Join me THIS WEEK at the Membership Summit June 23–25! It's a free 3-day event teaching you how to build a membership in 2026. It's based on what I've learned running The Lab since 2022 (which earns ~$500K/yr).
I'll cover why memberships work in 2026, what actually makes people renew, and you'll walk away with a 90-day roadmap for your own membership. We have nearly 2,500 registrants already.
There are really only two levers that impact your bottom line:
Traffic (attention)
Conversion (trust)
Traffic sits at the top of the funnel, conversion at the bottom. Creators tend to either start at the bottom and work upward (creating an offer and then building an audience) or from the top down (building an audience and then figuring out what to offer).
No one does middle-out.
This Silicon Valley joke is just for me
Traffic first or conversion first, neither is right or wrong; both levers are present in all businesses, and both are important. But people tend to favor one lever over the other. For traffic folks, if sales are down, they publish more. They care more about reach and virality because they have a direct impact on the bottom line (even if they're inefficient).
For conversion folks, we like our funnels fat. The narrower the difference between top and bottom of funnel, the better. But...(and maybe I'm projecting here)...we aren't usually as good at the attention game.
Both groups can learn from each other—which is a key benefit of being in a diverse community like The Lab (currently on a waitlist). When you see how the other half lives, you can't help but pick up a thing or two from them. As a long-time conversion guy, I find myself studying hooks from killer attention folks.
Ask yourself which of these philosophies sounds more like you: Do you tend to reach for the attention lever, or the conversion lever?
If you typically pull the attentionlever, consider this question this week:
What is one point of conversion I could try and improve this week?
Maybe:
The opt-in rate on a landing page
The comment rate on your Instagram post with a ManyChat automation
The click rate in your email
The click rate on the links in your YouTube description
The purchase rate on a sales page
The cross-sale rate on a sales page
Any one of these could significantly impact your bottom line without generating any incremental views.
And if you typically pull the conversion lever, consider this question this week:
Where could I put in some extra time to make this reach more people?
Maybe:
The spoken hook in your next video
The visual hook in your next video
The retention of your next video (delaying the payoff)
The first line of your LinkedIn post
The title of your next video
The thumbnail of your next video
The subject line of your next email
Again, as a long-timer conversion guy, I'm realizing I could find a LOT of leverage by spending more time in pre-production. Just a little more forethought on the overall design of the piece so I can reach more people (with only a little more incremental effort). If you're creating things you believe will be appreciated or help people, shouldn't you want it to reach as many of those people as possible?
And if you're good at reaching a lot of people, shouldn't you want to capture more of the value you're creating?
Both levers are important.
You can really only pull one at a time.
But you'd be well served by trying the less dominant lever for a bit.
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For the last several weeks, my team and I have been preparing the first annual Membership Summit. It's a three-day event where I show you why memberships are an opportunity in 2026 and how to build your own.
Let me tell you, we've worked our butts off on this. In fact, as you're reading this, I'm sure I'm still working my butt off. We don't just want to live up to expectations; we want to exceed them.
If you've been considering a membership OR if you have a membership that's not quite working yet, this Summit is for you. It's 90 minutes per day Tuesday through Thursday, and it's free! If you get a VIP ticket, you'll also have a small group Q&A on Friday.
Day 1: Why memberships, why now
Day 2: The 6 drivers of retention and renewal
Day 3: Designing the first year in your membership
It's all I'm going to be doing this week. I'd love for you to join me and 2,500 others who have already registered.
#309: Unveiling Circle Eclipse with Circle CEO Sid Yadav
SidYadav is the CEO and co-founder of Circle, a community platform trusted by creators like Jay and thousands of others to build membership businesses. Today, Circle has ~280 employees and has raised around $30 million.
Before Circle, he was the third hire at Teachable, where he helped build the infrastructure for the creator economy before the term even existed. He spent four years as a tech blogger, writing about startups five to ten times a day, and was one of the first people to ever cover YouTube—back when it was a dating platform!
The one thing Sid says separates successful communities from the rest
Circle Eclipse: what it is (AI partner + connective tissue + Discover marketplace) and why 80 of 100 engineers have been on it for 4 months
The “course as wrong abstraction” insight: why Sid saw self-paced courses heading toward terminal decline as early as 2018
By the end of this episode, you will understand why the most successful community businesses aren’t built around content — they’re built around a specific transformation.
