Designed to Stay Small: Why I decided to cap the community members at 200

I launched my membership community in March. In just 6 months, it has:

— Gained 135 members.

— Generated $92K.

— Nearly doubled my business.

— Become my favorite place on the internet.

And yesterday I decided to cap the total members at 200. Here's why:

1. Maintaining Closeness

The magic of The Lab is how close people feel to one another.

I've been a part of large communities and even run large communities! It's difficult to maintain closeness as a community grows.

Closeness = trust = safety = deeper insight shared

2. Protecting Member Experience

Beyond the closeness that can get lost in a larger community, it also becomes quite noisy.

As a community grows, there's less talking *to* people and more talking *at* people.

As a result, members tend to spend less time in that community.

3. My Capacity

A big part of The Lab is my personal involvement. I have a 1:1 call with every new member. I'm on every live session. I host 1:1 coaching sessions and I answer nearly every post that comes in.

If the community grew bigger and bigger, I couldn't do all of that. I want to invest significant time & energy into every member of the community, but I'm also a creator myself publishing weekly essays, podcast episodes, and more.

I lose my ability to be a professional creator (and share my insight) if I lose that time.

4. “Enough” Economics

From the beginning of the community, I've planned the economics to support this strategy.

By maintaining both

1.) A premium price point, and,

2.) Annual-only membership options, the community earns enough revenue to incentivize me to invest significant time.

As we get closer to the 200-person cap, I'll introduce slight increases in price. By design, the community with 200 members will generate ~$250K-350K per year. Not only does that compensate me for my time, but it's also enough to hire admin help.

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From the beginning, I've intended to build The Lab to be a unique community membership. I'm using it to try different models than most other people. Not only is staying small a step in that direction, but it also protects member experience and my sanity.