MFM #160: How to Build a Paid Community Making $20M a Year

Synopsis

The episode explains paid communities through examples like Tiger 21, a peer group doing $20M+ in revenue, and Sole Savy, a sneaker community that started on Slack. It covers what makes paid groups work, community ideas to start, Shaan's quick profitable community build, inertia, and Dave Selinger applying Deep Sentinel's security model to other sectors.

Ideas in this episode

• IRL social club

  The paid-community episode explains examples like Tiger 21, a peer group doing $20M+ in revenue, and Sole Savy, a sneaker community that began on Slack. The lesson is to test a small paid operator group with clear onboarding, reminders, resources, and member value.

• Research-as-a-service

  MFM uses Tiger 21 at $20M+ revenue and Sole Savy to show paid communities built around valuable shared information.

• Niche community media brand

  The episode illustrates the paid-peer-group playbook with Tiger 21 at $20M+ ARR and Sole Savy, a sneaker community that started on Slack; Shaan also walks through a quick profitable community build and the inertia that makes communities durable.

• Competitor tracking SaaS

  The episode's paid-community examples, including Tiger 21 at $20M+ ARR and Sole Savy starting on Slack, show how recurring intelligence, shared context, and member interaction can become a defensible tracking product.

• Deep research as a product

  Tiger 21, a $20M+ revenue peer group, and Sole Savy, a sneaker community that started on Slack, illustrate paid-research communities; Shaan also walks through his own profitable community build.