Paid Communities as Product

#320 | Matt Carnevale, Head of Community at Exit Five, joins Dave for a discussion about community building. They dive into a bunch of the lessons learned from building the Exit Five community over the last few years, including specific plays like onboarding, matchmaking, and moderation. If you’re thinking about community building in 2026, this is a good primer; plus the guys give their opinion on what “community” actually means and whether you should build a private community like Exit Five or focus more broadly on community building.

Timestamps

• (00:02) - – Matt’s path from BDR to Head of Community at Exit Five
• (08:29) - – What “community” actually means (and what it definitely isn’t)
• (13:14) - – Why most B2B communities fail before they ever get traction
• (17:54) - – Community vs. content: what gets people in vs. what makes them stay
• (22:29) - – Why Slack groups aren’t a strategy
• (27:14) - – Treating community like a product, not a marketing channel
• (34:48) - – The role of trust, curation, and saying no to the wrong people
• (40:23) - – What community managers actually do behind the scenes
• (47:18) - – How in-person events changed the Exit Five community
• (53:28) - – The biggest lessons Matt’s learned after two years building Exit Five

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Visit exitfive.com/retreat to apply for Exit Five’s first-ever, in-person Marketing Leadership Retreat, March 18–20, 2026 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Join 100 CMOs and VPs of Marketing from companies like like Zoom, Snowflake, Manychat, Bitly, G2, HP, and more for two days of thinking bigger around a trusted group of peers in marketing. 

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Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

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