I am one of the people Jon convinced to try out Hive (st**m at the time). It helped that some of us started around the same time and knew each other. Many are no longer with us actively, but some are still around, scattered in various communities.

Yes, Jon knew how to make things feel like a journey. What they did was not easy, it involved a lot of work and expertise (from the affiliate world). If it were easy, more people would have copied or taken over what they succeeded doing. But they had some failures too, which is what building businesses often leads too.