The 3 C’s that built a $240K web design community
Josh Hall is a web design business coach, course creator, YouTuber, podcast host, and web agency founder.
He’s also a community builder who’s been able to grow his business to nearly $240,000+ per year.
In this spotlight, take a tour of Josh Hall’s community, Web Designer Pro—a membership that helps web designers build their web design business. Like many course and education-based businesses, his community is built around his personal brand.
Keep scrolling to learn more about Josh’s community funnel, how he structures spaces, his monetization methods, and more.
The community breakdown
📍 Community: Web Designer Pro
👋 Founder: Josh Hall
🗓️ Launched in: September 2020
🌟 Size: 175+
🎯 Purpose: Educate web designers on how to build their own web design business
💰Pricing model: Monthly membership (+ a swag store)
Core community offering
Josh’s business used to be courses first, membership second. Now, his big offer is his community membership. He has a suite of courses that live inside of the Web Designer Pro community, but that’s not all that he offers.
As Josh put’s it, Web Designer Pro is really all about the three C’s:
- Courses
- Community
- Coaching
This trifecta is what makes the Web Designer Pro membership so enticing. Members can decide how they want to engage with the content, and ultimately what they get from the membership.
In terms of growth tactics, Josh says the main funnel for new members is through his podcast, Web Design Business with Josh Hall. Many people come through the podcast for his courses, and then get sold on the community offer as a whole. You can listen to one of his podcast episodes below.
Community programming
Aside from his courses, Josh has a robust community calendar and strategy that helps drive member engagement.
Josh’s standard community events and touchpoints consist of:
- Weekly drop in coaching calls with Josh. Because 1:1 coaching isn’t sustainable for Josh, members can attend weekly drop in group coaching sessions to ask questions live on a call. These sessions often consist of Q&As, website reviews, and “hot seat” coaching.
- Weekly Pro Hangout session. These events are actually hosted/run by members, without Josh’s involvement! Around 10-20 people will often get together to hangout, network, and get to know each other. They also provide a nice touchpoint for members to share learnings and ideas.
- Web Biz Weekly newsletter. Josh’s newsletter is focused on helping people become smarter web design business owners in less than 5 minutes per week. Anyone can sign up for this newsletter for free.
- Monthly training events, featuring a guest expert. About once a month Josh also hosts a community event with an outside expert. Often the topics will dive into areas and insights that fall outside of his course content.
Although the community programming above is already robust, it’s never a set it and forget it thing. Josh is continuously trying to find new ways to engage his members and keep them subscribing for longer. One simple trick? Listening to members and asking for feedback. For example, the weekly community hangout session actually started as a member idea, and has since become a staple in the Web Designer Pro event calendar.
Other than the Weekly Pro Hangout sessions, every event in the Web Design Pro community is recorded and saved on the platform so members can access it on-demand. Josh also stores every newsletter on his Circle community so people can go back and run through past editions. This makes his community a great resource hub for professional web designers!
How it’s organized
Josh structures his community into a few key buckets:
- Member Central: a start here space, areas for introductions, announcements, and success pathways (advice on how to take Josh’s courses). He also has his affiliate program in this area, along with a place to buy Pro swag.
- Coaching: Anything to do with Josh’s coaching lives here, including upcoming calls with Josh, weekly Q&A replays, Pro trainings, and Josh’s weekly newsletter.
- Community: A variety of spaces that are geared towards encouraging member engagement, including areas for hangouts and group discussions, as well as spaces for sharing wins and gathering feedback.
- Courses: A variety of courses on everything from website coding and SEO, to business strategy and creating an online course.
As mentioned above, Josh also runs a ton of community events. So, the Events area in his Circle community is filled with his upcoming calendar.
How it’s monetized
Currently, the Web Designer Pro community runs on two membership plans that give access to his courses, coaching, and the community space. Josh still sells his stand alone courses for folks who don’t want the coaching or community, and also sells Web Designer Pro swag. Although the swag isn’t adding a ton to his yearly revenue, it does help to build brand affinity. ❤️
Membership pricing options:
- $199 per month
- $2,000 per year
Josh has set his membership plans at a slightly more premium price point, due to the value of the content, coaching, and community. This also means that a lot of his members are committed to seeing real transformations and results.
Josh has been contemplating introducing a lower tier membership for “newbies”, but there’s a lot to consider. For example, although a cheaper pricing model might bring in more members, it also leads to more work. Overtime, the Web Designer Pro pricing model might change (like most pricing models do), but for now Josh has been happy with the business growth.
🌟 Fun Fact: Since launching his business, Josh’s Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) has grown from $4,000 per month pre-community, to now around $20,000 per month with his community offer! And he’s projecting this MRR to continue to grow.
Regardless of why someone initially joins Web Designer Pro, Josh says that for most members, what keeps them around is the community. Thus, the community not only helps with member retention, but it also helps extend his customer Lifetime Value (LTV)—which means more revenue overtime.
The community team
The Web Designer Pro community is run entirely by Josh, who creates the courses, content, strategy, and engages regularly with members.
Here are three ways that Josh has been able to keep engagement up without burning himself out:
- One of his members helps with some community engagement in exchange for a free Web Designer Pro plan—it’s a win-win!
- Josh has started to leverage Circle workflows, which can save a lot of time. For example, he has a workflow that sends out DMs to his community at certain milestones.
- He encourages members to engage with each other, and has built his community to be one that supports and lifts members up.
“If you join Web Designer Pro, you will be flooded with welcoming, engaged members.”
Josh’s top community building tips & tricks
💡 Engaging onboarding experience and success pathway: Josh has an intentional onboarding process including a personalized introductory video, a detailed tour of the community, and a guide to the courses. This walks new members through expectations, layout, and notification settings. Discussion sections and weekly hang-outs are the go-to places for members to interact, gain clarity, and feel welcomed from the start. Josh also highlights the importance of using a ‘wins and successes’ space to capture and repurpose member testimonials, leveraging positive feedback to build credibility and attract new members.
💡 Interactive learning and accountability: To cater to his audience's need for feedback and growth, Josh has set up forums for website reviews and opportunities, as well as a member accountability section. This area allows members to set goals and tasks, encouraging peer support and accountability. Additionally, he offers a range of DIY courses, helping members become professional web designers at their own pace. His $199 price point for these results-focused features has helped him reach almost $20k monthly recurring revenue.
💡 Regular coaching and expert sessions: Josh's weekly Q&A sessions, which he plans to rebrand as coaching sessions, are a mix of Q&As, website reviews, and short coaching 'hot seats'. In alignment with his “coopetition” mindset (he believes in cooperating with his competition), he regularly invites guest experts to provide special training on topics outside his courses, adding valuable diversity to the learning experience.
If you want to learn more about Josh’s community, watch his full Show & Tell session below.
