Decoded by Threado AI

🤙🏻 About the Guest - Jillian Bejtlich leads Community at Calendly. She has experience building and leading community teams for over a decade. She is a data nerd and was previously the Director of Community at Zapier. She has also worked at BAE Systems, Autodesk, and Community Roundtable.🤙🏻 About the Host - Sharath Kuruganty is the Head of the Community at @ThreadoHQ. Currently, he is building Community Champs, a tight-knit community of world-class community leaders.🤙🏻 Timestamps0:00 - Introduction to the podcast1:49 - Jillian’s introduction4:23 - The non-linearity of Jillian’s community-building career11:01 - The similarities in the skillset of a scientist and a community builder14:47 - The formula to define superusers17:30 - The different sets of superusers22:15 - The ACE framework26:19 - Figuring out the user journey30:57 - Building superuser for a new community/product37:52 - Impact of AI on community building46:21 - The role of community in the no-code industry53:55 - Moderation challenges in the community1:01:29 - advice for people who are into data and community1:10:08 - What’s the next challenge for Jillian?🤙🏻 Where to find Jillian Bejtlich  - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillianbejtlich/🤙🏻 Where to find Sharath - https://twitter.com/5harath?s=20

🤙🏻 About the Guest - Jason Baum is the Director of Community at Sauce Labs & host of the Test Case Scenario, AI Time Journal and Retail Adventures Podcasts.🤙🏻 About the Host - Sharath Kuruganty is the Head of the Community at @ThreadoHQ. Currently, he is building Community Champs, a tight-knit community of world-class community leaders.🤙🏻 Timestamps00.00 - Introduction to the podcast03.19 - What is Sauce Labs and why community?06.25 - Inception of the dev community08.40 - Questions you need to ask before starting a community13.02 - Initiatives Sauce Labs took to launch their community15.17 - How creating content changed the game19.23 - Getting developers to engage within the community24.54 - Role of media in community building30.48 - How Jason ended up being a voice actor32:39 - Values Jason embodies to keep the community’s spirit high🤙🏻 Where to find Jason Baum - https://twitter.com/JasonEBaum1/🤙🏻 Where to find Sharath - https://twitter.com/5harath?s=20

🤙🏻 About the Guest - Edu Giansante is the head of community at Persona, based in SF. Prior to Persona, he was the head of community for Wix, Dropbox, VMware and Zynga. He is also the founder of edublin, book author and a dog parent.🤙🏻 About the Host - Sharath Kuruganty is the Head of the Community at @ThreadoHQ. Currently, he is building Community Champs, a tight-knit community of world-class community leaders.🤙🏻 Timestamps00.00 - Introduction to the podcast and the guest02.45 - Running a E-Dublin and creating content04.44 - How the community experience helped Ed build E-Dublin10.08 - Learnings for community builders from content creators13.30 - Creating timeless content and staying on the edge as a creator16.52 - Strategy towards making community bigger than the community builder20.07 - Edu’s experience of scaling Dropbox community - creating ambassadors and much more25.48 - Incentivising super users in Dropbox community30.29 - Some things that did not work at Dropbox40.05 - Changing gears from Dropbox to Wix from a community standpoint46.47 - Tips to look out for when you hire community managers49.50 - Outro to the podcast🤙🏻 Where to find Edu Giansante - https://www.linkedin.com/in/edugiansante/🤙🏻 Where to find Sharath - https://twitter.com/5harath?s=20

🤙🏻 About the Guest - Jake McKee is the OG Community Guy. He’s been in space since 1996 which was a long time ago Jake. He played a pivotal role in building communities for big brands like LEGO, Apple, Southwest Airlines, Canon etc.🤙🏻 About the Host - Sharath Kuruganty is the Head of the Community at @ThreadoHQ. Currently, he is building Community Champs, a tight-knit community of world-class community leaders.🤙🏻 Timestamps00.00 - Introduction to the podcast and the guest03.37 - Jake’s tale of community from 199607.05 - Educating the industry about community in 90s12.54 - Pulling off in-person community events like a road show20.19 - Building community in the early days29.06 - Blending product and community world together39.14 - Identifying champions in your community46.48 - Incentivising the community members at Lego55.28 - Building a product insights program for early stage brands01.00.58 - Product first vs Community first company01.09.57 - Building community to empower business01.12.39 - Jake’s advice to young community builders01.15.22 - Outro to the podcast🤙🏻 Resources from the PodcastCommunity approach where everybody goes home happy 🤙🏻 Where to find Jake mckee - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakemckee/🤙🏻 Where to find Sharath - https://twitter.com/5harath?s=20

🤙🏻 About the Guest - Milly Tamati is the Founder and Chief Generalist at Generalist World. She lives on a little island in the Scottish highlands with a population of just 170 people where she is building the home of the generalist (generalist.world).🤙🏻 About the Host - Sharath Kuruganty is the Head of the Community at @ThreadoHQ. Currently, he is building Community Champs, a tight-knit community of world-class community leaders.🤙🏻 Timestamps00.00 - Introduction to the podcast and the guest02.49 - Origins of The Generalist World06.22 - Milly’s story of becoming a Generalist10.12 - Starting the Generalist World as a community12.28 - Taking the idea to execution when building communities17.55 - Finding the first set of champions of the community20.18 - Productising the community26.16 - Working solo and hiring people in your company28.28 - Balancing doing things you love and doing thing that you don’t love in early stage34.19 - Cracking the business at the Generalist World37.11 - Monetising the community42.17 - Balancing monetisation and not losing the purpose of community45.56 - Intentional community design framework48.45 - Interesting things lined up at the Generalist World52.59 - Balancing mental burden of working as a solopreneur58.30 - Outro to the podcast🤙🏻 Shoutouts to awesome peopleLenny's PodcastRosie Sherry🤙🏻 Where to find Milly Tamati - https://twitter.com/MillyTamati🤙🏻 Where to find Sharath - https://twitter.com/5harath?s=20

🤙🏻 About the Guest - Joshua Zerkel is one of the established leaders in the business community management space. He has been leading community programs at B2C and B2B companies and nonprofits for 20 years. He is currently the Head of Global Engagement Marketing at @Asana. He helps give people the tools they need to learn how to work together more effectively, and create community programs that connect them with other like-minded folks who want to achieve the same goals.🤙🏻 About the Host - Sharath Kuruganty is the Head of the Community at @ThreadoHQ. Currently, he is building Community Champs, a tight-knit community of world-class community leaders.🤙🏻 Timestamps00.00 - Introduction to the podcast and the guest02.41 - Joshua’s multi-faceted role at Asana04.35 - Aligning community with business07.04 - Framework to keep the team aligned to the goal consistently09.23 - Setting goals for communities12.17 - Goals at Asana and thought process to set community goals in a B2B company15.24 - Breaking the misconception of building communities to drive sales20.14 - Successful community programs led by Joshua in his career24.15 - Launching Asana Together World Tour virtually in COVID29.26 - Tactics to drive engagement in a virtual conversation33.59 - Parternships and it’s impact on a community37.25 - Going from zero to one to build better partnership programs in a community40.50 - Building the right media strategy43.12 - Experience of working at Evernote48.07 - Applying lessons from B2B to B2C and vice versa52.11 - Suggestions for community builders on how to be more data-driven54.21 - Tips for building customer-centric communities55.00 - Outro to the podcast🤙🏻 Where to find Joshua Zerkel - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuazerkel/🤙🏻 Where to find Sharath - https://twitter.com/5harath?s=20

🤙🏻 About the Guest - April MacLean is on a mission to build communities for as many (great) companies as possible. She is the founder of Wondry and has led community at Late Checkout. She also has worked as a community manager in companies like HubSpot and The Hustle (acquired by HubSpot). She is great at marrying community strategy to high impact and ROI. Outside of building community strategy, she is a dance teacher and choreographer.🤙🏻 About the Host - Sharath Kuruganty is the Head of the Community at @ThreadoHQ. Currently, he is building Community Champs, a tight-knit community of world-class community leaders.🤙🏻 Shoutouts to awesome peopleEvan HamiltonSam ParrSteph SmithDharmesh Shah🤙🏻 Timestamps00.00 - Introduction to the podcast and the guest02.39 - Story behind April’s love for community building06.33 - The skill of disarming as a teacher and a community builder12.35 - April’s journey into startups and working with entrepreneurs16.20 - Marrying media and community building at the Hustle21.07 - Tips to create good content for community builders25.21 - HubSpot acquisition and learnings from working there27.58 - Blending community with product building at Late Checkout34.20 - Leveraging community to build and launch products39.02 - Role of network building for community builders41.15 - Working with Greg Eisenberg and learnings from the experience45.20 - Why engagement is a bad goal? What metrics should community builders chase?51.37 - Successful initiatives where stickiness and driving conversations was the goal55.57 - Underrated playbooks for community building58.45 - Learnings from hardships April faced early on in her life01.05.00 - Closing thoughts & outro to the podcast🤙🏻 Where to find April MacLean- https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprilmaclean🤙🏻 Where to find Sharath - https://twitter.com/5harath?s=20

🤙🏻 About the Guest - Mark Birch is a community builder, author, software entrepreneur, business development expert, and startup advisor based in New York City. He currently works at AWS sharing the stories of how founders across the globe benefit from building and scaling their startups on AWS. He creates content, speaks & presents, and enables community managers globally to build thriving startup communities.🤙🏻 About the Host - Sharath Kuruganty is the Head of the Community at @ThreadoHQ. Currently, he is building Community Champs, a tight-knit community of world-class community leaders.🤙🏻 Resources from the PodcastCommunity in a Box - How to build event-driven professional communities🤙🏻 Shoutouts to awesome peopleDerek AndersonJeff LawsonMarcus Bullock🤙🏻 Timestamps00.00 - Introduction to the podcast01.38 - Diving into Mark’s role as a Global Startup Advocate and how it plays out in community building04.30 - Initiatives and how to focus on enabling tight-knit communities05.59 - AWS Startup Shows on Clubhouse07.15 - Building relationships with founders08.49 - How to be scrappy and focus on the right goals09.13 - Thoughts on dev communities14.53 - How to pick the right signals for your communities21.46 - How to disconnect but at the same time care about your community29.39 - Qualities that make up an incredible community builder36.53 - Community in a Box - a book my Mark Birch42.36 - Five things Mark missed covering in the book48.33 - Mark’s secret sauce to building communities55.00 - Some crazy stories Mark’s heard58.00 - Tips & tricks to host the best events & conferences01.00.00 - Takeaways & learnings hosting virtual events01.04.00 - Best ways to scale a community globally01.06.00 - Closing thoughts & outro to the podcast🤙🏻 Where to find Mark Birch- https://www.linkedin.com/in/startupmark🤙🏻 Where to find Sharath - https://twitter.com/5harath?s=20

🤙🏻 About the Guest - Shreman Shrestha is currently the Chief of Staff for Lenny Rachitsky & Shreyas Doshi. He was previously an ex-founder, a product guy at Upwork, and used to look at strategy & analytics at LinkedIn.🤙🏻 About the Host - Sharath Kuruganty is the Head of the Community at @ThreadoHQ. Currently, he is building Community Champs, a tight-knit community of world-class community leaders.🤙🏻 Resources from the PodcastLenny’s CommunityCourse on managing your PM Career in 2023 & beyond by Shreyas DoshiBen’s Bites - Your daily dose of what’s going on in AI🤙🏻 Shoutouts to awesome peopleLenny RachitskyShreyas DoshiBen TossellKPElena VernaRyan Hoover🤙🏻 Timestamps00.00 - Introduction to the podcast and our guest - Shreman Shrestha01.15 - Journey from being a product guy to community building14.22 - What caught Shre’s attention to pursue community28.52 - Signals to pick while building a community37.27 - Best performing initiatives in Lenny’s Community45.00 - How to host one of a kind meetups55:38 - Key engagement tactics and ways to improve retention57:42 - Quality over quantity of community builders1.00.00 - Tips for community builders1.01.00 - Outro to the episode🤙🏻 Where to find Shreman Shrestha - https://twitter.com/itsDrDrewithaSh?s=20🤙🏻 Where to find Sharath - https://twitter.com/5harath?s=20

Show highlights for the podcast:00.00 - 00.57: Introduction to Ash Wesley00.58 - 05.17: Experiments that didn’t work at Coho or On-deck05.17 - 10.09: Building rituals in communities10.09 - 13.09: Leveraging no-code tools to make life easier & no-code tool recommendations13.31 - 23.57: What’s on the cards for On Deck in 202323.58 - 26.38: Crafting unforgettable experiences for members26.38 - 28.9: Best ways to drive engagement28.9 - 30.49: Use of no-code in community building30.49 - 34.02: Battle tested initiatives that work well for community engagement34.02 - 35.29: Highest set of values that define a community builder35.29 - 35.55 Outro to the podcast