Jay Clouse
@jayclouse United States56K followers
Founder of Creator Science, teaching creators to build businesses through experiments
Creator Science, The Lab, CreatorHQ +1
exit story · 2020 · community builders
Unreal Collective was built by Jay Clouse and sold to Smart Passive Income in 2020.
Why they sold: The acquisition brought Jay Clouse into Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income team to lead its community and membership programs as Community Experience Director.
Unreal Collective was Jay Clouse's virtual accelerator and private community for creators.
In 2020 Clouse worked with Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income (SPI) to design and launch its SPI Pro membership community. On December 28, 2020, he announced that SPI had acquired Unreal Collective and that he would join the SPI team in January as Community Experience Director. Terms were not disclosed.
At SPI, Clouse led the development of membership and community programs. He later built Creator Science, his own creator-education business.
@jayclouse United States56K followers
Founder of Creator Science, teaching creators to build businesses through experiments
Creator Science, The Lab, CreatorHQ +1
See the Unreal Collective product page or Jay Clouse's full profile for everything they have built since.
Same buyer, category or sale channel as Unreal Collective.
→ WeWork · 2019
by Greg Isenberg
Daniel Vassallo framed it as a strategic fit: Gumroad wanted to offer creators more than payment processing, and Small Bets would serve as a testing ground for a community that helps entrepreneurs.
by Daniel Vassallo
→ Shopify · 2026
Wathan said joining Shopify gives Tailwind CSS a stable long-term home where it will keep being actively maintained, and lets the team build the framework in service of a large real-world product. Earlier in 2026 he had said AI tools had cut revenue by nearly 80% even as usage grew.
by Adam Wathan & Steve Schoger
by Shri Vatz
Facts are taken from the maker's and buyer's public statements and press coverage. Prices and revenue are shown only when publicly stated; self-reported figures are not independently verified.
Unreal Collective was acquired by Smart Passive Income in 2020 from Jay Clouse.
The price was not publicly disclosed.
The acquisition brought Jay Clouse into Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income team to lead its community and membership programs as Community Experience Director.
Unreal Collective was sold about 3 years after launch, through a acqui-hire (the maker or team joined the buyer as part of the deal).