The Frontier is an annual membership for creators and artists striving to make 1,000 True Fans their reality.

The membership gets you access to a growing collection of courses, workshops, templates, co-working sessions, and other goodies, all of which are centered around making a living from work that makes you feel fully, vibrantly alive.

However, my approach here is radically different from what you'd find from other online biz and marketing resources. You won't see any generic advice about how to "build an audience" or "10x your marketing.” There will be exactly zero talk of "going viral" or "feeding the algorithm." The internet is already overflowing with such things. And if you're like me, you've tried that stuff, and know most of it is cancer for the soul. Following it turns you into a cheap commodity, makes you treat yourself and others inhumanely, and it degrades the quality of your life, along with the internet as a whole.

Instead, The Frontier approach is about coming alive—in your creative work, in your business, and in your relationships to fans. It's about bringing more of yourself into how you show up online, and practicing marketing in ways that are playful, respectful, and that feel nourishing for everyone involved. The Frontier is a place where we put easy, one-size-fits-all answers aside, and walk our own paths. It's a place where we embrace uncertainty, run experiments, and iterate our way into businesses that are uniquely our own. Because that's how we win the long game and flourish in our lives. Not by forcing ourselves to fit in someone else's box, and spending years doing shit we hate. But by being in tune with ourselves, trying things out, and iterating our way forward by moving towards what feels alive, and way from what doesn't.

That's exactly how I'm building my own business and life. By following the aliveness. And that's what we'll do together out on The Frontier.

Towards the bottom of this page, I've laid out what's included in the Frontier membership in vivid detail, and also tried to answer any questions you might have. But for now, here's the TLDR version. You get access to:

• The Frontier Basecamp: An ever-expanding hub that contains every product and resource I've made, or will make. Courses, templates, workshops—they're waiting for you at basecamp.
• The Courage Playground: A private communal notebook for "building in public" with your fellow frontier homies. Use it to document your own experiments, results, and bold leaps, and to draw inspiration from others.
• Courageous co-working sessions. Weekly Zoom sessions to get your most important work done alongside creative homies.
• Bi-weekly office hours calls. Come hang out on Zoom, and maybe get some coaching. You'll likely see my cat.
• My private posts and a secret podcast. These are usually uncomfortably transparent peaks inside my business.
• My undying gratitude and delight. If we ever happen to meet in real life, I will almost certainly hug you. Unless you don't like hugs, in which case we could opt for a firm handshake, or a slight nod while looking each other dead in the eye.
• An ongoing money-back guarantee. If the membership isn't worth it to you, I will happily return your money, whether it's one day from now, or one year.

I also wanna try something a bit unorthodox with this page. Usually, sales pages are supposed keep you on the page, heighten your emotional state, and nudge you towards making a purchase decision quickly. Even though I worked as a conversion copywriter for a few years, I have zero interest in playing those games anymore (lol).

Instead, I do not want you to make a decision quickly, especially if you're new here, and haven't explored the Ungated world yet.

Think of The Frontier as an ongoing invitation. It will always be here if and when you feel excited to embark on this path with me. If you never feel that way, that's ok. My work isn't for everyone, and I fully trust you to make the best decision for yourself—even if that means you end up going elsewhere to learn marketing.

Here are a few resources that'll help you get a sense of who I am, what this place is, and what we're doing here. So have a look around. There's no rush.

The Ungated Manifesto

The Pattern, and the Battle for the Soul of the Internet

UngatedRob Hardy

Non-Coercive Marketing: A Primer

A new philosophy of marketing, rooted in letting go of control, and trusting people to be their own authority.

UngatedRob Hardy

Ungated Business Foundations

The art of walking your own path in a world that incentivizes conformity.

UngatedRob Hardy

An Ungated Case Study

Sam Sager’s journey into authentic creativity, oasis building, and self-trust

UngatedSam Sager

I am not an expert

…despite any contradictory signals I might send

UngatedRob Hardy

If you check out any or all of these resources, and find yourself thinking, "hell yes, I want to step onto The Frontier with Rob," just follow this fancy button.

What You Get With Membership

Becoming a member of The Frontier gets you access to an ever-expanding set of resources, all designed to help creators and artists make 1,000 True Fans a reality.

My primary promise is that you'll learn new ways to practice marketing and online business that aren't sleazy or manipulative, but generous and kind. My goal is for you to enjoy your creative work, enjoy the act of marketing, and enjoy the business you build for yourself—even if it looks nothing like what other people are doing.

The membership comes with education, of course, but also plenty of support so you can implement what you learn, and keep stepping into courage, day after day, week after week.

Courses & Workshops

I take a different approach to online courses than most of the “here’s how to build a business” crowd.

My core promise is that you will never find easy, one-size-fits-all answers out on The Frontier. I will not spoonfeed you with simplistic step-by-step marketing formulas. Instead, I will challenge you to explore your own values, think through complexity, find the best answers for yourself, and walk your own path. Basically, I will treat you like the smart, capable, creative, good-looking adult you are, and not assume that I have all the best answers for you. Because I don't.

That’s probably the biggest difference between the courses I create, and everything else you’ll find out there. Most courses, if followed, turn you into a templatized lookalike of some business guru. Ungated courses, by contrast, get you in touch with yourself, and help you build something no one else but you could. If I do my job right, you will come out of this membership looking less like me, and more like yourself.

Anyhow, here are the current courses waiting for you upon becoming a member.

Stand Out & Connect

If you want to create true fans, it’s not enough to “add value” or "get attention." You must resonate. You must connect with people on a visceral, emotional level. This course shows you how to do that. It’s about how to cut through the noise of the internet, and genuinely, deeply matter to people. (Also, it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever made and I am very proud of it.)

Oasis Building 101

An oasis is a refuge from a hostile environment. It’s a place of nourishment, trust, and delight, where people finally feel safe to let down their hair and be themselves. This course lays out a framework for creating a digital oasis. You'll learn how to design your corner of the internet so that it's maximally delightful not just for you, but for your fans.

Find Your Niche

I’m considering renaming this course “Find The Others” because that’s what it’s really about. You’ll learn a handful of research strategies to discover those corners of the internet where you truly belong. Once you find your people, everything else about marketing and business gets much, much easier.

The Personal Archaeology Course

Self-knowledge is the key that unlocks creative work no one else but you could make. It's also the key that helps you find the people you most vibe with, and the types of business models and marketing strategies that are the best fit for you. This course walks you through a series of introspective practices, then gives you a series of recipes for how to turn those insights into fuel for your creative work and marketing.

The Audience Accelerator

This is a massive course I made in 2020 to help entrepreneurial filmmakers learn marketing from the ground up. But the material is applicable to any type of creative or artist.

Courageous Co-working Sessions

Oftentimes the activities that are most meaningful for our creative and business growth are the most uncomfortable. We feel the most resistance towards those things we must do, so usually we end up procrastinating or finding less impactful ways to spend our time. (Don't ask me how I know this.)

But it's a lot easier to do scary, vulnerable work in the context of a community. It's easier when there's a designated time and place for it. And it's easier when we see our peers facing their fears head on as well. Courage is contagious.

That's what Courageous Co-Working sessions are for. We show up with a task or project that's important, scary, uncomfortable, or that we've been procrastinating on. Then we spend an hour on Zoom, working silently, and making progress together. And at the end, we celebrate each other for stepping into the arena,

Even spending one hour a week on your scary tasks can add up quickly. This is usually the highest leverage, most important work in your business.

But Wait, There’s More!

There are a few other perks to The Frontier that are pretty dang cool, but not really worth writing hundreds of words about.

• Unlock all premium posts on the Ungated website.These are usually uncomfortably transparent peeks inside my business. Plus you’ll get my first book whenever I decide to start writing it.
• A bunch of cool Notion templates for creative entrepreneurs. There’s one for audience research, an editorial calendar, a content promotion dashboard, and even a CRM.
• Bi-weekly office hours with me. Come hang out, get some coaching, get some feedback, shoot the breeze.
• The undying love and gratitude of my cat, because proceeds from The Frontier are often used to spoil him.

And that's it, my friend. At least for now. I'm always creating new things for the membership, and experimenting with ways to make it more valuable, and more impactful. And I'm always open to suggestions for what you'd like to see here. 

Hypothetically Asked Questions