Why social media can’t be your community plan, with Sally Burns

If social media is pay-to-play, and your website is a slow burn, where are people meant to build genuine community now?

That question sits right in the middle of this episode with Sally Burns, founder of The Portal, a platform trying to fix two things at once: the way online learning works, and the way creators find each other without shouting into the algorithm void.

We get into interactive learning, course overwhelm, cross-pollination between creators, and why “community” isn’t a Facebook group with a few emojis and a weekly prompt.

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Transcript

 

If social media is now pretty much paid to play with all the shadow banning , that involves, and your website is slow burn, then where are people meant to build genuine community? Now that question is what sits right at the heart of this episode with Sally Burns, who is founder of the portal.

The portal is a platform trying to fix two things at once, uh, the way online learning works. And the way creators find each other without shouting into the algorithm void. We get into interactive learning course overwhelm, cross pollination between creators and why community isn't a Facebook group with a few emojis and a weekly prompt, if you have been struggling with building an audience or being seen on, traditional social media.

If you have something fabulous that you know will make people's lives better and you just wanna get it in front of them without paying meta a million pounds of your revenue in ads, then you need to check out this episode with Sally. And then you need to go check out the portal. And, and if you have been struggling with what it looks like to run a business, uh, to, to take part in capitalism.

While at the same time going through your own deconstruction of the systems that, um, that keep us pushed down and isolated from each other, uh, then Sally needs to be your new favorite person. So either way, grab a cup of coffee grab a notebook, uh, put your thinking cap on, and uh, listen to Sally.

Get on her soapbox.

Sally, I am so, so, so pleased to have you on the soapbox podcast. I can't wait to have a chat and for everybody to hear it.

Thank you. Hello. Thank you for having me.

Cool. For people who do not know you or who do not know you that well, can you give them a little bit of an intro into who you are, what you do, and how you got.

Yes, I can. I find this obviously incredibly uncomfortable, unfortunately, because I am a tech geek. No, I am the founder of the portal, which is, I want to say an online learning platform, but I'd say we're not quite there yet, but we, ., We enable people to create and share online courses or memberships or kind of singular resources at the portal. So that's like a platform. It's, , a tech startup, I suppose, of which I am. Yeah. Am the founder, the reluctant CEOI would say. , Currently , we have that sharing to 150 different creators and about 800, , experiences. And yeah, we're in kind of the stages of looking for investment to expand upon that. Yes.

Excellent. That was very good. I feel like are these, I often wonder if I need to kind of announce a conflict of interest in these situations, but. So Sally and I have worked together on the portal's messaging and the copy. So I think it's a fan tablet, amazing, incredible idea. And I find it very, very exciting.

But I might be biased. Uh, so, so how did you, how did you, how did you get to the, to the stage where you were starting a tech startup?

Yeah, I don't know. So thank you for saying it's fabulous. It actually is, and I need to be much more enthusiastic about the product that we have built, which is fantastic.

So when people come on the podcast because of the name, 'cause I'm not very original, , I always ask them what their soapbox is, the thing that they end up talking to everybody about.

You know, you grab a glass of wine and you talk someone's ear off at a party for ages and ages when we have time to go to parties. , What is your soapbox.

, My soapbox is that online learning, , the way in which kind of. Solopreneurs, , share. It is broken essentially, and the tools that we have to use to create it aren't good enough. . So the portal was our solution for that. , And , I'll go into all the various ways that it, solves that problem, but. That original,, issue that I found was that all the tools that we currently have, so the ones like Teachable or Kajabi or Podia, it's very much about sharing videos, um, you know, maybe PDFs. But in kind of a linear menu and leaving the learner on their own to experience those and the way in which that's not conducive to learning. , And it also kind of creates this. Inability for us to like, learn from each other and grow, which is, you know, another essential piece of learning as we know from university and seminars and peer to peer conversations. , It's very much about, sharing one thing and it not being built upon or, . It is this kind of empire building, I suppose, and sharing as opposed to creating ecosystems that, that, , work with each other and, , build in that way. Yeah,

That makes sense. So where does your experience in terms of learning and learning experiences come from?

so I went straight into e-learning after university. In terms of like designing and developing online learning content for big corporations and. The whole point being, creating, engaging, learning that people want to get to the end of, and then they can bring it into their workplace, or they, they take it out into the wider world with them. And so getting them to the end of the learning was like kind of the whole point of your job. How can we keep people engaged enough that they, they get to the end and they, and they get the kind of the learning points that we're trying to share. And a lot of that is about creating things that are interactive. Of which video very much isn't. So video is passive. You are just sat there and you're just watching it and taking in what the person is saying. And we all know that we can't do that beyond five minutes. We certainly can't do that beyond five minutes. When we're sat on our own on a laptop, for example, we will be going to a different tab very quickly. We'll be going down rabbit holes of something that they might have said, and we promise ourselves that we'll come back to finish that. And we never. Do, and you can have, you know, all the will in the world. It just doesn't, it doesn't work like that. And a lot of the kind of platforms that, that we used to share, that learning in those kind of corporate experiences also enabled interactivity between people. They, there was things like live learning that then there was also, , taking your own time, kind of learning. But there was also the community elements, so peer-to-peer conversations happening around pieces of learning. And when I moved to kind of help people get their face-to-face offers online, I was like, there, there is no, none of this.

That was literally just, yeah, being able to share videos, hours of video, which again, if we're going to, and now I'm getting really on my soapbox, is the pressure to create hours

of video. I think I, at one point thought I'd share an online course on how to do online courses and, I couldn't because if I had to record myself, sat there, you know, and I just, when you've just started your own business

anyway, you haven't got that kind of con, it's different to what you're used to.

That confidence of like, oh, I have the knowledge and I'm gonna sit here for hours and tell you about it, let alone, like how do I set up my lighting and my sound and all the other kind of technicalities that are required? It put me right off. I didn't, I didn't do it. And so that was kind of another. Thing that, that made me feel like this isn't this, these aren't up to scratch for what people need. And I think like, so you had Mighty Networks and Circle capitalized on that, that lack of community. They really noticed that, you know, the, the, the lack of community in these online learning platforms, uh, were a problem. But what they were missing, and the other piece that I like to talk about is this interactive elements on the screen.

So we, our tool at the portal has basically kind of technology that, that we had in, the corporation kind of e-learning world, which allows you to create things like hotspots and flip cards and pieces where people were able to interact with the screen. So it's about like breaking down content as you would in kind of an hour video and putting it almost into like an interactive article. Uh, I guess like a webpage, but. With multimedia elements and giving people those points to pause and to click the screen and to say, say on flip cards, you're kind of asking questions and they'll click the screen, the screen to turn the flip card over those pause points. Give people the space to integrate what you are teaching them. Basically, and that tool is totally new in this space that we've created, uh, and, and brought to this, to this side of things.

No, it does. From what I've observed that does kind of, uh, several things. One is make it easier for people to. Like you said, engage with the, with the information and, and with the learning, but also makes it a lot easier for someone to produce that kind of, that kind of content. Like if I don't have to, if what I have can do is like pull together essentially like a interactive, that much, much s naer, PD, f and drag and drop things that I've already created or like stuff like that.

I would much rather do that. Sat, sat in front of my laptop in an evening. Then worry about my audio visual setup so I can record like three hours of 

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And all, you know, writing the scripts for that. So, you know, 500 words for a three minute video. So like the amount of content that you have to write out to then to be able to record yourself talking about instead breaking it down, thinning it out and. Building out a page of blocks of content is fun.

It's

actually fun to do. And then also obviously it's a better experience for your learner. So it's something completely different to what people are currently doing at the moment. And potentially, you know, you kind of got that substack piece in there in the, again, it's back to the writing and it's the long form, but broken down into, into smaller pieces. So it's kind of, it's giving people that place to be creative and to share what they actually came to share. Which, you know, is a whole other soapbox piece about kind of social media as well, which maybe we could touch on at at some point. But it, yeah. It gives them, it gives them kind of, yeah. The bits that they, that they want to share about their work, they can do it easily. And with that kind of creative spark that they potentially had lost when they realized that they had to create hours of video. Yeah.

Yeah. And from the learner or like the, yeah, from the experience point of view the stats on course completion are like ridiculously low.

Yeah. I mean, you've got this kind of new argument at the moment where people say it doesn't matter. You know, as long as you're kind of connecting with someone and they're taking away parts of it. And I certainly do not believe in learning that is like Marks complete buttons. I think that we are constantly learning and part of the portal is constantly learning from each other. And the bigger vision is, you know, if I create something and share it. Then you maybe Peter creates something and share it. And maybe those two pieces can be put together for a better experience for the learner. But yeah, so definitely don't kind of believe in marker's, complete buttons. But you've got, you know what, what our businesses rely on is repeat custom, right?

Or people coming back. And I think what you've got is people abandoning the learning before they've even begun because of the overwhelm of the amount of video that they're expected to watch. And also like a kind of disappointment in themselves I think, of like, I can't do this. I keep going to look at something else. I'm not gonna buy this again. And that's sown distrust as well in the whole kind of course creation market. And that's why I think I was a little bit wobbly about. What my soapbox is, is because things have changed quite a lot in the past three years, and I think that, you know, that explosion of online courses that happened after COVID or during COVID and then continued, that has died down and people have realized they need to share in different ways, and maybe course creation isn't like the big passive income that people promised that it was. But we're still here to, to share our knowledge. Right. And to you know, to grow our businesses in that way and to hopefully build community around it. And so we still need places to create and share. They just need Yeah. Improving on. So that's what we're doing. Yeah.

No, that makes sense. And there's another big element to the portal too. There's the learning piece, but then there is that community kind of piece, that place for people to go to connect with each other and to discover things. Why isn't. Why isn't social media the place that they should go for that?

Social media has changed. A lot from, again, that kind of creative sharing that we had originally. Whether Facebook was ever, that, I'm not quite sure, but I know that Instagram was kind of a creative outlet, right? That we then kind of built community around as well. They have become algorithm driven. And, you know, you can't, the, the whole point in them, the whole unification essentially of the internet is that they've built these network effects, which mean that everyone has to go to social media any in order to kind of be anything I suppose. But they have made it so that you essentially have to pay to get anywhere.

So, as kind of business owners, we are now kind of being forced to. Either pay for ads or blue ticks or whatnot, or not be seen. And for those who are just starting out, where, where do you go then? Because social media had kind of given us these platforms to create and share and reach new audiences. And if that's not working anymore and you've just started, where do you find the people that would buy your course? So there is, you know, a reliance on your website, which is fair enough, but websites take a long time to kind of make an impact or to grow your community in that way. And social media has just become this place where you have to say something divisive in order to get attention or as I say, you have to kind of pay. So what. What is this third place that's needed? And I think that that is the kind of network creation that we're missing. So genuine kind of community creation is kind of what the portal is also doing. So we've got the community side where you can come and just share who you are as an experiencer or as a creator and just meet people in a kind of a really natural way. And those conversations are allowed to go much deeper than what you might get on social media because there's not a kind of punishment there of, of, of going deeper into conversations. There's the ability to go deeper into conversations. It's much slower. Uh, there's not constant kind of fighting of the algorithm. And then a kind of in the terms of a business perspective, it's like natural networking. So if you are within our marketplace and you've got the community element, then you are, if you are then part of one person's course and you meet many other people that way, then when you go to create and share something, you've already kind of started to build up those networks. And so for those who are just starting out, I think that's a really a really good, good way to begin. Basically, here's a tool to, to create and share something, and here's kind of an already built network that you can then kind of get involved in and, and share amongst them as well. So it's kind of the different elements and bringing it together into one.

Yeah. No, that's very cool. I love the I love the variety of people who are putting. different kind of programs and, and courses and, and material and resources on the platform. I think that's a real, it's a real strength in a time where we're encouraged to silo off into like different areas. I think it's really nice to, that like cross pollination idea is really cool.

Yeah, we, we've got, so we've got something like 10% of cross pollination. And you know, really great examples of people who have been on three different offers there and then have gone out and started their own. And because people already know them and know their work. And this is their first try at, say, a membership.

They're already sold because they've been in those groups with those people, with that person long enough, and then are really intrigued by what they're then gonna go share. So we've got some really lovely examples of that. And that's part of it, isn't it? It's like building these ecosystems that support each other and grow together as opposed to siloed. Yeah. Empire building whereby. You don't have those connections. And yeah, you're, you're, it's a really lonely experience basically.

So what is, what's the vision? What's like the big kind of like this is what it is now? What is, what would you like the portal to be?

It's all about that cross collaboration piece. So. If I was to explain it as as a creator. So yeah, the cross collaboration is like the big, big vision. And this is the idea that as a creator I can create, say a coaching program. And because we are within the portal, which is like the marketplace. If say you have then shared a freebie that I know as a creator is really gonna enrich my program, I can then take your freebie and put it into my coaching program. If, you know, you've, you've marked it as being able to do that, and so. That then creates these kind of learning pathways that are much more enriched, as I say. But you get kind of the marketing with that. So your name and content comes, comes with that resource, gets put into this coaching program to a whole new audience. And so everyone wins. Like you get that marketing, I as a creator get a better program. And then also the learner gets a much better experience, you know, something. That is made even better and richer and more diverse essentially. So if you didn't have an audience just yet, obviously that's an excellent way to then grow your network. And so then also we can collaborate together. So being able to create those coaching programs together and use different resources in that way is another piece that's really important that. Co-creation is kind of where we need to go in order to keep learning and keep growing in that way. And then also the learners. So learning learner created pathways. So if I log on as an experiencer and I want to create my own learning pathway for that week, that really kind of. Helps me through something that I need.

So say for example I need to launch a new offer myself, right? As well as needing. Say some help on the copy. I also need some kind of personal help there, like some somatic practices to get me through the week. I'm also, you know, struggling with limited time with my kids and want to be able to give them what they need, but also, you know, care for myself at the same time. So I'm able to go on and, and get a number of different creators resources and put them together in the learning pathway that I need for those couple of weeks to get me through. And again, it's about giving the learner much more flexibility and allowing them to then build something that then. Helps them grow, but also helps us all grow because it's mixing together kind of different knowledge in a new way, which again, is important and moves from that whole thing of sharing one and done, you know, siloed information.

So it's again about kind of growing, moving pieces.

I've been hearing a lot of people recently talk about this idea of like, designing your own curriculum, like deciding what you, what part of your life you wanna like, develop or change whatever, and going and finding different things that you can learn from different places. There's been quite a lot of content on it about on TikTok.

Not that I'm on TikTok, but people have been telling me about it. I feel far too old to be on TikTok. I can't keep up and I can't do dances. It still feels very overwhelming, but yeah, it kind of feels like that idea kind of that you, you are not, you are not buying into. A course curriculum that somebody else has put together, deciding exactly what it is that you need to learn to do the thing that you wanna do.

And that person, well-meaning and experienced and kind of knowledgeable as they might be, doesn't know you. And this curriculum that they've put together is, I mean, it's not, it's not a one size fits all because they've done it for a particular audience, but it's a, this is what, this is my way, this is what everybody should be doing, who fits into this particular box, but.

The way that the portal works in terms of that pulling together those different learning, pulling together a learning pathway from those different things is very much, yeah, like designing your own personalized curriculum because you, 'cause you know you and you know the unique mix of all the different things that are going on in your life.

Yeah, definitely. And I think there's something kind of like. White male, CEO about having, you know, yeah. A program that's really structured that you follow that just completely dismisses the, I wanna say the chaos of our lives. But,

but you know, the bits I need, bits and snippets I need, you know, I am not the same person every single day.

I'm very much, and this whole like consistency, productivity doesn't, it kind of, yeah. It bypasses mothers who are working as well and are dealing with, in fact, you spoke about it in your

brilliant workshop on the model the other day, that that's where that's coming from is yeah, we're all experienced things completely differently.

It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be learning or that we don't, you know, want to fit in things that are going to grow our business. It's just done in a. Yeah, it needs to be delivered in a much different way and we need control of that. I think that's the big kind of thing is like learner. Being able to decide what it is that's in that pathway is empowering for them and also makes it a hell of a lot more likely that they're going to complete it.

Yeah, and it feels like the online learning movement from a place that was, that was partially trying to fix that white male, CEO kind of one way or the highway of L like it was. To help with that accessibility. Like in order to learn things, you didn't have to be able to pay to and physically get to some red brick college somewhere that could teach you all this stuff and take out enough time to sit in those lecture theaters and to go to those courses.

You could access it around whatever else was going on in your life, in your own home, et cetera. But it almost feels like then it stopped, like it evolved a bit. And then it kind of went, this is just a new structure that everybody has to fit into.

Yeah, because, because it was about profit again, right? In terms of it being like exponential profits. It was like, how can you create a course as easily as possible and that will make you as much money as

possible, or you have to create it in this 10, you know, do it like here's 10 steps

to become amazing. And it, that was just not, that's, yeah, it was kind of anti, oh, the opposite of what? What we

needed and what we were looking for in that movement as well. And this is another part of it is, and kind of to come back to that kind of community piece. Many people I think, like you can have, there was a lot of memberships when we launched the portal 1.0 there, it was very much a move from courses anyway. And, uh. People were actually looking for spaces to just be together. And you could maybe put a topic over the top of that, but a lot of people were just done and needed some spaces with other people that were guided. But it was very much about the spaces in between that integration time. And I think that that is what's been really the kind of steer of the portal is like providing. Places that people can meet each other and just be together. And again, with that, the tool allowing you to create and share like small bits, it's almost like resources that help people take on bits of information over a few weeks, but there's not kind of this big curriculum to get through in two weeks time. And it's almost that like drawing it out, making things longer. So many of our memberships are done like in three month cycles and themes in those three months. Yeah. Again, just like, can we stretch this out? Can we you know, all actually just kind of study this book for a few months under a theme? It's kind of feeds into that. Reaction or rebel rebellion to that fast social media. Money. Money, money passive income piece that we've had for the past few years, I

You do can make seven figures in two minutes.

Exactly. Yeah.

So I follow you on social media because. I am on social media and I love the content that you put out. I think I think not only like the, not only the stuff that talks about the portal, but also the stuff that talks about being, being a, like a founder, a founder of a tech startup being like balancing family life and all that kind of thing.

You have kind of. Knowledge of and, and done courses in and, and really rooted in this idea of kind of permaculture and nature and getting away from screens and being in real life with people. I love seeing like you and your, you and your family just like wandering off along the malls, going for walks and bike rides and things and getting very jealous that I can't drag my 13-year-old out to do that all the time.

But it does introduce this really interesting, it's not a paradox 'cause it's not really that deep, but this almost like disconnect perhaps between being someone for whom that is a massive part of your life, that being offline stuff and being the founder of a tech startup.

It's hard that isn't it?

Yeah. And like this is, this is not like a,

no, no, no.

this is not a gotcha. It's just, yeah, something I think would be interesting.

yeah, and it's interesting because just to, from a personal perspective, I can't remember if I shared this recently, but so when, so I've said I was kind of designing and developing online learning from like 21, and me and my dad ended up having a business together, like freelancing, doing it for companies. And I. Very sadly, during COVID, he was diagnosed with terminal with terminal cancer and he died quite quickly, kind of within a six, six months window. And my reaction to that was I like, get me away from, from screens, you know, get me away from technology. I just couldn't. And my real escape from that was the garden. And really deepening per my per permaculture studies, which I'd kind of started in COVID anyway. And found so much solace in the garden, so much you know, like, like meaning in why we're here and that kind of regeneration and death and birth, and it really helped. It was a really excellent piece for my grief, basically. But because I'd come from always being amongst technology, I guess, as I started to feel better. I started to crave it again, and what I really noticed during that time was. I as a person was looking for these different pieces that I needed. So I was, look, I was studying kind of the permaculture pieces with that was kind of the climate crisis understanding and what can we do about it. And at the same time, I was looking after myself in terms of like yoga and meditation and breath work. And I guess for me, all those parts came together of like. I, as what I, as a singular person, need all these bits, different bits of knowledge or all these different pieces of wisdom or all these different tools to help me get through this typical patch. And so. How can we create a platform where someone as that learner can have all these different things that they might need and bring them together. So I guess that was always kind of sparking in my head. So that's kind of from a personal perspective. That's how I ended up here, where it's like this contradiction of yeah, really, really wanting people to be outside.

And again, very much the, another influence was Sisters of the Wild, which was about kind of being outside in community with a group of folks in Wales and, but in those circles everyone was kind of sharing their tools and wisdom, so that was kind of another inspiration for the portal. But we are in many different places and we are in a time when we need to share as much knowledge as possible in order to face these kind of interconnected crises that we are facing.

And technology is the way that we do that. I mean, when you know very much in kind of permaculture circles as much as. You've got these solutions and you know, learning what nature does is kind of a big piece of that. Everyone acknowledges that technology is what is essentially going to save us in the case of like keeping us connected and also keeping us learning and growing.

So whilst a lot of what people share on the portal is about how to get outside and how to be outside we still need that space to connect and grow together. , 

It falls very much in line with where I find myself in this. It's not an argument in this conversation, I suppose, of the internet and screens that evil and they're rotting our brains and killing our empathy and all that kind of thing. And social media is ruining politics and all that stuff the, the connection and the benefits and the, the love and support and access to knowledge.

Understanding that I know I found, and I know millions of other people have found with the internet even with social media. So I find myself slightly frustrated sometimes with people who are like, blanket, this whole entire thing is evil and should never have been invented

Yeah.

when, when I was a youth worker.

saw time and time again the positive impact that a space to find your tribe, for want of a better phrase, was available to people who beforehand would've been isolated, and that would've had detrimental impacts on them. So like, so yeah, like, like a, a gay kid in deepest, darkest Wales who never even knew that a life different, the one that they lived existed, 

Yeah. Yeah. 

was able to find people who helped them be themselves and feel okay with that.

And, and then when I, yeah. And then when my husband died, like me being able to connect with, with other people who'd gone through that kind of thing, and also me being able to reach out and, and help others who. Who were going through something similar, none of that would've been able to happen from my sleepy little village surrounded by sheep in the middle of the uk and, and then, yeah, and then from a business perspective, again, I would never have been able to build a business in the middle of COVID when I had two kids at home.

In the middle of nowhere surrounded by sheep because sheep do not buy websites. So, well, as far as I know, anyway, they're not buying them from me. So I think that, yeah, I think some, as I often find myself coming back to you, there needs to be a lot more nuance in some of these conversations.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I get it. I get the, backlash against the AI

slop that we are now seeing. And I get it in terms of the brain rot and screen time for kids. Also seeing, yeah, my kids knowing things that I didn't know at that age or, you know, they're learning stuff that I definitely didn't learn at that age, which is, has its pros and its cons, I suppose. But. So if you are on a call on the portal, we've got ex, we've got creators and experience experiences in the us, in Germany, in Ireland, in France, in Australia, in Dubai. Like to be able to connect people in that way, all with their different takes on on life, on business is incredible. And it's like, it's so valuable. To have those different it's that diversity,

right? It's which ecosystems thrive on. You've got to have diversity. And the internet allows us to do that. And with caution. Absolutely. But I think. That's all part of it is almost that learning of what's appropriate here, what's the appropriate amount of time to spend, uh, scrolling on the internet and when should I get myself outside picking some plums from the tree?

So that's all part of it, I

Yeah, no, that makes sense. So the portal, the portal is portal 2.0 now.

2.0.

Yeah. Yeah. 

So people can create things on their themselves. They can create kind of freebies or paid products and people can join and then explore and, and all that kind of thing.

Yes. Yeah.

But that's not where the portal's gonna gonna kind of finish.

No.

No. So what comes next and what needs to happen in order for that thing to happen?

Yeah, so the Pools 2.0 as we currently have it is a brilliant starting place for all of us, and we are very much the kind of 150 or so creators that we've got on there at the moment are those who have really invested in. Wanting to build something new, wanting to build something different as well as they are able to create using this tool.

So you can create like a membership and you can create like a live workshop that you then put in to kind of a lead magnet or a freebie. You can, your subscription gets you a community space, so. You get a private community space as part of your subscription that you can run as you please. And that's almost like kind of Facebook groups in that we've got the main community space.

Then you have a private group that you can invite people into. You can have, yeah, one-off courses. You can run subscriptions and as I say, you can create like multimedia resources that are kind of, you know, can be treated like an article or whatnot. And that kind of cost us around 60,000 pounds basically. And there'll be more features added to that before, between now and Christmas . But obviously 60,000 pounds in the face of billion dollar platforms like circle or billion dollar platforms like Mighty Networks is, you know, it is, it's, I dunno, it's hard to say that it's basic because it's not, because it does allow you to do lots of things and that it's the tool that really is different. And that's the bit that was quite expensive. But we, in order to get to that cross-collaboration piece that I was talking about, which really is the vision, you know, we really want people to be able to share resources between each other as well as those learner driven, driven pathways. So people being able to create their own kind of learning pathways, that's investment and that's big investment.

So that's like, we've been really, really. I'd wanna say lucky, but Yeah. Yeah. Lucky. And the, the community has kind of funded a lot of that 60,000 pounds. So we had investment, larger pieces of investment from community members as well as people. Those 150 creators subscriptions have added to that 60,000. But in order to kind of get to the big piece, you're talking like 500,000 pounds. So we're really at that point now where we're looking for aligned angel investors or we'll go down that kind of crowdfunding route. So that's the position that we are in and that's when we really get to create kind of all the bells and whistles features that we'd love to be able to create that will kind of really build out that vision piece of the ecosystem and cross collaboration. And that's very much what we're doing over the next few months is getting that pitching ready and looking for those aligned angels. Yeah, it's tricky. Uh, it is tricky for me to be in that position of a founder of a tech startup from. No money, who you know is also looking after two young kids. It's very much not conducive to going out and making millions of pounds, but we're getting there from a very supportive and invested community.

I think people are very much on board with the vision as we are, so I'm really lucky in, in that

Mm-hmm.

sense. 

So if people want to if people are interested about investing in the portal, then they should obviously give you a shout.

Please

do. 

it's like, yes, that would be great. And if people are interested in finding out how the portal could like fit into the way they offer their services or their kind of where they 

Yeah. So. As, so it's free to sign up to the portal as an experiencer. And a lot of people are sharing freebies on there. Again, just to kind of get people interested in their work. So you are already, you know, getting something pretty rich from a free signup. You've got people sharing free workshops, as I say, but also free takeaway pieces on we had rituals for aromatherapy the other day.

We've got, yeah, some really beautiful stuff on there. So being able to, create and share freebies. So if people signed up as experiences now, they'd have all that lovely content and then they can come into the community and just really get a feel for who we are what we do, and the types of people that are there. You've got free communities on there, really beautiful ones like the Slowdown Collective, which again is, is teaching. Kind of really lovely tips and tricks on how to kind of detach from technology as much, you know, that to get a bit of space between us and technology, different ways to do that, especially beautiful as we the run up to Christmas, kind of pulling away

from the Black Friday deals and whatnot and leaning more into community being where the true joy is, I suppose

around Christmas time.

So there's lots of different things like that going on.

Okay. Well, I will the link to the portal is gonna be in the show notes. I'll pop your your contact stuff in there too so that people can come and find you if they're interested. But yeah, lots to chew on, uh, lots of people to think about. Please go and find Sally online and, and maybe offline.

But thank you. So thank you so much in the garden. Yes. This is great. And, uh, yeah, no, I really appreciate you taking the time to come and tell us all.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I.