Shows
Beginner MapsCreating a leading in-person conference as a solo creatorThis guy bootstrapped a global community conference out of his own pocket. And it worked.Francisco Opazo is stubborn—his words, not mine. And thank goodness for that, because his relentless drive has taken a one-man newsletter and turned it into a global movement for community professionals.In this episode, I take you inside the madness that is Community Week / Community-led World Summit - in-person and online gatherings for community professionals around the world. This is the story of Francisco and how he built it from scratch, fueled by sheer determination, volunteer power, and a whole lot of goodwill.Re...2025-03-061h 21
Beginner MapsScaling a cohort-based community using hidden curriculumPaz Pisarski has cracked the code on growing a cohort-based community business. She has taken The Community Collective from a meetup group to a community membership that had 102 people in its latest cohort.
While most cohort based programs struggle to find customers after the first cohort, her cohort size has been consistently increasing for 5 cohorts.
Her secret? A "hidden curriculum". In this episode, she shares her magic sauce.
This episode is brought to you by Curated Connections - the tool to create automated connections in your community. Check it out at https://curatedconnections.io/
Links and resources:
• The Community Co...2025-01-141h 02
Beginner MapsHow to get top professionals sharing their secrets in your communityRunning Remote is the best case study in building a paid community of practice. Run by Kasia Triantafelo, this is community of 250+ remote work leaders from companies like GitLab, Dropbox, and Zillow who share everything—from compensation strategies to retreat venues.
In this episode, Kasia tells how she slowly shifted the culture of this community over 3 years to the one of radical openness.
We discuss:
• "4 essential touchpoints" for member success
• Co-creating knowledge base with members
• Her strategy for running masterminds
• What it takes to build a culture of trust
If you enjoyed this episode, you should sign up for Beginner M...2024-11-261h 06
Beginner MapsBuilding a 5500+ member paid community around a newsletterBuilding a 5,500+ member paid community isn't easy. Abbey is one of the rare people who's managing just such a community at Health Tech Nerds.
This episode is a must-watch for newsletter creators who are looking to turn their audience into a paid community.
We cover:
- Why direct member outreach drives 10x better results
- How to collect and act on member feedback effectively
- The power of constant, "annoying" reminders
- Why Slack remains the best platform despite its limits
- Key pillars of HTN community
If you enjoyed this episode, you should sign up for Beginner Maps...2024-11-1959 min
Beginner MapsHow to use transparency as your community strategy to get 100s of paying members in monthsJohn Faulkner-Willcocks built a 250+ member paid community in just 4 months with an astonishing 1.5% churn rate.
His inspirations? On Deck and World of Warcraft (yes the video game).
He's the cofounder of Open Org, a paid community for progressive People & Culture leaders who believe in the radical new idea of leaning into transparency as a way of building companies.
We spent an hour diving deep into his "transparency playbook" for building highly engaged communities, including:
- How they get 3-5 high quality responses within hours for every question
- Why he prefers a monthly pricing model over an annual one
...2024-11-121h 03
Beginner MapsHow to get 60% referral rates for a cohort-based communityAs Program Director at On Deck and now founder of Next Careers, Anthony Nardini has helped 1000+ senior operators navigate career transitions.
In this episode, he shares his playbook at Next Careers, where senior execs pay $2k to join a community that helps them land their next jobs — and 60% of them refer their most talented friends. With 700+ applications for 100 spots per cohort, his secret is extreme curation and high-touch service.
This is a must-watch for anyone building high-end communities or cohort-based programs.
If you enjoyed this episode, you should sign up for Beginner Maps to get the "magic sauce" of to...2024-11-081h 15
Beginner MapsBuilding community as a solo creator without burning outCarrie Melissa Jones shares the blueprint for building successful online communities.
Carrie is the author of Building Brand communities, founder of the CMJ group where she offers consulting services to organisations like Discord, Google and Airbnb, creator of her own community membership for community builders and leaders and a Youtuber!
In this episode we cover:
- Sneak peak into Carrie's own community setup
- Platform selection strategies
- Creating effective welcome experiences- Why automated matchmaking works (100% NPS!)
- Preventing creator burnout
If you enjoyed this episode, you should sign up for Beginner Maps to get the "magic sauce" of...2024-11-0557 min
Beginner MapsHow to turn a course into a transformational communityAshley has managed to turn on-demand courses into a community experience that supports 1200+ paying members of Smart Passive Income’s All-access Pass community started by Pat Flynn.
She has created an innovative "accelerator" model that allows her to deliver the benefits of a cohort-based course without the hassle of doing live lessons.
We spent 75 mins exploring her community management workflow in this interview.
Resources:
Curated Connections, the tool to create connections in your community - https://curatedconnections.io/
Beginner Maps, ma...2024-08-301h 13
Beginner MapsBuilding community businesses for world's top creatorsJordan Godbey has built communities for world's top creators like Justin Welsh and Ali Abdaal.
He helps experts start a new business line by helping them build Circle communities at his company Growth Community.
In this episode, he discusses his strategies, philosophies and tactics that you can use to start a $10k MRR community.
Resources:
• Work with Jordan at Growth Community - [https://growthcommunity.co/](https://growthcommunity.co/blueprint)
• Curated Connections, the app to send...2024-08-231h 07
Beginner MapsHow to turn a bestselling book into a community businessStephanie Baiocchi is the community team of one at IMPACT where she manages the membership behind the bestselling book - They Ask You Answer by Marcus Sheridan.
She single-handedly manages a 3,000+ member community, runs masterminds, hosts 2 annual conferences, and creates manages the on-demand course library.
We spend an hour diving deep into her playbook for building a thriving community around a bestselling book.
Resources:
- Curated Connections, the tool to foster authentic connections - https://curatedconnections.io/
- Stephanie’s guide to on...2024-08-2052 min
Beginner MapsFrameworks to build a profitable community businessBri Leever is filled with actionable frameworks for building a profitable community. She has honed them over the years by building communities through her consultancy - Ember Consulting.
In this interview, we explore some of these frameworks. We discuss:
• Why you don't need a huge audience to start a community
• The key differences between "transformative" and "networking" communities
• When to use platforms like Circle vs. Slack for your community
• Strategies for fostering member-to-member connections
• Tips for designing effective ambassador programs
• Top le...2024-08-0857 min
Beginner MapsLessons from building 8+ communities - hear it from an investorScott Amenta might be the most experienced person you'll ever met when it comes to building community businesses.
He's simultaneously running multiple 7-8 figure community businesses through Sylva, and building software to help community founders scale.
Listen to this episode to understand:
• How he identifies healthy community businesses as an investor
• Why Slack is still his preferred platform (despite its flaws)
• Why data enrichment is crucial for personalization
Resources:
• Curated Connections, the app Scott us...2024-08-0143 min
Beginner MapsBuilding paid communities for top creators like Nik SharmaShin Takeda is changing the game for creators by creating done-for-you membership Slack communities for them. Creator funnels their audience, Shin handles end-to-end operations of running their paid community.
That includes events, moderation, content, website, strategy and everything in between required to make sure these communities thrive and customers stay happy.
Obviously the creators love it. But more importantly - members love it too!
We spent 45 minutes diving deep into his process:
- Why communities are the next big opportunity for creators
- Shin’s tactics for building engaged, high-value communities
- How to reduce churn in paid communities
...2024-07-1744 min
Beginner MapsJourney to 50k+ subscribers, $35k+ revenue in 1 year as a creator with a full-time jobJordan Cutler (@jordancutler) has done what most of us aspire to. He grew his newsletter to 50,000+ subscribers in just one year.
Along the way, he has made $35,000+ in “passive” income, with $20,000+ coming from a cohort-based course on Maven.
Resources:
• Beginner Maps for more such case studies - https://beginnermaps.com/
• High Growth Engineer newsletter - https://read.highgrowthengineer.com/
• Jordan's Maven course - https://maven.com/jordan-cutler/mid-level-to-senior
• Jordan's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordancutler1/
• Jordan's...2024-06-2844 min
Beginner MapsHosting masterminds that lead to a ridiculous retention rateRyan Wardell is the CEO and cofounder of Startup Sauce, a private membership for SaaS founders outside of Silicon Valley doing $5k+ in MRR.
This community is special for a couple of reasons:
1. It's members are super accomplished CEOs who only have extremely nice things to say about the community
2. The guy who runs it, Ryan, is not a "startup expert". In fact, he has never even been a SaaS founder.
In this episode, Ryan shares his "magic sauce"...2024-05-271h 08
Beginner MapsHow to host 200+ meetups in 35 countries in one yearShreman Shrestha is the Head of Community for the Friends of Lenny’s Slack community. This community comes bundled with the Paid subscription for Lenny’s Newsletter and at the time of recording there are 17k+ members in here.
In this episode, Shre discusses how this community is able to organise 200+ in-person meetups per year, challenges with organising a great mentor matching program, working with volunteers and more.
Resources:
• Beginner Maps - free crash course on building a community business - https://beginnermaps.com
• Curated Connections, the community en...2024-05-1750 min
Beginner MapsHow to build a community business that does $400k+/yrDaniel Vassallo is the cofounder of Small Bets - a private community membership for indie hackers, solopreneurs and wanna-preneurs.
This community recently crossed 5000+ paying members and has been doing $400k+ in annual revenue every year since its inception ~2 yrs ago.
Daniel is a guy filled with hot original takes. He does things differently in this community and it works. Things like charging a one-time fee for a lifetime access or paying guests to do live classes in the community. Or, even the existence of this community itself, which is...2024-05-071h 10
Beginner MapsHow to build courses that busy professionals loveKyle Hagge led the community efforts at Morning Brew's Learning division as a Director of Community.
This interview is a “reflection episode” where Kyle takes us back to this time and shares his “magic sauce”. Among other things, he shares how his team decided which courses to pilot, why he chose Circle to host the community and why it's a good idea to automate connections.
Resources:
• Our free crash course where you can learn the "magic sauce" of top communities - https://beginnermaps.com/
• Curated Connections, the tool that allows communities to automate connections - https://curatedconnections.io/
• Kyle's LinkedIn - htt...2024-05-0249 min
Beginner MapsBootstrapping a paid community to 100+ paying membersCharlie Ward is the founder of Ramen Club - a private community of 300+ bootstrapped SaaS entrepreneurs that gives them the support and education to grow their business.
In this interview, Charlie shares the origin story of Ramen Club, how he organises the masterminds, how he organises in-person meetups in different cities of the world and more.
Resources:
• Curated Connections (our tool to connect your community members) - https://curatedconnections.io/
• Get Powerup (Charlie’s Slack app for creating leaderboards) - https://www.ramenclub.so/studio-ramen/powerup-app
• Ramen Club - https...2024-04-2256 minBeginner MapsWhat it takes to build a premium community membershipErin Halper is the founder/CEO of The Upside - a private community of top independent consultants that gives them the resources and the support that they need to grow their business.
The Upside uses Circle as their community platform. In fact, they were recognized as one of Circle's top performing communities out of more than 10, 000 communities that are hosted there!
In this interview, Erin reveals the unique strategies she uses and the mistakes she has learnt from to build a premium community membership business.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
02:54 The idea of Upside
04:49 Starting with a stupidly low price
06:33 The 250-member...2024-04-1259 minBeginner MapsCreating a full community events calendar with a team of 2Clara Ma is the founder of Ask a Chief of Staff, a community membership business that helps Chiefs of Staff level up in their career.
If you are one of her 23k+ followers on Linkedin, you will know how full her events calendar for the community is. So, it came as a shock to me when she told me she and her EA were the only people working on this business.
This episode is a masterclass on building a valuable events calendar in your community.
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Sign up for the free email course where we operators of top community...2024-04-0838 minBeginner MapsDon't try to engage every member the same wayEce Kurtaraner is the community consultant for Generalist World, a fast growing community membership business that helps generalists grow in their careers.
Along with this, she also works with Rosieland - another private community for community builders.
So, safe to say, Ece knows the secrets of building a community business. Her key insight - "Don’t overthink it, don’t try to make it perfect and keep experimenting." Learn more about how she thinks building a community business in this episode.
Connect with Ece: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ecekurtaraner/
Connect with your host: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nity...2024-03-3149 minBeginner MapsHow to host a memorable online event with a guestMichelle Varghese is the community manager for Small Bets, the largest private online community for entrepreneurs with over 5000 members. She has also helped in managing some iconic communities like Write of Passage and The Pathless Path.
Along with this, she is also the creator of "Turn your layoff into a sabbatical" course, host of the Build a Wealthy Spirit podcast and a frequent writer on her Substack newsletter.
In this episode, she dives deep into the practical aspects of running 10+ live guest classes per month at Small Bets. She shares her tips on the best practices she's discovered and...2024-03-2659 minBeginner MapsHow a challenge can 5x your community growthAnthony Castrio is the founder and CEO of Indie Worldwide, a private community of bootstrapped founders. In this interview he shares his revenue, how he attracted new members in the early days using a challenge, tips for organising a good event and goes deep on the challenges with being an entrepreneur.
- Learn how people build community businesses - https://beginnermaps.com/
- Join Indie Worldwide community - https://indieworldwide.com/
- Join the 100 in 100 challenge - https://100in100.co/
- Anthony on X/Twitter - / anthonycastrio
This episode is made possible by Curated Connections - a tool we creat...2024-03-1845 minBeginner MapsHow to build a business around a free communityGrace Ling is the founder and CEO of Design Buddies, a free community with >64k members on Discord and a total audience of >150k. Here she leads a vibrant online community, does in-person meetups around the world, sponsored partnerships, helps designers land jobs and is even organising a conference.
In this episode, Grace does a deep dive into how she started this community, how she grew it and how she turned it into a thriving business.
This episode is made possible by Curated Connections - a tool we created to increase the value of private membership communities by creating...2024-03-0146 minBeginner MapsHow to build a community business without an audience with TatianaTatiana Figueiredo is the founder of Business of Community - an online school and community that helps founders create profitable businesses by building communities.
She has helped multiple people start thriving community businesses. So, you can treat this episode as her masterclass on building such a business yourself. She discusses her journey of turning her consultancy into a scaleable community business, how you can take the first steps to build your community business and how to grow it.
This episode is made possible by Curated Connections - a tool we created to increase the value of private membership communities...2024-02-0848 minBeginner MapsDeveloper Relations 101 with Logan from OpenAIThis episode is sponsored by Curated Connections - a simple and powerful matchmaking tool to make communities more connected.
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Logan Kilpatrick is the first Developer Relations hire at OpenAI - the company behind the revolutionary product ChatGPT. He has been responsible for working with the product teams on new launches, creating and maintaining developer documentation, running the developer forum, hackathons, events and managing the ChatGPT plugin store.
In this episode, he discusses what his role at OpenAI looks like, how he went from being a Machine Learning engineer at Apple to...2023-11-011h 05Beginner MapsBuilding a membership community business with Chris SamilaChris Samila is the co-founder of Partnership Leaders - a strong bootstrapped business that provides community, connections and resources for partnership professionals.
This episode is supported by Curated Connections (https://curatedconnections.io/) - a simple matchmaking tool with an easy-to-justify pricing.
In this episode we discuss:
Organising conferences and city-wide events with a volunteer-led strategy
What does a partnership professional do?
How Partnership Leaders (PL) charges their members
Creating resources that create a strong hook
Why they use a paid Slack to host the community
How he turned an email thread...2023-09-0552 minBeginner MapsHow Nikki built a community of senior professionals with the help of volunteersThis episode is supported by Curated Connections (https://curatedconnections.io/) - a simple matchmaking tool with an easy-to-justify pricing.
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Nikki Thibodeau is the Senior Manager of Community and Customer Advocacy at Calix. She is also the founder of The Community Community - where she is building a safe space for senior community professionals to grow, together.
Previously she has worked in various roles, rising through the ranks of the community team at Shopify.
In this episode, we discuss:
Nikki’s “unidentified superpower”
Community Manager work vs. Community Lead work
Starti...2023-08-1650 minBeginner MapsLanding senior roles that are never posted with Jessica from HamptonJessica is the Head of Community and Events at Hampton - a private and highly vetted community for founders and CEOs started by Sam Parr.
She has more than 7 years of experience building communities of startup founders at venture funds and startup accelerators.
This episode is supported by Curated Connections (https://curatedconnections.io/) - a simple matchmaking tool for communities with an easy to justify pricing!
In this episode -
00:00 Teaser
01:28 From Teacher to a Community Professional
08:17 Managing digital and in-person experiences at...2023-08-0756 minBeginner MapsHow Madi went from being a software developer to the head of community at ContraMadi Pignetti is the Head of Community at Contra - a commission-free freelancer marketplace. But she was a software developer before this. In this episode she shares how she made the pivot and what her work today looks like.
Show notes:
00:00 Teaser
01:50 What is her work as the Head of Community at Contra
07:30 Measuring the contribution of community towards the Contra business
12:43 Personalities more suited for a community manager role
17:19 How experience as a developer makes her more empathetic in her current role
25:30 Routine roulette
29:40 How she stayed optimistic after quitting her full time developer role and not knowing...2023-04-2551 minBeginner MapsHow Amanda is leading Rails developer community with her events, marketing and education experienceAmanda has been led by what she found interesting throughout her career. So she completed a 6-month coding bootcamp last year, after having spent 20 years in events and marketing.
In a recent career pivot, she joined the Rails Foundation - a non-profit dedicated to supporting the Ruby on Rails ecosystem, as the Executive Director.
What is Ruby on Rails? It is a web development framework that has been used to create tools like Shopify, GitHub, Basecamp, Twitch, Airbnb, Twitter and thousands of other apps that millions of people use every day.
In this...2023-04-1856 minBeginner MapsHow Marcie grew her career in building communities for startupsMarcie Walker is the Head of Community Engagement at Gatheround - a startup building a fun, new online events platform that makes virtual events actually fun.
In this episode, Marcie shares all the lessons she has learnt in building herself a career in community building.
Some things we talk about:
00:00 Teaser
04:50 How work in community is dependent more on what the community needs rather than your title
13:32 Virtual vs In-person events
16:59 What Marcie is working on now
23:21 How flywheel marketing can justify RoI on your community efforts
28:50 Routine Roulette
33:11 Getting the job at Gatheround...2023-04-101h 09Beginner MapsThe highs and lows of building your consulting business with JennyJenny Weigle is a strategic consultant who has worked with some well-name brands like Airbnb, Google, Sephora, Visa and many many more such household names - and helped them build their online communities.
She has been building communities for more than 10 yrs and has helped more than 100 brands in this time.
So, if you are a consultant or someone who wants to become a consultant, Jenny is a perfect role model.
In this episode we discuss:
00:00 The highs and lows of building your consulting business with Jenny
02:44 Discovering...2023-03-311h 07Beginner MapsHow Ben got his dream job at Notion by building side projectsBen Lang is the Head of Community at Notion. He attributes almost all of the opportunities that have come his way to the side projects he has built out of passion.
Believe it or not, The International Hummus Day is his creation.
And so, in this episode we talk about:
00:00 Teaser
01:43 Power of side projects to open up opportunities
16:42 Decentralised approach towards the Notion community and why it may not be the best approach for others
22:24 Community building lessons learnt at Notion
28:57...2023-03-2433 min
Beginner MapsHow to build a career that makes your heart sing with CasieCasie Tennin is a Community Builder and a Certified Life Coach.
As a Community Builder, she has built communities for fast-growing startups like Masterclass and TaskHuman. As a Professional Life Coach, she helps individuals make scary pivots in their professional and personal lives.
“We spend so much of our lives not being in touch and in tune to what our heart wants, but to what society tells us to do,” says Casie.
So we asked her how to not spend our lives that way. And she give us an action item. Don’t forget...2023-03-171h 10Beginner MapsHow Rahul went from 30% to 80% conversion rate for his community membership businessRahul Desai is the General Manager of the Chief of Staff Network - a community membership for Chiefs of Staff to network and learn from their peers in the industry.
He the person responsible for making this business profitable while delivering a great member experience. In the 6 months he has been in this role, he has already lead the team to take the conversion rate of interested applicants from 30% to 80%.
So if you are managing, building or planning to build a community membership business, you should continue listening.
We talk about -
2023-03-101h 14Beginner MapsDealing with community layoffs, Community Operations 101 with Tiffany OdaIf you have wondered about a career in community operations, this episode should help you understand what it is, how Tiffany broke into it and how you can too. Tiffany Oda is the COO of Talkbase - a young startup that is building the community CRM for startups.
In this episode we talk about:
00:00 Dealing with community layoffs, Community Operations 101 with Tiffany Oda
06:49 Dealing with layoffs
18:44 What Tiffany is up to at different times of the week
25:18 What is Community Ops
39:12 Quickest way into Community Ops
46:13 Learning resources for Community...2023-02-281h 07Beginner MapsHow being product-led has helped Murtaza build a passionate community for HeartbeatMurtaza Bambot is the cofounder and CEO of Heartbeat - an awesome platform for building online communities. It combines the powers of Slack, Notion, Luma, Meetsy, Zoom and other platforms that community builders often need to stitch to get a functioning community.
In this episode we talk about:
00:00 How Murtaza keeps it together when times are difficult
03:40 Favourite communities on Heartbeat
09:34 Heartbeat's community Hearth - how it started and how it helps them
19:47 How Murtaza thinks about hiring as an early stage founder
28:11 Day to day work as co-founder at Heartbeat2023-02-211h 13Beginner MapsTaking paycuts to move forward, validating your startup idea, what a founder values in an employeeJakob is the cofounder and CEO of Butter - a startup that is bravely going against the video conferencing incumbents like Zoom and Google Meet by building a fun, interactive and delightful video conferencing tool.
In this episode:
00:00 Looking at salary as points in the game of life does not make sense
01:50 How Jakob's career plan did not work out
08:35 Risk and reward early in your career
14:21 The fundamental step/skill to build a product-based startup
19:21 Deciding when to shut shop
26:43 Camaraderie with Co-founders: Building 2 companies without ever being in...2023-02-1552 minBeginner MapsFrom the US Marine Corps to community-led sales at a top startup - How Ben Regier did itBen Regier’s career is unique. Previously, he has served in the US Marine Corps and has been a store manager at Starbucks. Now, he is pioneering community-led sales as the Community Development Representative at Commsor.
In this episode we talk about -
00:00 The client that will buy only from Ben
09:17 One thing you absolutely need to do in a community-led sales role
11:56 How to handle NOs
15:15 Most difficult part of his job
16:53 Lessons carried over from service in the US Marine Corps
24:27 Hard lessons learnt as a Starbucks Store Manager
28:19 Getting his first remote job
41:24 Future of...2023-02-0759 minBeginner MapsHow Sofia started a non-profit community along with her career in venture capitalSophia Haq is the founder and CEO at Muslim Women Professionals (abbreviated MWP) - a non-profit that promotes the empowerment of Muslim women globally. Here, she is building a community where diverse women can embrace their Muslim identity and build professional skills through mentorship, networking, and guidance.
That's not all. She's also the Senior Program Manager at XRC Labs - venture capital firm and accelerator. Here she builds curriculum, spearheads community development, maintains relationships with the portfolio companies, and many other things.
So, you can see how Sophia lives and breathes community.
We...2023-01-3057 minBeginner MapsHow Derrick fixed the problem of a non-energizing work life by moving into communityDerrick is the community manager at Thrive TRM. He pivoted into the community industry in 2022 after 11 YEARS of experience in the sales industry.
Chapters:
Thinking about what brings you the most joy
How he found out about community and got his 1st gig
Shooting your shot
Getting real with C School projects
Process vs Goals Mindset
Adding points to the scoreboard
Rapid fire round
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Links and Resources:
Derrick’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/derrick-chiu/
Generalist World - https://www.generalist.world/
Cirkel - ht...2023-01-231h 03Beginner MapsHow following his curiosity in public helped Sharath unlock new opportunitiesSharath Kuruganty has worked with some iconic community led companies like Product Hunt, OnDeck and currently Threado, where he is the Head of Community.
A fun fact - Threado’s co-founder, Pramod Rao was guest no. 2 on this show. So this conversation has been a long time coming. What made it happen this time is Sharath's recent win where he sold his side project Shoutout to a UK based product studio. He started building this project about two years ago and reached $30k ARR with it.
In this episode:
Creating Shoutout
How to approach se...2023-01-171h 03Beginner MapsHow Bri got clientele for 1.5 years in 90 daysBri Leever is the founder of Ember Consulting where she helps companies as their Brand Community Strategist working to create a community out of their superfans.
In this episode:
0:00 Teaser
9:02 How Bri got clientele for 1.5 years in 90 days
17:30 A repeatable playbook for you to get your 1st client
28:42 How can you use a community to acquire more customers for your business
32:09 On the diversification of income
43:34 Pricing clients
55:54 Rapid fire round
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Links and Resources:
Bri’s LinkedIn 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/briannaleever/
Groove (co-working app for solopre...2023-01-0959 minBeginner MapsHow Shre geared off the established path by building community and consultingShre is the fractional Head of Community for Lenny Rachitsky’s paid community of 10,000+ product-minded people - one of the most popular paid online communities.
But that’s not it. He has pivoted away from lucrative careers in management consulting and at big companies in his pursuit for more meaningful work. Today, he is a consultant and describes himself as Dobby - a slave elf from the Harry Potter world who freed himself.
In this episode:
2:50: Why he has “only taken paycuts”
10:10: Does he compare himself with his peers from college?
13:42: Why quitting a job shou...2023-01-0254 minBeginner MapsHow a side project helped Gaby find her passion and first job in communityGabrielle Leith is the Community Manager at Grapevine.
She has a really interesting career path going from working in films at Toronto Film Festival to getting her first community role using a side project she started - Supper Club Cinema.
In this episode -
4:50: How she started a side project in community building
16:55: Getting her first job before she even knew about community management
19:17: Why side projects are a great way to discover your passion
25:30: How she found her latest role at Grapevine through CMX Slack
2022-12-1459 minBeginner MapsHow Mac Reddin started Commsor, Community Club and the community-led movementMac is the founder/CEO of Commsor and Community club - 2 names that everyone in the community industry is familiar with. He is an entrepreneur, a visionary and the originator of the community-led movement.
Commsor provides software, strategic services and education to help companies unlock the power of community-led growth. Every guest that we’ve talked to has attributed getting help from their "Community Club" community when they were starting out in the industry.
In this episode:
(01:21) - The stupid little hackathon idea called “Commsponsor”
(08:52) - Starting Community Club before even having a LinkedIn account...2022-12-0555 minBeginner MapsFrom construction industry to the Community industry: Erin’s story of grit and optimismErin O’Neill might be the first community professional who planned her transition into community management.
Almost everyone you’ll meet in the community industry, has accidentally fallen into their first community job. But not Erin.
She decided that she wanted to switch her careers, discovered community management and succeeded in moving into it! Today, she is the Head of Community at RevOps Co-op.
In this episode:
(1:52) - What motivated Erin to switch her career
(6:00) - What fascinated her about community management
(9:10) - How she revamped her Linke...2022-11-2847 minBeginner MapsHow Prashant raised $1.5M on just a story with 3 charactersPrashant Mahajan is the founder and CEO of Zeda.io - a startup that’s building a super app for product teams. Previously, he had been a rockstar Product Manager at multiple high growth startups where he’s built products that have touched the lives of millions of people.
What’s interesting about him is how generous he is with his time. He often spends his time writing posts on LinkedIn or Twitter, doing podcast appearances and giving webinars to talk about his journey being a founder and previously, being a PM without a traditional MBA degree.
...2022-11-2127 minBeginner MapsHow a non-traditional career path led Taylor to building communities at AltMBA and GrooveTaylor Harrington is the Head of Community at Groove - a support community for people who work for or by themselves. All over the world, people use Groove’s mobile app to instantly connect and conquer their to-dos alongside each other.
Taylor is an extrovert, through and through. She loves bringing people together. She loves building workshops, facilitating events, mentorship programs and more. Right out college, she started her career building powerful learning experiences with Seth Godin at AltMBA - the company that pioneered cohort based courses even before Zoom had the breakout features.
In th...2022-11-1457 minBeginner MapsHow Rae’s first community role at a tech startup allows her to be a “the” instead of an “a”Rae is the Head of Community at Topknot - a startup that provides an online personal development club that helps millennial women and non-binary individuals move forward in their personal development and growth journey.
What I find super interesting about her is that this is not only her first official community role, but also her first role in a tech startup! She is coming to the community space after a long and varied professional background spanning non-profit management to business consulting.
In this episode, we dive into:
How a serendipitous conversation with a cofounder...2022-11-0757 minBeginner MapsPramod's journey from working at a high-growth startup to building onePramod is the cofounder and CEO of Threado where he is building the "Command Center" for community builders. Threado gives community builders superpowers by allowing them to get actionable insights, automations and workflows to manage their communities.
Before Threado, Pramod was the VP of Marketing at Zomato - India’s largest food delivery and restaurant discovery company. He joined them as their 13th employee and went on to build and lead their Marketing team for more than 8 yrs.
And then in 2019, he quit to start his own high-growth startup.
In this episode, we di...2022-09-0855 minBeginner MapsHow Max Pete got into community management by helping communities he was already a part ofMax is the Community and Customer Support Lead at SuperHi - a startup that teaches people code, design and project management skills.
What's most interesting about Max is that if you visit his personal LinkedIn, you’ll find that the experience section is a smorgasbord of careers. He has done everything from project management, website design, business coaching, freelancing and community management.
In this episode, we dive into:
What a typical week at work looks like for Max
How he got his first Community Manager job without knowing what community management is
How being an...2022-09-0846 min
Beginner MapsHow Kyle Hagge went from working as a high school coach to Lead Community Manager at Morning BrewKyle is the Lead Community Manager at Morning Brew - one of the world's fastest-growing business media companies that was recently valued at more than $75M. Kyle helped them in launching their first ever paid product: a cohort-based career and skills accelerator.
What's remarkable about Kyle's story is how he got here. Before working as Lead Community Manager at the Morning Brew community, he had been a podcast producer, an entrepreneur, a high school coach amongst other seemingly unrelated careers.
In this episode we dive into:
How Kyle conducts events with amazing guests where...2022-09-0754 min