Mighty Networks and Substack BFF Potential?

Writers need to build more engaging communities.

Kaya Yurieff is one of my special readers, and she recently got me thinking. What if Might Networks could be the BFF of Substack in how writers build out a community? Substack hasn’t gotten into courses or live-streaming or many of the features that I’d want to build in an engaged community.

Mighty Networks scaled a bit in 2023, and according to reporting by Kaya, creators have earned more than $370 million this year from its platform, a $300 million increase (!) from a year ago. MN is a well-funded Creator platform.

Should Writers Build Communities?

Gina, their CEO sent one of the most recent primers and I’d like to dig into it in case it’s useful to some of you out there or reading this who are writers and wondering if you could do more to build out a community what tools you could use.

Substack has pushed the idea that writers should build multi-level communities to increase the value proposition of being a paid supporter of a publication and a writer. Podcasts or Substack chat are a common example of the added value writers are now offering.

Indeed, Substack’s new video update speaks to this, well kinda! Let me explain.

Is Substack really for Video?

Creators need more potential revenue streams, if they are struggling with paid acquisitions. Not necessarily more features! Listen I always try to be creator-centric. Beehiiv has addressed monetization with boosts and other tactics, while Substack is more or less doubling down on just paid subscriptions.

This is fine for some writers, it’s not great for most writers.

Might Networks has also been working on product and improving their offering but here the path is more related to how community feeds into educational courses, live-video and a more multi-media and mobile native approach. ¹

Celebrities and AI features aside, Might Networks appears to have a grasp of different features in how to build out and scale a community that’s more indepth to Substack’s approach.

Substack also doesn’t seem to partner well or make friends well with other platforms that could benefit their writers. So I have to myself make these connections, do the research and integrate a flywheel myself if I have a hope in hell of making a living wage.

I could give you a list right now of Creator platforms that scale well together to help writers earn a living. And this is in part the very purpose of this Newsletter. I am in a sense building in public too. You learn a few things after two years on this platform full-time.

Reasons Building a Flywheel Matters for Writers

1. Substack Paid subscriptions likely scales well with Creator communities

2. Writers can build educational communities that lead to paid seminars, consulting, workshops and courses to help fund their more creative work.

3. Writers can build relationships with brands and tailor make native placements that don’t feel like Ads and don’t disrupt the reader experience as much.

The trinity of paid subscriptions, native placement and courses is a diversified way for a writer to live and grow their work and niche. To do just one of them, without the others, is absolutely crazy in today’s mobile digital world. It’s akin to setting yourself up for failure.

Having a Newsletter is not enough, it should be just one element of a flywheel and a business. Now you might not enjoy consulting so courses might be a more feasible option depending on your niche. There are likely hobbyists and enthusiasts out there just like you!

Might Networks is Not a Serious Name but it’s Becoming a Series Community Platform

Learn more about getting started on “Mighty”

Maybe like you I was a bit turned off by the Disney name of this brand (“Mighty Networks”). But if you believe a community matters, we have to explore all options. There are many such platforms after all. For some Maven or another one might be a better fit if courses are what you are after.

Any course building community is similar to some extent: Kajabi, Thinkific Plus, Skool, Hivebrite and others come to mind.

As a writer in breaking news related to the future of technology, building a community to onboard them to courses or seminars might not be my thing, but perhaps live-video impromptu events when something important happens.

Creators Need to Reframe what a Community is

According to MN and their founder:

What is an online community?

An online community “is a group of people with a shared interest or motivation who meet to inspire, affirm, learn, grow, and form connections with each other.”

It’s not…

❌ An audience on social media.
❌ A random collection of courses no one finishes
❌ A dumping ground for AI-generated content

Where to Focus? (don’t focus on guidelines rather focus on positive direction and shared value)

⭐️Start with the community culture you want to build, NOT the one you are trying to avoid.
⭐️Tell members why they are here and what they’re going to achieve together.
⭐️Lead them to shared goals.
⭐ ️Paint the picture of results and transformation they can’t get on their own.
⭐️Get them excited about all the possibilities and opportunities that come from being a part of something bigger than any one person.

Here even obscure writers can slowly get a sense that building a community is not just sending Email blasts to random people interested in the same things, but can be fostered through deliberate dialogue, events and shared meaning that perhaps even leads to revenue sources.

Companies like Substack and Might NEtworks like to work in terms of case studies, and they sort of have to because writers and creators are themselves so diverse. There is no one-size-fits all mould.

How Might Networks Conceptualizes Community Types

• A mastermind group: Founded on the philosophies of Napoleon Hill, mastermind groups bring people together to share experience and advice on entrepreneurship, career and personal development, finance, and even parenting. For inspiration, check out Dan Miller, who turned his podcast and book--48 Days to the Work you Love-- into 48 Days Eagles–a private, membership community that became a connected network of entrepreneurs.

• Group coaching: In this online community model, a coach or expert teaches in a group. But members benefit from sharing inspiration and accountability with the group. For inspiration, check out The Village by Happily Family, a group coaching community for parents started by Cecilia and Jason Hilkey.

• Coaching community: Group coaching is amazing, but 1:1 coaches also use communities to support their clients between sessions. If there are no privacy issues, community can be an awesome supplement to coaching.

• Micro-community: A small community with less than 30 people, and the results can be epic. Usually a much higher price point and super well-defined niche. For example, Kathleen Drennan's 6-week #ForFlorists Business Masterclass is an amazing case study in micro-communities.

• Content community: Who says bloggers, video creators, photographers, or designers need to flock to social media? Content communities bring creators together to share, learn, and grow.

• Online brand community: An online brand community or customer community brings people together for the love of a brand--to connect, learn, and even get product support. For examples of online brand communities, check out Lego's builder community. Or how about Oiselle Volée, a community for runners.

• Online forum: Forums on their own are a bit dated, but most communities have a forum component for asynchronous discussions.

• Communities of practice: For professionals, communities can be places to connect with practitioners and share knowledge. For example, QPractice is a community that connects interior designers.

• Learning communities: Running an asynchronous or synchronous course? A community can make the material stick.

• Event community: An event community is a great way to host thriving virtual events or to keep the magic of an event going year-round.

• Shared purpose community: Most communities fit this model, but a shared purpose brings people together because they want to transform, grow, or even just talk about a common interest.

For writers on substack, likely some kind of hybrid “content community” might work.

If you can grow a community well around your niche, chances are you can also create educational material around it that might help your build your niche up and fuel the growth of your Newsletters. The whole idea of the flywheel model is revenue from Ads or Courses can super-charge the growth of your Newsletter that could allow paid subs to scale more or faster!

This is an important concept many writers miss out on Substack and Substack sometimes keeps us in their ecosystem in a guarded way where these basic realities of the Creator Economy are not explained easily or properly. I believe platforms need to be creator-centric and not just tout their own horn.

I don’t want to read marketing that might hurt the revenue generation abilities of writers! Please.

A Community Requires a Flywheel of Monetization Opportunities

For as good as Substack Notes and Chat are, they aren’t a substitute for a real community, at least not in their form of 2023. And primarily because you cannot build and sell:

• Digital products (ability to sell one-offs like guides, templates, resources and E-books)

• E-commerce integration (ability to sell actual products)

• Live-streaming (with option of audience to “tip”)

• Courses and Digital events

• Tap into native placements and brand ambassador relationships conventialy

• Offering consulting on the fly (Substack Meet is still in Beta?)

A community constrained to just Email or just Paid subscriptions isn’t a flywheel. It’s not a diversified business model.

A patch quilt of various platforms like Substack and others for the above is needed in 2024 for a writer to begin to become a creator and have a viable future. Pure play writers don’t scale and might not survive easily in the years ahead. If you want a career in this stuff, I recommend you do your homework.

Outside of creating a YouTube channel there are viable options, but you need to keep learning and experimenting. I do think a great (paid) community also improves customer lifetime value and will reduce churn of your Newsletter paid subs.

1. One Subscription for the Newsletter

2. Another Subscription for the Community

Even the subscriptions should be diversified. Blending your community with your writing may not work well depending on your niche and the actual demand for that type of content and those topics. Major constraint is Substack’s audience primarily in the U.S., UK, India and Canada. (Most of my paid audience is U.S. based).

Separating the community from the Newsletter will likely be more profitable. Patreon and Discord have new kinds of competitors. And as they evolve, so should we, that is, if we want to survive.

Paid subs alone is not a resilient business model though, the one-time digital products or consulting or Ads tends to improve the business model. Even if these competing monetization channels hurts the business in the short-term! Having Ads might hurt my paid subs growth, because I’m diverting clicks from my landing-page to a third party, but the cash injection helps me reinvest back into the business for the long-term.

Why does a Writer Need a Community Flywheel?

Community flywheels are the sort of ideology people like ConvertKit like to hype up, but there are tried and true business model related to it that seem to scale profitability faster and I think the diversification can help at least for certain stages of the Creator journey.

According to McKinsey’s study of community flywheels, a good flywheel includes five things:

1. Entering into community with your consumers

2. Choosing “hero” products that reflect your brand value

3. Mixing them with exciting stories

4. Feeding the community with content, which allows your superfans to generate their own.

5. Making a transaction effortless

I think when it comes down to maximizing customer lifetime value and chur-reduction, a Community enables a more sticky and immersive product on the whole even for Newsletter operators. This is also a place where Creator collabs and Creator Ambassador projects can truly come alive. Because Discord is so 2022.

We can and should do things better, and I’m not sure it’s Mighty Networks, but I think courses and education are more solid foundations for many Newsletter operators to at least experiment with.

Why does Membership Community Work?

• So it works also because the subscription is a lot higher than a Newsletter subscription, you just don’t need as many to be viable.

• Paid subscription diversification means more tiers for various readers and fans to be engaged with. Perhaps they get tired of your writing, but stay for the community, and that’s perfectly okay.

What does MN say about this:

Membership community statistics

“Considering selling paid memberships as part of your online community building?

Here are some of the numbers we've seen in our paid Mighty Networks that PROVE it's the ultimate business model:

• The average community with membership fees charge $48/mo. A community of 1,000 members is earning at least $48,000 A MONTH!

• Paid communities earn on top of memberships: things like events, coaching, or courses. 90% of paywalled Mighty Networks are making sales on top of the membership fee.

• Only 27% of our top 250 revenue-generating Mighty Networks offer a Free Trial.

• 82% of paid networks have made a sale in the past 90 days

• Some of the top revenue-earning Mighty Pro Networks charge up to $125 per month per Member.”

So while a Substack lives and dies by the sword of just writing, in the real world of the internet, it isn’t just about writing.

$48 is the average fee for a paid community in MNs

Creating multiple tiers of digital products or offerings to make your niche more viable.

Many writers don’t realize that if they become Creators they could afford to keep growing their writing niche the way they want. To become a Creator you don’t even need a massive social media audience, but developing a more intentional community helps.

I mean as a writer you should be starting a YouTube channel, but if you aren’t, maybe a paid community could be a viable option. After all time is limited, but many Newsletter operators only post a couple of times a week which leaves time for other things. Which leaves time to build out more revenue monetization channels and value for their initial and VIP readers!

• You want to be able to cross-sell and up-sell as a Writer, if you want to be able to live on what you do.

A writer needs to be a multi-platform Creator learning the tricks of the trade on each platform, and of each social network according to their niche and topic’s relevance. Even a political or a fiction writer could create a viable community. I can barely conceive of a writer on Substack that couldn’t create a viable community if they put some love into it.

Community is a Point of Differentiation

The best writers are original and have unique points of differentiation in their niche, that nobody else like them exists in the world. To have a viable community only augments the “unique selling point”.

You are’t just offering readers information or entertainment, but belonging and a group experience with others like them. A Substack Chat or some paid sharing “behind the scenes” content is probably not a real community as it actually exists in 2024.

There has to be a bigger “We” around what you are doing. A bigger shared meaning you aren’t tapping into as a writer that could help sustain and grow your publication.

MN recommends you also brainstorm and think philosophically about this:

For solo community leaders:

• What do I spend my time thinking and caring about?

• What types of people do I love connecting to?

• Who can I help? What struggles have I come through that could teach others?

• If money didn't matter, what kind of community would I build?

• What space to I want to see or create? (Especially if it doesn't exist already)

For brand communities

• Why do we exist as a business? Why did we launch in the first place?

• What do our founder's or leaders' stories tell us about their drive and vision for the brand?

• What transformation do we want our customers to experience? How could we make their lives better?

• What do our existing raving customers say they love about us?

• What causes do we care about?

For a writer, a community can improve your value proposition to prospective readers and show to them that you seriously care about your topic and want to provide value to them in the way of connection, meaning and belonging far beyond the scope of just an Email blast.

Building a Community also helps you get more clear with your Mission Statement (Big Purpose) and who you are writing for.

Building and Researching your Ideal Reader or Member Persona

MN’s language around this is very colorful and subjective, but you get the idea:

To refine your ideal member, start by doing 30-minute interviews of 10-20 people who represent folks you want to serve in your community.

• Ask them to tell you about their goals and motivations around your topic, as well as their fears.

• Try to understand the things they’ve attempted to do on their own to master your interest or create their own results and why they failed.

• Determine how much the transformation or belong they're seeking would be worth to them.

• Identify where they already find belonging and purpose.

The Trinity of Creator Experiences and Newsletter Goals

1. Entertainment

2. Education

3. Belonging

As a Substack writer you want to hit all of these three and always be improving on them, eventually you realize where your magic-spot is. Perhaps you want to go more into an education aspect of your niche and thus communities with courses might make sense for you.

I have no affiliations with Mighty Networks nor have I tried their products or any of their competitors myself.

Given how Substack is evolving, it’s fair to say in 2024 I’ll be forced to diversify more and spending more time on various Creator platforms in the hopes of building a sustainable flywheel. Since after two years, paid subs alone are not a sufficient means for life and livelihood.

As a writer, you might have to find multiple ways to monetize to keep doing what you love. It’s important not to get too caught up in the ideology or moat of a single product, especially if they are not being realistic or being customer-centricto your needs and goals.

1. https://www.mightynetworks.com/resources/how-to-build-an-online-community