I’m reviewing my year and sharing lessons in public.

Over the next 5 days, I will share reviews, reflections, context, and lessons about:

  • CognitionX Reflections

  • Cognition Reflections

  • Caffeineletter Reflections

  • Business lessons 2025

  • Roach Mafia 5.0 experience

CognitionX in 2025

In July 2023, I started my community as my newsletter’s referral program. You refer three readers and get access to Cognition’s private WhatsApp group.

Some months later, it was just another WhatsApp community. The initial excitement died out and the group slowly went silent.

A year later, I believed online communities to be the next big thing after newsletters. So I revived the community, but on Discord.

I was sure the community shouldn’t be on WhatsApp because it’s a mix of personal and work. I didn’t want members to skim messages just because they’re on the app.

Yes, access is great on WhatsApp and engagement is a challenge on Discord. But I wanted members to open Discord with intent.

I was sure that if value = significant, members would overcome friction, and it happened.

Between July 2024 and April 2025, the community grew to 200+ members. It was free and I used it as a lead magnet to acquire subscribers to Cognition.

While it was broad and a great place to hang out and make friends, it didn’t solve problems. It didn’t help business owners improve their marketing. Or at least not at the value level I hoped for.

During this time, I have learned a ton about communities and hosting, thanks to Ayush. Sometimes with his direct insights, sometimes by just observing him (shoutout to his Indiemasterminds community, best thing that happened to me in 2024).

So... back to May 2025.

After I realised the community must help our members, I sent a message explaining the community’s new direction: “It’ll be about content marketing and the inactive members would be removed.”

10/10 recommend cleaning your community regularly. Learned from Tushar.

Road to the paid community:

  1. Removed 200+ members. Started from 0 again. Hardest step

  2. Sent an email to 45ish members who have opted in

  3. In the email, I mentioned the offer and priced at $6 a month

  4. Plus gave an early bird offer of 70% off for the first three months (because of the low self-confidence that anybody would pay)

  5. To the most active members, I gave a Golden Ticket to show gratitude for supporting me early. Golden Ticket = Free Community Access Forever

Members like Shashank SN were supportive enough to purchase despite the Golden Ticket.

Anyway, in 2025 Q4, I experimented with sessions, channels, resources, challenges, etc., to understand what our community likes. I had 1:1 calls with each member to understand expectations.

Roachmafia and SheR HQ made me realise my strength is newsletters, and that’s what members expect of me: to support business owners and creators in building newsletters.

So after three months of experiments, I niched down the theme to newsletter content, growth, and revenue.

The community is now 24 members strong, with 12 paying members, and all are renewing their subscriptions.

2025 was a year of clarity.

In 2026, my focus will be on obsessively solving our members’ problems.

In the next edition, I will share about Cognition’s funnel and plans ahead.

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