Beginner Maps

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.

Pramod 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 dive into: Pramod's recent $3.1M seed round and what it will unlock for Threado How Pramod bootstrapped Threado to an MVP and a stellar team of 25 Community and content playbook that Pramod used to launch Zomato to new cities Why Community Manager was Pramod's first hire in a new city Joining Zomato as their 13th employee when it was still called FoodieBay 7 startup ideas that Pramod explored before landing upon Threado Support systems that helped Pramod navigate this chaotic period of figuring out his next big idea Why sharing your secret ideas creates more opportunities for you How Pramod did user testing to pivot Threado to a completely new product Threado's marketing philosophy --- --- --- 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.

Max 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 active community member made him the number one candidate for a new job posting How he learnt the ropes of community building on his first job Why he is so active in the Community Club Slack How Max created opportunities for himself by reaching out to the CEOs of companies he knew Max's journey from a Web Design Freelancer to a Community Professional Dealing with Imposter Syndrome by creating a "wins" folder Working with a Community Coach for professional development Max's strategies for creating work-life balance --- --- --- 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.

Kyle 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 the community is super engaged How he got this job at Morning Brew - his first official role in the community industry Kyle's number one skill for making career pivots - storytelling Why being a beginner in a new domain can be your competitive advantage over experts Kyle's Personal Monopoly What's up next for Kyle in his career? How Kyle makes long-term bets on his career while being present in the moment --- --- --- 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.