Clara 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. --- Sign up for the free email course where we operators of top community businesses, like Clara, teach you their unique magic - https://beginnermaps.com/ --- Resources: • Connect with Clara - https://linkedin.com/in/clarama/ • Ask a Chief of Staff - https://askachiefofstaff.com/ • Connect with Nityesh - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nityeshaga/ --- Chapters: 0:00 Intro 02:04 Who's in her community? 03:48 Origin story of the business 07:10 Is the market too small? 09:18 First 10 → 100 customers 10:36 Charge from the beginning 13:06 Leaning on word-of-mouth 15:38 Posting on LinkedIn to start discussions 19:59 Masterclass on managing an events calendar 26:21 In-person events 28:32 Meet her team 29:42 Selling tickets to community events 33:16 Afraid of community going quiet

Ece 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/nityeshaga/ --- This episode is made possible by Curated Connections - a tool we created to spark more conversations in private communities through 1-on-1 networking programs. Learn more here - https://curatedconnections.io/ --- Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 02:32 Who joins paid communities? 07:00 1. Log everything you do from day 1 10:05 Process for member-led events 16:01 Do a dry run 19:58 Saving 8 hrs/week 22:45 Don't shy from repeating things 25:14 Don't create engagement - create a calm community 29:05 When to shut down an experiment 31:57 Don't expect every member to engage in the same way 35:30 Low-effort engagement programs 35:47 1. Curated Connections 36:04 2. Coworking session 39:03 3. Member map 40:20 4. Member highlights 42:42 5. Event summaries 43:16 6. Local city meetups 44:28 7. Slack AMAs 45:30 8. Async happy hour 46:09 9. Book/podcast clubs

Michelle 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 the mistakes she has seen other people make. --- Interact with Michelle's work: • Join her course - https://maven.com/techies/layoff-to-s... (for people who want to leave an uninspiring job in the corporate world, take a break and recreate a life that's aligned with their values) • Join Small Bets - https://smallbets.com/ • Build a Wealthy Spirit podcast and newsletter - https://www.buildawealthyspirit.com/ --- This episode is made possible by Curated Connections - a tool we created to spark more conversations in private communities through 1-on-1 networking programs. Learn more here - https://curatedconnections.io/ --- Chapters: 0:00 Intro 02:10 Intro to Small Bets community 04:36 One time fee for lifetime membership 06:35 Founders must engage in their community 09:55 Paying guests for teaching classes 12:35 Structure of a class 14:19 Asking Qs in between 17:28 Why slides are good 21:00 Hosting memorable events 22:30 Ask the first question 23:22 Don't wait for attendees 23:59 Camera - on or off? 28:39 A chill host is a bad host 30:19 What best communities do 31:24 How to interrupt over-enthusiastic guests 35:21 Moderating an active Discord 38:13 New channel or a thread? 40:22 How to curb sales in community 45:49 Lesson from the Art of Gathering 47:43 Scrappy vs. high-end experience 54:48 Tools used by Small Bets 57:03 Michelle's community

Anthony 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 created to spark more conversations in private communities through 1-on-1 networking programs. Learn more here - https://curatedconnections.io/ Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 01:59 Discussing community Revenue 02:46 $7k in one month 04:14 Challenges in Growing a Community 05:03Strategies for Attracting New Members 06:47 Word-of-mouth 11:10 Organising masterminds 15:08 On hosting a good event 20:11 100 in 100 Challenge 23:13 Origins of the Community 23:45 The Freelancing Journey 24:29 Building Relationships and Communities 26:12 Organising community Challenge 29:58 Starting with 500 followers 34:44 Personal discipline stuff 37:08 The Freelancing vs Full-Time Dilemma 41:59 Relationships vs Audiences

Grace 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 networking programs that run on autopilot. Try it in your community - https://curatedconnections.io/ Links: • Join Design Buddies - https://designbuddies.community • Partner with Design Buddies - https://forms.gle/6nVjUHHBa3NgtsZHA • Grace Ling on LinkedIn -   https://www.linkedin.com/in/graceling

Tatiana 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 by creating networking programs that run on autopilot. Try it in your community - https://curatedconnections.io/ Links: - Business of Community by Tatiana - https://businessofcommunity.co/ - Tatiana’s Twitter/X profile - https://twitter.com/tatfig/ - Tatiana’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tatianaf/ - Get notified about future episodes here - https://beginnermaps.com/ Chapters: 00:00 Turning a consultancy into a community business 07:05 Look for signs of a community need 10:03 Why you don't need an audience 16:33 Steps to start a community without an audience 22:26 Case study 26:31 But you do need a professional network 28:20 It's crucial not to overpromise 30:23 Connection to learning ratio framework 32:50 What if you already have a big audience? 36:50 Creating premium content: bad strategy for creators 41:50 Find your unique growth channel

This episode is sponsored by Curated Connections - a simple and powerful matchmaking tool to make communities more connected. --- 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 Developer Relations Advocate at OpenAI and his tips for people looking to transition to a career of developer relations: Will developers become obsolete due to ChatGPT? Deep-dive into the Dev Rel work at OpenAI How Logan uses ChatGPT at work Dev Rel or Software Development? How to choose? Logan's transition from an ML Engineer to a Dev Rel Advocate Doing unpaid volunteer work to get his first break Dealing with rejections Get an unfair advantage by creating a public verifiable track record What's next for Logan? Logan's #1 resource? Jono Bacon Who he learns from on Twitter 1 action item for you - the listener

Chris 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 into a community Building culture in the early days Charging for a free community Reducing churn Tech stack for running the PL business Chris' hiring philosophy

This episode is supported by Curated Connections (https://curatedconnections.io/) - a simple matchmaking tool with an easy-to-justify pricing. --- 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 Starting The Community Community 150+ applications on community launch! How? Making a community valuable without making it busy Dream Team and Co-lead Someone got her dream role over her at Shopify Going to Harvard and being the top candidate Tips for job seekers Asking for a higher salary Most recommended resources Resources: Curated Connections - https://curatedconnections.io/ Nikki’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikki2987/ The Community Community - https://thecommunitycommunity.com/ CMX Masterclass - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUC9Vz9R3tpJwpRgHMyH_PASlVDNw3_DB Common Room Blog - https://www.commonroom.io/resources/ Jenny Weigle - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyweigle/ Venia Logan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanthavlogan/

Jessica 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 a community of founders as someone who is not herself a founder 22:08 Routine Roulette 27:43 Landing a role that was never posted 31:52 When community is the business and not just a bonus 39:55 Why women should not be concerned they won't be taken seriously if they are nice and gracious 43:29 Advice for job seekers 50:10 Two books that inspire her work 54:50 Action item for the listener --- --- --- Links and Resources: Curated Connections - https://curatedconnections.io/ Jessica's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-spivack-lowenstein-52b2a962/ Hampton - https://joinhampton.com/ Grand Central Tech - https://www.companyventures.co/grand-central-tech Community Club - https://www.community.club/ Community Hacked - https://www.communityhacked.com/ The Vendry - https://thevendry.com/ The Art of Gathering - https://www.priyaparker.com/book-art-of-gathering Unreasonable Hospitality - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60018618-unreasonable-hospitality --- --- --- Thanks for listening! If you have come this far you’ll love other episodes. But you probably don’t have 1 hr every week to listen to all the episodes. That’s why you should sign up for our newsletter. We recently started it to share the key insights from these conversations in a more digestible, readable format. So go to http://beginnermaps.com/ to sign up for our weekly newsletter.