Sama MushtaqProgram Manager
Back to selected work
MAK TradingNovember 2019 to present

Built and operated a paid education community.

The visible product was market education. The operating work behind it covered acquisition, onboarding, curriculum, recurring content, member support, moderation, retention, payments, access control, and a platform migration.

Role
Founder and Program Lead
Team
Three-person founding team with external engineering support
Community
Approximately 2,000 members at peak
Paid program
More than 1,200 cumulative paid subscribers

The problem

A growing community could not be run through content alone. New members needed a clear path into the program, paid access had to match billing status, support questions needed owners, and content had to be delivered on a reliable cadence. The original LaunchPass and Stripe setup also created limits as the program grew.

My responsibility

I led the member lifecycle and business operation. I worked across brand, acquisition, onboarding, curriculum, content, moderation, support, retention, payments, and platform delivery. External engineers supported the technical implementation.

What I did

  • Built the original 48-page curriculum and organized the member learning path.
  • Created recurring content, onboarding, support, moderation, and retention routines.
  • Tracked subscription, payment, trial, and member-access issues across Stripe and the community platform.
  • Coordinated the migration from LaunchPass and Stripe to WordPress and MemberPress while preserving member access and communication.
  • Directed external engineering work and made product decisions around the real member workflow.

Three decisions that shaped the program

Build the lifecycle, not only the audience

Acquisition mattered, but onboarding, support, content rhythm, retention, and payment access determined whether the community could operate at scale.

Move off the first platform before it became a larger constraint

The migration created more control over content, billing, and access, even though it required careful continuity planning.

Use financial evidence carefully

Public figures are tied to dated Stripe screenshots. They describe the documented state at that time and do not claim current revenue.

Result

The community reached approximately 2,000 members across channels and more than 1,200 cumulative paid subscribers. A Stripe snapshot documented $28,696 in monthly recurring revenue and 321 active subscriptions at one point in the paid program.

Approximately 2,000
Peak community members
More than 1,200
Cumulative paid subscribers
$28,696
Documented MRR at one point
321
Active subscriptions in the same snapshot

Evidence and limits

Sanitized Stripe monthly recurring revenue snapshot for MAK Trading
Sanitized Stripe snapshot documenting $28,696 in monthly recurring revenue and 321 active subscriptions at that time.

Member identities, payment records, internal content, and trading activity are private. This case describes the education-community operation and does not make investment-performance claims.