Feb 27, 2023 · 54m · startup-ideas
3 Community-Based Products Doing It Right with April MacLean
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Late Checkout's Greg Isenberg and April MacLean analyze standout community-based products to uncover the strategies behind successful digital and physical community design. Through case studies like Lomography, View From My Window, Common House, and Ness Labs, they provide actionable frameworks for community-led growth, monetization, and intentional curation.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Greg holds 34.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Greg as informed peer 6.4 Guest teaching 2.6 Guest disagreement 0.8 Greg pushing back 1.4
speaking balance: gold is Greg, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 47:04 April reacts to being put on the spot
April humorously pushes back when Greg suddenly springs an unprepared bonus community question on her.
Hardest push from Greg ▶ 37:20 Greg challenges the social club exclusivity modelGreg pushes back on physical community spaces by asking how Common House avoids degenerating into the exclusionary vibe of Soho House.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 21:30 April on the hazard of uncommunicated community monetizationApril educates on community management by detailing how Barbara's book release caused member backlash due to broken expectations.
Greg holds their own ▶ 7:03 Greg outlines his nerd business thesisGreg demonstrates his strategic expertise by outlining a four-part playbook for building defensible products around ultra-niche nerd communities.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Greg as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Greg pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product One: Lomography and Product-Driven Communities | 7 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Greg complements April's overview of Lomography by pulling live metrics on photo uploads and funding, introducing his four-step nerd-based business framework, and predicting upcoming web design trends. | |
| Product Two: View From My Window and Community Monetization Lessons | 6 | 4 | 1 | 2 | April breaks down community monetization pitfalls and Seth Godin's naive wisdom concept, while Greg discusses community platform trade-offs and his food court analogy. | |
| Window Swap and Authentic Shared Internet Experiences | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Both hosts enthusiastically analyze Window Swap, with Greg framing it as an antidote to algorithmic feeds that recaptures the weird, communal feel of the 1990s internet. | |
| Product Three: Common House and Physical Community Spaces | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Greg challenges the social club concept by asking how to avoid Soho House's aloof exclusivity, backing up his perspective with a case study of his stay at Palm Heights. | |
| Bonus Community: Ness Labs and the Launch of Late Checkout Land | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | April highlights Ness Labs as a community of practice before both pivot to detailing the gating, member curation, and engagement standards required for their new Late Checkout Land launch. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Isenberg: Lomography has 16 million user-uploaded photos
“They've got sixteen million photos that have been uploaded.”
MacLean: Lomography receives roughly 200,000 organic monthly visitors
“I dropped their URL into a trust and they have about 200,000 organic visitors a month”
Isenberg: Lomography has raised only $1 million in funding
“So they've actually raised a million dollars.”
Isenberg: Web design in 2023–2024 will favor custom fonts and Y2K aesthetic
“And I think from a web design trend perspective, where you're going to start seeing more in 20, 23 and 24 is custom fonts that, you know, that white, that Y two K aesthetic of like really big eye popping design, like less of that, like clean cut, sterile, you …”
MacLean: Communities serve acquisition, retention, product support, or user-generated content
“Usually when you have communities around a product, they're serving one of three, four specific purposes. So they're for acquisition. Your community exists to bring you more customers internally at least. They're for retention. Your community exists because yo…”
Isenberg: 'View From My Window' Group Has 3.6M Members
“There's three, there's almost 3.6 million members and it's still growing. It grew to 6000 members just this week alone.”
MacLean: Facebook Is Only Dead for Specific Demographics
“Facebook is nowhere near dead, but it is dead for a specific demographic of people.”
MacLean: Breaking Community Trust Is Nearly Impossible to Reverse
“Once you break trust with the community or members start to feel bamboozled, it's very difficult to ever dial that back.”
Isenberg: 99% of internet consumption occurs through feeds
“You know, 99% of people's internet experience today is consumed via feeds.”
Isenberg: Great community experiences speak to the minority, not the majority
“And a great community experience, a great community-based experience speaks to the minority, not the majority.”
MacLean: Product magic happens when sharing feels like a gift
“Like, that's when you know you've hit something magical, when you feel like you're gifting somebody by being an ambassador, not just like, you know, here's my Instagram post of this protein powder that someone's paying me to talk about.”
Isenberg: Soho House in Miami feels like the opposite of a community
“Yeah, so I live in Miami, and you know, I was just at Soho House, and it actually felt the opposite of community. Like, people were kind of just in their own world they
Yeah, they, it didn't feel very cohesive in terms of the community that was there, and it …”
MacLean: Social Clubs Should Require Member Participation in Programming
“So if I were putting myself in the first, in the shoes of the common house guys, there would be just specific requirements about how people participate in the programming in order to be a member. Because the, if you want to go work and get out your laptop and …”
MacLean: Communities of practice that apply skills together are stickier than chat feeds
“Learning and practicing a skill set as a group versus just like, you know, feed and comment and chat and blah, blah, blah. But when we're actually putting these things to practice together, That makes a community incredibly sticky.”