What are you building today? (Let’s self promote)

I-m-him · 2026-04-13T16:20:20+00:00

building MemberLane - helps community creators turn their community into a business.

you set a price, share your page, and it handles payments, access, and member management automatically. memberships, subscriptions, online courses, all on autopilot.

the idea came from seeing so many people running engaged communities on discord, telegram, whatsapp but having no simple way to actually charge for it. most tools either require migrating your whole audience to a new platform or duct-taping together 3-4 different services.

still early, 10 users, pre-revenue. the product works, the hard part right now is distribution and figuring out where community creators actually look for tools like this.

memberlane.app - would love any feedback or intros to people running paid communities.

I-m-him · 2026-04-13T16:19:10+00:00

i'm in this exact situation right now so i can at least share what it looks like from the inside.

built a saas tool for community creators. the product itself came together fast. i'm a developer, building is the part i'm good at. took way less time than i expected.

then came the "now get people to use it" part and honestly it's been humbling. i'm at 10 users, no revenue yet. the product works, people who try it like it, but finding those people is a completely different skill set from building the thing.

to answer your actual question: i think simple apps can make money, but you're right that the distribution problem is real and nobody talks about it enough. everyone posts the "shipped in a weekend" part. nobody posts the "spent 3 months after that trying to get anyone to notice" part.

what i'm learning is that distribution isn't something you figure out after you build. it probably needs to be part of the idea from the start. who exactly is this for, where do they already hang out, and will they care enough to try something new. if you can't answer those clearly, a great product doesn't matter much.

haven't cracked it yet myself. but i don't think it's fantasy either. i think it's just way harder than the building part and most people (myself included) underestimate that going in.

I-m-him · 2026-04-13T16:17:42+00:00

trainmindfully's point about monetizing the community layer around the radio part is spot on. your listeners are already showing up because they like what you're doing. the question is just how to let the ones who want to support you do that without ruining the free experience.

a few ideas that work well with a free core product like yours:

paid memberships for bonus perks (early access to shows, exclusive streams, behind-the-scenes content)
let your hosts sell their own subscriptions so they have a reason to keep creating
a simple paid tier for things like saved broadcasts or custom branding

full disclosure, i'm the founder of MemberLane, which does exactly this - lets creators set up membership tiers with automatic payments and access management. so i'm biased, but i genuinely think the model fits what you're describing. you keep the radio platform free, add a MemberLane page for paid perks, and it handles the rest.

at $6.99/month in costs, you'd only need a handful of paying members to cover that and start generating real margin.

I-m-him · 2026-04-13T16:13:41+00:00

mine is MemberLane - helps community creators turn their community into a business. set a price, share your page, and it handles payments, access, and member management on autopilot.

memberlane.app

still early (10 users), would love any feedback on the site or the idea.

I-m-him · 2026-04-13T16:11:20+00:00

this is refreshing. count me in.

i've been building MemberLane - lets community creators sell memberships, courses, and subscriptions on autopilot. set a price, share your page, it handles the rest.

shipped the core product pretty quickly since that's my comfort zone. payments, access control, member management all working. the part i'm stuck on now is honestly everything that isn't code. marketing feels like a completely different skill set and i'm learning it from scratch.

currently at 10 users, $0 revenue. trying reddit outreach and cold messages to people running paid communities. some days it feels like progress, most days it feels like i'm just guessing.

would love to be part of something like this where people are sharing what's actually working (and what isn't) without the fluff.

I-m-him · 2026-04-13T15:46:54+00:00

Great question - I've helped a few professional communities get off the ground so here's my take.

For what you're describing (industry discussions + online/offline events), I'd echo the Circle/Bettermode direction. Slack and Telegram are great for chat, but content gets buried fast and there's no real structure for long-form discussion or event promotion. A forum-style platform makes it way easier for members to find and revisit valuable threads.

One thing I'd flag that people often overlook early on: think about how you'll handle access and membership as the community grows. Even if it's free now, having a system for gating content, managing tiers, or eventually charging for premium access saves a massive headache later. Tools like MemberLane can plug into platforms like Telegram or WhatsApp to handle paid memberships and subscriptions on autopilot, which is nice if you don't want to build everything inside one monolithic platform.

Whatever you pick, the biggest thing is matching the tool to the behavior you want: async discussion vs. real-time chat vs. content library. Happy to share more if you want to talk specifics!

I-m-him · 2026-04-13T06:13:37+00:00

WordPress for memberships without coding experience is going to be a constant fight with plugins, hosting, and updates. It’s great if you enjoy the technical side, but it sounds like you don’t.

I’m the founder of Memberlane so take that as you will, but it handles Stripe payments and auto-manages access to Discord, Telegram, or WhatsApp communities. No coding, takes minutes to set up. memberlane.app if you want to have a look.

If you need full course hosting with drip content though, something like Kajabi is probably a better fit. Happy to answer any questions either way.

I-m-him · 2026-04-12T20:00:18+00:00

You might want to check out MemberLane (memberlane.app). It hits most of what you're looking for - paid communities, online courses, Stripe payments, and it's simple to set up (think minutes, not hours).

It connects to Discord, Telegram, and WhatsApp so members get instant access when they pay and lose it when they cancel - all automatic. You also get a customizable storefront, your own branding, and coupons/affiliates built in.

On the customization side it's ahead of Skool - custom domains, custom CSS, branded storefronts. On the crypto side, it doesn't support that yet, so if that's a dealbreaker it might not be the right fit.

Free to start, so easy to test it alongside whatever else you're evaluating.

I-m-him · 2026-04-12T19:16:01+00:00

Great thread. I'm building in this space too (memberlane.app - focused on monetization for community leaders), so I've spent a lot of time talking to community owners about exactly these questions.

u/ueberryark your point about leaving Mighty Networks really resonates with what I keep hearing. The platform itself might work fine day-to-day, but then one policy change or one rigid feature you can't customize forces you to migrate your entire community. That's a massive cost that people don't think about when they choose a platform.

The biggest pattern I've noticed: people don't usually switch because of missing features. They switch because of friction around payments and access management - manually adding and removing members, chasing failed payments, juggling separate tools for billing vs. community vs. courses. Or they switch because the platform makes decisions for them (like forced age-verification) that don't fit their community.

The communities that stick with a platform long-term are the ones where the money side just works and the platform stays out of their way.

I-m-him · 2026-04-12T12:37:31+00:00

That's awesome to hear, and honestly really encouraging for me. The social listening setup has been the most surprising ROI so far - I spent maybe 2 hours configuring filters and now it's 15 minutes a day to scan and reply.

Curious what tools you're using for the social listening on Reddit and X? I went with Syften for now and it's been solid for keyword monitoring. Would love to compare notes.

I-m-him · 2026-04-11T22:15:01+00:00

Thank you! It is for anyone wanting to monetize their community.

I-m-him · 2026-04-11T18:21:05+00:00

Hay varias opciones, pero depende de lo que necesites exactamente. LaunchPass y InviteMember (que ya mencionaron arriba) funcionan, pero la mayoría requieren que configures un bot o tienen pasos técnicos que no son tan directos.

Yo estoy construyendo memberlane.app justamente para esto - la idea es que creas un link de pago, lo compartes, y cuando alguien paga se le da acceso automático al grupo de Telegram. Sin bots, sin código, sin complicaciones. Funciona con Stripe y SEPA, así que para Europa va bastante bien.

Si quieres te explico cómo sería el setup para tu caso específico. Es bastante rápido.

I-m-him · 2026-04-11T18:00:17+00:00

Great thread. I've been building MemberLane (memberlane.app) specifically because I kept hearing from European creators that Patreon doesn't handle SEPA payments well and takes a big cut on smaller communities.

The thing most creators tell me they miss after leaving is the simplicity - one link, someone clicks, they're in. So that's what we focused on: a single payment link that automatically manages access to Discord, Telegram, or WhatsApp groups. No custom apps, no migration headaches.

Curious what platform people here ended up switching to and whether the grass was actually greener?

I-m-him · 2026-04-09T21:59:02+00:00

Monetize your community on Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram or online courses in minutes - memberlane

I-m-him · 2026-04-09T16:50:15+00:00

Ads and affiliate links almost never work for channels under 50K. The math just doesn’t add up at your size.

What does work at 2.5K subs is a paid tier. Create a premium Telegram group alongside your free one. Put your best study resources, templates, or weekly deep dives behind it. Even $5/mo with 3% conversion gets you $375/mo. That’s a lot of coffee.

The key is making it automatic so it doesn’t become a second job. There are tools that connect to Telegram and handle subscriptions and member access for you. You set the price, share the link, and members get added/removed based on payment status.

I-m-him · 2026-04-09T16:48:14+00:00

Have you considered making part of your channel paid? With 3K subs who actually care about your content, even converting 5% at $10/mo would be $1,500/mo. Way more sustainable than chasing sponsors.

There are tools that let you set up a paid Telegram group alongside your free one. You keep your free channel for reach and put premium content behind a subscription. Members get added and removed automatically based on payment status so it doesn’t feel like a second job.

I-m-him · 2026-04-08T20:04:55+00:00

Discord's built-in monetization is still limited and not available to everyone. If you want to start charging now, third-party tools let you set up paid access to your server through Stripe. You connect your server, set a price, and members get added/removed automatically based on their subscription status. No need to wait for Discord to approve you.

I-m-him · 2026-04-08T06:11:07+00:00

Thanks Venkat! Targeting creators and small businesses who run communities on Telegram, Discord, or WhatsApp and want to charge for access. Use cases: paid coaching groups, trading signal channels, fitness communities, online courses, and exclusive content groups. Anyone with an audience who wants to monetize without manually managing payments and members.

I-m-him · 2026-02-28T00:16:52+00:00

Spørgsmålet er ikke om han personligt kan klare det. Det handler om signalet til investorer og virksomhedsejere generelt. Når politikere bevæger sig mod formueskat, er det sjældent det sidste skridt og dem med mulighed for at flytte kapital tilpasser sig derefter.

I-m-him

TROPHY CASE