How Membership Entrepreneurs Can Avoid Burnout and Build Long-Term Success: Wisdom from Justin Ferriman Memberium

[00:00] Micah: Hey everybody, it's Micah Mitchell with the Membership Site Success Show. And today we have Justin Fariman, the founder of LearnDash, now also the founder of Bright Growth, brightgrowth.com. Justin, welcome to the show.

[00:14] Justin: Thanks for having me, Micah. Pleasure to be here.

[00:16] Micah: Yeah, man, I'm excited about this. You have a very interesting story.

[00:20] Justin: I want to start us at the beginning.

[00:23] Micah: So how did you get into this whole tech space in the first place?

[00:29] Justin: I'll give you the short version. And it was like 2012, I was consulting in the e-learning space for a large consulting firm. And I was at a client site and we were talking about learning management systems. And I was a fan of WordPress, knew that it was open source. And then we were talking about open source learning management systems for this client. At that time, I went to my hotel. I looked up for an open source LMS option on WordPress just because I was curious. And nothing existed. So I started a blog. This was March 2012. I started writing about the concept of WordPress LMS. People started signing up to learn more.

[01:08] Micah: And I found a developer.

[01:11] Justin: I started shopping for developers or agencies. And in October 2012, found one. They built the first version. And then I launched in January 2013. Used freelancers in the beginning until revenues got to a point where I started hiring folks, support folks, developers, employees of the business. And so that went on from, let's say, 2013 with the launch. And then I exited in 2021.

[01:40] Micah: Gotcha. And for anybody not familiar with LearnDash, it's a WordPress learning management system. And nowadays, a lot more than that. But in the early day, I think I heard about you probably, I didn't realize how close it was to when you were getting started. But it was digital marketer. They wanted to use LearnDash for everything, right? They were kind of seeing the light of certifications and things like that. And I think that always before you, before LearnDash, I feel, and maybe there were others doing it that I didn't know about. But before that, people would talk about wanting to do those things. But there wasn't really a platform for it, right? They'd want a progress bar or a checkmark or something. And you'd have to kind of do it manually. What was it like to be you growing that company, meaning as you hit certain thresholds of subscribers or team members?

[02:40] Justin: Yeah. So initially, I was mostly concerned about getting people to purchase and use the software. That first four months, I reinvested everything, any profit, any revenue from the business back into the software. So I was just paying my freelancer pretty much whatever bill he gave me and wasn't using the money for anything else, but to just fix the bugs, to fix any issues with the offering, which I think can translate to not just in software, but if somebody had like a membership site, to reinvest in just cleaning things up and making it ideal for the customers. And those early adopters, they were giving me all that feedback. I still had my job at the time, and I wasn't sure where things were going to be going with LearnDash. So as the revenue became clear that I was making more in that than I was in my consulting career, and I decided to make that switch, then it became about competing in the space and trying to get more customers and get more people into the ecosystem. I thrived in the first few years by over communicating by being extremely responsive. I was working support because I didn't know how to do development. So I was at the front lines with the people using my software. I would put myself out there at different industry events. I would constantly be talking to people and listening to their issues often and trying to give them solutions. And it's very hands on in those first years. Now, naturally, as more and more customers, you can start getting tens of thousands of people using the software. It becomes less of a possibility. And it became more about offering the channels for people to give the feedback and for employees to interact with them and designating certain folks that would always be interacting with the suggestions that came in by doing outreach programs, by webinars and things like that. I know you're very good at the webinar route and fostering community around that and connecting with your audience in that way and not hiding behind a computer, which I think is tempting to do when you have a lot of members or customers of any kind is just to close the doors and windows and just focus on the other activities. But what often makes people successful in the beginning, that human touch, that big businesses can't give or don't give, that is what I found helped LearnDash continue with the success going forward is having that face to the name and the very open dialogue between the customers and what we were offering.

[05:21] Micah: How much along the way were you thinking about personal brand and business brand? Because obviously you're thinking about business brand, but to what extent? Because I know some of it just happens to you, right? As you're doing some of this, but did you think about that much or did it just kind of happen some?

[05:38] Justin: It just kind of happened.

[05:40] Micah: I didn't.

[05:42] Justin: There's probably a time where I was like, I should build a personal brand because people often recommend that. But LearnDash is far more popular than Justin Fairman. People have heard of LearnDash. They have their own experiences with LearnDash in terms of the software. They just have that reaches further than my name. And so I just kind of piggybacked on that. I focused on building the brand. And then if I told people like, oh, yeah, I'm Justin from LearnDash. I'm like, oh, OK, yeah, I've used LearnDash. And I was OK with that. I wasn't trying to build a personal brand. I was trying to build a business. In that case, LearnDash. And then as you alluded to, like now it is a little bit more my name. In fact, it's kind of switched because I coach now. And folks that I coach typically have heard of me or in some ways have heard of LearnDash and then kind of know me through that. But it's less about my company Bright Growth. Now that brand, it's more just about the relationships and people doing business with me. And so that's kind of flipped a little bit. I think that's often the case in services versus products.

[06:51] Micah: Yeah. And for people listening to this right now, they may be kind of wondering how this applies to a membership site because obviously LearnDash, you're a software for membership sites. But I think really we're all just subscription businesses, right? So even though you're providing a software and someone else might be providing a training, it's kind of the same business. Did you ever did you consider people buying LearnDash a membership of sorts? Did you provide a membership to them?

[07:21] Justin: I like the way you phrase that because, yes, I was selling software and had customers buying into that software, but it was a subscription. And I had to earn that subscription every year. In our case, it was a yearly payment instead of monthly. And so a lot of the thought around what we were providing was how do we continue to provide value and trust with the customers? And I think that translates right over to memberships in terms of the content and the product.

[07:50] Micah: How do you continue to provide value, over provide on the value versus the price?

[07:55] Justin: So we had our yearly subscription. And when that came up, I wanted people to see it on the bill or get the confirmation and think, yes, I want to keep with this because I've gotten so much in the year. And that could be in the software world, it can be dangerous because the temptation is to just add feature, feature, feature, feature, feature to a point that becomes detrimental because it complicates your software, obviously. So we tried to implement other areas of value in terms of office hours and webinars and interacting with our Facebook group. Obviously features as well, but we are very intentional with the features that we put out. Partnerships where possible where we could offer some kind of deal for folks, just constantly providing value.

[08:41] Micah: Maybe an interview with somebody that had a successful course and trying to catch somebody at different parts of their journey with the software. So some people just starting up, other people were established. Some people had clients that they were using the software wasn't even for themselves.

[08:56] Justin: So trying to provide value at these different touch points for people. So when that subscription renewal came in, they were like, oh, okay, yeah, I'm going to keep up with this. Now with membership sites, and I've seen a lot of membership sites and membership sites with and without courses, obviously, because of what LearnDash was and how it was positioned. And it was a similar kind of approach. I mean, the folks that created a course, for example, but then never did anything with the course or added any more value or extra lessons, webinars weren't very accessible. They would have success for a little bit, but then over time, that success would start to wane, especially if they're trying to bill monthly. If you're going to bill a recurring payment of any kind, the stakes are a lot higher.

[09:44] Micah: If you're just selling a one-off course or e-book or whatever, then that's typically an easier sell, but obviously, it's not going to generate as much revenue as, say, a membership site would. So as you very much well know with Membarium, when you have a membership site, you need to keep providing some kind of value.

[10:02] Justin: And part of knowing what to provide is listening to the people that have purchased.

[10:07] Micah: Yeah, it's interesting. You were talking earlier about how it's easy to hide away once you have some success, some members, but it's also kind of the early death of your brand, your company, whatever, if you do that. And I think you hear about it in bigger companies, how engaged is the upper management with the front-end customer and so on. But I think in memberships, also in software companies, I can't help but see some of the parallels in what you're saying to a normal membership site, where they just keep creating content, let's say, instead of making the same content more dynamic, easier to consume, easier to implement. They'll keep creating, and pretty soon they're in areas where they're not an expert, really. You know what I mean? They're just kind of like, you know, hoping to build more business. I think with a membership site, it's almost opposite, too, where you're saying, hey, we're going to develop features for our software, but we really also want to go provide the training. I think with a membership site, sometimes, maybe you have some examples of this, people can provide the training, but the more they can somehow provide some sort of functionality of any sort to a customer, the stickier that's going to be for that user, right, whether it's goal tracking or metrics or something. What have you seen membership site owners do to be stickier than just keep grinding out content?

[11:35] Justin: Most people think like, all right, I'm going to create a membership site, and this is the content I'm going to start spitting out, and I'm just going to do it forever. And you don't want to do it forever, or at least you want to have a better roadmap in terms of the type of content you're putting out. Now, the things I've seen, swipe files or resources that, as you described, another one that's kind of common are events, in-person or virtual. So they can be a multi-day virtual event that the members get access to. Maybe it's bi-yearly, maybe it's yearly. If it's in-person, these tend to be higher ticket items as well. That you can either offer a discount to the members or offer it for free, if that makes sense. Usually the online events, that makes more sense. So I've seen people do that.

[12:25] Micah: Obviously, the office hours are a good one because that one, you don't have to have anything prepared ahead of time.

[12:31] Justin: You can maybe field some questions and then touch on certain subjects as you have an hour or two hours of these office hours. And people really love that, which you can then repurpose and put onto your site. It is more content, but it's a little bit, you're doing a service by giving those resources for other people that come into the program a little bit later. Especially if you're answering certain questions several times. So those are typically, to your point, checkpoints or any kind of minimal software to help guide them through a process. That's good. If it makes sense, depending on what they're teaching, if they have a software that would help the members achieve their goal in a quicker way than that. That is a very sticky way to get them in. It's also more labor intensive and often comes with a cost. But if you have a membership, you don't have to start there. I would never start there. But if you have a membership site that's relatively successful, then that's a good avenue as well.

[13:30] Micah: Let's talk a little bit about kind of the crossover between those two, a membership and a software, which I think is these companies who are creating apps and putting them out on mobile. So, right, I'm part of a few programs where I use the app pretty heavily. You know, I'm not still part of some of them, but some of them I am. And when I really think about what's in there, like let's say an exercise program, right? That could be in a membership site, but it's much more useful in an app when you're out trying to exercise. Have you dealt with many, you know, I know you've done different types of software development. Have you really looked at developing an app? Would you recommend it to a membership site owner? If so, you know, what type?

[14:15] Justin: That is entirely based on the type of membership site. In the case of physical fitness, yes. I think that would be a great avenue to go. And there's a lot of different solutions out there to make it easy. There's even software for exercise apps that you could pay monthly. And I think those prices depend on how many users you have. Even with LearnDash, there's a way to make the LearnDash site an app through third parties. And so that's always a viable option. However, you have to think about what it is you're teaching or training to and if that is best consumed or viewed or read on a phone. I think this is a conversation. And by the way, I would say more often than not, the answer is no. This is something that I've encountered a lot with people that would ask for the app. I think they think, oh, I want an app that sounds sexy. That's a really cool feature I want to have for my... That's a value add. People are going to find value in that. But I mean, how many apps do people have in their phones? And how many times a day are they using all those apps? It's not very often.

[15:23] Micah: I personally haven't bought a course and thought, yes, I get to use my phone to view it.

[15:30] Justin: I usually like to sit down with my computer and fire up the video or something and watch the video.

[15:36] Micah: And unless it's exercise and even still, sometimes I usually just use my computer and set it up and follow along with the exercises.

[15:46] Justin: So it's not as important as I think people want it to be. But if you're going to do it and it's going to provide value, you need to go all in with it. It almost needs to be like the focus of the offering, not like this extra add-on. Otherwise, people won't really care.

[16:01] Micah: That's smashing advice. Because yeah, a poorly done app is almost like, why bother? Versus if it's a fit for your business and you really do need it, then you can build a nice app and charge for it and charge a decent price and be viewed as software instead of training, right?

[16:19] Justin: Exactly. And I like to think about YouTube and there's a YouTube app. But chances are most people use YouTube just by going to the website and watching the videos on the computer. I do sometimes watch on my phone if my computer is not around. It's like my second option. But I'm more often than 90% of the time, 95% of the time watching a video on my computer. And so if YouTube, the most popular website for viewing video, is mostly used on the actual website compared to like a phone, then that's probably going to be the case for anybody's membership content as well.

[16:56] Micah: That's a great point. Funny enough, I even on my phone just use the website, just use Chrome for YouTube. I don't use the YouTube app.

[17:03] Justin: I mean, you can get the app. It's pretty nice.

[17:07] Micah: Yeah, I probably should. But it's funny too that most websites are mobile responsive enough that if somebody does want to consume your website through a phone, they'll probably be okay if they're on the go. True. So at the different levels, let's say that a membership site goes through, right in the beginning, they've got to overcome building the site, selecting platforms and all of those things. Did you ever get somebody wanting to use LearnDash? And let's say they're not familiar with WordPress. Did you ever say to those people, hey, maybe you should go find some SaaS? Or did you think, hey, it's still a good idea to engage with WordPress and get our WordPress LMS?

[17:50] Justin: Obviously, the primary objective of any business is to get more customers. So we would look for ways that it made sense for a customer, a prospective customer to use LearnDash and WordPress. However, yes, we did recommend other SaaS solutions. If we got a feel for in the pre-sales conversations, and I remember when I was doing the pre-sales conversations, like I would definitely feel people out with a heavy bias towards WordPress and LearnDash. Because oftentimes people's questions would be very specific. And when you get more specific, a SaaS in the traditional sense is not going to be the best solution. With WordPress, you can kind of piece together what you need. And there's pros and cons to that, but a lot of people, those pros outweigh the cons. So yes, would recommend SaaS if it made sense. But WordPress and LearnDash or a membership plugin in general can go a very long way. And everybody defines their program a little bit differently. And that's what's great about that WordPress plugin route is that somebody can really take their specific dream and make it come to fruition. And not feel maybe locked in or trapped by a SaaS.

[19:00] Micah: Yeah, I'm a believer in WordPress, just like you, the flexibility, customization. It's funny to me, though, when I talk to some content creators, even some of my really close friends I've known a long time. For example, one of them said, oh, yeah, I made this course and I just put it up on Udemy. You know, just because I wanted to be quick and I didn't want to have to deal with all these things. You know, she's capable of dealing with those things. But just in a course creator mind. And I can identify with that because when I have gone to create courses, sometimes I think to myself, well, if I have to create the content and deal with the tech, it's just so much. Versus maybe I should simplify. Maybe the tech can just focus on the content. And I'm not saying right or wrong on that. But it is interesting then, you know, if you are successful with that basic version, you're going to want to move to better tech. You know, and so there's this migration and all this.

[19:53] Justin: So it's kind of a catch 22 because you either pay more to get started or more to migrate, you know? Yeah. No, there's a ton of value in going to something that's simple and get you up and you don't have to worry about the tech side. I think it's really circumstantial in terms of what makes the most sense for somebody. I probably wouldn't do Udemy personally. If I were to do a SaaS, I would pick one of the platforms that like allows me to have my own training site because I don't want to be competing with all these other courses that are on the same platform. But to your point, like they do make it simple color by numbers because they're trying to reach the widest possible audience with the lowest common denominator in tech ability.

[20:41] Micah: So there is value there.

[20:43] Justin: And some people will set up shop on those and they'll be fine just with that the whole time. And, you know, power to them. That's if that fits for their business and what they're looking to do, then great. But to your point, and I've seen it too, demands change. The more popular you get, the more you want to provide value, the easier that becomes with WordPress.

[21:02] Micah: Yeah, it's almost it seems like it'd be a basic option because WordPress itself is technically free, right? But all the stuff you've got to do to make it happen, you know, it takes a little bit of effort. If it's somebody's first time, even myself long ago, I knew how to build websites. When I got into WordPress, it's like it was a whole different language. They're just, you know, so there's a learning curve.

[21:25] Justin: Sure.

[21:25] Micah: But the, you know, breadth and scope of what you can do is amazing, especially with, you know, plugins like LearnDash, which you helped create combined with, you know, a million other people's plugins and ideas integrated. I know a lot of people have been using LearnDash and BuddyBoss, which is a community thing, you know, along with a membership system like Benbarium to have a community learning management, you know, the business aspect membership and billing and marketing all tied together. Let's talk a little bit more about your story generally with LearnDash. So you kind of grew the company up and then you sold it. Like you said, you exited in 2021. 2021, congratulations again. Thank you. That's pretty amazing. When, when did you know you wanted to sell it? And then what was, what was kind of the thought process or what did you realize? Oh, I got to do differently.

[22:24] Justin: Yeah. Great question. When LearnDash first started, it was a lifestyle business. I was living in hotel rooms through my consulting and I was like, man, I hate being told where to go and that I have to be away from home and all this. And so I wanted my own thing and I always was an entrepreneur at heart.

[22:38] Micah: And that obviously worked out for me.

[22:41] Justin: And I could never imagine selling initially. I had the ownership of my time. It was me and the freelancer. And then eventually some support people by a very small team. Fast forward in 2021, when I sold, we had 40 employees. It was completely different. It was, it was dominating my life. Um, yeah. In some ways mentally, that was becoming a big challenge for me. I knew probably 2020. 2020. So when the pandemic and the lockdown started that really for a lot of WordPress tools really bolstered the customer base. And especially with LearnDash had been around for a while at that point. Seven, eight years. I don't know. Um, that it was easy for people to find as they were looking for solutions to be, they're going to be at home. They're, they're locked down.

[23:32] Micah: They couldn't either with their job, they were like, Oh, or they needed like gyms needed another way to offer value to their members.

[23:40] Justin: And so they started these online programs. And so LearnDash was positioned well. And I'm, you probably saw something similar with them. Very. It was around that time. I hired like 15 people in two months, um, because of this huge surge that came in.

[23:53] Micah: And I was already kind of feeling burnt out with, um, just with the space.

[24:01] Justin: And then it's, it's constantly go, go, go in terms of trying to compete. And then if, you know, somebody was really unhappy, I'm, I'm often the, was the one dealing with that. The, um, you know, it's just, it sometimes can feel thankless because you're going. And so I would always check in with myself and think like, is this what I want to be doing? Is this the life that I want to be living? I, the seed was planted or I kind of was thinking about it. And then the seed was planted also by, um, I had a financial advisor and he was talking to me and we were looking really at the future of the market and everything. And I was looking at the business market and timing wise too made sense. Like this was a time, I don't know if people remember, but 2020, 2021 businesses were selling left and right.

[24:46] Micah: And because nobody really knew what, you know, what was going to happen in the future.

[24:49] Justin: I mean, all these businesses were exploding, learn dash included. And so be given my personal desires.

[24:56] Micah: And then also, um, I don't know, just my, my energy levels.

[25:01] Justin: I felt like I wasn't bringing the energy I once had to the customers. I felt like it'd be good in someone else's hands, somebody that could take it to that next place. But also I wanted to benefit financially from the sale and the timing was perfect. So I started the sales process in October, 2020. And that sold in September, 2021. So it took a long time. I hired some investment bankers. We put together, um, prospectus and reached out to like over 400 different investors. And I gave 13 management presentations each four hours. And then all these questions and dah, dah, dah. And then having the, the LOI and then going through many months of due diligence and lawyer speaking. I mean, that was probably my lowest point of entrepreneurship because that wasn't fun. Um, obviously you do it because you're like, Oh, at the end of this, it's going to be worth it.

[25:51] Micah: Um, but there's no guarantee even in fact, I, uh, not many people know this, but I was

[25:57] Justin: talking to a company that was looking to acquire. We went through three months and on the day that the sale was supposed to be finalized, they backed out. So now they had all the information in the business. They knew everything.

[26:08] Micah: They kind of had a competing product, but they, they had everything and they backed out after three months of, so I ultimately, um,

[26:20] Justin: um, had, we had other options and it was, uh, it was fine in the end in terms of like the, the terms of the deal were the same with the new buyer.

[26:30] Micah: So that was fine.

[26:32] Justin: But, and I was able to close quicker in 45 days instead of 90. And that one actually went through, but it, it took a lot out of me. It kind of sapped my, sapped my soul a little bit because that's not what energizes me in a business. I know some people start businesses and sell them and that's like their thing. For me, it wasn't, I had to stay on board for a little bit longer, uh, in more active role. And then kind of, you know, over time that became more of an advisor role for like a year. And yeah, by the time I was that year, I don't even think people realized I was leaving at that point. Cause I wasn't involved really in anything unless called upon. And, um, and yeah, that's kind of how that, that ended. And I'm super happy with the new ownership group, which is liquid web, by the way. And they have stellar WP, which is their brand where they house all their WordPress brands. Usually they're all top of class, um, solutions in different areas. And I still have a good relationship with them. So it's, uh, it's in a good place. They're doing good things with the brand. They're taking in their whole new direction. Um, I keep an eye on it. Sometimes I'm like, eh, I don't know if I do that, but like, cool. I'm glad they're doing it. And they're, they're believing in the direction. Other things I see and I'm like, wow, I would have never thought of it. That's really great. So, um, it's been fun to see the product afterwards and it lives on, not associated with me in any way.

[27:55] Micah: Obviously I have my experience there and, uh, it's fun to talk about and a lot of lessons

[27:59] Justin: learned, but I was a little long winded. I hope I didn't bore you with that.

[28:04] Micah: Not in the least. I think it's fascinating.

[28:07] Justin: A lot of membership site owners, they, their story probably starts the same as far as it's

[28:14] Micah: a lifestyle business. I'm moving from some sort of consulting or service into training of some sort, right. Um, you know, based on the expertise I've gained.

[28:23] Justin: Um, but at some point they do start to, whether it's the timing of the market, their own energy,

[28:29] Micah: something, they start to look in this direction. It's obviously harder with a membership site. You know, the branding that you were talking about earlier, personal versus business service

[28:41] Justin: versus product is, uh, it'd be, it's a lot harder, right.

[28:45] Micah: For somebody like, let's say Tony Robbins to turn around and sell his business. Exactly. That's a great point.

[28:52] Justin: And that came up actually a few times in my management presentations. They, the potential buyers, even the ones that, you know, ultimately I didn't go with, they wanted to understand the influence of my name over people choosing learn dash, which I downplayed, um, because I believed that I thought, you know, like this, this product and it turns out like after the sale and all that, and obviously my name was removed from a lot of stuff. Like emails used to come from me, for example, and my face would be in there and there's a personal touch.

[29:26] Micah: And it became more of like from the company or from the support team or, and the lesson learned is I think they underestimated a little bit.

[29:38] Justin: And I did too. My name's association with the product, but it was still the product first, but you make a great point that if you're setting up a membership site, best to do it with a brand than your name, because had that been Justin dash, like that would have been a totally different conversation I'd be having. People would be like, Oh boy, like, can we, now we got to license your name or how long can you stay on board? Like it would have just been different. So, uh, if you're, my advice is always create a brand and that way, if you ever do want to sell it, you can sell the brand and you don't have to be associated.

[30:10] Micah: You know, that formula you just came up with is pretty tempting though. Just like you, whatever your first name is, plus, you know, turn that. No, I'm just kidding. Justin dash. Um, I think too, you know, software is like you're saying membership sites, probably even consultants, the, the one exception maybe, or, or types of exceptions or professional services like attorneys, they always have their name, right? Maybe a doctor has his name on there of a clinic. However, even then I'm thinking, does that really help them, you know, to get clients versus

[30:46] Justin: a marketing name, obviously for membership site owners, they definitely need that.

[30:52] Micah: And it's kind of a, it's kind of a tricky thing because often they are, let's say creating a new brand, they have whatever consulting LLC, right. And they're saying, well, I'm going to make, you know, the easiest path to immigration or

[31:03] Justin: something, uh, course.

[31:05] Micah: Um, it's almost like they have to transfer their, their brand into that course. And obviously, you know, just showing up servicing clients and so on, having the two interrelate is good. What do you think a membership site owner could do though? So let's say it's a situation to be somewhat specific where they have consulted for five or 10 years and they are well-known. So their name does carry weight. You know, how, how do they throw up a new brand name, um, where they're, they're not, you know, liquidating, let's say their personal brand that can maybe maintain their personal brand, but they are, they're building up that second brand.

[31:46] Justin: I feel like in some ways I'm doing it a little bit with bright growth. I don't use, for example, when I'm on X, it's my name. I don't have like a bright growth handle and I'm not making posts from that.

[31:59] Micah: When I reach out and interact with people, it's me for a membership site.

[32:04] Justin: And somebody say, somebody has a name with it. It could be, if they really wanted to include their name, it could been like in my case, as an example, could be like bright growth by Justin Fairman or the bright growth group by Justin or Justin Fairman's bright growth, something like that. If you want to include the name, uh, your, your personal name in there. But like, even if somebody went to bright growth.com, like they're going to see my pictures, like kind of at the top of a little bio and stuff about me, it is still me. And you can still lead with yourself, your personal self upfront, but unless people are Googling your name or searching for you on YouTube or whatever, then like, and even still you can create articles or whatever around your name. So you appear in the searches for that. And you're going to be okay with creating a brand name. I mean, where it gives you an advantage.

[32:53] Micah: I'll give you an example with bright growth.

[32:55] Justin: I have the coaching. I'm working on a playbook. Okay. Well, that's really easy. The bright growth playbook. I don't have to call it the Justin Fairman playbook or anything like that. I feel like that just carries over. So now I've got a service. I'm going to have a product. And then I'm going to have something which I'm still working. It's very top secret is the first time I ever spoke about it publicly is the bright growth fund. So we're going to have these three prongs by were, I mean, me, I'm going to have these three pronged approach, but with having a brand, it just becomes easy to set up these three areas and less confusing from a naming convention.

[33:28] Micah: Now think from a membership standpoint, you have a conference.

[33:32] Justin: Like it's not going to be the Michael Mitchell conference. It's going to be like the memberium summit. You know, that becomes a little bit more attractive. It's part of the brand. It's just another, you know, log in the fire of what you're doing.

[33:44] Micah: Then you have memberium, the software memberium summit memberium training, you know, whatever else it may be around the brand, but people know it's you that that's running it.

[33:55] Justin: So I think the key takeaway is not to overthink it. People that are doing business with your brand and you know, it's you, but having just the brand is the umbrella gives you more freedom for future ideas. Maybe it doesn't make sense right away, but in the future, you may be, you're going to benefit by just having a brand instead of your name.

[34:15] Micah: I think you made some really important distinctions there around maybe on different platforms, you're leading with the brand or the name. You know, if you're going to, let's say speak, it might be your name, but your products are by your brand, right? So your presentation is by you, but the, you know, the production of it, the products, the services might be the brand. And it's always a trick for me when talking to people, because I think they're meaning of I'm talking to a membership site owner of any sort, trying to get to whatever next level. They are so close to what they're doing. It's hard for them to be objective, you know, and I come in from the outside. It's easy for me to be objective, but it's also hard for me to really understand the full

[34:58] Justin: context when you were consulting or I should say, as you're consulting now, because like

[35:06] Micah: you said, you're doing coaching through bright growth. I'm, I'm one of your clients there and benefit from that. What is, you know, you mentioned your three pronged approach there. What is the end game on coaching for you? So the reason I'm asking this is some people do coaching and they, they kind of get burnt out. And so they quit coaching, you know, and we were talking earlier about how do you sustain customer interaction? So what is your plan? I guess the question long way to get there. What is your plan to, to sustain, you know, interaction with your users, but still grow that business?

[35:40] Justin: I may be a little bit unique in my plan, so I'm not sure how applicable it would be all the way around. I came from the product software space and there was something really high touch about, attractive about a high touch approach with coaching. And we see so many courses that are doing group kind of cohorts. And I wanted something, I could have gone that route, but I wanted something a little bit more personable where I could really get in the weeds as we've done in our sessions where we start brainstorming. You can get into the actual business and coming up with actionable plans like that stuff. I love doing. So I, before I got into coaching, I was like, what do I like to do? I love brainstorming. I love idea creation. I love competing, love positioning, messaging, all this stuff. How can I bring that to other entrepreneurs? Yes, I could have created a more high level course, but I found it motivating to create a course or not course, create a relationship with clients. Now, originally I was like, I want 20 clients. As I got going with it and I'm now at 15, I'm like, I don't want any more than 15. Like, cause I need to bring that energy, the creative energy and be, and have that motivation every day to come and do that where it feels not so much like a job.

[36:55] Micah: This kind of harkens back to that lifestyle business.

[36:58] Justin: So for my lifestyle that I want, 15 clients is good. However, there is value as I have known for a long time and having a product to reach other people to have something a little less high touch. It's just, uh, you know, you can maybe scale it. Um, I don't really have huge ambitions with the product in terms of it needs to sell X amount, but like, I do see the value in having that component as well. So that's why I'm also going to have a product. So for me, it was really just like what keeps me motivated to keep going. And for the membership site creator, it's the same thing. How much content are you going to want to push out to be able to stay motivated and energized and make sure that's good. Um, for me, for coaching, how many clients and how many hours a month, for example, do I want to be having calls that I can still feel energized by it and that I'm able to bring value to the people that trust me.

[37:52] Micah: Seems to me almost grassroots for you to start with the coaching because you have such a brand and, and budget and things coming into your next business that, yeah, you could have easily been like buying up speaking spots and creating info products and hiring camera crews to follow you around and whatever, right. Kind of the influencer marketing type stuff.

[38:15] Justin: But the, the coaching, I think, you know, like I said, I benefit from it and I know the

[38:21] Micah: other people in the group and like the round tables and stuff. I think though, for you, it's not presumptuous to say that it also benefits you to further your knowledge because then as you're building a product, you're not saying, Hey, way back when, when I did learn dash, I learned this and that it's like, Hey, last week I talked to such and such business owner and help them with this issue. Let me share the learning. And I think most, you know, the membership site people, they overlook that. They think I'm popular now. I need to always be doing one to many speaking to a crowd, right. Leveraging my time. Um, but they can get kind of out of touch and rusty. And I say, they I've experienced it myself. I've become out of touch and rusty from these mistakes, you know? Um, but it's intriguing to me that you have a sense of where you're at personally, what you want and when to adjust that. Do you have any sense with this business of a time horizon? Is it like a five-year business, a 10-year business?

[39:17] Justin: And that's a great question. And you hit the nail on the head. Like one of the by-products is like, I'm learning a ton through coaching. I don't know everything about every industry of the folks that I'm coaching by any means. Um, I have, I bring an experience and a skillset, obviously that is applicable to many of these areas. And I let my clients bring the expertise and through our conversations, we merge those and

[39:40] Micah: that's how we get, you know, productive results. But I'm learning a ton and it's motivating me and giving me ideas.

[39:48] Justin: And I jot these down, of course. So there could be a day, for example, I'm back in software. I could see that being a realistic possibility. I don't have that drive right now because I know what it takes to be successful in that space, but I could see that happening for now. Coaching is fine. And I'm keeping from getting rusty. Like it's keeping me at the forefront of the changes and across many industries, software is a whole WordPress for the folks that are in the WordPress space. I have others that are in the online course space and membership space that I'm staying up to breast with everything that's from tech to, um, from content delivery. I think the horizon for this, I will always coach the amount of folks that I take on personally. That is what will change.

[40:36] Micah: If I, let's say in a future and in the future, if I have some software and I'm able to do

[40:43] Justin: that, but also coach, I'll just cut down on the client for the one-on-one piece. So I'm still able to provide value there.

[40:49] Micah: But, um, yeah, it's a good question.

[40:52] Justin: I'm not one to think like what you're doing today is what you're going to do tomorrow. Clearly, you know, with learn dash that that was my life for, and I never thought of a life without it. And now, you know, that's just on the resume and now I'm doing coaching. Do I think I'm going to coach the rest of my life? Like maybe in some capacity. Yes. How that looks though, in terms of clients and my time, uh, who's to say, but for now, you know, I'm in a good rhythm.

[41:15] Micah: I, I have to ask this one question. Was there a point as you were building learn dash where let's say it started to be successful that you thought I'm going to just hold this for decades? Or did you never think that?

[41:28] Justin: I absolutely thought that. Okay. I thought initially, well, here's the truth. If in 2014, 2015, I think that's like when shark tank was becoming really popular, the show. And I would watch it to get inspired by these other entrepreneurs and see these huge payouts and paydays. And, you know, that dream of getting investment for a lot of people, that's what they're striving for. I didn't want that, but I thought maybe one day I would sell, but I didn't think anybody would buy learn dash at that time because the code was open source. So I was like, well, somebody can just like fork the code and, you know, that's that. Well, the world kind of progressed a little bit.

[42:07] Micah: So fortunately, by the time I sold, like we're open source was a, was a value add.

[42:11] Justin: And actually it turns out for any software, the value is not in the code old days. Yes, that was the case. But now the values in the brand, the reach, the ethos, the trust, all those other kind of intangible aspects. And that's what people care about more than the actual code. So yeah, I thought in the beginning, I was like, there's no way that I remember the first week that I worked from home. I can say this now because I'm not running the business. The first week that I worked from home, obviously they didn't have as many customers, but like at two o'clock I was on my back porch, drinking a margarita, catching a buzz. Like I was like, I am never giving this up. This is the dream. This is the dream. Obviously that changed as time went on. I think I gave myself like a week to kind of celebrate that life. And then I was like, all right, let's get to work. And then, you know, obviously as the product got more popular and more of my time was required and my attention, but I didn't think I was ever going to change, but we all change. You know, humans are never the same. We're changing all the time.

[43:19] Micah: Oh yeah. I think it's kind of what these membership site owners are selling most of the time is some sort of change, right? They're trying to encourage it. But how, how did you get people to take action?

[43:31] Justin: Let's say with LearnDash or even now with your coaching, what are some mechanisms to get

[43:37] Micah: people to actually try to change? Because if I sell you some sort of course and you don't change, you know, then, then what did, what did I deliver? You know?

[43:48] Justin: Good question.

[43:50] Micah: For LearnDash, LearnDash started at a time where there was.

[43:56] Justin: I mean, we created the vertical WordPress LMS. Other folks, what we did was connect the dots. There were some membership platforms out there and ways to protect content. But what LearnDash, I was like, well, why do you want to protect content? Oh, to sell a course. So let's just give you those course aspects. And so it was just like, oh, okay. So people were changing their mentality from this traditional, let me just block this page to let me give an experience for the learner as, you know, as they're going through. So we sold that experience and that experience and how that makes you look good. Your brand look good. Versus, you know, somebody that just has to read something that they have to log in to read. So that was the change. And that was in the beginning that really resonated with people. Then it became more normalized. Like now there's countless solutions out there for that same thing. And so, you know, how they're doing it now is probably a little bit different than what I did initially in those early years. In terms of my coaching, when I reach out to people and have conversations, I think for the right, you know, I'm talking to founders and for the right people, they understand that in order to bolster revenue or reach another goal, they need to get other ideas or think differently about things and get out of their own way.

[45:20] Micah: And so what I'm telling people in my conversations, and I offer a free hour for people just to have a conversation so they can see how it goes and how it opens up their thinking just by having somebody else interject their experience, my experience in this case, into their expertise.

[45:41] Justin: And how that changes their approach or their thinking or their idea slightly. It's still their idea, but maybe I plant a seed that then now they are changing their outlook on something or getting a new idea. That's a little bit more highbrow, obviously. And it's working with like founders who are in a very specific situation, whether it's selling courses, memberships or software. But it's different than when you're selling to like the masses, like in a membership platform or you're selling to software like LearnDash.

[46:14] Micah: Yeah, I can think through my first discussion with you. I think I read a post on X, you know, and we've known each other, but I read your thing and booked the call. And then the call was very useful. It's interesting that you put it that way, that it's already kind of people might have an idea. They want to do something and you're just kind of like you didn't you didn't use the word influence. You're saying like put a seed in, kind of like add in your experience, but you kind of, I think, influence them in a way. So it's not exactly a full change. It's more of just like a slight adjustment, right? You're not saying, hey, stop, go back. You know, what are you doing? And I know in my case, it I talked to a lot of people all the time. It was the perfect little bit of advice and I took it and kind of the way things have developed since then have been because of that. But it was a wasn't wasn't what I expected to hear, but it was spot on. And I'm sure you have your obviously us both being in WordPress and dealing, you know, with a lot of the same things. You have a ton of experience and success to to coach me having membership site owners, you know, that you're coaching now. Be able to get a quick call with you is awesome. So quick, quick non-commercial. And we'll mention this again at the end, but you can book a call, like he said, with Justin and just, you know, run your business by him. Which I think would be really valuable for anybody listening to this, no matter what phase you're at, because as you can, you know, tell from the questions here, he's pretty approachable, but very smart. So you talked to Justin about LearnDash and about Bright Growth. I know you had a little foray in between. Do you want to? Is it all right if we talk about that and maybe just share some of the things you learned on that?

[48:06] Justin: Yeah, for sure. So when my contract ended with LearnDash, I kind of was, this is a weird position. Nobody really trained you for this. There's no courses. But like when you exit from a company and now the whole outlook on work changes, you kind of are left thinking like, well, what do I, what am I going to do? And sometimes you have like so many options that it's hard to pick one option. I was a little bit in that situation. I need to fill my time. So I was like, well, I know software. So I thought about something that I did with LearnDash and I was always big in competing. I was always analyzing reviews of other competitors and trying to find the nuggets, the gold in those reviews. Ultimately, that led to GapScout, which was AI driven analysis of reviews that are out there about your product or in your industry. So you can find the gaps in the market and then modify your offering according or make sure that you touch on those gaps or speak to it, help to drive your sales copy, etc. Is that stuff that I did manually? So I was like, why don't I automate it? I will preface this by saying this was before the huge chat GPT boom. So it wasn't like it looks like I was just jumping on the AI thing and maybe I was, but it was a little bit before that. So like when all those AI tools came out. So if anything, that just told me the timing was probably right. However, I think like I alluded to before when I said I might get in the software again one day, but I don't have that energy. I don't have that drive that that requires. I didn't have it for GapScout. I started the marketing. I love the marketing piece. I went content marketing route and was publishing. Well, I wasn't publishing, but I had hired some writers. They were publishing their three posts a week, 1400 to 2000 words that gets results. I get people signing for the email list. I had a few thousand people on the email list by the time maybe it was a little less than a year. So like things were progressing. However, the technical challenges I kept facing were just defeating me. Like I had hired an agency to build this like I did with LearnDash initially, was spending a lot of money with this agency. And we kept running into hurdles, complexities of AI in general. And what kind of broke the straw that broke the camel's back, is that the expression, was a legal issue. A lot of these review sites, for example, started changing their terms and conditions where even though the reviews were public, they were saying you cannot analyze our reviews with AI. It was so draconian that you couldn't even, as a consultant, copy, paste the reviews into Excel and look for commonalities and themes from the reviews. Like that was illegal. They could take you to court. I was like, there's no way this is true. So I contacted my lawyers and they went through everything. They're like, yes, Justin, this is true. This is a risk that you're going to have if you're going to do this business.

[51:14] Micah: Alternatively, you can contact them and ask for a licensing deal.

[51:18] Justin: And so like, can you see how convoluted this is? This is sucking the joy out of entrepreneurship for me. I just wanted to create something cool and fun, great tool. Those licenses, by the way, would be, depending on the site, anywhere from 15 to 30K a year. And I wanted to integrate with many of these review sites. So that would have been a very heavy deal before I even had a customer. So after all the development costs, after looking at these legal costs, which could change, you know, if those companies decided to double their licensing fees, then I would have been screwed. It just, I was defeated. And so I just backed out. And it was a loss. It was, that really hurt. Like, that was a punch in the stomach because I think what I realized at that time, I talked a lot with my wife who was very supportive and listening and offering her advice and just her perspective. But I just realized I jumped too quickly into software again. I thought, like, I had to do that. I loved entrepreneurship. Software I needed a big break from. And so that's what led me to coaching. And I had talked about coaching potentially. I was even informally coaching some people during the time of Gap Scout. But I learned a tremendous amount about myself. I learned, obviously, about AI and the tech there, probably more than I care to know at this point. But it will probably, it will help me in the future because when I do get into software again, I think it will happen. But when that happens, I have some big lessons learned from that experience that I can apply going forward.

[52:57] Micah: Yeah, big loss is hard. Especially as it's happening right after it happens. But with a little perspective, you look back and it's like, how else would you have gone that deep into the legal policies as they relate to AI scraping data and so on? Now you have that data point. You know, expensive data point, but you've got it.

[53:20] Justin: Yeah. You're right. I mean, it's in the past now. What's done is done. Sometimes I feel like, man, I wish I would have. I would have just done things differently. I paid for that education for sure.

[53:31] Micah: Yeah, I feel you. I've done something similar. Made some expensive learning mistakes, we'll call them.

[53:39] Justin: Well, you got to take something from it. So it might as well be some lessons because otherwise that time and money is all for nothing.

[53:47] Micah: Yeah, man.

[53:48] Justin: Well, let's talk about the scrappy, let's say, membership startup person.

[53:56] Micah: You know, talk about time and money. I think a lot of people are in that position where they're maybe putting some effort and energy into it to see like, is there something here? You know, hoping that there is to commit more if they're smart. Some people come in full tilt. You know, I just got some inheritance or I just sold a rental property or something and I'm going to dump too much money into this. I guess the core of my question is, you know, maybe some pointers, some principles you think of about how somebody can approach this, you know, in a sane way.

[54:31] Justin: So not reading a book or seeing a speaker and trying to mimic them, but how do they really figure out what value they have and how to package it, you know, how to get going.

[54:41] Micah: I know you generally coach people more successful, but if you had a room full of kind of startups, newbies and sometimes newbies have done this before, but they're just starting a new, you know, new gig.

[54:54] Justin: Yeah, good question as well. An important question. I do have some clients that don't have a product yet are in the process of launching. And so they are probably more in line with what you're asking or their experience or what we're going through is more in line with your question. And so what I've noticed with folks that are in that position is two things. They'll either spend frivolously, frivolously, I can't say that word.

[55:19] Micah: They'll spend a lot to put the onus on someone else for that success.

[55:25] Justin: It's never a good thing. The success of the product, the brand, the positioning and the trust is going to come from you, the owner. If you're paying for outsourcing all this marketing, but you're not providing a vision or you're paying for development without providing the vision or anything, then it's going to be hollow and people will detect that. It's going to be hard to make a sale. The other part is people get so wrapped up in feeling busy on stuff that doesn't matter yet.

[55:55] Micah: Setting up like going through ad nauseum of setting up a program when they don't even have a customer or a visitor to their website. I'm a huge proponent on starting anything marketing related before you do anything building of a membership, a course, whatever.

[56:16] Justin: I even did it with GapScout. I started the marketing piece. I did the same thing learned.

[56:22] Micah: I started the marketing piece 10 months worth or eight, seven months worth, seven months worth before the marketing, before the building.

[56:32] Justin: You can do it at the same time. That's fine. But if you're just starting out, you're trying to find your initial, the best way to put it out there or to hone it is to create content of some kind. Or if you're going to do paid ads, that's fine too. Just know what you're doing with it because that's a quicker way to get people to your website, for example. But you want to make sure it converts. And so you got to really know who it's for, what value you're providing, how the members' lives are going to be better by choosing your product or your membership. And how you're going to build that trust in general, which is usually going to be related to you or your brand in some capacity.

[57:15] Micah: Don't tinker with a website and logos and colors before you even have that nailed down, the customer, the prospective customer.

[57:25] Justin: And how you're going to reach them on a podcast. You're going to reach them through YouTube. You're going to reach them through contents like articles and stuff. Today, if you were to ask me which one's best, I'd probably say podcasting or YouTube. Google, as we've seen, has been a little bit chaotic with these algorithm updates. YouTube's algorithm is updated like once a year. So you're going to get a little bit more traction there. And really double down and provide value there first. Because you provide value in those areas, then you'll be trusted and then people will pay for that additional value.

[57:57] Micah: I've not really thought before about that idea of starting the marketing so much before the product. But it makes so much sense. I've sometimes told people build a super small product so that you have something to market. But I'm curious if you can go a little deeper into what sort of marketing you're doing and messaging you're sending out and so forth as the product's being made. You know, are you asking people what goes in the product? You know, are you just teaching? What should that look like for somebody who wants to do that, who says, yeah, I see that I want to pivot into this membership or course or whatever in the future. You know, how do they get that marketing ball rolling?

[58:44] Justin: I should probably take a step back and say that my advice here is not the only way. It might not even be the best way. It's just a way that I know has worked for me and other people that I've coached, for example. What you described certainly works as well. The reason why I prefer the marketing approach first is because if you put all your energy towards educating people, usually some kind of value, if you're going to teach, you know, membership programs are usually about teaching something, creating content. For example, let's say we have a YouTube channel. I'm going to start my YouTube channel around a certain subject. Maybe it's accounting. I'm an expert CPA. I'm going to create a membership for other CPAs and how to grow their CPA firm. I have a system down that works for me. I have swipe files. I have everything. Now I start creating a YouTube channel for other CPAs talking about different subjects. And now I see that two of my videos are really taking off on a certain subject. Now I know that this is something that people want and would likely pay to know more about. So I can create more content around those subjects and then also designate a chapter or a section of my membership. Site related to that particular topic, creating swipe files. Now on those, I can have calls to action like, hey, get a free swipe file. And that's something I always did was like get something for free. Or sometimes I didn't even have to offer anything for free. I'd offer like free early access, not free. Just the ability to get early access to whatever I was launching to be that early tester. That's what I did for Gap Scout and it worked really well. People would sign up. I wasn't giving a PDF or anything. But when you're creating content and you're speaking more, you start to just understand what it is people are looking for and interacting in comments or looking at your podcast shows and seeing which ones are downloaded more. Like this is all information gathering. It's market research before you build. And that's important as opposed to just thinking I'm going to build everything because I know in my head that people are going to want this. You might be right and you're probably right for the most part, but this just makes it resonate a little bit more.

[1:00:57] Micah: I think you're right, actually. I was updating my thinking there a little bit because, you know, people go create a product. There's a high failure rate, right, with memberships and courses and things like that. Or at least they don't get as many people as they wanted when they built it. You know, they might get a handful. What you're suggesting as far as kind of it's marketing. It's also market research at the same time, right? I think that's really smart.

[1:01:28] Justin: I would probably advise people in the future to do more of that because if you only have so much money, you're better off using it to market and figure some things out because you can always build a product.

[1:01:40] Micah: Once you know, oh, this and that video are strong. Great. You know, go deeper there. Just like you're saying, you'll at least have a decent chance of selling that.

[1:01:48] Justin: Can I give you an example of one of my clients, what he's doing related to a course? He's got a very popular website and he wanted to create a full-blown course. So we were talking and I was asking him some questions. And ultimately, what was the better approach and that he's going through the process now of doing is creating a webinar or a training. That's webinar training. I think over the course of two days on more or less like what would be one of the modules of the courses, but a more popular one. Just to see the response and the interest in that.

[1:02:29] Micah: I believe it's a free one too, but he's going to market it to his list and on his website.

[1:02:35] Justin: The reason he's choosing this is because to build out a course and you know this membership and courses and all that takes a long time.

[1:02:41] Micah: Way more than people really expect.

[1:02:44] Justin: When I was working in consulting and we were building e-learning for clients, we would quote 100 hours for every one hour of development of online course development. Then that number may have changed and obviously there's probably bolstered up a little bit because of management meetings and all that. But shave 20 hours off that. Okay, 80 hours for every one hour. That probably makes sense. Two weeks to create maybe one hour content. A very focused two weeks. So he realized that that would be a huge time investment and he didn't even know if he had an audience for it. So he's starting with this webinar. It could be a similar approach. I mean, you could create free content. Maybe you have a YouTube channel and then you invite people to a seminar of some kind of training where you're going to focus on a specific topic. Gauge the interest. And then if it seems like it's a very popular thing, maybe create another one. And then you can start thinking about creating your course. That way you're not investing all this time and money and resources and hours or months into the whole setup before you even made a doc.

[1:03:52] Micah: The way you're describing it, it's almost that the course is a final iteration of the early content that they were sharing as part of their marketing. It just kind of like expands and grows based on popularity.

[1:04:05] Justin: Yeah. And it's a form of market research, right? I've even had, his is for free. I've even had people charge for these things. Very low price, right? The point is not to make money, but to see if they'll give you any kind of money for this particular topic. So maybe it's $20, $10. It can be just low ticket. If let's say only one person signs up, okay, refund them. Now you don't have to move forward with it. Or if you get enough people to sign up, you're like, okay, I'll still host it. And then you can interact with the audience and you can make a judgment call based on like how many people purchased or were interested in attending.

[1:04:43] Micah: Yeah. I'll share one fail that I've had in this respect.

[1:04:47] Justin: Kind of a win in a way because I wanted to make, just like you're saying, a course.

[1:04:52] Micah: Realized it was going to take energy. Thought, let me do this as a webinar series at like one-tenth the price. Zero buyers. And at first I was kind of disappointed.

[1:05:01] Justin: And then I thought, if I had made that into a course and then got zero buyers, that would have been extremely unpleasant.

[1:05:09] Micah: So in a way I saved a bunch of money, right? By shopping it that way. I know we're close to the end here. What's something that I maybe should have asked or what's on your mind to an audience of membership site owners at this point?

[1:05:28] Justin: That's a very deep question. You've asked great questions and obviously pertinent to anybody that's creating a membership site. In terms of entrepreneurship, though, I'll just take it up a level. You have to know what motivates you to keep going or what energizes you where you're doing something that doesn't really feel like work. For me, I knew that, but I got away from that, especially with the Gap Scout thing. And I suffered the consequences of it. Memberships are about consistent, continuous value. We all keep our Netflix membership because we feel like we continue to get value from it. I think that's what's overlooked by some folks. Maybe this is kind of counterintuitive, but I often ask, can you just sell that as an e-book? Or is there something more that you're trying to give? Because one, selling a non-membership, and I know everybody here listening wants to do memberships, but selling a non-membership is such an easier sale. How many memberships do we have in our lives that we're just paying and paying and paying and paying? To add another subscription to our lives, that's a hurdle that you're going to have to... It's not impossible by any means. I mean, there's tons of successful membership sites doing all kinds of revenue at different values. I mean, it's there. But is it possible that what you're offering, what you're thinking about would do better as a course? Or maybe starting as an e-book, a download, or whatever, a paid thing, and then evolving from there. It's similar to that paid webinar approach that you were talking about. Create an e-book. Create something that's just accessible. See if people pay for it. They're paying for it. Okay.

[1:07:11] Micah: Maybe there's a course.

[1:07:13] Justin: And now you have a market. All the customers that purchased that e-book will probably be interested in learning about your course and or membership program going forward. So when you're creating memberships, courses, what have you, you're going to constantly have to provide value. Nobody's going to be subscribers forever. So understanding, you know, kind of that sweet spot and how much effort you're going to be putting in to create that new content versus the lifetime value of a customer. And that comes in time. But it's a big undertaking. On the surface, it's a simple business model. We all get it. But just know what motivates you to keep creating that content because you're going to need to keep creating something or providing value. And hopefully whatever that is, that rhythm that you're in, the commitment you make for those customers is easier or becomes easier even on those hard days because it's something you love doing and you have the energy to do.

[1:08:10] Micah: It's fantastic advice for anybody because the alternative to being aware of that and staying in balance and whatever is kind of a living hell, you know? When you're doing something you don't want to do, but you feel you have to do it, like, yeah, that's no fun. Justin, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your wisdom and ideas with people. I'm guessing if they go to brightgrowth.com, they can find out how to schedule that call. Is there any other ways that people could connect with you?

[1:08:44] Justin: Yeah, you're right. So brightgrowth.com, there is the option for the calls. I only take a few calls per month for those. Right now, as of recording this, I'm booked up on clients. But that changes as people's circumstances change too. So I still take the calls even if I don't have space for clients. So you can submit the form there. You won't hear from a secretary or anything like that. It's going to be me that will be interacting with you and we can get on the calendar. I'm also very active on X. So that is my social media platform of choice. You can DM me there if you prefer, just if you want it to be more informal. Hit me up. I'm happy to chat. I'd love to learn more about what you're doing.

[1:09:27] Micah: That's amazing. Well, Justin, thank you again so much for joining us.

[1:09:31] Justin: Thank you for having me. Thanks, Micah.