Align Ongoing Value with Ongoing Revenue
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- —
Godbey's diagnostic for creators who resent their own community: check whether the incentives are misaligned. If someone paid once, years ago, and now receives live workshops, meetups and updates forever, the creator has no reason to keep investing and the member has nothing at stake — so the creator feels exploited and the members do not even show up. His rule is simple: if you want ongoing revenue you must provide ongoing value, and if you are already providing ongoing value you should be charging for it. Converting a one-off course into a recurring course-plus-community makes updating the material rational, gives members a reason to keep paying, and produces the revenue stability that lets you over-invest in student outcomes, testimonials and case studies.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Audit the ongoing value you already give away
List everything you deliver to past one-off buyers — meetups, monthly workshops, guest sessions, course updates, community access. Ali's team was running meetups three times a year and monthly guest workshops for people who paid once, years ago.
Pro tip The resentment you feel doing these is the signal, not a character flaw.
- 2
Name the misalignment out loud
A one-time payment for perpetual value gives the creator no incentive to update anything, which is why courses recorded years ago still sell unchanged. Nowhere else in the world does that arrangement exist.
Watch out Members who paid nothing ongoing often stop showing up, which demoralises the creator further.
- 3
Convert the offer to recurring
Repackage the self-paced course as an annual (or quarterly) membership that bundles the course, the community and continuing updates. Ali's plan: turn the $1,000 one-off YouTuber Academy into $1,000 per year including community.
Pro tip Match cadence to the outcome horizon — building a YouTube channel is a long-term commitment.
Watch out Avoid monthly here; the outcome takes far longer than thirty days.
- 4
Commit to a visible update cadence
Recurring revenue gives you the reason to keep the material current — adding modules on AI, thumbnails, new processes — and to run regular community events. Announce upcoming additions so renewal has a forward-looking reason.
Pro tip Forecast next year's live event or guest speakers as a renewal incentive, the way Netflix trails new series.
- 5
Tier by intensity, not by outcome
Keep one clear goal with two paths: a self-paced course-plus-community track for people going slowly alongside peers, and a high-ticket accelerator with daily team access, feedback and coached accountability groups for people who want to go fast.
Pro tip The gym analogy sells it — use the equipment yourself, or work with the trainers and coaches for several times the price.
Watch out Facilitated small-group accountability belongs in the high-ticket tier; self-organised groups collapse when one member disengages.
- 6
Keep a free and near-free layer
People who cannot afford the membership are still served through YouTube content, lead magnets and cheap entry products. That resolves the fairness objection without discounting the core offer.
Pro tip A long free video version of the material can strengthen the paid tier's credibility.
Watch out You cannot serve everyone with the same offer at the same time.
- 7
Reinvest the stability into member outcomes
With recurring revenue, your incentive is for every student to succeed, because renewals, testimonials and case studies all depend on it. That is the pyramid: stability funds quality, quality funds proof, proof funds pricing.
Pro tip Hundreds of members who achieved the promise is the strongest answer to 'what are your credentials?'
In the wild
Godbey launched a low-ticket, do-it-yourself course about communities and committed to showing up weekly for live coaching calls. The commitment ran on indefinitely for people who had paid once, cheaply — and then attendance collapsed, because members had no ongoing stake and nothing to lose by skipping. He describes giving away value he had promised while nobody turned up as demoralising. He switched to a monthly recurring model for anyone wanting continued coaching after the program, and attendance recovered.
→ Members now attend every week, and Godbey and his team are happy running it.
Ali's academy was a $1,000 one-off self-paced course with a free, neglected community attached — and he admitted feeling reluctant to run workshops for people who bought four years ago and pay nothing now. The proposed restructure: $997 for a year including course, community and ongoing updates, with the separate accelerator held at roughly $5,000 for an intensive three to six months of daily team access, video feedback and coached accountability groups. One outcome, two paths, two price points.
→ Recurring revenue plus a rational incentive to keep the course current.
Common mistakes
Lifetime community access on a one-off sale
Perpetual access to meetups, workshops and the founder's time in exchange for a single past payment is an arrangement that exists almost nowhere else. It quietly poisons the creator's willingness to show up, and members with no ongoing stake often do not attend anyway.
Never updating a course that still sells
When old material keeps generating sales, there is no commercial reason to refresh it — so students receive outdated tactics in a fast-moving field. Ali concedes his one-and-done courses do not truly serve students for exactly this reason.
Self-organised accountability groups
Ali tried self-organised accountability groups in the YouTuber Academy and found one member being unreliable or difficult was enough to break the group's fabric. Groups facilitated by a trained team member at a fixed weekly slot worked — but that is high-ticket delivery and must be priced accordingly.
From the transcript
“And so what's going on is the incentives are misaligned, right?”
“You're already providing this ongoing value. You should be charging for it.”
“if you are healthiest as a business, you have recurring revenue, you have stability, then your incentive is to continue to pour into that program”
From the episode
How to make $10k/month from a community - Jordan Godbey
Jordan Godbey