Creator Science with Jay Clouse

The highest month of membership revenue in Lab history was also the setup for the highest month of churn. One year later, February delivered both records.

I have been building community in some form since 2012. I ran Startup Weekend events in Columbus, led online Mastermind groups, consulted on the launch of SPI Pro, and spent 2021 leading the community team at Smart Passive Income before going back out on my own. In early 2022, I launched what became the Lab, a membership for creators earning at least $10,000 per month in non-service revenue or with 10,000 followers on a single platform. The Lab now has around 340 members across three tiers and is still standing after years of waves of communities coming and going.

In this episode, we talk about:

Why scarcity and urgency drive signups but can crater your retention a year later

The two onboarding "secrets" I kept quiet for a while

The mastermind paradox

How to think about scaling a community without accidentally eroding the culture you've built

What I would tell anyone thinking about launching a membership before they write a single line of copy

By the end of this episode, you will have a clearer picture of how a membership actually works over years, not just at launch.

Subscribe to Growth in Reverse

Watch on YouTube

The Lab Membership⁠

⁠The Lab Membership Teardown (free)⁠

⁠Circle (community platform)⁠

⁠Kit Craft and Commerce Conference⁠

⁠Chenell Basilio on Creator Science⁠⁠

Full transcript and show notes

***

TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Introduction and episode context

(02:08) How Jay started the Lab (from Startup Weekend to SPI Pro to Creative Companion Club)

(09:37) The scarcity play: record revenue month followed by record churn

(10:38) What actually works as a marketing lever for a community

(13:46) Why Jay runs applications and has a 90% conversion rate for accepted members

(16:30) The design philosophy: reduce effort, increase impact

(24:19) Mid-boarding: the missing piece between onboarding and renewal

(35:13) Jay's onboarding framework and the two secrets he's been keeping

(40:46) Why offline events matter for retention (not necessarily growth)

(47:00) How to think about scaling community without destroying culture

(49:19) Who shouldn't launch a membership (and what to figure out first)

***

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE

#292: Chenell Basilio — The state of email in 2026, growing your list without social media, and new predictions.

***

ASK CREATOR SCIENCE

Submit your question here

***

WHEN YOU'RE READY

Creator Science Newsletter

Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system)

Join The Lab (private membership community)

Get a Personalized Offer

***

CONNECT

Connect on Twitter

Connect on Instagram

Connect on LinkedIn

Subscribe on YouTube

***

SPONSORS

View all sponsors

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad Hoos is the CEO of Outloud Group, one of the top influencer marketing agencies in the United States. His clients include AG1, Chomps, KitchenAid, and Whirlpool, and he’s managed campaigns across tens of thousands of creator partnerships. Jay found Brad while researching for his book proposal on trust, trying to track down the agency behind AG1’s dominance in podcast advertising.

In this episode, we talk about:

Why the creators who say no the most often are actually the most valuable to brands

The difference between brand voice and brand advocacy, and why getting this wrong kills campaigns

What Outloud learned running AG1’s campaigns across tens of thousands of creators

The data across 50,000 campaigns showing no meaningful correlation between CPM and performance

By the end of this episode, you will think differently about how brands choose creators and how creators should position themselves for long-term partnership success.

Outloud Group

Full transcript and show notes

***

TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Introduction

(01:10) What brands actually want when they hire an agency

(06:20) The two things brands need to understand before a campaign starts

(07:09) Brand voice vs. brand advocacy: why the difference matters

(10:18) How trust changes what brands allow creators to do

(15:48) What running AG1’s campaigns taught Brad about influencer marketing

(20:39) How creators can position themselves to attract brand deals

(22:52) Why entertaining your audience beats being the “perfect” brand advocate

(27:24) Why the creators who say no most often perform best

(39:10) The data: no meaningful correlation between CPM and creator performance

(42:47) What Brad believes is true but can’t yet prove with data

(44:09) If you could only pick two platforms right now

***

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE

#179: Justin Moore – A step-by-step strategy to get anyone sponsored, regardless of audience size

***

ASK CREATOR SCIENCE

Submit your question here

***

WHEN YOU’RE READY

💬 Creator Science Newsletter

🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system)

🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community)

🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer

***

CONNECT

🐦 Connect on Twitter

📸 Connect on Instagram

💼 Connect on LinkedIn

📹 Subscribe on YouTube

***

SPONSORS

💼 View all sponsors
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the first time ever, I'm teaching my most popular course, Build A Beloved Membership, live over four weeks. You'll learn the exact approach I've taken to building The Lab to a ~$500K/year membership.

Here's what you'll get:

4 weeks live. 10 sessions taught by me (July 3 to August 3).

Kickoff call (Friday July 3) and Sendoff call (Monday August 3).

Recordings of every session.

A Circle space for homework, questions, and cohort chat.

A year of Lab Basic (member directory, questions answered, frameworks).

That last bullet is a big deal. Because after these four weeks are over, a year inside our Basic Membership (which typically costs $699/yr on its own) gives you monthly office hours with me for a year. So after the cohort, you aren't totally on your own again; you still have our community by your side.

→ Learn more and enroll​

I won't run this again in 2026. The timing just doesn't work with our next baby on the way—so I'll be going all out on THIS cohort. By the way, it’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun.

​Here's the full cohort page to learn more. We have more than 30 students enrolled already, and enrollment closes Wednesday, July 1 at 11:59pm ET.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I brought back Becky Pierson Davidson to compare notes on where community is headed — and we found a few areas of disagreement. Becky works with 6, 7, and 8-figure businesses helping them build memberships and courses through design thinking and customer research, and she's seeing a major shift right now: course businesses are slowing down, and the smart ones are pivoting to membership models. The difference? Shared learning experiences are replacing self-paced education. Community is what people stay for.

We dig into the real mechanics: how to set expectations that don't feel like a bait-and-switch, why meaningful engagement isn't what most people think it is, the mastermind paradox (increases retention, decreases forum activity), and why in-person events might be the most important retention lever you're not using. Becky's hot take for 2026: content drops are dying. People don't need more stuff — they need connection and programming that moves them forward.

⁠Affinity Collective⁠

⁠Build with Becky podcast⁠

⁠Episode 197: Building Raving Fans (with Becky & Chanel)⁠

⁠Circle (community platform)⁠

⁠TightKnit (Slack archive plugin)⁠

⁠Dreamers and Doers⁠

⁠Full transcript and show notes⁠

***

TIMESTAMPS

(02:35) Defining community as a product, not a growth engine

(04:09) Why community is rising as a business model in 2026

(06:02) The reality of transitioning from courses to memberships

(08:01) Finding the right community design for your appetite

(10:02) How to avoid the bait-and-switch with member expectations

(13:06) Value perception vs. value experience

(13:57) The smallest viable promise for your sales page

(16:44) Where we disagree: transformation vs. community of practice

(21:14) Forum design: why fewer spaces wins

(23:17) Solving the engagement problem (what meaningful engagement actually is)

(25:50) How the best members actually use your community

(29:46) The mastermind paradox: retention up, forum participation down

(32:09) In-person experiences and the graduation weekend model

(36:39) The economics of offline events

(39:35) 2026 Hot Take: Content drops are dying

(43:07) Retention rethink: Did I get my money's worth vs. Will I next year?

(46:04) Why connection drives retention more than results

(48:23) Tool stack: Circle 9 times out of 10

(51:14) The future: personalization in community software

***

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE

→ ⁠Episode 197: Building Raving Fans⁠

***

ASK CREATOR SCIENCE

→ ⁠Submit your question here⁠

***

WHEN YOU'RE READY

📬 ⁠Creator Science Newsletter⁠

🚀 ⁠Get CreatorHQ⁠ (creator operating system)

🧪 ⁠Join The Lab⁠ (private membership community)

🧞‍♂️ ⁠Get a Personalized Offer⁠

***

CONNECT

🐦 ⁠Connect on Twitter⁠

📸 ⁠Connect on Instagram⁠

💼 ⁠Connect on LinkedIn⁠

📹 ⁠Subscribe on YouTube⁠

***

SPONSORS

💼 ⁠View all sponsors
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sid Yadav is the CEO and co-founder of Circle, a community platform trusted by creators like Jay and thousands of others to build membership businesses. Today, Circle has ~280 employees and has raised around $30 million.

Before Circle, he was the third hire at Teachable, where he helped build the infrastructure for the creator economy before the term even existed. He spent four years as a tech blogger, writing about startups five to ten times a day, and was one of the first people to ever cover YouTube—back when it was a dating platform!

The one thing Sid says separates successful communities from the rest

Circle Eclipse: what it is (AI partner + connective tissue + Discover marketplace) and why 80 of 100 engineers have been on it for 4 months

The “course as wrong abstraction” insight: why Sid saw self-paced courses heading toward terminal decline as early as 2018

By the end of this episode, you will understand why the most successful community businesses aren’t built around content — they’re built around a specific transformation.

Join the waitlist for early access to Circle AI

Full transcript and show notes

***

TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Introduction

(01:44) Teachable origin story: the “I don’t want to play Tinder with you” email that started it all

(06:18) Tech blogger at Mashable — and the story of being first to write about YouTube

(09:15) ~280 employees, $30M raised — the scale of Circle today

(12:52) Why self-paced courses are in terminal decline (the leading indicators Sid saw in 2018)

(17:16) The “course as the wrong abstraction” moment — community as the right container

(22:00) Circle Eclipse: the three major updates launching

(24:00) The connective tissue opportunity: one plus one must equal ten

(33:19) Admin dashboard evolution — where Circle AI lives for returning users

(35:30) The morning brief: five recommended next steps, then you’re good for the day

(38:50) The biggest bet in Circle’s history: 80 engineers, 4 months, Spain offsite

(40:00) Member-side AI agents and where they’re heading

(43:24) Discover: from supply-side listing directory to the first real marketplace for transformations

(48:00) The promise: Discover will never market inside your community — ever

(51:55) Sid’s #1 recommendation: define your transformation

***

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE

#295: Community Building Trends for 2026 with Becky Pierson Davidson

***

ASK CREATOR SCIENCE

Submit your question here

***

WHEN YOU'RE READY

📬 Creator Science Newsletter

🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system)

🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community)

🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer

***

CONNECT

🐦 Connect on Twitter

📸 Connect on Instagram

💼 Connect on LinkedIn

📹 Subscribe on YouTube

***

SPONSORS

💼 View all sponsors

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices