The operating case behind a paid financial education community I co-founded and led.
Trade with MAK combined live market education, a private Discord community, structured curriculum, recurring content, member support, and paid access. The paid program operated from 2019 through 2023. The name remains online only as a historical label and portfolio archive.
My role was broader than publishing content. I was the public-facing founder responsible for the member experience from the first marketing touch through onboarding, daily delivery, billing, retention, platform migration, and closeout.
- An acquisition system connecting social content, promotions, referrals, and launch campaigns to paid membership
- Member onboarding, access controls, support routines, moderation, and recognition programs
- A 48-page education curriculum covering options basics, risk management, and trading setups
- A recurring delivery cadence of premarket analysis, live commentary, trade education, chart reviews, and recap content
- A commerce stack using LaunchPass and Stripe, later migrated to WordPress and MemberPress
- A privacy-conscious closeout process that kept member identities and account information out of the public archive
I led a three-person founding team and coordinated design, editing, moderation, and technical contributors as the program grew.
Across its lifetime, the community reached approximately 2,000 members across channels and more than 1,200 cumulative paid subscribers.
A dated Stripe snapshot records $28,696.05 in monthly recurring revenue and 321 active subscriptions at that point in the program. Those figures are point-in-time platform evidence, not a claim that the same run rate continued for the full program.
The original LaunchPass and Discord stack made launch fast, but it left billing, onboarding, and content access spread across third-party tools. We migrated paid access to WordPress and MemberPress to gain more control over pricing, coupons, content, and member administration.
The migration reduced platform dependence but introduced new support work and churn risk. It reinforced a lesson I use in later programs: a technically cleaner system is only an improvement if the transition protects the people already using it.
Retention depended on consistent daily delivery, honest communication, fast support, and a clear education path. Promotions could create an acquisition spike, but they did not solve delivery quality.
The program also exposed the limit of founder-dependent operations. When content, teaching, moderation, customer support, and product decisions all route through one person, growth increases fragility. I would now design delegation, documentation, and quality checks earlier.
brand contains the identity system and banner assets.
marketing contains representative campaign material from the 2022 paid program.
Related technical and educational work is preserved separately where it can be shared without member data.
This repository contains historical brand and campaign artifacts. It does not contain member names, handles, account information, performance data, trade results, or investment claims. Community and subscriber totals are founder-reported lifetime aggregates unless tied to the dated Stripe snapshot. The program ended in 2023 and no paid service is currently offered.
This case documents program and subscription operations. It is not investment advice and makes no representation about trading performance.
See the complete program case and program leadership portfolio.