Derrick 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 --- --- --- Links and Resources: Derrick’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/derrick-chiu/ Generalist World - https://www.generalist.world/ Cirkel - https://cirkel.co/ Rosieland - https://rosie.land/ --- --- --- 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 beginnermaps.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Sharath 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 selling when you are not a salesperson Building in public aka Power of the internet Moving to the US Working with Naval Ravikant How to pay bills while working on side projects Rapid fire round --- --- --- Links and Resources: Sharath’s website 👉 https://5harath.com/ Sharath’s Twitter 👉 https://twitter.com/5harath Shoutout 👉 https://shoutout.io/shoutout-new/ The Angel Philosopher 👉 https://theangelphilosopher.com/ --- --- --- 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 beginnermaps.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Bri 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  --- --- --- Links and Resources: Bri’s LinkedIn 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/briannaleever/ Groove (co-working app for solopreneurs) 👉 https://www.groove.ooo/ Designing Your Life (book) 👉 https://amzn.eu/d/46mBTbe --- --- --- 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 beginnermaps.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Shre 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 shouldn’t be too scary in your 20s 18:35: How Shre realised it was time to move on from his big startup idea 26:15: How he went from member to Community Manager at Lenny’s community 40:00: Being “Dobby” 41:20: How he pitches himself to new clients 46:30: How he finds opportunities that have not been posted publicly 51:22: Rapid-fire round --- --- --- 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 beginnermaps.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Gabrielle 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 30:30: Why feeling personally connected to the mission of the community makes your job easier 34:50: Working as the solo CM in a 40,000 member community 40:52: Pros and cons of working at an energising role in a startup 48:41: Is CMX a scam? 55:00: Rapid-fire round — — — Teaser of Gaby’s side project, Supper Club Cinema: https://youtu.be/iUs0E11X9R8 Connect with Gabrielle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielleleith/ --- --- --- 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 beginnermaps.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Mac 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 (17:21) - 9 months, 50 investor meetings to raise the pre-seed round (22:00) - Was he bullish about the community-led vision in the early Commsor days? (25:30) - How running a Minecraft server prepared him for building the Community Club community (35:45) - Why a 4000-member community is Commsor’s most important asset (40:30) - How you should sell to your community without turning members off (44:00) - One of the biggest mistakes businesses made in the last 2 decades (48:07) - What leverage can a single community manager have? (52:30) - Which community does Mac most enjoy as a member --- --- --- 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 beginnermaps.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Erin 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 Linkedin and connected with 40+ professionals (18:03) - Raising kids, making dinner and going for walks while doing a full-time job (22:51) - Managing a community of practice you know nothing about (24:21) - Asking for mentorship from strangers (28:30) - Chaos of working at startups (37:44) - How to take advantage of a community of practice as a member (42:37) - What’s next for Erin? (45:11) - Rapid-fire! You can connect with Erin on her LinkedIn. --- --- --- 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 beginnermaps.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Prashant 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. In this episode we dive into: (1:30) - Why he spends time mentoring strangers (4:40) - Why you should or should not do an MBA (8:53) - One mistake Prashant did when managing employees (11:16) - Raising $1.5M on just a story with 3 characters (12:56) - How to validate your idea and why it’s not important? (16:49) - Moving from a builder’s mindset to a marketer’s mindset (18:45) - Books that have taught him about thinking from first principles (21:49) - Writing when you have something to say (23:41) - Rapid-fire! --- --- --- 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 beginnermaps.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Taylor 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 this episode: (1:29) - How Taylor identified her mission of creating the opposite of loneliness in the world (9:24) - Why she started following a non-traditional career path (11:10) - How she started working with Seth Godin right out of college (14:43) - How to make your online events better than IRL events (21:58) - What she learnt working with Seth (25:08) - Why Taylor joined a startup in another continent as their first employee (38:21) - What her work as Head of Community looks like (42:09) - Taylor’s secret sauce for creating a great gathering (52:59) - AMA! --- --- --- Here are links to some people and resources that Taylor spoke about: The Ground Truth workshop by Dana Ray The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan Priya Parker’s guide on running better hybrid events Seth Godin’s blog Partiful - the gathering creating app Nick Gray’s book on the 2-hour Cocktail Party Finally, Groove is an extraordinary, free app for solo workers from all over the world to instantly connect and conquer their to-dos alongside each other. You can use this link to start using Groove right now. --- --- --- 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 beginnermaps.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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 made her join Topknot as their first employee and the Head of Community What Topknot does and who it’s for Being an “a” at your job vs. being a “the” What does her work at Topknot currently look like Being a coloring book artist who is given a blank page Moving from a “Ready, aim, fire” mindset to “Ready, fire, aim” What it means to fail forward How being intentional helps her in networking with community builders Resources that helped Rae as a new community professional A 4-question Rapid-fire Round! --- --- --- 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 beginnermaps.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.