think of launching?

Originally published in Arabic and translated with modification by Shaimaa Elhosan, Founder of Easywordoo