Small Bets costs $450, once, forever.
For that you get 54 recorded classes from people like Arvid Kahl, Steph Smith, and Justin Welsh, plus a community of 7,731 members. As a learning library, it might be the best deal on the internet.
But Small Bets is a class library with a chat attached.
Nobody in there tracks your MRR. Nobody notices when you go quiet for three weeks. You can watch all 54 classes and still be exactly where you were in January.
What actually moved my business was a room, not a library. I paid $13,000 for a mastermind when I was making $15K to $20K a month. (Stupid decision, right?) Six months later I was at $75K a month.
So if you're looking at Small Bets and wondering "is this the thing that gets me unstuck?", the honest answer depends on what you're missing: knowledge or accountability.
Here are 7 alternatives, with real prices, sorted by what they're actually good at.
Small Bets alternatives at a glance
What Small Bets is (and where it stops)
Quick context so the list makes sense.
Small Bets is Daniel Vassallo's community built around one idea: stop betting everything on one startup, run a portfolio of small products instead. It was $99 for years. After the Gumroad acquisition the price moved to $450 lifetime.
What you're buying is the library: 54 classes on SEO, audience building, info products, content. Teachers include Arvid Kahl, Sahil Lavingia, Steph Smith, and Justin Welsh. Plus the community that comes with it, 7,731 members at last count.
For $450 once, that's a lot. If your gap is skills, buy it and don't overthink it.
Where it stops: follow-up. Everything in there is input. You watch a class, you read a thread, and nobody ever asks what you did with it. If input were the bottleneck, you'd already be rich.
Pick from the list below based on which one is actually your bottleneck.
1. Profitable Founder Club
Full disclosure: this one's mine. I built it because the $13K mastermind I mentioned was the best money I ever spent on my business, and nothing like it existed for bootstrapped SaaS founders between $5K and $50K MRR.
The Club is the opposite of a class library.
Bi-weekly calls where we solve 3 member problems live. Monthly Q&As with founders already past $100K MRR. A private daily chat where people post real numbers. The batch is capped at 20 founders so nobody disappears into the crowd.
If Small Bets is the room where you learn, this is the room where someone checks whether you did it.
Price: paid, application only.
Best for: bootstrapped SaaS founders at $5K to $50K MRR who want accountability, not more content.
2. Indie Hackers
The free default. Courtland Allen built the place where indie founders share revenue numbers and milestones, and it's still the best $0 entry point into this world.
It's a forum, so treat it like one. Great for reading how someone got their first 100 customers, weak for anyone noticing whether you shipped this week.
If Small Bets' $450 feels steep while you're pre-revenue, start here and come back to paid rooms when you have numbers worth discussing.
Price: free.
Best for: pre-revenue founders learning in public.
3. WIP
Marc Köhlbrugge's WIP is built around one mechanic: post what you shipped today, keep your streak alive.
That sounds small. It isn't. Small Bets teaches you 54 ways to build things, WIP makes not-building feel expensive. For a lot of solo founders the streak does more than any course ever did.
It's $199 a year and the community is small and dense, filtered for people who actually build.
Price: $199/year.
Best for: solo makers who need streak pressure to keep shipping.
4. MicroConf Connect
Rob Walling's MicroConf is the institution of bootstrapped SaaS, and Connect is its year-round community layer at $499 a year.
It's vetted, it's SaaS-specific, and there's no revenue bar to join. You get access to the network that produced half the playbooks you already use, plus regional meetups and the main events if you want to go in person.
Compared to Small Bets it's a different sport: less "learn 12 different internet businesses", more "go deep on the one SaaS you're building".
Price: $499/year.
Best for: SaaS founders who want a big vetted network across every stage.
5. Ramen Club
Ramen Club is 400+ bootstrapped founders in a Slack, run by Charlie Ward out of London, aimed at getting you to ramen profitability and past it.
Weekly demo days, founder interviews, expert workshops, in-house mentors you can just tag for feedback. There's a 30-day money-back guarantee, and if you're in London they run a coworking space from £30 a day.
The interesting part: £170 gets you lifetime access. That's the closest thing on this list to Small Bets' pricing model, except the product is events and people instead of recorded classes.
Price: £25/month or £170 lifetime.
Best for: early-stage founders who want weekly live energy on a Small Bets budget.
6. Dynamite Circle
Dynamite Circle is the room you graduate into: 1,400+ vetted, location-independent founders, $697 a year, and a $100K annual revenue bar to get in.
It's the strongest pure network on this list. In-person meetups worldwide, a private forum where people share real numbers, and a premium tier (DC BLACK at $5,500 a year) once you're past $1M.
I wrote a full breakdown of it in my Dynamite Circle alternatives post, but the short version: if you qualify, it's fair value. If you don't qualify yet, put it on the list for the day you do.
Price: $697/year, $100K revenue minimum.
Best for: profitable founders who want a global, vetted network.
7. YC Startup School
Y Combinator's free online program: a structured curriculum of videos and essays from YC partners, plus co-founder matching.
It leans startup-flavored rather than bootstrapper-flavored, so filter the "raise money" advice through your own plans. But as a free, organized replacement for a $450 class library, it's hard to argue with.
Do the curriculum, use the co-founder matching if you're solo and don't want to be, and spend the $450 you saved on your first paid room later.
Price: free.
Best for: founders who want structured lessons without paying for them.
How to actually pick
Don't pick the best community. Pick the one that fixes your current bottleneck:
→ Missing knowledge: Small Bets ($450 once) or YC Startup School (free). Honestly, at that stage, courses work.
→ Missing momentum: WIP ($199/year) or Ramen Club (£25/month). Streaks and demo days force output.
→ Missing peers who get it: Indie Hackers free first, MicroConf Connect ($499/year) when you're serious about SaaS.
→ Missing accountability at $5K to $50K MRR: Profitable Founder Club. That's exactly the gap it exists to fill.
→ Past $100K a year and want a network: Dynamite Circle ($697/year).
And whatever you pick, run the math against your MRR, not your ego. I broke down what these rooms should cost you at each stage in how much a mastermind costs.
FAQ
How much does Small Bets cost?
$450, one-time, for lifetime access. That includes the full library of 54 recorded classes and the member community. It was $99 for years before the Gumroad acquisition moved it to the current price.
Is Small Bets worth it?
As a learning library, yes. 54 classes from real practitioners for $450, once, is good value. Just be honest about what it is: a place to learn, with no one checking whether you apply any of it.
What's the difference between Small Bets and a mastermind?
Small Bets sells knowledge: recorded classes plus a large community. A mastermind sells follow-up: a small group that knows your numbers, meets on a schedule, and notices when you stall. That's why masterminds cost more and work differently. Here's whether masterminds are worth it if you're weighing the jump.
What's the best free Small Bets alternative?
Indie Hackers for community, YC Startup School for structured curriculum. Between the two you can cover most of what a beginner needs for $0, then put real money into a paid room once you have revenue.
Can I combine Small Bets with one of these?
Yes, and it's often the right move. The library and the room solve different problems. Plenty of founders keep Small Bets for reference (it's lifetime access anyway) and pay separately for a community that meets on a schedule. What I'd avoid is stacking three or four communities at once: you'll lurk in all of them and show up in none.
The bottom line
Small Bets is a great library. Most stuck founders don't have a library problem.
If you're a SaaS founder somewhere between $5K and $50K MRR, your bottleneck is almost never another class. It's the absence of a small room that knows your numbers and asks what happened since last call.
That's what I built the Profitable Founder Club to be. Batch capped at 20. Bi-weekly calls, 3 real problems solved per session, founders past $100K MRR showing up monthly to answer questions.
