The Next Great Consumer Companies Won’t Be Exclusive Clubs. They Will Be Inclusive Cults.

I’m intrigued with the modern version of a country club. I think of concepts like Soho House or the Wing as “urban country clubs”. These membership businesses gather communities of like-minded people. They create repeat traffic and have demographic and psychographic desirability in their members. These communities are powerful because if they endor... See more

The goal is to make people feel like they’re a part of something — and like you’re part of their identity. And the payoff — if all goes well — is in the form of fierce loyalty, word-of-mouth promotion, organic curiosity and attention, higher lifetime customer value and share of spend, lower acquisition costs, etc.

As more and more identity formation happens online, it’s is inevitable that most of it happens in private spaces. As we spend more and more time living in these spaces, it’s inevitable that their intentional shaping should become more important to us. As more and more internet-first communities choose to build the means for themselves to live, it i... See more

community members should “feel a sense of belonging (membership), feel like you make a difference to the group and that the group makes a difference to you (influence), feel like your needs will be met by other group members (integration and fulfillment of needs), and feel that you share history, similar experiences, time, and space together (share... See more