Creating an MVP to Test And Validate Your Membership Idea
Launch your membership site faster with an MVP approach. Learn how to validate your idea, attract members, and grow without overwhelm. Start today!
In this video, we explore the crucial steps for creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test and validate your membership idea. From defining your target audience to selecting essential features, we’ll guide you through turning your concept into a tangible product. Discover practical tips and real-world examples to ensure your membership model resonates with potential users.
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The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:00.660] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back to the Membership Machine Show, folks. This is episode 156. In this episode, we’re going to talk about Creative MVP, a minimum viable product for your membership ideal community. It’s really important. It will save you a load of frustration and wasted time. Kurt probably has some good stuff to share with you on this particular idea. So, Kurt, maybe you can tell new listeners and viewers, introduce yourself.
[00:00:41.100] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, my name’s Kurt von Ahnen. I own an agency called Manana No Mas. We focus primarily on membership and enterprise-style learning sites. We also do a lot of work directly with the awesome team over at WP Tonic.
[00:00:56.220] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, that’s fantastic. So it should be a great show. It’s a really important subject. It’s going to really help you, folks. But before we go into the meat of potatoes, I got a message from one of the show’s major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. Before we go into the rest of the show, I also want to point out that we’ve got some amazing special offers from the sponsors. Plus, we’ve got a great course done by Kirk himself. And it shows you how to build a membership community website from beginning to end on WordPress, using the best available technology you can get for free when you host with WP Tonic. You can get this course at half price, around $29. And where do you get it? Basically, you get it from going to WP-tonic. Com/deals. Wp-tonic. Com/deals. So let’s have our introduction discussion. Can you hear that noise?
[00:02:11.600] – Kurt von Ahnen
Is there noise?
[00:02:12.760] – Jonathan Denwood
No, no, it’s fine. So I’ve got some folks. I’ve got some people doing some minor work on the property.
[00:02:24.040] – Kurt von Ahnen
You’re good, you’re nice and quiet.
[00:02:26.520] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. So How do we begin the discussion, Kurt?
[00:02:34.120] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I think this is one of those… It seems like we’re coming full circle, and we’re starting to talk again about MVPs. And I don’t want people who think they’ve heard it before to tune us out, because I think we’re going to come at it just a little bit differently today. And let’s just be real. I’ve sampled Udemy, I’ve sampled school, and I’ve recently sampled the course element in Fluent Community. I’ve played in these things. But do you have real ownership, real design ability, real flexibility, even for an MVP in those platforms? My answer to that is no. I think there’s a great compromise between these SaaS offerings and a full-blown Lifter LMS setup. And I think that’s a creator LMS, which really puts people in a sweet spot for an MVP or for testing ideas while still maintaining ownership, flexibility, and all the benefits of WordPress.
[00:03:33.200] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I’ve got a slightly different point of view here, but I think we should start by explaining what we mean by MVP. I’ve mostly taken this from a friend of the show, my friend Rob Rowland, who does a fantastic podcast called Startups for the Rest of Us. That podcast is really aimed at bootstrap SaaS providers. But I’ve taken the concepts, and I think they’re really important for people building membership in communities. A minimum viable product (MVP) is a minimum. In the world of SaaS, it’s tricky because the product has to have value. It has to justify why people open their wallets and give you money. But on the other hand, until you get those first customers, many startups that make very logical assumptions about what their product is, what their customers will really rave about, find particular parts, they get very little interest. Then bits that they thought would be minimum interest, their target audience really raves about, and they have to pivot and adjust and change. I think that’s the same with memberships and communities, the ones, unless they’ve got a large amount of experience and they’ve worked with a large group of clients as you can tell, the idea that you’re starting off, that you’re going to get it spot right at the beginning and not have to do some pivots, is a little bit incorrect.
[00:05:45.460] – Jonathan Denwood
What do you reckon, Kurt?
[00:05:48.820] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think so much of that is true. Do you need to change? Do you need to pivot? Do you need to take the feedback of your users? Absolutely. I think where people will really struggle in this startup mindset, this getting started thing, a lot of them don’t even have people to get feedback from, just blunt and honest. And so a real life story, a real honest to goodness real life story that’s happening right now in real time this week is my daughter. She’s a figure skater. She has some content on teaching people how to figure skate. Last year and 18 months ago and 24 months ago, in waves, she would hit social media and she would have these things like, look at me do a twirl, look at me do the swizzles, look at me do this, look at me do that. And she wasn’t getting barely any traffic coming to her training product. And then to your point, Jonathan, she pivoted, she changed, she took some advice, she took some feedback, and she started saying things like, posts like the five terms you need to know if you want to get into skating. What are the three mistakes new beginner skaters make most frequently?
[00:06:59.620] – Kurt von Ahnen
And We can answer those in the posts. And now this week, she’s just had countless people come in, ask questions, submit videos for review of their own skating, and make inquiries about her and her remote training product. It all came from listening and pivoting and trying different things.
[00:07:21.580] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think that’s a fantastic example. What makes a good MVP? Well, this is where I just want to point out something that’s a little bit different when it comes to membership and community. A low pricing is very difficult. It’s difficult in the startup world of SaaS, or it’s difficult with membership. It’s a value calculation that we are all making. I’ll put it this way, a Ford Focus or a Ford Fiesta or a BMW or a Mercedes, they will all get you from A to B. They’re all cars, but they’ve got totally different price points and aimed at different markets and different market share. What I’m saying about this is that you should be trying to build an audience. But if somebody’s going to… That’s bought a product for $9 and you got them on your email list, that doesn’t mean that same person is going to buy a membership $100, $200, $300 a month, because that’s probably a total different animal. So it’s trying to build… Obviously, you want lower price offerings to get them in the funnel. But it’s only going to be a percentage of those people that are going to be turned into the higher product price.
[00:09:10.360] – Jonathan Denwood
Where I’m going from this is that basically doing webinars, doing small group sessions, anything that you can get feedback from people at a similar price level that you’re probably going to be charging for the members is also a good idea. Can you see where I’m coming from here, Kurt?
[00:09:35.820] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I can, Jonathan. You made a point, and the point was not everybody’s a bargain basement shopper. Some people need to be on the bargain bins, and some people are looking for that premium content. But the reason we’re talking about an MVP is a lot of people need to take some pathway to revenue before they can give themselves the ability to create a premium product. It’s a stair-step growth process that takes time and experience. And as much as people hate to hear this, Jonathan, I talk to people endlessly about the easy button and how to just whip something up and make a bazillion dollars. And it’s just not real world. There’s too many gurus out there throwing this idea out that you can do X, Y, and Z and have passive income for the rest of your life and live like a millionaire. And it’s just not real. So if you launch an MVP and you can start to create some entry-level revenue with that MVP and then get feedback from that MVP and try to figure out, hey, what works, what doesn’t work, and what would appeal to a higher level, a higher echelon of user, then that gives you the idea of how to expand and increase and become more premium.
[00:10:56.240] – Kurt von Ahnen
And I really do think that you have to work your way up. I I’ve seen too many people try to come out with something awesome and premium from the get-go and then really, really struggle to get any traction at all.
[00:11:07.940] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I totally agree with you. But also, don’t get this on, folks, because you don’t need an enormous audience. You just need… And I’m quite truthful about it, folks. People that think they’re going to get hundreds and hundreds of people signing up The brutal fact, they’re going to be totally over-upwhelmed anyway, and it would probably lead to burnout and a semi-failure anyway, because they just won’t have the internal processes, probably the bandwidth or the knowledge to handle it in the first place. A gradual build-up is probably better anyway. What do you reckon, Kurt?
[00:11:52.240] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, and I think we could say some real-world things without giving away the secrets to our clients. But when we look at clients that have 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 users on their websites, they also have two or three members of staff that help with content and managing the member list and answering support emails and things like that. No matter how good your website is, if you have users in a dynamic environment, there’s going to be a certain level of support that you’ll have to offer because the element of human error is still out there. So So Jonathan’s absolutely right. If you’re a solopreneur and you’re launching something, you want it to be slow and small at first. I think of 25 users as being a milestone and 50 paying users as being the next milestone. And then once people get past that 50 user count, that’s when it’s time to circle the wagons, restrategize, and figure out what direction you’re really going to go in.
[00:12:57.200] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I totally agree there. All right, this is going to be a shorter podcast. This is an important subject, but I think it’s time for us to go for our midway break. And when we come back, we go through some other elements of why MBP is really important. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. This is the important show. But before we go into the second half, I just want to point out that got another fabulous free resource, and that’s the Membership Machine Show newsletter. It’s in partnership with WP Tonic. I produce it weekly myself. It’s basically it goes through a topic that I think is really interesting if you want to build an online business. Plus, I find some of the best stories of the week, and I create those stories and give it to you in the newsletter, and it’s totally free. To sign up, all you have to do is go over to Wp-tonic. Com/newsletter, Wp-tonic. Com/newsletter, and sign up, and it will be in your inbox around Tuesday or Wednesday. So let’s go forth. So I think it helps you also understand your target audience.
[00:14:32.000] – Jonathan Denwood
I think this has become easier. It’s become easier to really understand and do research initially by using AI, using Claude or OpenAI or Notebook L. There’s a number out there that helps you do research. I think you still have to to possible clients as well. And it doesn’t have to be a massive… Just talking to six people in your target, I think, and just having a quick Zoom with them, or having a quick phone call, or something, will really help you in getting your messaging right and getting the basics right. What do you reckon?
[00:15:30.940] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I reckon my dog’s excited if you heard that.
[00:15:34.380] – Jonathan Denwood
He’s excited what I’m saying. Got a delivery, man, have you?
[00:15:38.320] – Kurt von Ahnen
Maybe, possibly. I really don’t know, Jonathan. I think we’re stretching this one out a little bit on the topic. See that? You got me speechless. The minimal viable product and getting that out, I’m getting my head wrapped in this idea of, and it’s because of a project that I’m working on that has me distracted. If the minimal viable product is done, right, that allows you to change your focus, because if you’re a solopreneur, you have to wear many hats. So you get to change your focus and you get to work on your marketing, and consider your SEO, and look at what your keywords are that really generate traffic, and all those things. And then to me, when all of that starts to make sense, and I build that structure around that MVP product, then I’m able to take that feedback and expand to go into those next areas. And so I apologize for Seaman just so distracted in my answer. It’s just I’m thinking about this very real life situation I’m in right now working with a client where they built an awesome product. They have awesome content. I mean, the graphics are amazing. The site looks great.
[00:16:55.250] – Kurt von Ahnen
It performs well. It’s got a 96 on the page speed reports, and they’re sitting there with goose eggs for clients, and they’re like, well, what happened? And I’m like, well, what happened was you didn’t do anything. We still have to continue to optimize the website, continue to look for what keywords are going to drive visits. Let’s take a look at your social media. Well, you’ve got 2,500 on Facebook, you’ve got 1,500 on Instagram, and you’ve got 174 people on TikTok, and you have a killer product that looks amazing. So how come your social channels don’t reflect the the awesome graphics and the amazing product that you have. And it’s because they focus so hard on making like that, from you, that war and peace course that they have. And it looks great and it smells great and all those things. But because they skipped the MVP process and they went right to the premium thing and they put all their efforts into it. They didn’t do the MVP and they didn’t start with base audiences and SEO that was working and things that they tweaked to find that success along the way. And so now we’re having to go backwards in the process and create a mini-course out of the big course and then re-engineer what the MVP would look like if we would have taken that advice from the beginning.
[00:18:11.480] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, but we all make mistakes, don’t we? We all make assumptions. So don’t beat yourself up, folks.
[00:18:21.920] – Kurt von Ahnen
The trick is to not give up.
[00:18:25.020] – Jonathan Denwood
No. The other thing, I think another clear sign, folks, of somebody that’s getting a bit lost is when people want to automate everything initially. And actually this is getting worse, folks, because of AI. There’s so much emphasis on agents, and don’t get me wrong, they are increasingly going to get more important, but at the right stage, at the right time. I’ve noticed with a lot of people, and they are the ones that tend to not do a minimum viable product. They tend to build out very great courses with great content, but with 50, 60, 100 plus lessons. Then when we launch, we’re going to have thousands of people signing up. We need all this optimization We need this elaborate series of emails to go out. We need everything to be automated as much as possible. No, you don’t. You actually, you want to talk to clients. You want that exchange of email. Obviously, if you’re getting hundreds of signups, then that, yes. But then It’s probably cheaper initially to sign up a virtual assistant and work and have a couple to support you. And then if the business is still growing, you can then look at AI and that.
[00:20:14.300] – Jonathan Denwood
But really, it’s so important to be talking to your target audience and really understand their problems, their needs, refine the course, get ideas to build new courses. I think in the next couple of years, membership, it’s still a growing market, folks. It’s still a fantastic way to build a real business online. And all the indications that I’ve read, it’s still growing and will be growing for the next few years. But on the same breath, folks, it’s changing. Technology is making it change. I notice that some of the big biggest influencers and experts in membership are also changing their position. They’re not giving up on membership, but they’re changing their business models. They’re looking at building community and offering higher offerings mixed with lower offerings, but they’re definitely changing their business model. What do you reckon, Well, things are definitely changing.
[00:21:33.460] – Kurt von Ahnen
And with the agents and the AI and all of that, it is a very large distraction. But we did a show earlier today, Jonathan, with a panel of people, and There was a great disparity in opinion just in that panel of people. I firmly believe there’s still 70 or 80 % of the users out there that are still very basic in their needs, that are still going to use standard websites, they’re going to have standard memberships. My only fear with memberships, and I know that we say with a lot of faith behind it, that it will continue to grow and it will continue to be a thing, and I get that. But there is a certain level of It’s a description fatigue that people suffer from. And what that means is you got to come with some value. There has to be a value proposition. You can’t just say, Hey, this is a great place to hang out. Give me five bucks a month. It has to be, what’s their pain point? What solution are you offering them? And is that value worth the five bucks a month? But as long as you can demonstrate value, I believe that this is a very viable model.
[00:22:42.980] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, I think you’re so right there. It is diversification, and not all solutions suit particular audiences or particular sectors, because it’s all within… The courses that you have built are, some of them are at low levels, but your premier course is aimed at a premier market. But the value they will get from that is enormous as well if they finish the course and they listen to your advice, because Kurt’s got an enormous amount of experience in automotive sales and maintenance. So his premier course is high-ticket course, which he has been successful with. But the amount of value they can get from it, the amount of money they can make from the process that you’re showing them is quite considerable, isn’t it?
[00:23:46.040] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s going to be hard for people to understand the numbers as listeners and viewers of this podcast. But if we were to hit that on the button, people would be looking to take our course, which is about $45,000, and possibly add $850,000 in revenue to the department that offers that training. So when I price something out, I generally try to figure out, A, do I have authority in the space? That to me is huge. If you don’t have authority in the space, then your price has to be lower. As you gain authority in the space, I still try to keep my pricing in some 10X mindset. I want to make sure that if someone’s going to give me $45,000, they’ll be able to make $450,000 more. So I think about that when I talk to my clients and say, “Hey, you want to sell a course?” You want to sell that course for $100? Will your client be able to get $1,000 value from that $100 course? And if they can answer that affirmatively, yes with confidence, then I think we’ve got a pricing model to move forward with.
[00:24:57.840] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, and It is a real red flag when everybody wants to automate everything. It has its place. But people tend… It is normally when they have… It’s this fear of failing. We all have it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of; I think most people have it. But to build out a massive course without trying it in front of your target audience. And I also think, and I get this a lot from what Rob Rowland has said, that he calls it either a pain or a vitamin situation. It’s better to have a course that solves a real problem, a real pain point, than aspirational, what he calls a vitamin scenario. It’s better if someone’s in urgent pain or need, and your course can solve that problem. Because that’s what I think you find. You get a lot of really successful musicians in the membership. Because somebody’s frustrated. They’re not getting anywhere with learning their instrument, which they need or want to play. And it’s a real pain for them because they really would like it. That’s why you see many musicians are quite successful.
[00:26:38.200] – Jonathan Denwood
There are definitely other niche areas where you see more success in general because they are solving a real problem, aren’t they?
[00:26:48.600] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, I just think about medical testing. If you want to be a certified nurse, there are courses for that. Most people do well. Some mortgage brokerages are required to complete continuing education. Great niche. But that’s because there is a sense of urgency. That sense of urgency drives revenue.
[00:27:09.620] – Jonathan Denwood
Right. I think we’re going to close it down, folks, because I think I’m preaching there. But it’s really important, folks. If you really follow the advice in this episode, you’re really going to save yourself a lot of disappointment and get to the space where you can be really successful. Love some feedback from you, folks, about the different areas that you love us to cover in future episodes. So, Kurt, what’s the best way for people to find out more about you and get more of your knowledge, Kurt?
[00:27:47.660] – Kurt von Ahnen
You can connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m the only Kurt von Annen on LinkedIn. So if you find me there, you know you got the right account. And then Manana Nomas for business. Anything Manana Nomas on any social account or manananomas. Com, and I’d love to have you there.
[00:28:02.860] – Jonathan Denwood
If you want to support the show, give us some feedback. The easiest way to do that is to watch this on YouTube with the other… Got a ton of other material on the WP tonic YouTube channel. Subscribe to that. Or, if you’re listening to this podcast on your phone, give us a review on Spotify or iTunes. That really does help the show, Kirk, and me. We will be back next week with more insights to help you succeed in the membership community space. We’ll see you soon, folks. Bye.
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