Why we invested in MemberSpace

At Calm Company Fund, we are big fans of platforms that enable entrepreneurs to build profitable, scalable, remote-friendly businesses. MemberSpace enables nutritionists, personal trainers, educators, and entrepreneurs of all kinds to build a membership business on any website.

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Although the category of enabling members-only sites is not particularly new, we think MemberSpace is unique in a couple of interesting ways.

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Build a membership business on any web platform and take it with you

Like so many great products, MemberSpace began as an agency focused on building Squarespace sites for businesses. The co-founders, Ward and Ryan, listened to their clients and heard loud and clear they needed a way to build membership businesses on Squarespace. They productized the results, and as they perfected the product, slowly transitioned their team to a full-time focus on MemberSpace.

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But they cleverly built their technology in a way that is decoupled from the underlying content management system (CMS). Around the time we invested, they began rolling out support for Webflow and Weebly, and will imminently support Wix, WordPress, JAMstack static sites, Carrd and basically any web platform out there.

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Customers of MemberSpace can easily switch between platforms, much to the envy of folks running complicated PHP plugins deeply integrated with their WordPress sites. Being able to switch platforms or even combine multiple platforms (ie a CMS, podcast host, private group, and download library) into one comprehensive membership business will be so powerful for their customers over the long-term.

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Profitable, calm companies supporting each other

I don’t think the founders mind me sharing that MemberSpace is currently profitable on a team of nine full-time employees and intends to stay focused on building a profitable, sustainable company.

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Why should customers care about this? Two reasons:

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1. Fair long-term pricing. We all know the story by now. A platform that creators and entrepreneurs rely on to run their business raises a giant pile of venture capital, tries to grow too fast, and eventually is forced to massively hike prices to their customers’ dismay or implode. MemberSpace is optimizing their company to never do that to their customers and we support it whole-heartedly.
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2. World class support. Profitable companies don’t optimize for growth, they optimize for retention. They want every customer that walks through the door to stay with them forever. I constantly see the founders intentionally holding back expansion to new platforms to make sure they can maintain the extremely high level of support that MemberSpace customers love.

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Relentless focus on supporting their customers and community

The founders understand deeply that the key to their long-term success is a thriving community of makers building membership businesses. From their podcast highlighting awesome Member Makers, to their support of underrepresented founders at conferences, to their excellent guides to building a membership business… MemberSpace gets that community is the key.

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Check out MemberSpace

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