Outline

  1. Background
  2. Research
  3. Takeaway: People over places?
  4. Membership Benefits
  5. Other current benefits & what to do about them

Background

We originally launched Citizenship with the primary benefit of access to our network city of properties. As we’ve focused on long-term coliving, we have needed to proactively recruit people to the properties and open new paths to Citizenship like Cabin Weeks, limiting the value of purchasing Citizenship in order to access coliving opportunities.

Despite this, there is currently about one person per week paying ~$400 to become a Cabin Citizen, even with limited immediate benefits and other ways to earn it. There are current Citizens who feel affinity to the community and would pay to be a part of it, even with no expected benefits. But for most people, we need to offer something of substantial practical value to get them to spend $400/year.

What would it look like to build a Citizenship offering that more people want to pay for? How much would they pay for it?

Research

To start, we asked current Citizens who aren’t interested in coliving:

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Themes

  1. People want Cabin vibes where they already live
    1. Ryan: “I’m definitely experiencing that anxiety about signing a lease and falling into the isolated living experience that big cities tend to foster … It would be awesome to somehow bring whatever the fwb fest/cabin cocktail could look like to San Diego”
    2. Nicole: “So, as you know, I’m a bit of a specific user because I have two kids ages 10 & 12 and it is just such a busy time with school / friends / activities. I truly wish I could find some time to get escape and create / work in a place like cabin but it’s rarely in the cards and requires a lot of other figuring out. So for me, something that is local where I can connect with others in the short term.”
    3. Zach Anderson: “Are there ways i can start tapping into that so I’m more primed to take the leap to a residency someplace? I think you were really onto something with the local dinners”
    4. Julian: “Oh! I’d definitely host Cabin people who are a match for me in my place in SF. Got a really killer setup for couch surfers etc”
  2. People want to go places and feel like a local
    1. David Phelps: “places to stay and people to stay with when i travel, just way too many issues with airbnb these days. apartment swap, or rent their apt.”
    2. Rafa: “If I appear in a city or town, this is who’s there. Like “family in town””
    3. Cam: “Location directory of citizens - just landed in Barcelona, who are values aligned people here? What/where/who are the hidden secrets? Lonely planet for Cabin, local guides. Feel like an insider in the places they go. Post where I’m going and get recs.”
  3. People want Cabin at conferences and events
    1. Spencer Graham: “pop-up Cabin co-living or co-experiences at events and conferences (Cabin is already doing this a bit; more of it!)”
    2. Matthew Chaim: “A dao camp-like experience is about the most fitting value-add thing that I can actually engage in atm. aka a once-a-year 3ish-day retreat like that”
    3. David Phelps: “stuff like pasta night [at ETHDenver] which was one of my favorite favorite nights of the past year”
    4. Richie Bonilla: “i generally find it easy to pay for memberships to things that put me in rooms with interesting or fun peers”
    5. Disruption Joe: “Giving me familiar faces when I go to conferences”
    6. Cam: “place to go and people to meet up with at a conference is incredible, wonderful, valuable”
  4. People identify as Cabin Citizens
    1. Spencer Graham: “Identity: I enjoy simply being a citizen of Cabin”
    2. Zach Anderson: “Being a part of a decentralized city has benefits in and of itself. when Kunal said “i’m a new yorker” that held a ton of meaning for him and for us. what would it take for people to feel that way about cabiner? cabinite? cabinero? How can we copy Frank and make people feel like they want to rep cabin cause of what it represents?
    3. Nick Niraghi: “I will pay for the membership no matter what”
    4. Eileen Vert: “a digital network of people who are interested in Cabin’s values, or which I think of as simply “the intersection between tech and nature””