Grow Your Community Dave Jackson

More New Features in VolleyVolley had added more features. You can offer one-time or recurring charges and your visitor installs volley and their time starts to countdown. It's pretty cool. For me, I have people who want to "pick my brain" or if they would like to retain you and have you in their pocket it does that as well.
They still have a free version if you'd like to take it for a spin.
You can also now charge for your memberships. This again is either one-time or recurring. They take 5% which is less than Patreon and other resources.
I'm Taking Volley For a Test DriveI'm currently using Volley for time-shifted coaching at the School of Podcasting. Now I'm going to try it and sell a membership (called Spaces in Volley). It integrates with Stripe for credit card processing.
Right now on the sales page, you have to have a volley account, and then return to purchase the membership. I wish this was a little more automated. Once you sign up for Volley , it doesn't really point you back to your sales page.
I'll keep you posted.
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We've spoken about Circle, and Volley in the past and today I wanted to share some updates along with a new tool that looks impressive.
CIRCLE.SO NEWSI was in a community that uses Circle and they were using Circle's built-in video meeting tool. It was nice, simple and the biggest bonus is when you are done with the meeting it saves to your community (no more waiting for zoom to process). The link to the replay is already made.
Circle also added courses. So if you had teachable or podia or Thinkific and were going to include Circle, you might go the other way and bring your courses into Circle. As this is a new feature, their courses won't be as robust as something like teachable, but they recently scored a boost of millions of dollars so expect to see Circle to continue to add more features.
VOLLEY APPI love the Volley app. It has boosted my coaching and my students love it. I was always worried as it was free. When I interviewed one of the founders, he assured me that they would eventually charge for additional features (while keeping my features free). This has now come to pass.
They still have a free version, but they have some additional features that cost $4 per member of your community. You can reduce the number of time items is stored to adjust the price.
The bottom line is you don't have to worry about Volley going out of business.
HeartbeatI joined a community. It looked and smelled a lot like Circle, but also had some "different flavors" like "Book Club" and the ability to automatically match members together. It's called Heartbeat. The thing I loved about it is the current price is $29/month for up to 1000 members (vs $39 for circle).
I just discovered it and have put out an invite to one of the founders to come on the show. Here is a link to a full walkthrough for those who like to jump ahead.

I interviewed Josh Little when the Volley App first got on my radar. They have really shown how to build an app and a community.
They are interacting with their users, finding out what they need, and then giving it to them. In one release there were close to 30 items that were added/updated. As a coach, I absolutely love the app.
Here is the Announcement From VolleyFrom Josh Little: (Watch Video)
Hey, I'm gonna tip our hand and share some exciting news as well as an opportunity.
Later this month, we're going to be rolling out our first premium product called Volley pro and Volley pro will not only give you the ability to select your desired message history but will also give you features like higher
upload limitsscheduled Volleyshigh res Volleys,recording, time limits,and a few other surprises.
So you can officially start getting excited now. And at the same time we're going to be Sunsetting our existing legacy free plan and rolling out a new free plan called Volley basic, which will have:
30-day message history,50 Meg upload limits,and one admin per space.And there will be captions on Volleysand push notifications,(but not interactive transcripts in that plan).
Now I know what you're thinking. , Josh, you said what's free. Will remain free and I'm happy to say that it will.
And this is the opportunity because you are a loyal and devoted early user of Volley not only do you get to keep everything that you have, but for a limited time up until a certain date, which will not be mentioned but could happen any time in the latter half of this month, anyone you invite or any space you create will also have our legacy free plan and we'll be grandfathered into 60-day message history, unlimited admins and access to interactive transcripts.
So this is your opportunity. And now with all of the new changes that make Volley even. Especially for new users. It's the perfect time to get the word out and invite your friends or your fans and stay tuned for an announcement later this month, sometime...
Get the App Now and Enjoy Features That Won't Be Free in the FutureSo I just wanted to let you know that if you were worried about Volley being a free app (like me - cause free is not a good business model) your worries are over. Sign up HERE, and I can answer any questions you have via Volley.

I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission

I love apps tools that are really powerful and come with a small learning curve. I also love it when it works on EVERYTHING and that is what Volley does. It works on PC, Mac. Andoid, or iPhone and it has revolutionized how I'm handling questions with my community.
Josh Little InterviewJosh is an experienced CEO launching multiple successful startups in the past. Today we get insights into:
Time Shifted Screen Sharing and Dave's School Analogy
When Did Volley Become an Idea?
Moving Your Community From Facebook
Can You Lock Down Volley?
Issues Trusting a Free Platform
Josh's Background
How Long Has Volley Been Around?
Future Features?
growyourcommunityshow.com/volley
Audience Feedback
Find Josh at https://www.linkedin.com/in/littlejosh/
Mentioned In This EpisodeTim Schmoyer (video Creators)
Volley App
School of Podcasting
Grow Your Community Resources

During our hiatus I had some people say that they were enjoying the Grow Your Community show, but they were new to community building and didn't know where to start.
There is a great article that I have somewhat boiled down into some quick and easy bites of insight for you.
First things first realize that just buying some community software from our resource area isn't the key to a successful community. As the old saying goes:
"Measure twice - cut once."
This goes for communities as well. When I help people with their podcasts at the School of Podcasting I always state that it's not the technology that leads to a successful podcast. I say to spend $100 on a microphone and 100 hours getting to know your audience.
It's the same here with a community. How can you make a community to serve your audience if you don't know what they need?
There are all sorts of ways you can see what they need. You can look at the comments on a YouTube video about a topic your community would be interested in.
You can check out books about your topic and look at the 2 and 4-star reviews. These reviews typically give specific reasons why they received the reviews.
QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
As you start to figure out who your community is for, you can start by figuring out who it is NOT for. This means you will be limiting the membership and that is OK. The result of having a hyper-focus group of people together is you will have a smaller group with DEEPER discussions. This adds to the "Information I can't get any places else" factor.
THE THREE QUESTIONS
Who is my community for (and not for)?
What will my members do together?
Why does it matter? (So that they can ____)
NICHE DOWN
I talking about niching down for a podcast in this episode of "Your Podcast Consultant" and it applies to communities as well.
COMMUNITY RESOURCES
Check out all the resources for community building at
growyourcommunityshow.com/resources

We are coming back from the covid inspired hiatus and in the process of being away, I've found some more community-related resources at www.growyourcommunityshow.com/resources
Italy sues Facebook
Next episode, the three questions to ask when you are creating a community. Subscribe/Follow the show at growyourcommunityshow.com