New Community Website: Marketing

A couple of content+discussion sites I'm familiar with have tiered subscription models: https://www.zerohedge.com/premium

https://www.epsilontheory.com/the-pack/

One important way these are different than FI is they had a large following (tens of thousands of regular readers) on their free sites for years before launching paid services. In both cases I think their primary marketing is to people who have been readers and/or commenters for years when the sites had literally nothing to sell.

FI has been around for years too, but has not attracted a large free following that it could market to in that way.

The successful paid sites I can think of that started as paid are in the media and entertainment space (Netflix etc.)

Does anyone know of a successful paid content+discussion site that was paid before acquiring a large following? What was their marketing like?

#3 As an intro The Sequences are way too long (they are broken into parts – each sequence focuses on a topic – but people are routinely told to read all of them or asked if they have read them). *And* they aren't all that introductory. They skip tons of steps and don't provide any kind of complete overview or summary. Basically they keep starting kinda in the middle and telling you some stuff about a specific topic. It's a little bit like reading *Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman* where you read a variety of individual stories. That works for entertainment, particularly for people who already, in advance, have similar ideas and values. The Sequences do try to teach some significant things that its readers don't know in advance, but those parts are found here and there, not as a concerted or organized educational effort. And there are minor tips/teachings all over, which tend to rely on a bunch of shared background knowledge. They lack calls to action and aren't seriously designed with a goal of people changing or doing much. HPMOR is similar. It teaches scattered pieces without any unified picture. It's implied that there *is* a unified picture re how reason works, and you're getting glimpses of it which are meant to help you understand it, but the presentation itself is mostly bits and pieces.

#5 Podcasts are difficult for several reasons.

I lack credentials and social proof.

I can do two main roles: expert or critic.

I think podcast people broadly don't want criticism.

Typical podcasts involve a mutual effort to make each other look good socially.

I think it's problematic for a lot of people to treat my weird ideas as expertise to learn from.

If they try to debate me, they'll get criticism and look bad.

I can't socially-safely invite other people on my podcast to be an expert because I will disagree with some of what they say and I don't want to hide or suppress that and praise them instead of saying what I really think.

I don't have a large audience to offer as value when inviting people.

I think getting invites overlaps a lot with the problem of getting fans (some fans will have podcasts).

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Re forum, I think they are generally the blind leading the blind. People overreach and have unproductive debates. Some people find this entertaining. I don't think it's bad compared to a lot of other things. But I don't think it's a big value.

I want to sell what I think is good. I think a forum can be important but not as the starting point for most people. That's one of the reasons to paywall it. People are bad at just taking a forum and then learning a bunch. I want to provide help with actually learning useful stuff.

I think learning "philosophy" is poor branding in our culture. So I may call it something else. I do think a fair amount of people have interest in learning how to think more rationally, and other stuff in that ballpark. I think my material about that can stand out.

To get a larger audience, edu material needs to work better for people who are paying less attention, spending less time on it, taking less initiative, etc. Even people capable of doing those things well, in large amounts, often start with low amounts of them to try things out. A more organized and curated experience will work better for new people, plus some marketing. E.g. the FI essay collection lacks any calls to action. It doesn't guide people on what steps to do next.

Seems like some useful lessons from Apple's M1 Marketing: https://quixoticnomad.blog/technical-copywriting-what-engineers-can-learn-from-apples-m1-macbook-marketing-campaign/

#9 Some stuff not on the tree:

- social media: build following. this is a big way to find ppl today and get fans

this shitty CR group on FB has 6.3k ppl (i assume most members pay ~zero attention. and iirc they had like 5k ppl 5 years ago): https://www.facebook.com/groups/criticalrationalism/

FB has some shitty Oist groups with thousands of ppl too. it's much easier to get free members who don't care on FB.

BTW the FI newsletter has ~750 ppl but i don't think it's within reason to convert 10% to any kind of paying customer. but a few ppl do convert. e.g. a few ppl bought YesNo who haven't written any posts (afaik). i haven't checked how many of them are newsletter readers though, but if they aren't then they probably converted from finding my blog or another website (which would be how they became newsletter readers in the first place anyway).

- social media: meet ppl. find ppl on social media. chat with some. learn about target audience. e.g. read Facebook groups that have something to do with rationality.

- possibility of targeting rich people (some ppl donate millions to dumb, ineffective stuff like their university or lots of dumb charities). what are the motives of rich donors? mostly social status? i imagine some care about doing something useful. IIRC Hayek (mount pelerin society) and Marx got significant funding from rich ppl (maybe just one rich guy each) who liked their ideas.

- also possible to try to provide direct value to rich ppl (improve their lives personally rather than they give money and we do stuff to improve the world).

- could also target businesses. like teach how X type of biz can use Y type of philosophy idea to make more profit.

There are things people care a lot about that I can help with, like diet/weight loss or getting a date. The weight loss stuff is largely socially acceptable (whereas that's a major problem with the dating advice – ofc the dating advice is socially acceptable *to the woman you get a date with*, but the issue is it isn't socially acceptable to explain various stuff about how social dynamics work to the man/public).

Parenting is another big one but that suffers from more than socially unacceptable advice: it's also really complicated and hard to provide quick wins for (or at least existing TCS type material isn't about quick wins or concrete, practical tips. some could be developed. but existing material is more about general concepts, principles and methods, with some examples).

Biz stuff is another one that could work well. It's a big topic so would need to focus on something more specific.

Focus helps with marketing in general. But part of the power of philosophy is its generality. Can do some of both though. But it's hard to give ppl demonstrations and get them to believe the general method is good. Would need some good ideas about how to convert ppl from e.g. listening about diet to learning general thinking methods. (Ofc you can make money without any such conversion. But I don't want to just help ppl with diet to make money and forget about explaining rationality. I don't want to just use rationality/philosophy as my private competitive advantage over other ppl selling diet advice.)

One of the difficulties with marketing FI is the lack of focus. And that's hard to change cuz I like to look at and talk about a variety of things. A forum is one of the types of place where having writing about many topics is expected.

It's also possible to make a more focused thing and just keep this blog to post whatever. But capturing value from most of the stuff would be better.

#15 get X (e.g. an article) only if you sign up for newsletter is a common one.

a lot of ppl are really bad at managing their email and it's a little lame to contribute to that mess (a significant percentage of sign ups will not end up wanting to read the emails later and won't unsubscribe either).

in general a lot of marketing is competing over attention in noisy channels. similar to email inboxes, ppl's social media attention is a mess where they get pulled around to different stuff and have trouble controlling what they do and choosing what they want to read/see (they aren't blameless or literally pulled, but they experience it kinda like that).

it'd be nice to find some other channel to interact with ppl that isn't such a mess of things shouting for ppl's attention. but broadly if a lot of ppl pay attention to something then there's already lots of marketing there seeking that attention. some small niches have less marketing, e.g. Objectivism or anti-aging forums.

also lots of marketing has optimization related to common flaws ppl have (can be trying to exploit the flaw or trying to make it easier for someone to succeed despite the flaw). it's nicer to focus on positives and interact primarily with the best parts of ppl.

I figure I'll make some things for free, but only a few, periodically, that are intentionally designed to work well for non-customers (accessible without background knowledge; reasonably short; focused on one topic; provides some quick value; call to action). This would start with CF edu material, and later I could do others like a small set of articles+videos about diet, AGI safety. I think, broadly, making other additional stuff free won't help. The issue with recruiting is not quantity of public-facing material.

For members, I'd like to organize some things a bit more to help people make progress on an ongoing basis. Or at least provide some regular stuff to learn from like e.g. a weekly article and video.

#19 applying patio11's comment:

ppl want to outsource/delegate "manage my philosophy learning project". they will pay for that. they suck at doing it themselves.

it's a different thing to provide that philosophy ideas, articles, etc. it's different even than particularly education-focused articles. e.g. http://fallibleideas.com/grammar is particularly focused on educating ppl and helping them actually learn the material – much more so than a typical essay that just takes a topic and says some interesting stuff about it (generally including explaining some stuff – there's some edu).

my grammar article doesn't manage your learning project for you. it doesn't manage your schedule. it doesn't find worksheets for you to supplement the few practice problems i included. it doesn't decide for you whether to also do the Peikoff grammar course. it doesn't find some other books and websites for you and guide you which to read, how much, when, and in what manner (e.g. targeted reading about a specific issue you were having trouble with). it doesn't free up your attention so "learn the thing right in front of me using the resources right in front of me" is the only thing you have to think about. *schools do that quite a bit*. a 3rd or 11th grader in a class room is given specific goals, tasks, edu resources, etc. they are told what homework to do, what will be on the test, etc. it's all handed to them. they don't do much project management. (still some, e.g. of their time away from school they or their parents decide when specifically to work on homework – the teacher doesn't control that, her control is mostly within the classroom). universities do less project management than k-12 schools for you, and control your learning experience less, but they still do quite a bit. compared to k-12, universities generally reduce class time hours and hours you spend directly interacting with a teacher (back and forth interaction, not listening to a lecture with 300 other ppl which basically might as well be watching a video), and uni students do stuff more on their own, and that applies more for grad students than undergrad.

this is part of why "courses" have some popularity vs. blog posts. they are bundling in some project management. sometimes not much project management or guidance is included in the "course". but customers are at least hoping to get a more guided experience if they use a course instead of blog posts or doing self-study with some books they have to find (a lot of ppl will do worse at choosing books than searching for and reading several reddit threads giving book recommendations for the exact thing they want – which exit for a LOT of things and often have substantial expertise – and then making reasonable judgment about which advice in the reddit threads is good by looking at who gives reasons that make sense, what common themes accross many responses are, etc. a lot of ppl suck at searching the web and finding useful things like that and also they want a single answer. do X. the end. that's what schools offer generally. reddit threads with book reccs offer *conflicting advice*, which is better if you're a good thinker who cares enough to put in a bit of effort, but a lot of ppl deal with it quite badly. lots of ppl are also bad at using amazon reviews or even choosing between multiple books that come up on an amazon search for a topic. lots of ppl use fucking word of mouth – use a book one friend used and didn't hate. and if none of their friends have learned about something, they're a lot less likely to try to learn about it themselves).

#21 I think lots of people don't understand, realize or sometimes admit what they want to delegate and why. But if they don't get external help with certain things, it often results in failure.

Chris Do video: Should You Be Honest Or Polite When Talking To Clients

People on Hacker News

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25641205

impressed by this Descript marketing video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl9wqNe5J8U

which may have cost ~$250,000.

I agree it's good. I don't see it as super amazing.

Some ideas for stuff to sell:

* low numbered nodes -- could have a reserved section, like triple digits (and reserve lower numbers for big/important things). one benefit of this is we immediately get into >= 4 digits, where there's very little marginal utility, and far less reason to spam to get low numbered stuff. (arbitrary versioning/editing of node body/titles would mean 'reserving' stuff would be more valuable, esp with e.g. blog support)

* custom shortlink things / stubs. if someone wants cff.com/s/cff-project to redirect to cff.com/54783 then they might pay for that convenience + the other benefits.

* features like CNAMEs for blogs/etc. That's nice. I want to do that for my blog.

* * on that note, encouraging ppl to use it for stuff like project mgmt could be fine/easy with some supporting features, and would provide other revenue streams and mean more ppl were benefiting from the features/addons we (or others) could build. probs not something to focus on in the near future, but it's a thing we could do.

* private areas? IDK about this one, like it's hard to imagine good use cases. it makes more sense when combined with a cname.

> If people want to use this forum software for their own public blog (or private invite-only forum, e.g. internal at a company), my initial idea is we should either sell it or give it away. Then they can host it themselves.

An alternative idea would be to host two copies ourselves, one for the paid forum and one for a free site where people could put their public blogs. (Not a priority.)

#29

> I'm not sure how this will work given my plan to make it a paid forum. I don't think I want to host people's (presumably public in the sense of free, no paywall) blogs because having a lot of public (free) sections mixed with the private (paid) sections would be more confusing and unfocused.

Ahh okay. I might have had a different idea of scope. nbd, tho I think.

> I don't think I want to host people's ... blogs

Do you include FI ppl in that? I think it'd be good for us to be able to host blogs there. Mostly because discussion is already happening there (I'm thinking of something of curi.us microblog threads, but more substantial if ppl want).

WRT ppl generally, yeah it makes sense not to host ppls blogs. If there was a reason to do that (income, mb) then it'd be better to do it from different instance/server/etc.

Another thing I thought of selling was disk/storage/attachment space. Like ppl might get an allocation depending on subscription. The economics are a bit difficult if we're storing stuff ~forever and the person leaves, tho. But disk space is cheap. I got a wasabi storage account the other day; they have an S3 compatible API and I was going to use it to integrate like picture upload and stuff. (also they don't charge for egress traffic which is great for a forum)

> My current plan is to make one public (meaning free) open thread per year, and it'll be easy for people to understand that's being treated differently, it'll be clearly labelled, etc.

I think I need to get a better idea of what you have in mind (tho not a blocker atm). I can't remember if you've posted anything relevant about that.

> If people want to use this forum software for their own public blog (or private invite-only forum, e.g. internal at a company), my initial idea is we should either sell it or give it away.

I think keeping an open mind to licensing would be good, though there might be software support and stuff expected then, and open source ppl wouldn't build stuff for it. We can wait and see whether it looks like a good product or not.

#32

> Do you include FI ppl in that? I think it'd be good for us to be able to host blogs there. Mostly because discussion is already happening there (I'm thinking of something of curi.us microblog threads, but more substantial if ppl want).

My current thinking is that people can post a private, members-only blog or microblog, but can't make arbitrary nodes public to non-members.

https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1359952927931068417

Paul Graham:

>> Salespeople do a lot more than sell things. They're often the de facto project managers of their customers. But it suits both parties to give the job a narrow-sounding name that conceals this aspect of it.

patio11:

> Especially in enterprise, the sales job is "convince an enterprise to change a core aspect of their operations FROM OUTSIDE OF IT."

> If you've ever attempted to change an enterprise from the inside, on a topic you have formal authority on, you can appreciate the difficulty level.

> Too often in software we joke about steak dinners, etc etc, and don't realize that the actual work often involves a corkboard (virtual or physical) mapping the nature of power within the target organization, months long social suasion, cultivating local champions, etc.

> Usually industry prefers an anodyne phrase like "stakeholder identification" but the actual work that is being done is "identification of how power actually expresses itself in the real world and learning to influence and/or wield that power."

good Chris Do vid with Blair Enns with short examples re sales pitches:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMVayexyVlU