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First MRR and $1K on launch day!

So far, Ness Labs and the Maker Mind newsletter have been funded through sponsorships and consulting — both time-consuming and unpredictable. Yesterday, I launched the Ness Labs membership to my newsletter audience.

This is a huge milestone as it's the first time ever Ness Labs is generating proper MRR—as in recurring revenue! The goal is to create a sustainable revenue stream so I can focus on creating great content and being helpful to the community.

I was initially planning on only offering an annual membership, but with everything that's going on, I thought it would be nice to give people more flexibility. So I ended up creating a $50 yearly plan and a $5 monthly plan.

I made exactly $1,105 in new memberships since launching 12 hours ago. After all the work I've put into writing free articles and the newsletter, this feels like a massive hug from my readers! 🤗

Both plans include:

  • Mind Match: a service where I hand-match members for virtual coffees. I include a discussion guide to help them have interesting conversations.
  • Partner deals: I negotiated some offers on mindful productivity and creativity apps, tools, and courses. It's a win-win add-on for members and partners and it's much easier to negotiate these compared to sponsorships, so I'll keep on adding to that directory.
  • Events: obviously online only for now.
  • Member newsletter: a monthly digest with exclusive content, new offers, community highlights, etc.

Next week, I'll launch a proper community where members can connect with each other.

In terms of growth, I'll keep on writing the free weekly newsletter, and hopefully in a few weeks I'll have a good idea of what percentage converts to the paid membership. Excited to grow this community!

  1. 5

    Already up to $1k/month, what a start! Congrats Anne-Laure!

    1. 1

      Thanks so much, Courtland! 🙏 I wish it was $1K a month, it's a mix of annual and monthly subscriptions. But the goal is to get there soon!

  2. 2

    Congrats Anne-Laure! You're absolutely killing it and it's a great privilege and big inspiration to watch you and Maker Mind, Ness Labs grow :)

    1. 1

      Many, many thanks, Preetam! 🙏

  3. 2

    Fantastic results, and they clearly show the power of creating and nurturing a great community. Congrats!

  4. 2

    Congrats Anne! Been following your progress and it's great to see you are making it. Cheers

  5. 1

    Great job! What platform will you use to allow the community to connect with each other?

  6. 1

    Great achievement! How did you manage to have such a consistent output rate and do not struggle to find topics to write about? Gratulations Anne-Laure

    1. 1

      Thanks so much! The two key things are blocking time for writing and always generate new ideas. I wrote a bit more about it here if that helps!

  7. 1

    It's inspiring how you've built this community and keep moving forward with it. Congrats @anthilemoon

  8. 1

    Looks interesting! I noted for future membership when getting more resources.
    If you're need something like art, animations, or mobile app, just ask, and I maybe help with my unique fast prototyping project for free (experimental). http://animationcpu.herokuapp.com

  9. 1

    How big was your audience before you got paying member?

    1. 1

      I have almost 9,000 email subscribers!

  10. 1

    Congrats! Super excited to be a part of this! :)

    1. 1

      Thank you so much for your support, Merott!

  11. 1

    Thank you for sharing! It's always inspiring to learn the backstory of how someone got started and 'made it'. Congratulations @anthilemoon! Look forward to following along your journey.

  12. 1

    Congratulations! Your service seems really helpful, I just signed up and look forward to trying out the handbook! All the best for the future :)

  13. 1

    Huge congrats! Your content is really inspiring!

  14. 1

    Congrats, amazing results!

  15. 1

    Congratulations! I’d be curious to know what percentage opted for monthly vs annual and what channels are you using to grow your list?

    1. 1

      Thank you! 2/3 went for annual. Mostly using Twitter as a growth channel, and my existing newsletter :)

      1. 2

        I've been monitoring closely content creators for a while.

        My feeling is that the best way to move from a free to a paid publication/community isn't selling additional premium services, but rather asking your current subscribers to support your work, and giving them a premium service as a complimentary benefit.

        Have you ever considered this angle?

        This is an extract from a Judd Legum interview on the Substack blog that seems to confirm my hypothesis:

        “From what I’ve heard from my paid subscribers, it’s just that they really want to support this kind of journalism, and they feel good about it when I do that kind of work. They feel empowered and they feel more informed and so that’s what’s motivated them. And that’s something I didn’t anticipate either. I thought it was really just the paywall that motivates people and the fact that you were withholding content, but I think for most people that’s not it.”

        https://on.substack.com/p/a-growth-masterclass-with-judd-legum

        1. 1

          This is super interesting. And I think you may be right. I'm probably going to rebrand these as supporter / member based on this. Thank you!

          1. 1

            Keep me updated. I hope one day I’ll be in a similar position with my side project and would love to see how it goes!

  16. 1

    Congrats Anne, Great fan of your articles 💯

    1. 1

      Many thanks, Abinaya! 🙏

  17. 1

    Wow. 1k Recurring? GOOD! Thanks for sharing! Keep us posted!

    1. 2

      Not really! It's a mix of monthly and annual memberships. So they are all recurring but not on the same timeline. Thank you so much!

  18. 1

    Contratulations Anne-Laure. You deserve it!

  19. 1

    Congratulations Ness Labs! You deserve this.
    This is so awesome you're building the community

    1. 1

      Many thanks for all your support, Fajar! 🙏

  20. 1

    That’s amazing news Anne-Laure, congrats!

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