2026 is going to be the year of the online community. Or, at least, the year of mine.
Since the lockdowns of 2020, we’ve been building membership and online community websites. We helped our clients “pivot” into online trainers and mentors, transforming their businesses and helping them sign up hundreds of paying members. One site alone had over 2,000 subscribers.
At the end of 2024 we got involved with the launch of a new product that we thought was a game-changer in terms of ease of use, engagement and possibility. Since then, we’ve been telling coaches and trainers that we can help them to pretty much make money in their sleep.
This year, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is – we’re going to launch our own. A free online community to help others build, launch and grow their own.
And to give myself that little extra motivation – and a healthy dose of accountability – I’m telling you now before I’ve even started. Because this is also going to be a #buildinpublic.
What I’ve done so far…
- Registered a domain name
- Set up my hosting
- Installed WordPress
- Come up with a few ideas of what I’m going to talk about
Did I mention when we’re launching? 16th January. No pressure.
What I need to do in the next 2 weeks…
Because it’s a “build in public” it doesn’t need to be finished before it launches. In fact, that’s one of the things I am going to be talking about – launching before you finish is a great way of starting your community.
Just make it exist first. You can make it look good later.
But I do want this functionality ready, some basic, some not so much:
- Landing / sign-up page with video
- Sign-up form and a nice login page
- A blog, with community-powered comments
- At least one discussion space
- The ability to email members
- Cookie-free, privacy-friendly analytics so I can see how many people visit and how they convert.
Let’s go!
So that’s it. I’m sharing this so I cannot back out, and I’ve got a load of visitors booked in to my BNI meeting on the 16th so I can announce it to them.
If you’d like to know when the site is launched, come and have a look, and perhaps even join (remember, it’s going to be free), enter your details below:
Cool idea 🙂