Terms

"For us, it's a matter of keeping membership an integral part of what we do. You can't just moonlight as an individual member; it needs been a primary focus" begins Dan Carson, our Head of Product. "If you're serious about joining We believe that this is the greatest combination of options. We started out with WordPress as our primary entry point to those capabilities, this isn't an option."

Dan says that we're not going to eliminate all of's capabilities for example, like the ability to integrate into WordPress: "If that's how you want to construct your membership site, it's just the same as in the past - we're providing a simpler on-ramp."

Streamlining the navigation

"There are lots of individuals employing third-party applications However, it's not always because they want to. This is because it was the only option available," Dan adds. "People maybe are using WordPress However, they've built a simple website, or they have MailChimp but they don't even make use of 50% of the features."

They just need a way to have users sign up, and later be able email them, without the fluff a cloud enterprise version. "Maybe that they signed up to Mailchimp in 2014 and they continue to use it since this is where they are. But are they still the target market for where Mailchimp is headed?"

"We think there are people out there who were if it were easy enough, would be able to combine all of these tools into a single place and make it more tightly integrated - as the tool still does all of the tasks they wanted it to do," Dan says.

Our email software will come with all the features that you need. The author adds: "We're not trying to serve enterprise marketing teams. We're trying to serve those who are looking for a low-cost and simple way to communicate and share content with their audience."

For us, it's less about the products that you're using, but more about the things you're doing. If you're looking for customers to join newsletters, we'll simplify and make it cheaper because now you don't have to pay for additional tools.

It's dependent on everyone's individual application, obviously. Certain people would like the capability to integrate multiple combinations, while others are concerned that it's costly and difficult to manage, especially as only one user. "Previously we were kind of only developing for one of these groups. We're now building for both groups," Dan says.

Managing member access on Posts and Pages

If you're a particular type of user using the 2014 version of MailChimp will be the one you're looking for; it's the version that you've fallen in love with. "If I'm looking for a basic web page, I'll probably prefer not to utilize WordPress. Even Squarespace isn't the best choice as a website that relies on subscriptions. It's also not fully linked to membership in the core," Dan adds. Then we asked ourselves: 'What would happen if there was a product that was entirely designed around that?'.

We're the same way about podcasting, and for online communities too. "We're not going to be rebuilding Libsyn. We'll be building the first version, which is simple to use and covers 80percent of the things you want, and is integrated with everything else all in one location for similar prices," Dan believes.

It appears to be an innate law that the longer software is in existence for, the more eager it is to develop. It wants to become increasingly complex and complicated.

Adding new features is not necessarily a bad thing, but it becomes an issue for the customers if the target customer that they're building for is no longer you. "People are hungry for software that does just what they need and isn't seeking to do greater than that. Like in jazz, sometimes you're not playing the notes that you perform!" Dan laughs.

The process of making something easy is extremely difficult. Dan says: "It's about paring down to the essence of something. The easy thing for us would be to just throw everything on there and create a setting and customers can locate it on the settings section somewhere." We don't think that's what our clients are searching for. We want to bring together all of our experience over a decade of creating membership software, taking the feedback from our customers and boil it down to simple-to-use tools.

"It's easy to overlook the power of basic tools. Being easy to use is an underserved need. The majority of things are much more complicated than they should be," Dan adds.

The brand new dashboard

The biggest change we've made this quarter is the way we've rearranged the dashboard. Instead of having each option visible at the top level and the options organized by feature, we stepped back and said, 'Why not arrange everything around the things you're working on during the time or moment?'.

The brand new dashboard

Based on our experience, as well as talking to people that run membership companies typically, you're doing work that is a part of the four categories including designing and building your website or publishing exclusive content as well as managing your members or growing the revenue. Dan explains: "Everything you're doing as an operator of membership is likely be categorized into the four buckets. We thought it was an appropriate method of organizing the functions of ."

Website

is for people who want to create a membership site. Historically you may have needed to utilize WordPress or a customized. Today, you are able to make use of our built-in website builders. The first part is about building the site in the first place and then modifying the look. and setting up your public-facing information. "You're creating the place for people to and visit," adds Dan.

Content

Another task involves publishing information. The modern day membership company typically includes publishing exclusive content to members, such as emails or posts, downloads, and podcasts. "The other aspect is to create special content or sharing benefits - it's about creating the 'value' that customers get out of your membership," Dan explains.

Members

The final task is to manage your membership. "Part of managing a profitable membership is to have a intimate relationship with your customers - that's part of the reasons why they're backing the organization," says Dan.

Management of members - download invoices

"You must be able to provide customers with customer support by understanding their background along with diagnosing issues if something isn't going correctly," he adds.

Revenue

"If you're creating a member-based website with , you're looking for revenue. There are an array of things that go into that: setting up your website, understanding what to charge as well as monitoring the health of your business to see what's working," says Dan. This section includes discounting in order to increase retention, and running acquisition campaigns, plus referral programs.

"We've developed a number of new features throughout the years. The lack of organization made it difficult to locate things, particularly those who were new. We wanted to reduce the time to learn," concludes Dan. This will provide a solid foundation to us as we add more exciting features. We'll have more intuitive places to put things - this will make it easier for you to find and discover this new feature, and you'll be able to gain value from them immediately.

Builder for websites

The other major change this quarter focused on the website builder. "We'd begun to develop these tools earlier in the year and we were trying to make sure that we were the new capabilities, without affecting the existing ways of using ," says Dan. "We tried to put ourselves in the shoes of a person who is seeking to create a membership website."

In the present, enrolling and joining the product is much faster and we offer with a more sophisticated starting place, including basic options, plans for membership already made and the design of your site already designed. All you have to do is set up your Stripe account and launch your website in only a couple of minutes.

IFtWQKYe3Vls3PTpn6KK The website builder

The editing experience is that of the contemporary WYSIWYG (What you see Is What You get) site builder. It is capable of directly interacting with the membership site. "You can type directly on the screen, drag objects around, conceal and display elements and will be able to view what the page looks as soon as you open it," says Dan.

Dan explains that this is merely the start for future website-builder improvements: "We had to redo the basis of everything in this way; now we can step on the accelerator in terms of expanding the capabilities."

We've discussed the idea of blocks, which are essentially content modules. Right now we have a basic content block as well as a banner title block that can be text or an image with buttons. The framework is now in place, we're working on new block types, creating different kinds of content for the page. The user will be able to place them on the page and you are able to control who sees the content based on which members are signed up to.

Building with blocks

Dan states: "It's everything you need to create a fully-featured subscription site. And it's all integrated with subscriptions. Membership is at the core of the whole." What you get is a website-building experience that's simpler to begin with easier to navigate, a lot more intuitive and is more in tune with what people nowadays expect.

Final: A fresh way to utilize

"We have described it in the past the glue which holds the membership in place," recalls Dan. "But when a machine is integral to your business, having parts glued together does not always seem like a positive. Sometimes you want that they are welded just like steel. But you need that it be one component, and not two pieces glued together," Dan says. Dan. These two pieces that were constructed in tandem: membership was integral at the start.

If you're someone with an incredibly successful WordPress website or millions of members who are on your MailChimp list that you'd like to increase subscriptions instead of starting again, that's still perfectly feasible. There's still a tool available to drop in, to piece it together. We don't believe it's the only way people want to construct anymore.

" is a place for those seeking a platform where their members can come together online, a hub to their customers and members. Today, anything you could like, from creating a look that reflects your business and having all your information at one location, is what you can create with ," Dan concludes.