A few thoughts after reading the posts here. There seems to be a concensus about having a Premium community that captures the 'most active' Strawaman users. I would think it's very important to maintain the balance of what gives Strawman it's value/outperformane and the value it creates for others.

Some of the contributors would be giving more than they are ganing and the last thing you would want is to lose any of those contributors because they did not want to pay for premium. This would instantly impact the performance and content. 

Also I assume there are a lot of Strawman readers who don't contribute much at all but gain a lot of value from following and collecting ideas. (in my mind there is your paying memeber) even though they are not big contributors they may be happy to pay for the value they are receiving being a reader.

For example: Assuming you are targeting circa 600 premium members (20000 x 3%) You could have the top 100 ranked contributors automatically become premium members and then 500 spots for anyone else wanting to pay for pemium. This would ensure you maintain ALL the best contributors and make it as attractive as possible to ALL potential paying subscribers. 

It also incentivises some people to work on their picks and posts to try and get into the top contributor bracket. As you grow you accept new free premium members and more subsribers. 

Anyway, Andrew seems a sharp and fair guy, so I am sure he is weighing all this stuff up and will come up with that works for all users.

This is very welcome news. I'm an absolute novice when it comes to investing but this site has a wealth of information which has helped me to realise my novice investing goals.

I'm highly motivated to achieve and this announcement has given me a kick up the ass to start contributing to the site. Im a regular and highly active user but my contribution is severely lacking.

I'm sure there's a correlation between this announcement and the activity levels of some of the more experienced/professional investors increasing their activity on the site. Perhaps I'm making connections where they don't exist, but if the premium content is where people like this will be sharing ideas, that's exciting to me.

Over the past year and a bit (granted it has been a good year), purely from following ideas and information from this site I have made a hefty 5 figure return in my RL portfolio. Other than ShareSight, I don't subscribe to any other financial websites. 

Thank you Andrew for creating this community. I'm all in.

With regards to the difference between free and premium, is the thought to like, have the ASX 100 or 200 available for viewing access for free members, but then have the posts on smaller companies only available to premium members? Something like that could work reasonably as the research on companies that it's harder to get an edge on, but which most people are interested in, would be available, leaving the microcap space for premium users. 

As a side idea, if you are wanting to increase the amount of research on the forum, you could have a way of obtaining premium without paying, or with paying less - something of a valued contributor thing, though how to moderate that would be difficult. It's amazing what people are willing to spend in terms of time compared to money. This would have a cost in terms of money, but might increase the value of the product. 

Thanks for the comments everyone. I will definitely ensure all questions are answered prior to launch -- we want people to be as well informed as possible before making a decision.

For now, a few thoughts to help give you some more perspective on what I'm thinking:

Firstly, whether or not you see membership as 'cheap' or 'expensive' will depend entirely on how much value you think you'll get. What's the real value of a single great investment idea? How much is it worth to avoid just one terrible investment?

It's a personal question, but that's how I look at it. Personally, if you have any real money in the market, I think it's worth a lot. I'm biased, of course, but that's how you need to think about it.

I've always found it curious how some people will spend  $20/week on coffee without hesitation (or a bottle of wine, or a bowl of noodles) etc, but will consider the same amount outrageous when it comes to something that helps manage and grow their personal wealth (!!)

Don't read too much into that, we're not going to charge $1000/year -- Not at the beginning anyway... ;)  Anyway, I'm sure you take my point.

That being said, the membership fees will be material. We're deliberately trying to keep things tight -- as I said, that's partly to allow us to keep exploiting opportunities in the microcap space, but also to ensure the membership consists only of people who take investing seriously. The pumpers, trolls and time-wasters that plague so many of the other forums out there just wont be willing to pay. 

I want Premium to be a place where the most experienced private investors can collaborate on delivering great ideas, but what's more important is that we have a membership with the right attitude.

We don't care if you don't want to actively share ideas and insights -- most people don't (besides, we only need a small handful of high quality contributors to generate exceptional outcomes). But you do need to be the kind of person that is going to take responsibility for your own decisions and that will engage with others in good faith and with mutual respect.

(btw if you are someone who delivers high value content creation -- ie. market beating ideas and quality research -- we're really going to make it worth your while. It's only fair)

Calling Strawman Premium a 'club' is not just a branding exercise -- that's exactly how I want to structure it. And like any club, I want members that share the same vision and are focused on the same outcomes.

I firmly believe you get what you pay for. And for those that want free (or very cheap) content there's loads of stuff out there. 

But I'm hopeful we can attract enough people to Premium that share our passion for investing and want to help build something that is genuinely special. Something that is outcome focused. And as I've far as I'm concerned, quality is much more important than quantity.

And yes, of course, we need to be financially viable. I've personally funded this for over 4 years without asking anyone for a cent -- and it's cost a small fortune (We did get some VC funding early on, but we've since parted ways -- it just didn't work out). 

But that's just not sustainable in the long run.

The truth is, we could easily partner with the usual suspects -- flogging members a bunch of crappy financial services and products. We've been approached numerous times. There's also a bunch of investor relations (IR) firms that advocate on behalf of listed companies to help pump (er, i mean 'promote') their share price. We've been offered big money to help 'spread the word' for cash-burning, speculative 'stonks'. It's big (and very grubby) business. This is primarily how [you know who] makes money.

Frankly, I can see why -- it can be very profitable. Call me cyncial, but after working in the industry for over 20 years I'm convinced that most just try to exploit clients for their own financial gain, preying on greed and fear, peddling easy answers, making big promises, and downplaying the risks.

The difficult truth is that investing in shares is HARD WORK. It involves no small amount of RISK. It requires a huge amount of emotional fortitude and the results take many years to be fully realised. But that's not a message that most people want to hear -- it's certainly not a message that sells.

BUT, the sharemarket really is a beautiful thing that can build meaningful and enduring wealth -- if you're smart about it. Heck, I sold my house in 2012 and put every last cent I had into shares -- not as some reckless gamble, but because I know what can happen when you take things seriously and are prepared to put in the work. Hopefully my track-record helps demonstrate that. It's what's allowed me to quit my job and fund Strawman -- and I'm determined to keep at it.

So Strawman Premium is about finding like-minded investors who share this passion, who understand the long term wealth-building potential of the market, and want to join me on this journey. And, as I say, what matters most to me is that these are people who want to take personal responsibility for their financial future -- it's your money, you worked hard for it, and no one cares about it as much as you do. Besides, you can borrow an idea, but you can't borrow conviction. 

And I really get that this won't be for everyone. In fact, it won't be for the majority of people.

But for those that 'get it', we'd love to have you onboard.

Anyway, enough of a rant from me. I hope it helps put things in perspective. I'll lay everything out in the coming weeks.

If you have any questions, email me at admin@strawman.com, and I'll be sure to address them all ahead of launch.

--Andrew