[00:00:00]

Kristy: Hello boss and welcome back to the Run Your Business Like a Boss Podcast. Boy oh boy. I am so excited to bring you today's conversation. I am joined by two-time business founder Chris Edwards. Chris is the business owner of Honeycombers and Launchpad, and she's been in business for over 15 years. Yes, boss, you heard that right. 15 years. I was so excited to have Chris on the show. With a background in marketing and publishing, Chris identified a gap in the market for expats living in Hong Kong and Singapore, and as a result, she created the digital platform and community that is now known as launchpad. I was so excited to hear Chris's experience, all of her lessons learnt along the way because I myself have never created a membership site, so I was keen to get an insight into what that was like for her.

But here's the thing, whether or not you are interested in introducing a membership site into your business model. I know you're gonna get so much value from this conversation and being in the presence, quote unquote, of someone who has such a deep level of experience in the online business world.

So, are you ready? Let's go.

Hello Chris. Welcome to the Run Your Business Like a Boss podcast.

[00:01:56]

Chris: Hi, Kristy. Thank you for having me. I'm a bit of a fan, so [00:02:00] this is a very starstruck moment to be invited.

[00:02:03]

Kristy: Oh, I absolutely love that. And the feeling is very mutual. Such a strong respect for you, your business, and what you are achieving in the world. So I'm super excited to dig into today's conversation. So today we're talking about all things membership, and this is most definitely not my area of expertise.

So I'm bringing you into the conversation so you can share all of your worldly experience of building a successful membership. But before we get into the nuts and bolts of what it really takes to build this successful membership, can you share with us a little bit about why you decided or where you started with Launchpad?

[00:02:39]

Chris: Yeah, sure. And I probably need to give a little bit of context in that Launchpad's not my first business or my primary business. So my first business is a media business called Honeycombers that I started 15 years ago, and Honeycombers is based in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Bali. And it has a lovely big readership and an engaged audience, and it's kind of like a lovely business now. You know, it's been a journey. Yeah, so last year I kind of thought, what can I do to leverage Honeycombers and also I suppose, feed this personal need of mine to give back and to kind of mentor or help other entrepreneurs? And that's where Launchpad came from. So Launchpad is a community of conscious entrepreneurs who are really striving to build better businesses, and I really like to describe launchpad as a community where all the businesses have people and their planet as well as the profit line, as key drivers to their business. And yeah, so I created Launchpad after my journey of knowing how hard it is to be a female entrepreneur in a space that you're really ill-equipped with. It's very hard to level up, particularly when I started 15 years ago, there wasn't a lot of, I [00:04:00] suppose, resources or networks that I could tap into. There were some, but they were very kind of rigid and old fashioned. And my vision for Launchpad was to be very digital savvy, very multi-touch point across social web in real life, WhatsApp and really I suppose to form a community of like-minded entrepreneurs.

[00:04:20]

Kristy: I love that. I think that some of the best businesses come from sharing your expertise as well as also something that came from a need for you in the beginning. And 15 years. I think that anybody who's listening to this episode today is gonna tip their hat at you because you are definitely a pioneer in the online space.

To have a business, a tenure of 15 years is incredibly inspiring. So congratulations.

So when it comes to Launchpad, so obviously it's your second business, and how incredible is it that we live in a world where we can do that, that we can have our primary business and then have a second business that is creating just equally as much impact.

So where did you start when it came to Launchpad to getting it off the ground? Like what was the hurdles that you had to overcome to make that happen?

[00:05:08]

Chris: The big hurdle, I think was just how much there was to do, and finding the right people was tough and it was critical and I now have like a superstar team that helped me on Launchpad. With any new business, I think you kind of have a vision of what you want to create, and I'm a very much a believer in done is better than perfect.

So we took it to market early. I think I spent maybe four months preparing and doing the website and getting together the nuts and bolts, and then I took it out to the market and really used my own network and contacts and just invited people I thought would be great members, and I invited them and I gave them a free membership to start off with.

And I suppose I got some help there from a friend of mine who was very much like, this is how you seed and [00:06:00] you get going. But yeah, I think finding the right people to help me was probably the biggest challenge. And I have now a community manager. Mia, if you're listening to this, you know who you are, who is a rockstar.

And a lot of people come to me going, how did you find her? You know? So I do think finding really good people to support you is critical.

[00:06:19]

Kristy: Yeah. I think that having the right people in your corner is essential. Whether that's part of a team or whether that's part of a group of people that you outsource to, or even just like-minded business owners, is that I think that running a business, it's such a lonely journey. So having those people there in your corner is definitely something that's super important.

But one of the things that I wanna double back to, which I think is really interesting is the outreach. I think that often in the online space, we think that we build this thing and we put it out there and we market it, and we message it and all the things and they will come. But what I really am interested in for your perspective is the fact that you maybe use some of your more traditional experience of your first business in that outreach capacity, inviting people personally to come inside the membership.

So can you share with me a little bit more about that?

[00:07:10]

Chris: I feel like this is a really good point to talk about. I suppose with any membership or community, you can't really sell a community until you've got people who are in it, and I feel like it's a bit of a mistake lots of entrepreneurs make that they don't wanna give it away for free.

And I feel like how can you charge if you haven't got proof and you don't have a community? You really need to be comfortable with saying, and I think it was initially maybe 20 or 30 people, we earmarked as great people that I would love in my community who knew my story and had a connection to me.

So they felt comfortable investing their time. And what was really interesting, there were some that were really high profile and that was great because we literally put them [00:08:00] on our homepage and said, this is who is in the community. And then there were others that weren't as high profile, but really fit our target audience, and they just loved the community and they became raving fans. And we really focus on these people, because they're the ones that do all our marketing for us, like not all of our marketing, but a lot of the heavy lifting is done by our members who like to just rave about us. So we definitely fostered and invested our time in making sure that our initial 30, 40 members really loved us. And that was really just giving them time and really listening to them, hearing what they needed, making them feel that they were in the driver's seat. So we did a lot of things like surveys. In our first three months we did a survey.

What, what are you liking? What are you not liking? What would you like more of? What kind of content would you like us to cover? And we've continued to do that every three months. And it's great because the members love it, but also it gives us so much great data and insight of where we should be taking this and what we should be offering.

Because I feel like also you want to constantly be evolving, just to keep it interesting and fresh and I suppose really valuable.

[00:09:17]

Kristy: I think there's a lot that our boss who's listening to today's episode can take away from what you shared. I think the first thing is this whole notion of not needing it to be complete, that you could just get in there, do it, done is better than perfect. And you know, we've all heard that message before, but too often we get stuck in the idea space and in the dreaming space, and less so in the doing space because we tell ourselves these stories that everything has to be perfect, and so rather than sitting there tinkering with it, making sure that everything is exactly as you want it, you went out and you actually corralled and created a membership site of the people that you knew were going to be there. The second thing that I really wanted to tap into is in a world where you're running an online [00:10:00] business, there's so much talk about tactics and about how you drive sales and how you do this, and I think sometimes we just need to strip it back and get back to basics of how people have run businesses for a long time, and this can often be missing.

Like we're so busy trying to create content and get out there digitally when actually if we, you know, nurture people in real life, if we have those, to your point, connecting back into those relationships that you've already formed, really thinking about who is the right person for this, and letting them know that you care and that you want them to be part of that and inviting them into this founding members for free. Well, the reality is, is that you have tested a offer in a way that you can't test unless you go live. So that is way more powerful than any amount that you might not have brought in the door sales-wise initially, to be able to build it with, that actually makes an impact.

[00:10:55]

Chris: Yeah, 100%. And you are right. It is stripping it back and just really focusing on what does your customer need and getting really, really close to them so they're your best friends. You know, it's really easy to serve them cause you really understand them cause you've spent so much time with them.

[00:11:11]

Kristy: And it's so much less about theory, right? Because you are side by side with them. You are doing the surveys, you are understanding what they're getting from the program. You are understanding what they're not. And then you can evolve and let that unravel in a much more organic and natural way that is actually really then going to draw in those paying clients, and that's what's going to really help the membership grow rather than just fizzle out into the ether.

So, logistically, I guess this is the thing for me because I've never created a membership site, so I'm super curious about it if I'm being completely honest. Where do you actually begin?

Like what do you do to get a membership site off the ground? So I know you had help, but like, what were those first couple of steps? That's what I really wanna know.

[00:11:56]

Chris: I think it was just writing down[00:12:00] in a document why you would join the membership. What would be the reason driving you to sign up? And I think it's that core offering that you really need to nut out. And then I suppose we just wrote a landing page after that. But it was really just thinking deeply and making sure that you were offering something that is an unmet need. I think the biggest challenge, and, you know, I feel like I have a little bit of an advantage because my community is based in Asia. So there was nothing like launchpad in Asia.

Like there were other entrepreneurial groups, but they weren't as dynamic or rich in their offering. I mean, it is quite a rich offering and we have members who joined going, oh my God, there is just so much. Like I didn't realize how much there is. So it is a really unique offering in Asia, but I think there are memberships like this in the States and in Australia. So, you know, I think it's just coming up with that really unique offering and that little seed is 90% of the work, but it's really that idea of what are you gonna give your members that they can't get elsewhere?

[00:13:08]

Kristy: It sounds super simple, right? What is the problem that I'm trying to solve and how am I going to solve that problem? And this is the step that so many people miss when it comes to creating any new offer, is that they're thinking about what they wanna do or what they can do, or maybe even the step of what's not out there.

But the reality is, is that the very, very first step of creating anything that's successful is really understanding the problem and how you are going to solve it. And when you've got that nailed the how can evolve and change and iterate, we all know that. But if you've got that piece really nailed, you can go out and confidently outreach those founding members, build that initial landing page, have that initial offer, and then let the rest come afterwards. But without that, it's so hard to get it off the ground.

[00:13:57]

Chris: Yeah, 100%. And I do think [00:14:00] a lot of entrepreneurs skip this step . They use the term product market fit. The thing I love about talking about product market fit is I do feel we have a bias to action or a bias to just create something when actually we, you are a hundred percent right.

We need to be spending the time really understanding the market and making sure the product meets the market because yeah, I was just talking to an entrepreneur this morning who is just like, my product is not working, and I'm like, but it's just this question of are you creating the product because that's what you wanna do, or are you creating the product because that's what the market needs.

So, yeah, I really think it sounds very theoretical, but it's not, it's really fundamental and it's deep thinking about what's out there and what people need.

[00:14:49]

Kristy: Yeah, because the reality is there's so much that people can purchase. There's so much that people can invest in. There's so much that they can spend their hard-earned cash on, and so people aren't going to spend the money on something that doesn't meet that need, as you say, and they're just gonna keep walking.

I see it all the time online where the messaging, it sounds like someone else, it sounds like something that's out there. And in some ways I see it with even some of my own messaging from other people, but it's, you can see that the other pieces aren't lining up. That the offer's not lining up, that there's not that backing of how they can actually create that transformation for the person and why they'd wanna take that next step with you. So, being super clear on that problem and being super clear on how that's going to help people is going to inform every other decision that you make, whether it's a membership or whether it's a program or whether it's a done-for-you service, you name it.

[00:15:42]

Chris: Yeah. And I think also reaching out to my, I think it was 20 or 30 founding members was also a really good test. Cause if they all said, I don't even want this free we would've gone, okay, this idea's not gonna work. But yeah, that's another really good test. And I also do think it is better to make people pay [00:16:00] as a real test rather than offering for free.

Because, you know, mind you, we did say they had to log in and put their credit card details and sign up to an annual membership, and their first year was free. So, that was the little caveat and that was enough of a hurdle to make people go, well do I wanna put my credit card details in here with the commitment that in 12 months' time I will be charged? But yeah, I think that's a really good point.

[00:16:23]

Kristy: Yeah, and actually on that point about charging, and I think that when you don't charge, that can open up the doors of complacency. Not doing the work. With any membership, it's about facilitation of content, it's about facilitation of, you know, helping you to take action. But it's never gonna get results for the user unless they take action. And more often than not, taking action comes from a place of, I've invested in this, I've made a decision to put money on the table and therefore I will take action.

So I think that that is something to be mindful of. Maybe in your instance, you had such a great buy-in already and relationship with the people who you reached out to that that wasn't a hurdle to overcome, but I think that, I don't know. What do you think about that?

[00:17:08]

Chris: Well, here's an interesting thing I've just thought of then is actually we launched in Hong Kong first, which is a city I've not lived in and I don't have the same personal contacts as Singapore, where I lived for 11 years. So we launched in Hong Kong first, and then we launched in Singapore four months later.

So what was interesting is, you know, I suppose it's a little bit of an experiment in how well the product was gonna fit both markets and whether it was gonna rely on my personal network or not, and Singapore has performed better than Hong Kong, but Hong Kong is still growing and I'm happy with where it's at, and there's been lots of different factors.

You know my media business is a lot more well known in Singapore, so there's lots of other factors, but it was harder to reach out and find 20 personal contacts I could lean on. So, I think [00:18:00] fundamentally, I believe that a lot of people test the market with free services when you can't really test the market unless you are asking people to open their wallets. And I just believe that if you're gonna test, ask them to pay something, you know, because then it's a real test.

There's so many freebies everywhere and I've downloaded freebies all the time and there's so much great content out there that's free, but it's a lot harder to get me to open my wallet. I'm a lot more cautious and I'm cautious, particularly on subscriptions. You know, like it's not just a one-off, it's a commitment.

So I definitely think when you are launching a new product that it's better to test with a paid offering to really know whether the market wants it.

[00:18:44]

Kristy: So the lesson in this is definitely going back to basics and really leveraging relationships, but the lesson is how can you make it so that you can create this offer, test it in a way that invites people in. But there is that, it's almost like a mental shift, right? This is what I think I'm hearing is it's like a mental shift.

Even though they haven't paid the money upfront, they've laid down their credit card. So there is this thought process of investment, perhaps, maybe not upfront. So yeah, it's interesting and I think, again, that whole testament to relationships. If we're looking at, in isolation, Hong Kong versus Singapore, in your case, the fact that there's that trust, that deep relationship that already existed. Therefore, that has really helped with Launchpad.

[00:19:28]
Chris: Yeah. And I do think because Honeycombers is very well known, that there is a sense of trust that Chris can help me with my business because Chris has built a good business. And, Honeycombers is read by a million unique users a month, and the population's I think 6 million.

So we've got a really solid brand awareness. People really know Honeycombers. Even if you're traveling to Singapore, you probably will use Honeycombers. So there is that brand trust as well, and that definitely, definitely helped me with Launchpad. So [00:20:00] that's a little bit of a step up I had.

[00:20:02]

Kristy: And that in and of itself is something that I think anyone who's listening, who's thinking about launching a membership, they have to think about that. Do you have that brand behind you? Because sometimes the internet can lead us down a path to think this is a really great way to scale my business.

And you don't necessarily have that reach and that trust that might come later on down the line because there does come this time in a business owner's journey where they think, well, how do I scale? How do I increase my reach, my impact, and what is the best method to do that?

And I think memberships can sometimes be that tricky space of, because you need volume, you then also need to have the ability to reach the number of people to be able to buy into what it is that you're selling.

[00:20:44]

Chris: Yeah, and I do think there's a lot of different membership models. So I've got a girlfriend who's considering a membership model that will have a cap of 12 members, but it will have a very high ticket price. I think it'll be 6 or 7 thousand dollars a year per member. And so there are a lot of different models in the membership world and I think her concept's great. It's just very different to Launchpad's. So I do think there's many ways to skin a cat.

[00:21:10]

Kristy: And this is, oh gosh, I get so fired up about stuff like this because this is the beautiful thing. There is no one right way to do anything in business. And if having more members in your membership site doesn't sit right with you being able to create a year long program membership with a smaller number of members might actually be the better way.

And I love that ability to be able to think outside the box and to be able to approach this differently. So my question to you is, if you were to start again, like what would be the lessons that you've taken? Would you do anything differently?

[00:21:44]

Chris: Would I do anything differently? No. Look, we're really happy. I think we had 80 new members sign on in January, like it's going super well. There's so much information out there about memberships. I think I should still be doing more homework myself. Like I feel like [00:22:00] my data points aren't as good as they could be.

So I feel like there's still so much to learn and so much to do. Oh, I'll tell you one big mistake we made. We launched the Launchpad site as dual sites, one in Singapore, one in Hong Kong, and that just created so much work. So within the first four months, we had to redo the whole website and combine it.

So it's back to one site with two different pricing pages. But I mean, that's an operational thing that was just like a bit of a ball ache, but I'm still very happy with us just moving quickly and getting it done. And even if it was wrong, from the outside people didn't really see that issue. It was more from an operational perspective. But yeah, I suppose I'm just still keen to continually learn about memberships and upskill myself. So I think the journey's not over, and I have really loved what we're offering and I feel so happy and I give so much time to Launchpad and I feel a bit guilty about Honeycombers cause there, I don't get as much time on that anymore, but it's such a joy what we are doing at Launchpad that we tend to spend a lot more, myself and the team, hours on it than what we should, because we're just really enjoying what we're creating and what we're doing and how we're helping people. So it's a really beautiful business to run.

[00:23:22]

Kristy: It's such a joy to sit here and watch your face, and watch your body language as you're talking about it. You can tell that you're passionate about it. You can tell that you have beautiful curiosity around it. You can see that you're looking to grow within it, and I can imagine that anyone who's inside of that membership program is very well loved and very well taken care of, and they're very lucky to have someone as experienced as you, but also someone who's invested as you really at the, you know, spearheading the membership program with the support of your beautiful team as well. So, no, it really is, it's very precious. And one of the things that I [00:24:00] know about this recent intake that you did, so much of that again came from your community. So I'd love to hear like a little bit on that because again, it really lends itself to this whole building businesses. We can learn a lot about traditional business models.

[00:24:15]

Chris: Yeah, so I really love just trying to leverage word of mouth. So we've done a few things where we have encouraged and really I suppose, sown the seed to ask members to go and get other members. So we've run competitions to say, post about Launchpad on your membership and you'll win a free ticket to this or, and you know, it's just kind of encouraging people and reminding people that actually when they go out and talk about Launchpad on their social media, it does help us and it helps their network discover Launchpad and be curious and come and check us out.

And I suppose the other thing that we do is a lot of in-person events and that's a really good opportunity for people to come down and experience the community and meet the members and I suppose really touch and feel who we are as a community. But yeah, so in January, we ran a promotion, which was kind of a new year, get the year started, right.

But it was two for one. So we were like, if you wanna sign up, and we actually had a lot of members move from a monthly membership to an annual membership. So we said if you sign up as an annual member, you can bring a friend along for free. So that was our promotion that we ran in January. And we were hoping, I think, to get, I don't know, maybe 30 or 40 new members.

And yeah, in the first 5 weeks we had 90 new members. It was crazy. And we went from, I think it was 280 to, we're quite close to 400 members now, so it did explode. But, and then we also use testimonial videos a lot in our socials. We do a coffee meetup most weeks in Singapore, and we're about to do them in Hong Kong and Bali as well.

And at those coffee mornings, we ask people if they just talk to camera about what they love about Launchpad and we've captured some really great casual but very real footage that we've used to [00:26:00] kind of help that member-get-member strategy. So I think that's it in a nutshell.

[00:26:05]

Kristy: Yeah, I love that. I think firstly, it's awesome because you're not the Internet's best kept secret. Like you've created a space that enables those conversations to happen. And the reality is people are busy and they don't necessarily think to share, even though they're loving it, they don't necessarily think to share.

So inviting your members to share their experience honestly. If they weren't having a great time, if they weren't getting the outcomes that is promised to them, then they're certainly not going to do that anyway. And the reality is, is that their friends and their network is going to trust them before they trust you because they don't have that relationship with you.

But you are able to then ensure that that relationship that they have with their friends and network is able to be. ..I don't wanna say leveraged cause that seems really like, technical and I don't mean it to be that way, but it all comes back to relationships. So if the relationship is with their friends, you are then able to create a space for them to share that, if that makes sense.

[00:26:58]

Chris: Yeah. And it's just reminding them. I think it's just being confident enough to ask. And you're right, people are just busy and they're probably loving it, but they're just so busy running their own businesses. But as soon as you ask them, they're like oh my God, I'd love to, yes, I'd love to support you.

You've been so - it - and they do actually have these genuine feelings about the benefits they're getting. So yeah, no, it's just facilitating it. And I think that's something I never did in my early years in business. And I you know, it's one of the things about being a veteran of startups is you learn to prevent your ego or limiting beliefs getting in your way. And I, when I first started, I didn't even put my name to what I was doing. I was, you know, I was very much like, I'm not gonna ask my friends to follow but...and now I'm like asking everyone.

[00:27:48]

Kristy: Oh, I mean, definitely comes with experience and confidence, but I think that, you know, anyone who's listening today, even if you're in early stages, you can definitely take something away from this and putting yourself forward and asking the [00:28:00] question and being courageous and we all suffer from rejection.

We all suffer from, you know, challenging times in our business. But if you don't ask people to do that, it's never gonna change. Like you're not going to be able to create those business outcomes. But I think more importantly, from what I can see from you and the love that you have for Launchpad, it's a sacred space.

So you want the best members, and in order to have the best members, you're gonna find the best members through the members that you already have, right? So if they're awesome, then chances are that their network is going to be awesome too, and that's just going to continue to enrich the environment that is inside of the membership.

[00:28:35]

Chris: You've absolutely nailed it. You definitely want this rich community of really engaged people that really want to give to the community. So, that is the secret sauce. And we do quite a bit of education on this piece too. Like we say to people, for you to get the most out of joining Launchpad, first of all, you have to give, you have to turn up, you have to show up, but you have to think deeply about other people's businesses and pay it forward before you can... it's like a bank, you know, you need to deposit and really invest in building relationships. And then you can ask whatever you like and the community will have your back and you know... we have a WhatsApp. We have a number of WhatsApp groups, but they are so active and people are so helpful and it's just everyone lifting each other up. But you are a hundred percent right. You really want to build on your members with like-minded members cause that is secret sauce. Yeah, totally.

[00:29:30]

Kristy: All right, so my final question to you, Chris, is for anyone who's thinking about adding a membership into their office suite, what would be the three pieces of advice that you would have for anyone who's thinking about doing that?

[00:29:44]

Chris: Number one, do deep research. Make sure what you are offering is really unique and stands out. Two, I would say there's a lot of places where you can educate yourself on memberships on the internet. So there's a really [00:30:00] big book...a free downloadable by Tom Ross. There's a great podcast by Shana Lynn, who, I just learn so much from her podcast episodes.

She's like a community expert, although she's only just starting up, but the amount of value she gives in her podcast is really cool. And then there's Amy Porterfield. There's a heap out there. So I would say, invest some time in upskilling yourself, which can all be done through beautiful free resources.

There are also paid resources. I haven't used any yet, but I think I'll be doing something this year. And then what else would I say? Number three. I would say get great support. I think, looking back on my overall business journey, I just wish I got support earlier. And I think it could be a business coach or it could be a community, or it could be a best friend, or it could be a VA.

It doesn't matter. You don't have to do it the hard way. And there's so much great support out there. So just find someone that can help you cause everything's figureoutable. It's just a matter of taking one foot after the other and feeling like you've got someone in your corner who can either bounce ideas off you or with you and pump your tires when you need pumping and help you get set on the right direction.

[00:31:18]

Kristy: All great advice and I'm sure that our boss who's listening today has gleaned so much valuable insight, even just from listening to this conversation. And so Chris, I really appreciate you making time in your busy schedule, running two businesses to be here with us, sharing your knowledge and experience and your story. I really appreciate it.

[00:31:38]

Chris: Oh, it's such a joy anytime. I love it. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:31:42]

Kristy: And to you boss. Thank you so much for listening to today's conversation. Chris and I were having such a wonderful time that I forgot to ask her where we can find her online. So if you are keen to connect with Chris, head down into the show notes.

You'll see Chris's website, her [00:32:00] LinkedIn account, her Instagram account, as well as a link to her podcast. Now as always, I am so keen to hear your takeaways from this conversation. Feel free to take a screenshot and share it out on your stories and tag both Chris and I. Thanks again for listening, and I look forward to chatting with you next week.