The Membership Site I Couldn't Build for Two Years Took Six Minutes to Speak Into Existence

Back in May of 2019, I paid $25 and joined the original HBA Funnel Builder.

I was excited. I'd known Mike Hobbs since 2013, and I knew he was the real deal.

About two years ago, an idea took hold of me. There was one thing I wanted to build more than anything: a membership site.

A private page where a prospect could log in, see their own name, and get a special bonus or extra training made just for them. The kind of thing that makes someone feel like they matter.

So I tried. More than once.

I'd sit at my desk with a cup of coffee going cold, clicking through settings in the old funnel builder, watching a tutorial, pausing it, clicking again. Close, but never quite right. The login would work and the page wouldn't. Or the page looked great and the login broke.

Eventually I let it go. I put it on the "someday" shelf with a lot of other good ideas.

Maybe you have a shelf like that too.

A few weeks ago I opened the new Builder by HBA and just talked. I described the membership site I'd been wanting for two years. Out loud. Like I was explaining it to a friend over lunch.

Six minutes later, it was built.

You can actually log in. It's still a work in progress (I literally spoke it into existence just to test it). But it's there. The thing I couldn't make work in the old builder was finished before my coffee got cold.

I just sat there for a minute.

And the membership site isn't even the best part.

• My blog. Every post spoken into existence. Sometimes I give it a few ideas, like the places I traveled on Semester at Sea. The rest is designed and written for me, and it looks professional. You're reading it right now: chaseswift.com/blog
• My main website. It needed a fresh look. I've been doing the free Sweeps Coins method for two years, so I built that in as a way for people to start at no charge and then move into HBA: chaseswift.com
• A page for the $25 blogging side of HBA. Bring your own AI, no stress, no technology headaches. I told it I wanted a black background like an HBA page I'd admired, and it did a beautiful job: chaseswift.com/voice
• A proposal for a non-profit. This one still makes me smile. I put together a proposal for a Northern Colorado Winter Wonderland. Six minutes again, and it came with a 5-email autoresponder already built in: chaseswift.com/winter-wonderland-timberline

Five websites. Not one late night fighting with settings.

Back in the early '90s I worked at Westlight, a stock photo library in California. When Photoshop came along, I learned it early. I even flew to Hong Kong to teach it to two brothers who ran a very successful stock photography business.

I've seen a lot of shifts since then. This is the biggest one I've ever seen.

Many people still think of AI as a fancy search box. You ask one question, you get one answer. But when it does ten things for you at the same time (writes the page, designs it, builds the login, writes the follow-up email sequence), you start to see what it can really do.

The original HBA Funnel Builder served me well, but it's limited compared to what's available today. The new Builder by HBA is simpler to use and far more powerful.

Here's the way I see it: everyone really needs to implement AI now. And the biggest payoff comes when AI handles multiple tasks at once: building your web pages, writing your email sequences, creating your blog posts, and much more, all from one place. That's exactly what Builder by HBA does.

The technology and the AI power are amazing. But there's another reason I'm with The Home Business Academy, and honestly, it may be the most important one: HBA pays its affiliates 80% commissions.

That's extremely uncommon. Most software companies pay nothing at all to the people who recommend them, and the affiliate programs that do pay often offer a much smaller share. In all my years online, I haven't found another platform where you can use the tools yourself and earn 80% of every monthly subscription you refer, month after month, for as long as those members stay.

Here's what that looks like with HBA's three products:

• Let's Goal: $10 a month (you earn $8 per referral)
• Builder by HBA: $25 a month (you earn $20 per referral)
• HBA Premium: $125 a month (you earn $100 per referral)

Refer just two people to Builder by HBA, and your own $25 is more than covered. Keep going, and the residual income from those monthly subscriptions can grow well beyond your costs.

That's exactly what just happened for me. Two people recently joined Builder by HBA at $25 a month through my link: Karin K. and Andrew P. in New York. Welcome, Karin and Andrew! Together, they've added $40 a month in recurring income to my HBA results, which more than covers my own $25 subscription.

That's why I believe 80% commissions can change your path to financial independence in a dramatic way. And it's why I'd encourage you to make the 80% one of the most important factors in your decision to join The Home Business Academy.

Right now I'm working on a PDF for my subscribers that explains the free Sweeps Coins method. It'll cost me about $5 in credits to create inside HBA, or I can have Claude write it. Either way, it's inexpensive, and it's going to look wonderful.

Here's what I'd suggest:

1. Get a Claude AI subscription for $20 a month.
2. Start working with Builder by HBA. Some of you will need to add it for $25 a month.
3. When you're ready, consider upgrading to HBA Premium. You get six more AIs built to multiply everything you do inside HBA, plus live Zoom calls every Monday through Friday with The Home Business Academy's co-founders, Mike Hobbs and Paul Hutchings, where you can ask them anything.

That last part is remarkable, for two reasons.

First, you get direct access to the co-founders. With most companies, you never get to talk to the people at the top. Here, you can ask Mike and Paul your questions every weekday, whenever you want or need to.

Second, the co-founders are also the programmers. Mike and Paul built the entire platform themselves. Most co-founders aren't programmers. They hire a programming team, and something often gets lost between the people with the vision and the people writing the code. With HBA, the people who write the software are the same people with the marketing expertise. They've been doing this themselves for about 20 years, and they have the success behind them to know their work is exceptional and genuinely valuable.

That combination is extremely rare: the founders, the programmers and the marketers, all the same two people, answering your questions live every weekday.

I passed on Premium back in 2019 because I didn't understand what it was worth. I understand now.

A quick tip for my fellow HBA members: your own affiliate link to the builder ends in /fb. That's how you'll recognize it. If you're curious, here's mine: hbawithchase.com/fb

Fair warning: that page is not pretty. It might be the plainest affiliate page I've ever seen, and I'm a little surprised that one made it out the door.

Okay, I'm kidding. 😄 The truth is, it's one of the best affiliate pages I've ever seen. I highly recommend you check it out, if only to see what awesome looks like in real life.

There's a line often credited to C.S. Lewis that I love: "You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending."

I started with a $25 funnel builder in 2019. Years later, I had a membership site idea I couldn't get working. A few weeks ago, I spoke one into existence in six minutes.

You can start right where you are too. And I'm here if you need me.

Thanks for reading, and whatever you do, always go for your dreams!

— Chase Swift

Disclosure: I'm an affiliate of The Home Business Academy and may earn a commission if you join through my links, at no extra cost to you. Earnings examples, including my own, are not guarantees or typical results; your results depend on your effort, skills and circumstances. Prices mentioned are as of November 2026 and subject to change.

Photo by Social Mode on Unsplash.