December 18, 2025
“How do I pivot to a totally new service offering without starting from zero?” and more…
Important reminder in case you missed the announcement two weeks ago:
Ditcherville is moving!
Backstory
Back in 2017, I started Ditcherville as a basic, free Slack room. This worked for many years, but it’s time to move to a true community platform rather than just a chat app. So... in January, we’ll be migrating Ditcherville from Slack to Circle.
Benefits of Circle
The migration from Slack to Circle will have several immediate benefits for members:
- Full message history (i.e., no more 90-day history limit!)
- Everything will be in one place, which means a search can pull up events, video replays, course lessons, posts, messages, members, etc.
- Robust support for events (e.g., RSVPs, email reminders, recurring events, Add To Calendar support, etc.)
- Robust support for courses (e.g., embedded video, lesson completion, progress tracking, etc.)
- Self-service account upgrades/downgrades (e.g., you don’t have to cancel monthly to buy yearly, or vice versa)
I’ve been setting up the new space, and it’s obvious to me that it will be a much better experience for everyone. I’m excited!
The BAD NEWS
Along with this transition, I’m going to be making three big changes that could be construed as bad news:
- The monthly price is going to double to $197/mo
- The yearly price is going to double to $1,397/yr
- The lifetime membership option will disappear on Dec 31 at midnight eastern (HNY!)
- Enrollment will be capped at 200 members for the foreseeable future
The GOOD NEWS
However, there is a silver lining!
All members of the Slack Ditcherville will automatically get into the Circle Ditcherville at their current pricing.
This means that:
- Lifetime members from Slack will get into Circle for FREE
- Monthly members from Slack will get into Circle for $99/mo (instead of $197/mo)
- Yearly members from Slack will get into Circle for $695/yr (instead of $1,397/yr)
Notes on the enrollment cap
Some alert readers have asked:
There are more than 800 Ditcherville members in Slack, so how can Circle be capped at 200?
Good question! This is a little fuzzy, so bear with me...
With a big change like this, it’s hard to predict how many people will be willing to learn the new platform.
There are two possibilities:
- If FEWER THAN 200 Slack members want to move to Circle, I’ll open up public registration for the remaining spots in January.
- If MORE THAN 200 existing members want to move to Circle, I’ll let them all in and only open up registration to the public if membership drops below 200 in Circle at some point in the future.
TL;DR:
- If you’ve been thinking about joining Ditcherville as a lifetime member, you have to check out before midnight on Dec 31.
- If you’ve been thinking of joining Ditcherville as a monthly or yearly subscriber, you can lock in a 50% discount by joining before midnight on Dec 31.
(Questions? Hit reply and ask.)
And now, on to our regularly scheduled email...
In today’s Ditcherville LIVE Q&A session, we had a bunch of good questions, like:
- When does delegation actually create leverage versus just creating management overhead?
- How should founders think about doing admin or repetitive tasks themselves given the value of their time?
- What kinds of delegation work well for solos (specialists vs. generalists)?
- Have you hired VAs for outreach or lead generation, and what worked or didn’t?
- How should SOPs and checklists be used so they actually get followed?
- Why are checklists valuable even when you “already know what to do”?
- How do checklists protect creative energy and prevent catastrophic mistakes?
- Is there a difference between category, platform specialization, and positioning?
- Is anchoring to a category and adding unique value the same as platform specialization?
- How does anchoring to a category affect escaping that category when it becomes a liability?
- Is it better to anchor to a well-known category and differentiate, or to bet on an emerging category?
- Do you ever feel despondent that value pricing has not been adopted more broadly?
- How do you stay motivated while pursuing a long-term mission that may never go mainstream?
- How do I decide what to focus on next after early service-market fit (podcast, book, email, etc.)?
- How do I build a content ecosystem for a small, hyper-niched audience?
- Is serving the same ~200 people deeply the right strategic lens?
- How should content be structured to both serve and convert a tight ecosystem?
- What actually causes spikes in email list growth?
- What strategies actually work for growing an email list today?
- What are good ways to use a client’s success to build reputation and credibility?
- How should testimonials, case studies, and referrals be collected?
- When is the best moment to ask for testimonials and referrals?
- Should consultants lower prices in tough economic times?
- How can someone increase revenue without discounting existing services?
- How to separate “cashflow survival work” from “future business building” during transitions?
- How should a solo consultant handle a pivot without real-world proof yet?
- Are partial or staged pivots are safer than full rebrands or hard resets?
- What is one big bet many solo consultants are pursuing in 2026?
- What trends should solo consultants be watching in 2026?
Have you wasted months (or years!) stuck on questions like these?
✅ Imagine being off the hamster wheel and working smarter, not harder.
✅ Imagine seeing familiar old problems disappearing in the rear-view mirror.
✅ Imagine having the confidence to act decisively on growing your business.
Become a Ditcherville member and get your business unstuck.
When you join more than 800 of your colleagues in Ditcherville, you’ll get instant access to the following:
⏯️ Access to the videos from all my workshopsNEW
💬 24/7 asynchronous discussion and support in the Ditcherville Slack
🎟️ Invitations to all future Ditcherville LIVE Q&A sessions
🔦 A searchable database of 700+ individual questions with answers in audio and video format (more than 150 hours!)
📚 My library of email sequences, business templates, coaching questions, daily emails, and more
👂 A private audio podcast feed of past Q&A sessions so you can binge-listen to the back catalog hands-free
But wait... there’s more!
By popular demand, I’ve added audio chapters, AI generated interactive transcripts, and a private shared folder of more than 50 website teardown videos.
If not now, when?
Don’t waste another year moving one inch in every direction.
Join my group coaching community today and get the answers you need to start moving forward again.
Monthly, annual, and lifetime memberships are still available.
I hope to see you in Ditcherville soon!
Yours,
—J