How Mike Kelly Built A Thriving Membership Platform While Traveling In An RV

Subscribe To The Podcast

On today’s episode, I am talking with Mike Kelly from Member Vault. Mike shares many unique insights as he shares about his life and business. We talk about his experience running his business as they traveled down the west coast. We also talk about how Member Vault has changed and evolved over time into the amazing platform it is today.

A true role model for anyone looking to push their personal edge, and design their ideal lifestyle, Mike Kelly has lived a variety of lives from NYC hipster grabbing a coffee from the corner bodega, to flannel covered homesteading yurt dweller in the rural mountains of Southwest VA. He now calls the Pacific Northwest home, and is the co-founder of a SaaS course platform called Member Vault, alongside his wife and 1 year old son. While they are currently living the digital nomad life in a 30 ft RV, there is no doubt that’ll change again soon. He challenges everyone to find the thing that lights them up, and push those limits until you find the right fit for right now…knowing that it will change over time.

Member Vault is a platform that hosts all types of digital products including freebies, membership, courses, and ebooks. Users are also able to sell their services like coaching. It gives you a way to do it all in one place.

We discuss:

[01:14] When building his company Member Vault they were living in their RV. They had a plan to travel down the west coast and then everything went south.
[03:48] The biggest thing they had to figure out before they hit the road was internet access. They use a mobile router with unlimited data that will give them wi-fi in their RV.
[05:50] Member Vault is a relationship marketing platform, but they started as a course membership platform.
[06:45] Member Vault is a place that hosts all of your digital products like freebies, membership, courses, and ebooks. You can also sell your services too.
[08:06] They have deconstructed the traditional sales funnel. They looked at how people buy things in the real world.
[10:54] We are rethinking the way people engage with content and buy content in a little more transparent way. Bonus for all this is that the content creator has a way easier time.
[12:52] Seeing high prices tags on premium products often make people work harder just to get it. It makes your freebie even more valuable.
[15:08] In Member Vault they are able to see who views products multiple times and then they are able to follow-up with a real conversation that helps them specifically.
[15:35] With this approach you can gauge who is interested and just follow-up with them instead of spamming everyone.
[16:02] The one who gets to frame the argument first gets to permanently influence how people see things.
[18:58] All of our competitors have their strengths. We use our strengths.
[19:57] Member Vault has found success, by being flexible and keeping the overhead low. The biggest benefit that they have is that they have always kept an open line of communication with their users.
[21:21] They always try to see what their users' pain points are and fix them and even try to be two steps ahead. They also offer chat support.
[21:21] They always try to see what their users' pain points are and fix them and even try to be two steps ahead. They also offer chat support.
[23:56] The more people that create accounts in Member Vault and invite their users in, the more people are exposed to the platform. Wherever you are bringing your users into is naturally viral.
[25:54] Pick an ideal customer in your head and create something for them. Member Vault accidentally did exactly that.
[26:50] Play up to your strengths.
[28:16] It can be hard to turn off the work brain sometimes, so they have put up some boundaries.
[29:22] The most important boundary is time especially balancing life and work together.
[31:44] Mike’s biggest piece of advice is to just get started. It is imperfect action that makes it happen.
[33:38] Pick something and get started and see where it takes you.