Resource New Worlds

The Portal Collective is re-imagining the ways we commune and learn online, embracing lush ecologies that are undermined in our current systems.

I need help tending to the terrain.
By Sally, Founder and Director

A duck enters my dream,

He's in a boat with me but his wings keep getting caught and he's hurting himself. I try to shoo him out but he just keeps flapping and quacking.

I wake up thrashing and still hear the duck. My eyes adjust and my brain comes online. It is an alarm that my son must have set.

It's still dark. I pad downstairs and guess the time. 12am, 3am…

It's 4am.

I switch the noise off and briefly consider staying awake to work but my body is heavy and sore so I wee as quickly and quietly as I can and return to bed.

The list begins.
There are the emails and DMs I haven't yet responded to and the marketing I'm yet to think about - how that will look and what assets I need to create.
There's the clients and what they're waiting for - I mentally shuffle the list of priorities and remind myself of what meetings I have today. An infographic that hasn't been started yet, a course script I haven't reviewed.
I think about the invoices I need to pay and the subscriptions I need to cover and that makes me think about the new work I need to get out and secure.
And then there are all the parts of The Portal Collective. The embellishments and fixes, the members and their clients' needs, the new products to create, the advice to give.
The designs, the wireframes, the business plan, the networking for the tool build.

I let myself ponder a particular piece of functionality that needs thinking through for a membership.

Tags, custom code, automations, workflows…

I wake up again, the kids charging and arguing up the stairs. It's 6am.

The vision of The Portal has

Always been hard for me to explain because there are a few parts to it.

All flowery language removed, The Portal is a content creation platform and marketplace, allowing users to create living learning experiences for their audience through gatherings, community spaces, courses, workshops, memberships and coaching programmes.

What's been achieved with no paid marketing in the past 3 months:

Platform members

Paying clients

Community growth

Fundraised for Gaza

“To have somewhere for my community to gather, learn and think, outside of what there is currently on offer, is the most exciting thing to come about for my business in a long time.”

The idea for The Portal started forming when I began regularly attending a wild women's gathering in Wales and experienced what it was like to be in a real life community, learning from each other, sitting in quiet spaces together and dancing and singing round the fire.
I wanted to recreate a similar space online and make it accessible to even more people. The sense we were sitting in circle together, sharing our tools and wisdom and our vision and solutions for the future.

It was at these gatherings that I first heard of Permaculture and just before Covid hit I enrolled in a Permaculture Design Course.

Permaculture thinking began to permeate everything including my vision for The Portal.

I read another Instagram post from a connection sharing how they want to leave the platform but don't want to lose their community. 

People enthusiastically agree in the comments. They don't want to be part of this anymore but don't know where to go. It's something I read a lot.
Those paying the most win at the algorithm game.

The troubling reports on mental health.

The suppression of certain political content.

A tool with so much potential global reach feels so constrictive and limiting to our collective growth.

Complex discussions are reduced to 30 seconds of video with no opportunity for a slow development of thinking, dividing us further.

The worst of these is this sense we're given just enough community to desperately crave more.

Just enough interaction to feel even emptier.

I have a platform for you!

I confidently declare, suppressing my silly fantasy of me taking on Elon and Zuck in a cage fight.

Because I am very confident about this part.

The vision and why it's needed is what keeps me going.
If you see me on here [Instagram] less and less just know you'll be able to find me over at The Portal Collective.
Looking for an alternative to platforms run by the Huel-clutching, captalism-will-fix-everything tech bros? I'm a founding member of The Portal Collective and the Soap Box Community is moving there too!
So bloody grateful to be part of this community. The only space that I will be sharing my work. 
Sally, you're doing an amazing thing with The Portal and I wanted to show my support!

And it isn't just a vision. 

It is mostly designed and partly built.

My extensive experience in elearning and their platforms has allowed me to get to this point.

A Minimal Viable Product that is creating revenue.
'Pretty stressful job this for £12,000 a year' my husband sarcastically comments as I say I'll need to work again at the weekend.

'It's not a £12,000 a year job. It's a tech startup of which I am the only person.' I mumble back, although he's hit a nerve, his words and my tiredness bringing tears to my eyes.

Did you know only 25% of startups are founded by women - and a mere 2.3% of these get funding?

In 2024, the average weekly cost of a full-time nursery place in Great Britain was £302.10 for under twos.
The Portal so far has been bootstrapped but the need for me to pay myself a salary has made it a slow process. Of the amount I add to the family pot, over half of it goes on child care a month.

The minimum childcare I need to get the time to do the work.

You should be networking! You need to be out there and sharing what the vision is with people, this is so needed and you are so knowledgeable in this space!
As soon as you start talking about and demoing it, investors will be knocking at your door!
Go on a podcast tour!
My personal fave from one of the coaches on the startup accelerator I'm on (and don't have time for) - 
What? You're doing everything?

“So buzzing with all the feedback about my membership! There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

I am doing everything. And, I no longer can.

In order for us to grow the business and continue the creation of The Portal, we need to get a cash injection.

We need to raise £50,000 for this. This means 2000 people resourcing us with £25 each. Obviously it could be more and it could be less.

That cash injection would allow us to pay for:
  • The first phase of the product build so we can get people using it and yet more proof and traction for investors.

  • An inhouse developer that can work on what we currently have such as improvements needed to the community functionality.

  • A community manager and virtual assistant help so we can keep everyone looked after and happy and the day to day tasks can be covered.

  • Marketing help and SEO optimisation.

  • Once we have the above in place, Facebook ads (boo!) to reach a wider audience and drive more people to sign up for the platform, growing our community and sales of courses and memberships on The Portal Collective.
A recommended amount of £25 will get you a spot in the services directory on The Portal Collective with links to connect with you alongside your website and social media - making you searchable via categories by whomever visits! 

This will be invaluable as we grow.

I also need your help to get this campaign out and to people that might be interested in investing in the vision!

This startup is all I think about and it's for you. I'm looking to our collective so I can continue to create it for you.

Thank you so much,
S xx

“The ethos behind The Portal is a breath of fresh air and I really strongly recommend more conscious teachers and creators to get on board whilst you can.”