Ask-the-Community Monetization
Don't guess what to sell — poll the customers who already showed up.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 2
- Confidence
- 74%
When you have a community but no product yet, Fechter's monetization method is simply to ask the members. He runs polls asking whether they'd want a course or e-book and whether they'd pay for it, then builds what they validate. His reasoning: the members are the customers and he isn't smarter than them. He generalizes it into a principle — founders with only a vision effectively run nonprofits, while founders who put the customer first build real businesses, citing Bezos and the Waltons as customer-first builders.
Origin
Fechter polled his community about a b2b course, found strong interest, and used that direct demand signal to decide what to build — the opposite of guessing from a founder's vision.
Core principles
- 01You are not smarter than your community — they are the customers.
- 02Poll members directly on what they'd want and whether they'd pay.
- 03Let demand from the community dictate the product (course, e-book, etc.).
- 04Founders who put customers first build real businesses; founders with only a vision run nonprofits.
How to run it
- 1
Poll the community
Ask your members directly what they'd like you to release — a course, an e-book — and whether they would pay for it.
Pro tip Treat members as the customers; they'll tell you what to build.
- 2
Build the validated offer
Create the product the community said it wants and would pay for, putting customer demand ahead of your own vision.
Pro tip Customer-first founders build real businesses; vision-only founders effectively run nonprofits.
In the wild
Fechter asked his community whether they wanted a b2b course and they said they were really interested, so he began building it.
→ The poll gave him a validated product direction driven by actual customer demand rather than a guess.
Common mistakes
Running on vision instead of customers
Founders who build from vision alone without asking customers effectively run nonprofits; the real businesses come from customer-first decisions.
Is it for you?
Best for
Community and audience owners deciding how to turn an engaged group into revenue.
Not ideal for
Pure-vision innovators building something the market can't yet articulate wanting.
From the transcript
“I would ask the community members I don't think I'm smarter than them they're the customers at the end of day and I would just…”
“founders with visions run nonprofits but founders who put their customer first actually build real businesses”
From the episode
Josh Fechter: Growth Hacker Marketing Secrets
Josh Fechter