Female Entrepreneur Association grew to 1,200 members in a single week

About Female Entrepreneur Association

Carrie Green started the Female Entrepreneur Association in 2011 because she was lonely.

Not the kind of lonely that comes from being alone. The kind that comes from building something nobody around you understands. She had a successful online business, a growing audience, and absolutely no one to talk to about the specific, unglamorous reality of running it.

In her own words:

“I felt so isolated building my first business. It’s so debilitating. There would be days when I wouldn’t even leave the apartment. I was surrounded by men in suits at networking events and I was like, this is not my scene.”

Carrie Green, Founder, Female Entrepreneur Association

So she created a space for women who got it. What started as a small online group grew into a global movement reaching over 650,000 women. Her book “She Means Business” hit bestseller lists and collected more than 1,800 five-star reviews on Amazon. Her TEDx talk has been viewed over 8 million times. Forbes, BBC, Entrepreneur, and Inc. have all featured her work.

Today, FEA’s Members’ Club is a paid community of over 5,000 female entrepreneurs. Members get access to 80+ expert masterclasses from names like Amy Porterfield, Danielle Canty, and Bo Eason, alongside direct messaging, curated groups, live Q&A sessions, and a daily accountability partner matching system. The ecosystem extends beyond the paid Members’ Club too. FEA has built a broader email audience of over 150,000 subscribers, with more than 90,000 classed as actively engaged, giving them owned distribution that doesn’t depend on any single social platform.

The entire Members’ Club runs on BuddyBoss Platform with a branded mobile app, giving members access to courses, community, messaging, and certifications from anywhere.

Challenges

Challenge #1: A million followers, but no foundation

With over a million followers across social platforms, FEA had massive reach but limited depth. Social media algorithms controlled who saw what, engagement was shallow, and there was no way to deliver structured courses, exclusive community features, or certifications through Facebook or Instagram stories.

As Carrie put it: “Facebook can do whatever Facebook want to do and it’s risky, so having ownership of it on your own website is just so much better.”

The audience was there. The infrastructure wasn’t.

Challenge #2: A premium membership needs more than a login page

Carrie knew what she wanted to build: direct messages between members. Groups organised by business type. An activity feed that gave people a reason to come back every day. Certifications. Gamification. Course delivery. A real community platform, not a forum bolted onto a WordPress site.

The alternative was custom development. And the quotes came back eye-watering.

“Why would we spend tens of thousands if not more custom building our own thing which is going to take forever and probably not even going to be as good when you can use BuddyBoss? That is a no-brainer.”

Carrie Green, Founder, Female Entrepreneur Association

She needed everything in one place. And she needed it without hiring a development team.

“I’d seen BuddyBoss years before and in researching I came back across it. It’s got direct messages, groups, activity feed, certifications, gamification built in. That is a no-brainer.”

Carrie Green, Founder, Female Entrepreneur Association

The BuddyBoss Solution

Solution #1: BuddyBoss as the community foundation

FEA built their entire Members’ Club on BuddyBoss, giving them full control over the member experience. The platform replaced what had been a static, forgettable membership area with something members actually wanted to visit.

“It’s really brought the community to life. It was static before. I wasn’t giving people a reason to come back and check it every single day, whereas now there’s much more of a reason to come back and interact and engage.”

Carrie Green, Founder, Female Entrepreneur Association

The groups feature proved particularly powerful. The really useful part of the groups on the website is that they’re really specific. If you’re a coach, join this group. If you’re a service provider, join this group. If you’re a course creator, join that group. Members don’t have to wade through conversations that aren’t relevant to them. That specificity is something Carrie says the main Facebook group simply cannot replicate, because a single feed has to serve every member at once.

Members access 80+ expert masterclasses, live support calls, daily accountability matching, and a certification programme. All of it runs natively on BuddyBoss, on a domain FEA owns. No algorithm deciding who sees what. No platform risk. And because the platform handles messaging, groups, courses, and community in one place, members log in once and stay in one environment rather than hopping between disconnected tools.

Solution #2: Closed enrollment changed everything

For FEA’s first year with the Members’ Club, enrollment was open all the time. They reached 1,000 members in twelve months. Respectable, but not explosive.

Then Carrie tried something counterintuitive. She closed the doors.

“The first time we did a launch we had 1,200 people join in a week and I was like, oh this is definitely the best way to go.”

Carrie Green, Founder, Female Entrepreneur Association

One week. More members than the entire first year. By the end of year two, FEA had 3,000 members. Today, the Members’ Club has grown to over 5,000 paying members.

Conclusion

The Female Entrepreneur Association operates a multi-seven-figure membership business powered entirely by BuddyBoss. With 5,000+ paying members, 80+ expert masterclasses, a branded mobile app, and a global community, FEA demonstrates what happens when the community experience is treated as the product, not an afterthought.

Everything runs under one roof: courses, community, groups, messaging, certifications, and gamification. Members log in once and access it all. No juggling separate tools, no fragmented experience, no algorithm deciding what members see.

Carrie Green set out to solve her own loneliness and built a platform that now reaches over 650,000 women worldwide. What started because one woman couldn’t find her tribe has become the tribe.