Helen Huang: How to Build a Community for Your Startup

Summary

In this insightful webinar, Helen, the co-founder of Collab, shares her expertise on building a community for startups. She emphasizes the importance of a community as an unofficial marketing team, a source of speedy feedback, and a customer support channel. Helen discusses the different types of companies, such as community is the product, community driven, and community empowered. She also shares Collab's success in creating an active community that has significantly contributed to their business growth, highlighting the value of quality over quantity and the need for focus. Helen's experience provides actionable insights and inspiration for entrepreneurs looking to leverage community building for their startup's success.

Takeaways

• 🌟 Building a community for a startup involves bringing people together for a common purpose, such as learning how to build a community itself.
• 🚀 The benefits of a community include it acting as an unofficial marketing team, providing speedy feedback loops, customer support, a unique value proposition for startups, and a pool for potential hires.
• 🤝 A community can be defined in various ways depending on the startup's nature: as the product, driven by the community, or enabled by the community.
• 📈 Measuring community impact on a business can be challenging but is crucial for understanding growth and success, with strategies like pruning inactive members and focusing on engaged ones.
• 💡 The key to incentivizing people to join a community without spending much money is tapping into their personal desires and the emotional problems they're solving.
• 🗣️ Communication is vital; responding to feedback and being transparent can build trust and show that the organization is open to growth and improvement.
• 📊 For B2B products, communities can be built around shared goals beyond the product, such as reducing pollutants in hospitals, thus appealing to a wider audience.
• 📝 When pruning a community, use tools that show engagement levels and set clear expectations for participation to maintain an active community.
• 🔍 To measure community impact, focus on understanding customer acquisition sources and the quality of interactions within the community.
• 🌐 Community building is not just about numbers; it's about the quality of engagement, the value provided to members, and fostering a sense of belonging.
• 🎉 Enjoy the process of community building, as it is a reciprocal relationship that can provide immense value to both the startup and its community members.

Q & A

What is the primary purpose of building a community for a startup?

The primary purpose of building a community for a startup is to bring together people with a common interest or goal, facilitating networking, collaboration, and support among members. It can also serve as an unofficial marketing team, providing word-of-mouth promotion and feedback, enhancing customer support, and contributing to the startup's growth and success.

How does Helen's background in Earth Sciences influence her approach to community building?

Helen's background in Earth Sciences demonstrates her ability to transition into different fields and apply her skills in new contexts. This adaptability is crucial in community building, as it requires understanding and connecting with diverse groups of people, much like how she adapted her scientific knowledge to the tech industry.

What are some key strategies Helen suggests for fostering an active and engaged community?

Helen suggests several strategies for fostering an active community, including having a dedicated space for communication, such as Discord, initiating weekly threads to prompt engagement, organizing in-person meetups, featuring community members in newsletters, and hosting community events. These strategies help create a sense of belonging and encourage members to contribute and interact with each other.

How does a startup measure the impact of its community on business growth?

Measuring the impact of a community on business growth can involve tracking the source of new customers, monitoring engagement metrics like daily active users and conversation volume, and assessing the effectiveness of referral programs. It's also important to qualitatively understand how the community contributes to brand loyalty and customer satisfaction.

What is the role of a community in providing customer support for a startup?

A community can significantly enhance customer support by creating a platform where customers can ask questions and receive answers not just from the startup team, but also from other community members. This collaborative approach to support can lead to faster resolution of issues and fosters a sense of shared responsibility and collective problem-solving within the community.

How does the concept of 'pruning' apply to community management?

Pruning in community management refers to the process of removing inactive or disengaged members to maintain the community's vibrancy and engagement. This strategy helps ensure that the community remains active and valuable to its members, focusing on those who are truly invested in the community's goals and activities.

What are some challenges that Helen faced while building the Collab community?

Helen faced challenges such as maintaining high engagement levels, ensuring the community's growth was sustainable and not just focused on numbers, and balancing the resources required to manage the community effectively. She also had to consider how to transition from viewing community members as a customer list to truly understanding and valuing their contributions and needs.

How does Helen's experience with rebranding illustrate the value of community feedback?

Helen's experience with rebranding shows that community feedback is invaluable in shaping the direction of a startup. By involving the community in the rebranding process, Helen was able to gather diverse perspectives and insights, which helped Collab make informed decisions and align the brand with the community's expectations and desires.

What are some ways startups can incentivize community members to join without spending a lot of money?

Startups can incentivize community members to join by tapping into their personal desires and emotional connections to the startup's mission. By showcasing how the community can help individuals achieve their goals and make a meaningful impact, startups can attract members who are genuinely interested and willing to contribute to the community's success.

How does Helen approach dealing with negative feedback or 'haters' in the community?

Helen approaches negative feedback as an opportunity for growth and learning. She believes in the value of all feedback and suggests engaging with critics to understand their concerns. If necessary, she may prune such individuals from the community, but she emphasizes the importance of transparency and open communication in managing these situations.

What are some examples of successful community building from other companies mentioned in the script?

The script mentions Notion and Instant Pot as examples of successful community building. Notion has built a grassroots community through a bottom-up approach and initiatives like the Notion Campus Leader program. Instant Pot, on the other hand, leveraged customer feedback from their community to improve their product, which subsequently led to their success and growth.

Outlines

00:00

🎤 Introduction and Event Overview

The paragraph introduces Ian Isaacs, the head of global growth at the Founder Institute, who warmly welcomes the audience to the global webinar on building a community for startups. He mentions Helen, the co-founder of Collab and a prominent LinkedIn content creator, as the key speaker. Ian acknowledges the diverse global audience, including participants from London, Toronto, Lisbon, and beyond. He also highlights the recording of the session for later distribution and the agenda of the event, which includes a presentation by Helen, a Q&A session, and networking opportunities.

05:02

🌟 The Power of Community in Startups

Helen begins her presentation by defining community as a group of people with a common purpose. She emphasizes the importance of community in startups, highlighting its role as an unofficial marketing team, a source of speedy feedback, a customer support channel, a unique value proposition, and a hiring pool. Helen shares her personal journey and the mission of Collab, an online school focused on career transitioners, and how community has been integral to their success.

10:02

🚀 Identifying Your Startup Type and Community Strategy

Helen discusses the different types of startups in relation to community: community as the product, community-driven, and community-enabled. She encourages the audience to reflect on their startup type to inform their community strategy. She shares Collab's community numbers, including newsletter subscribers, LinkedIn followers, and Discord members, and translates these into business value like completion rates, customer satisfaction, and lifetime value per customer.

15:03

🤝 Fostering and Growing Your Community

The paragraph delves into how to foster and grow a community. Helen shares Collab's approach, which includes having a dedicated Discord space, weekly threads for engagement, in-person meetups, member features, and community events. She emphasizes the importance of quality over quantity and focuses on providing value to community members. Helen also discusses the concept of community-led growth and product-led growth, advising startups to align their community efforts with their strengths and goals.

20:03

📚 Community Success Stories and Learnings

Helen shares success stories of communities from different companies, such as Notion and Instant Pot, and the strategies they employed to build and grow their communities. Notion's grassroots approach and Instant Pot's customer feedback-driven product improvements are highlighted. Helen also shares her own learnings about community building, focusing on quality, focus, and the importance of putting community members' needs first.

25:03

💡 Final Thoughts and Q&A Session

Helen concludes her presentation with final thoughts on the importance of enjoying the community-building process and the reciprocal relationship between the community and the startup. She encourages the audience to reach out for further questions and shares her intention to post additional resources on LinkedIn. The host expresses gratitude to Helen for her insights and opens the floor for the Q&A session, highlighting the interactive and engaging nature of the webinar.

Keywords

💡Community Building

Community Building refers to the process of creating and nurturing a group of individuals who share common interests or goals. In the context of the video, it is about how startups can leverage communities for growth, feedback, and support. The speaker, Helen, shares her experience with building a community for her startup, Collab, and emphasizes the importance of community in fostering engagement, providing customer support, and driving organic growth through word-of-mouth referrals.

💡Startup Growth

Startup Growth refers to the process of expanding a startup's user base, revenue, and market presence. In the video, the concept is closely tied to community building, as the speaker explains how a strong community can act as an unofficial marketing team, provide speedy feedback loops, and even serve as a talent pool for hiring passionate team members. The speaker, Helen, shares specific strategies and examples from her experience at Collab to illustrate how community engagement can contribute to a startup's growth trajectory.

💡Collab

Collab is an online school focused on helping career transitioners pivot into product management. It provides experiential learning programs that are hands-on and go beyond theoretical knowledge. In the video, Collab is used as a case study to demonstrate how a startup can successfully build and utilize a community to enhance its educational offerings and create a supportive environment for learners.

💡Customer Support

Customer Support refers to the assistance provided to customers in using a company's products or services. In the context of the video, it highlights the role of a community in providing efficient and responsive customer support. The speaker explains that by having a dedicated community space, such as Discord, customers can receive quick answers to their questions not only from the company but also from other community members, thus creating a collaborative support system.

💡Referral Loops

Referral Loops are the mechanisms by which current users or customers of a product or service recommend it to others, leading to new customer acquisitions. In the video, the speaker emphasizes the power of a community in creating organic referral loops through word-of-mouth marketing. These loops can be particularly impactful for startups as they can lead to viral growth without significant marketing expenses.

💡Community-Led Approach

A Community-Led Approach refers to a strategy where the growth and development of a company are driven by the engagement and activities of its community members. This approach leverages the collective power of the community to foster innovation, provide feedback, and support the company's growth. In the video, the speaker advocates for this approach as a means to create a sustainable and passionate user base that can contribute significantly to a startup's success.

💡Networking

Networking refers to the process of building and maintaining professional relationships. In the video, it is highlighted as an important aspect of community building, where members can connect with each other and exchange ideas, advice, and support. Networking within a community can lead to collaboration opportunities, knowledge sharing, and can contribute to the overall growth and success of the individuals and the startup.

💡Discord

Discord is a communication platform designed for communities. It offers various features such as text, voice, and video communications, allowing users to interact in real-time. In the video, Discord is used as an example of a platform where the startup Collab hosts its community, facilitating engagement, feedback, and support among learners and mentors.

💡Rebranding

Rebranding is the process of changing the branding elements of a company, such as its logo, name, or overall image, to better align with its current identity or business direction. In the video, the speaker talks about how they involve their community in the rebranding process, making them feel like they have a voice and a say in the company's future. This approach can help ensure that the rebrand resonates with the community and maintains their support.

💡Community Metrics

Community Metrics are the quantitative measures used to assess the health, engagement, and impact of a community. These can include the number of active users, the frequency of interactions, and the sources of new members. In the video, the speaker discusses the importance of understanding where community fits into the startup's strategy and how to measure its impact on the business, using metrics like the number of referrals and the completion rate of programs.

💡Hiring

Hiring refers to the process of recruiting and employing individuals for positions within a company. In the context of the video, it highlights how a startup's community can serve as a talent pool for potential hires. Engaged community members who are passionate about the company's mission and have demonstrated their abilities within the community can be ideal candidates for open positions.

Highlights

Ian Isaacs introduces the webinar on building a community for startups, with Helen from Collab as the guest speaker.

Helen emphasizes the importance of community for startups, highlighting it as an unofficial marketing team, a source of speedy feedback, customer support, a unique value proposition, and a hiring ground.

The discussion includes the types of startups: community is the product, community driven, and community empowered.

Helen shares her personal background in Earth Sciences and her transition into Tech, leading to the founding of Collab.

Collab's community-driven approach is detailed, with a focus on experiential learning for career transitioners.

Helen discusses the impressive numbers achieved by Collab in terms of newsletter subscribers, LinkedIn followers, and Discord community members.

The return on investment for Collab is highlighted, including completion rates, customer satisfaction scores, and lifetime value per customer.

Helen outlines the strategies for community building, including setting goals, choosing the right format, and fostering engagement.

The importance of quality over quantity in community building is stressed, with a focus on active and dedicated members.

The discussion touches on the challenges of community management, including dealing with inactive members and maintaining engagement.

Helen shares examples of successful community building from companies like Notion and Instant Pot, highlighting different approaches.

The webinar concludes with Helen's parting advice to have fun with community building and to focus on delivering value to the community.

The Q&A session addresses questions about the sequence of community and product development, incentives for community joining, and handling negative feedback.

The value of community in B2B products is discussed, with strategies for engaging enterprise customers and expanding brand authority.

Helen's final thoughts emphasize the reciprocal relationship in community building and the long-term impact of the mission.

Transcripts

hey everyone how's it going my name is

Ian Isaacs I'm the head of global growth

for the founder Institute uh super happy

that everyone's taking the time uh to

join us today we have an exciting

another exciting Global webinar for you

on how to build a community for your

startup by Helen who's the co-founder of

collab she's based in Toronto Canada so

those that you know her you know that

she posts some amazing content on

LinkedIn all the time and she's a very

big Advocate on how a company should be

building uh their respective communities

um

uh let us know in the chat kind of where

you're calling in from we had about a

say 550 people sign up for this so

um we're at about 190 so people are okay

I'm seeing it I'm seeing London

uh Toronto Lisbon Texas Brooklyn

Montreal Spain London again Berlin

California Iraq I'm based here in Dubai

UAE so um Miami uh very very cool uh

well thanks for everyone for joining in

I guess we have a good morning good

afternoon and good evening good night

across the board

um yeah this recording this session will

be recorded and sent out within 48 Hours

uh

to everyone okay perfect we're about 200

people uh let me just kind of go over

the agenda and then we'll bring a Helen

up to the stage uh but just uh at a very

high level Helen's gonna come up she's

going to give about 20 to 30 minutes

worth of content uh after that we'll

break out into questions please use the

Q a button it's right below the

messaging button to feed us your

questions we'll do it as many as we can

uh we'll leave the last five to ten

minutes uh used for open networking

we'll end the session you'll kind of be

pointed over to the air meet platform

where you can see all these tables feel

free to jump on a table I'll be on the

table hopefully if Helen has time she'll

be on her own table and you then you can

ask her some questions

um

okay so let's bring Helen on to the

stage I see how in we hear Helen do you

want to unmute yourself and show your

video

um and while she's doing that I'm gonna

run a poll

hey Ellen how's it going

hi hi everyone it's going pretty well

thank you so much for having me yeah you

have about

212 people here just to see you awesome

oh I forgot to mention so everyone

you're probably seeing it already

there's an emoji button at the bottom of

your screen please uh use that to uh

just Express uh whatever emotion you

feel as a Helen's giving a presentation

uh so Helen rehab I think this is the

first time this has happened we haven't

even started and people are already

throwing the heart emojis and super

excited emojis so if I think you've just

knocked it out of the park uh all right

so Helen while you get your presentation

queued up I'm gonna run this poll and

everyone should see a poll on stage but

like would love to know have you already

built a community for a startup yes no

so thinking about it so this will give

Helen some ideas kind of like where the

audience is at

Ellie can you see the results

uh I can see the results after I vote

yeah so I guess no maybe few

yeah so so right now we have we have

we've had about 110 votes in 65 is

saying no they've not built any of their

Community 33 saying they've built it but

it's very very small and three percent

is saying that yes they've built it but

they could use Improvement so I hope

this that is helpful for you as you uh

do this presentation all right we are at

about 230 people live I I'm gonna be

quiet now Helen is uh I'll head over to

you now

um do I share your screen uh just

whenever you're ready

perfect awesome

um can everyone see my screen please say

something if you can because now I can't

see the error meet screen

yeah you're good I'm gonna hop off okay

perfect

well once again thank you all so much

for tuning in

um I have just around 20 30-ish minutes

to talk so I'm just gonna jump right

into it

um so again this presentation is going

to be all about community building for

startups what why how to do it I'm gonna

give a lot of examples from my personal

experience some examples and just

inspiration from other companies as well

um but my main takeaway hopefully for

you all is one to give you guys a sense

of where to start when it comes to

building a community and important

things to keep in mind and just a

jumping off pad for really growing a

community-led approach to growth for

your startup so let's get started um

the start is actually not my intro that

will be slightly later but just to

confirm everyone is on the same page in

terms of what a community needs so the

term Community is actually quite vague

um but really at its core it's really

just a group of people coming together

for a common purpose so an example of a

community is something like this right

y'all are all tuning in for an fi event

because you're interested in building a

startup you're in the beginning stages

you're scaling up a company but you're

all people who are interested in

community building

um and we're all here for a common

purpose of learning how to do just that

so I think it's sort of a meta approach

um but that's a call out to you all as

well to connect with one another as well

as connecting with me and just some of

the other speakers that you see on these

sessions because it really is about

building up your own startup Community

as well

um but again Community is vague but in

this conversation hopefully we get to

Define it a little bit more as well as

how to get started so just a brief

overview of why Community I listed down

just a few reasons here but the first

one is that it's really your unofficial

marketing team right it's your group of

super fans who are going to be pushing

not just you but also the product or

service that you're providing and

they're really going to be developing

those viral Word of Mouth Loops referral

Loops as well that might not be

something that you actually have

resources or funding for um but it's

really an organic way of driving

referral based traffic to your company

or service

um the second thing is that they come

with a lot of Speedy feedback loops so

if you have a community that means you

have a close-knit group of people who

are willing to give you feedback and

honest and actionable feedback at that

I'm sure a lot of us have gone out to do

user interviews and customer research

and stuff like that but having a

community is the first Baseline step to

actually being able to capture feedback

really quickly and I'll give examples of

how we've done that at colab as well

number three is customer support so if

you have you know customers or users

that have questions having a central

location for them to really ask their

questions and get feedback and answers

is great

um the best thing about a community as

well that's different to just a support

channel is that your other customers can

actually jump into the conversation and

help Drive results and answers that way

as well so it's a really good mechanism

of passing that Community torch things

we'll be talking about later in the

presentation as well and lastly for

companies that are raising a community

is a clear answer that you can give for

your startups unique perspective and

unique value that you're delivering your

USP right um it's something that you can

actually mention that you have as a moat

let's say a product another product or

another company can copy exactly what it

is that you do but how can they copy

your community right so that's an answer

for any of those people out there who

are actually raising

um we see Community as one of the core

answers that investors are actually

looking for and lastly it's one that

might not be as common but it's actually

hiring right again as startups a lot of

us work off of passion you want your

initial group of team members whether

that's your first five first ten first

50 first 100 first 500 to be people that

are really dedicated to the problem that

you're solving right these people are

already motivated they're within the

community you can see how they approach

certain things and so it's actually a

really great place to look for your next

hire as well

so anyhow like I mentioned back to the

intro so hello everyone I'm Helen I'm

one of the co-founders here at collab

um and before I get to go at collab is

just a little bit background about me I

actually got my start in Earth Sciences

before I pivoted into Tech so prior to

collab I was a product manager at Zynga

Microsoft GitHub working on a variety of

b2c B2B apps services and even just

program management

um so have done a bunch of things all

around

um before collab now what is collab

collab we're we are in online school

focused on helping career transitioners

pivot into product so helping them level

up their product mindset through

experiential learning programs that are

Hands-On and go beyond the theory our

ultimate goal really is to break this

cycle for a lot of career pivoters and

early in career people so you often see

this hey I need experience to get the

job putting need to get the job to get

experience and so what we do is we

facilitate these Hands-On training

programs that are aimed to helping

Learners get that experience so it's not

just Theory it's not just content it's

not just learning from instructors but

it's really about how they are in the

step where they're creating products

right where they're building where

they're going through a lot of what each

of us have actually done as well in

terms of doing customer research doing

market research and developing products

and building with a team

um this is an experience that I've

actually had again going from Earth

Sciences into product at Microsoft that

was a huge jump for me because I didn't

have experience and so this is a

personal problem that we then

transitioned into ultimately a company

for the past two years

we also have a relatively small team

um and so we have just around five

full-time employees and anywhere between

10 to 20 subcontractors mentors and

instructors at any given time so

hopefully that gives a basis of what it

is that we do as a company now at the

same time though it's important to note

that we're a Community Driven company so

I'm going to take a pause here and ask

you to also reflect on your own startup

what kind of startup are you building

what kind of service are you providing

so what are the different types that you

can provide so one for example take

Reddit right Reddit or alpha or girl

boss these are examples where Community

is the product Reddit wouldn't be Reddit

without its content without its users

without its people right so that's a

community is the product kind of company

you can also have groups like us so

education groups are a really good

example of this if you have an education

aspect in your startup

you might be Community Driven so think

about taking an MBA or any other course

right the service that the company

provides that the school provides is

still the curriculum the lectures the

submissions you know the programming and

the content but a huge aspect of it is

actually the people that you learn

alongside it's the people that you meet

along the way right again when you're

taking an MBA a lot of what people say

is that it's also about the people that

you meet in addition to the certificate

that you get right and so I would label

that category the category that collab

is in Community Driven

and then we also have other products

such as SAS tooling or physical products

e-commerce right some of those companies

some of those products maybe your

company or Community enabled Community

powered not necessarily Community Driven

you can still move a lot faster you can

still get so many of the benefits that I

mentioned about Community by having a

community right but you're not

necessarily Community Driven you're not

Community is your product so I would

love to know I guess you know connect

with each other as well in the comments

what kind of company or what kind of

startup are you building because that is

also going to drive the strategy of your

overall you know Community setup so

that's another key important thing so

again for the purposes of what you all

know collab is a Community Driven kind

of company you know we're not at our

core Community powered you know we're

all about Community but it is a huge

part of what it is that we provide and

so that's how we establish our strategy

around Community as well so now when it

comes to the numbers because everyone

wants to know sort of the numbers we've

been operational for two years so just

two years and so far we have around 12

000 newsletter subscribers all marketing

qualified leads and further bottom of

the funnel we have around 10 000 in

company LinkedIn followers and that

doesn't include the 20 000 personal

LinkedIn followers that we have but

around ten thousand company ones

um and we have a Discord community of

around a thousand members right so I

actually slashed out three thousand and

I'll mention why but we have around a

thousand so now the question is okay

well these numbers maybe to you they

seem impressive maybe to you they're

like ah you know it's not a million but

I want to actually translate that into

return on investment for our company so

again in the past two years we've

graduated around 950 Learners so far

around the world so we run

monthly cohorts essentially so we have

programs running all of the time and so

in the past five two years we've

graduated around 950.

um we have a completion rate of around

90 of our programs so this is actually

really massive if you're in education

you'll probably understand

um the average online learning course

average mooc on udemy it's around five

to ten percent completion so 90

completion is a really great number that

we've really tried to focus on improve

it

um customer satisfaction score of over

85 percent across all of our students so

far and we also have a lifetime value

per customer of around three thousand

dollars

so hopefully that gives you some sense

of our numbers in terms of how our

community numbers have translated into

return on investment for our actual

company and the value that we deliver

um now I'm going to go into again the

specifics of how

each of these has mapped to what it is

that we've experienced again with the

goal of inspiring and sort of getting a

sense of how other companies do it so

first thing unofficial marketing team so

in the first year and a half basically

up until now

um of our company again we're a largely

bootstrapped business right so we're

really just seeing hey what are all of

the growth mechanisms all of the viral

Loops that we can attach onto to to help

us drive revenue and customer growth

um and so our community really really

really has helped us do that right in a

low-cost kind of way in a low-cost and

sustainable kind of oil which is what

word of mouth generally is so here first

two ish Years first year and a half we

focus solely on delivering one a great

product experience and then leveraging

our community to sort of share it with

people they know so what does that look

like it means that every student that we

interacted with that went through one of

our programs we would try to have as

close of an interaction Point as with

them as possible so that after the

program they'd be much more likely to

evangelize what it is that they had gone

through right delivering a great

experience staying tight and close-knit

with your end customers and with your

users and sort of allowing them to

continue that marketing for you without

you needing to do everything on your own

so that's one thing that we really

really benefited from and I would say

drove at least 80 percent of all of our

customer growth of that 950 over 80

percent came from our Community Driven

initiatives

number two is Speedy feedback loops so

again every time we make a change within

the program within our product our

service we always get to go back to our

community first and ask them what it is

that they think right so for example

we're actually going through and

rebranding right now but instead of just

you know our team and doing a small

select you know user study what we could

do is tap into our community right if

anything our community is actually

really excited to be part of the

learning process and the transition

progress alongside us right because it

makes them feel like they have a voice

and that they have a say in where the

direction of our company goes and so

again rebranding exercise we've been

getting a bunch of great feedback from

our community members and that's

actually going to shape the direction of

where we as a company ultimately brand

towards

number three is customer support so

again we run an education company what

that means is that there's a bunch of

student questions before during and

after the programs right and so having a

dedicated space for our community has

allowed us to actually

solve those customer problems in a way

that's fast and efficient so again we

have a Discord Community where everyone

is in and what that means is whenever

anyone has a question instead of just

relying on our team to answer it such as

you know if they email in a question

only our team can answer it but we're a

small team so the way that we've scaled

that is by having a platform having

Discord be that place where people are

asking questions and what that means is

not only can our entire team our mentors

our subcontractors our supporters answer

those questions other community members

and other Learners can as well and so

that for us as a startup as Founders has

actually reduced the operational load

for us and has sort of instilled in a

community the vibe that hey everyone has

something to teach everyone has a

solution right which is really all about

the vibe that we're trying to Aspire to

give as well

so that's really helped

um for defensibility it's not something

that we're really focused on mainly

because we're a largely bootstrapped

company but again when we were pursuing

a raise or when we were considering a

race that is something that a lot of

companies actually or a lot of investors

actually brought up right they all

mentioned that hey you have this great

startup Community we have a great

community of enthusiasts that are trying

to Pivot into Tech and deepen their

product skill skills and that's a hard

Community to build and they're engaged

wow that's a massive mode so again

something that you can leverage if

you're in your startup funding rate

um phrase and then lastly hiring so one

of our early customer success or Student

Success employees was actually someone

from our community they ultimately left

to start up a community of their own and

get into Community Management

specifically as a job which is super

interesting but we've had a bunch of

volunteers as well coming from our

community so again great place to look

for hiring or just getting Helping Hands

because already your community is a

group of people that are focused on

solving the same problems as you and

they believe in you so it's the initial

source that you really should look at if

you're looking for any hiring or

volunteers

so now let's get into how to set one up

so this section again I'm going to try

to speed through it because there's a

lot of great resources that I'll share

as well in terms of where you can read

up on how to set up a community

um but the first thing that I would

think about is really your goals right

so again why are you trying to set up a

community right what kind of company are

you building are you a community is your

product company are you a Community

Driven company are you a community

empowered company you know how important

is actually a deep Community to the

success of your product or service or

company right

um I would also think about hey what

amount of resources do you have do you

have the resources for a dedicated

Community manager is it something that

you as a Founder are planning on doing

do you have just a couple of hours a

week to do it can you find a volunteer

so all of these are things that I would

think about as well

um and ultimately what stage is your

company in right are you the type of

company where you're still trying to

find your initial few customers if so is

is community the right way to go

um and whatever else so a lot of things

to actually consider when it comes to

your goals because you should never do

something without a return on investment

number two is the format right so again

we're all talking on airmeat you know

you have zoom calls there's a lot of

online communities Facebook groups

LinkedIn groups Discord slack

um but there's actually also in-person

communities right think about the last

in-person Meetup that you went to that's

a really great example of an in-person

Community

um and so thinking about the format as

it relates to your company is also

really important again thinking about

what kind of leadership mechanisms

you're looking to set up so whether you

want to have a community manager or

whether you want to go bottoms up

approach as well in terms of more

Grassroots Community Building again I'll

touch upon that as well later on but

those are things that you should

consider in the formatting and you

should also think about again signups

how does someone join your community is

it going to be more of a gated

membership are you going to have an

application process or are you just

going to allow anyone to join so all

those things are things in format as it

ties back to your goals as well phase

three is really fostering community so

again you've now done all of the setup

stuff the important things the goals the

strategy um but what do you actually do

right so like how do you actually Foster

a community

um again lots of approaches to fostering

community so I'm going to talk a little

bit about the things that we've tried

that we've done well and that we've um

currently do here at colab so what is it

that we do so one we have a dedicated

space for our community so we run our

entire Community platforming

conversations Management on Discord

right so our community is for people

that have learned with us that are

supporters that are mentors

um and they're in a space where they can

communicate with each other and that's

Discord I personally really like Discord

over slack um mainly because there's a

lot more functionality and a lot more

ways where Learners can actually start

communities so that's why I like it but

again slack works again in person works

as well

Circle a bunch of community platforms we

also do weekly threads so weekly

conversations where we're prompting for

engagement and also conversations

between the rest of the community again

we run a community of folks that are

trying to Pivot or level up their

product skills so we might share a

resource and ask what people think about

it we might give a case study and give

some examples and see if anyone else has

any feedback we might also just ask

about how the job search is going and

try to engage with one another to help

each other give each other support so

those are examples of weekly threads

that we do we've also done in-person

meetups actually so in Toronto we've run

a few meetups in Seattle we run a few

meetups and students have also run their

own meetups so that's another example of

a community building initiative that

sort of steps beyond the computer right

and gives everyone a space where they

can connect and interact with each other

in person

we also do member features so we have a

newsletter it goes out to around 12 000

community members and so every month

we'll shout out a Community member and

so this is a good way for one community

members to feel like okay well I'm

actually part of something I'm seeing

I'm not just a number

um and it's also a good mechanism for us

to get feedback and updates on our

community members lives right

um and so that sort of has a two-pronged

approach that's really helpful again we

do community events online so these are

dedicated events similar to this one

that are specific for our community

um and then we even have a community

book club

um so before I touch on the community

book club I wanted to go back to Growing

which is phase four of how to set up a

community again I would say that most of

your time should be on phase one two and

three and ultimately giving value to the

community members that you're in but

obviously as Founders as startup people

we need to think about the future right

we need to think about the North Star

and where we're headed to and so growing

is a key aspect of setting up your

community

um the way that I would approach growing

is not growing for numbers sake right

it's really about how do you provide

value to the people that are in your

community and how do you grow

sustainably in a way where people are

engaged because I'm sure we've all been

in those Community groups and those

slack channels where you message

something and nobody gives you a

response right do you consider that a

community or do you consider that more

of just a meeting ground or more of a

list

um I would argue that Community again

you want passionate folks you want

Community leaders and people that are

going to drive the mission alongside

your startup

um so for us this community book club

was one of the first ways that we

noticed that passing the community torch

happening right because the way to think

about Community when you first started

is a series of nodes you're at the top

as a community manager or a startup

founder or a member of the team and then

you have all of these nodes that come

out from you right like those are the

individual members of your community but

you can't scale that way the only way to

scale is by empowering the other members

of your community to start becoming

nodes of their own right to start

espousing the same Mission the same

passion the same focus and for what it

is that you're doing and starting

communities again of their own in some

way shape or form right and so with our

community book club that was a great

example where that wasn't something that

you know we were like oh yeah we need a

book club this was an example where a

Community member felt empowered by what

it is that we did felt like they were

surrounded by a group of similarly

passionate minded people and they were

like oh here's what we need I would love

to read with other people right I would

love to read with other people that are

in a similar life stage than me so I'm

going to start this and it's still

ongoing and it's been over a year right

same thing with our in-person meetups my

co-founder shifumi and I we can't be

everywhere all at once right and so a

lot of these initiatives our initiatives

that are held by our team not our team

members but our community community

members and that has been a great way

for us to actually scale because that's

how you pass the community building

Torch from you holding it yourself into

the hands of your community members and

allowing them to further the growth for

you

so I wanted to give a few examples now

of great communities

um again the goal of giving these

examples along with the rest of you know

what I've shared is to give clear

actionable things right this is a 30

minute presentation you are not going to

learn everything you need about

community building in one conversation

but hopefully this serves as the launch

pad for you to find inspiration points

from other companies from collab from

one another

um in growing your community and

fostering a great one so notion is an

example of one of those companies so

notion again not an education company a

SAS tool a platform right people use it

but they've done a great job when it

relates to their Community Building

efforts one thing I want to call out as

well though is that notion didn't grow

as an early early stage startup from

their Community generating efforts right

I would say that for a lot of companies

Community Building community-led growth

is more of a longer term initiative

similar with SEO right you still have to

grade you still have to build a great

product for your community to get around

it or you have to have a Clear Vision

you have to have a clear goal right

that's very different than possibly

getting your initial few customers so

that's just a heads up and something to

consider as well but notion is a great

example of a Grassroots community so

like I mentioned collab is an example

where we have one dedicated space we

have one Discord all of our Learners our

community members come there to have

conversations but notion is a great

example where they are taking the

bottoms up approach right again you can

talk about notion wherever you want to

talk about notion you can talk about it

on clubhouse on Discord on Facebook on

LinkedIn on Reddit on Twitter on

websites

um so all of these are Community Driven

areas where you can actually Converse

about a common passion which is notion

right which is about you know organizing

your thoughts displaying things in a

contextual artistic way that's easy to

clarify and understand right so that's

one example of what it is that they've

done well in terms of passing the torch

to their community members because

imagine if notion had a team right which

they do but imagine if they needed a

individual for every single source of

conversation that's a large amount of

resources to dedicate but what they've

done is they've given a lot of

information a lot of support and

empowerment to each of their community

members

and so I also wanted to call out the

notion campus leader initiative so this

is just one example of an initiative

that they do you should totally Google

the notion.so community Resource page

they have because they have a bunch of

programs like this notion campus leader

is for University students right and

they also have influencer programs they

have all of these other programs with

incentives and with ways to make people

feel like they're connected and so this

is an example of community building that

notion has done that I take a lot of

info in as well

um but now another example that's sort

of interesting is instant pot right so

again we're in a digital first world we

think that all communities need to be

around SAS platforms Community platforms

Reddit Etc which is also not actually

the case so instant pot is another

really interesting example so I have it

instant pot I don't know if you all have

an instant of hot

um but I'm also in this community right

where people share memes tips advice

recipes and stuff like that and one

thing again to note about instant pot is

that they didn't start off with having a

community-led approach

um so in 2008 when instant pot launched

they actually sold 500 units in their

first year

um by sending a free 200 units to

celebrity chefs which was the initial

integrator or instigator of their

Community right so they did that and so

Community wasn't necessarily their first

oh here's how I got my first 500

customers

um but it is what got them all of their

success that came after right because

they were able to get feedback again

going back to a benefit of community is

that feedback mechanism right and so

even highly recommend just watching this

short one minute clip on cnbc's make it

where he talks about the instant pot Co

talks about how getting customer

feedback through this Facebook group

through their Amazon reviews was one of

the core things that led them to

developing a better product which then

LED them to expand and gaining a lot

more success so here's just another

example where hey even if you're running

an e-commerce startup right you're

selling physical products there's all of

these mechanisms that we can think about

Community Building

um that can lead you to further startup

growth

so just to you know end off a little bit

on some of the lessons that I've learned

about Community Building though is

really it's about quality over quantity

so when we first started again we're

still relatively early on in our startup

career so I would also love to see what

it is that some of you have learned in

terms of building our community and any

tips that they you have to share with

the rest of the community including

myself

um but really it's about quality over

quantity right it's not about the

numbers it's not about having a million

subscribers or anything like that

um and so one of the things that we

realized early on is that hey at some

point we have 3 000 community members

um but we pruned that to 1 000 pretty

recently and the reason we did that is

because we wanted to avoid that you know

inactive Community feel right because no

one likes it when they join a Discord or

when they join a slack and there's no

one commenting and it just makes you

feel like well what's the point of me

being here

um it takes away all of that passion you

had in this

um and that excitement that you have on

your onboarding onto a new community

right another important topic when

you're onboarding

um but it takes away that excitement

because you need that initial wow okay

I'm tied in I'm plugged in I'm a core

member they value my voice I have

something to learn and I have something

to teach and something to say right so

we actually prune our community members

to really make it more active and more

dedicated and more focused

um and that's been better not only for

our community members but it's also been

better for our own team because again

managing communities is work right and

so we really really just needed to focus

and to do that we prune our community

list

the second thing is again having Focus

so we're still two years in close to a

thousand students graduated so far but

we're still in early stage business

right and so another learning here was

having Focus I showed all six different

things of what we've tried to grow our

community and to engage our community

but we've really tried to focus on just

a core few right because to do something

well you need to have focus on doing it

well and we're all resource constrained

in some sort of way and so here I would

say my learning or our learning was that

hey building a great Community requires

Focus requires delivering impact at

depths and to do that we can't do it all

right and so let's determine a few that

we want to do let's measure that let's

understand the metrics that we're trying

to change with those initiatives and

let's make sure that it's working and

then the last thing is that it's not

about you right it's not about us it's

not about us on this Community Learning

call right it's about our community

members and it's about the value that

we're delivering to them and it's about

how they can grow with us and with one

another

um and so that was another thing that we

had to learn you know we initially first

viewed this list of 3 000 Discord

members as well okay this is a customer

list but that's actually not true right

ultimately you're not using this list as

oh you know we need this so we're going

to Ping them for that and they love us

so they're gonna do it no it's about

constantly engaging them it's about

providing them with value with tips with

advice making them feel like they're

valued again that is really going to

drive long-term Community Effectiveness

and cohesiveness for you as a startup

um and so those are the three lessons

that we have learned as well and so with

that I just wanted to wrap up because

you know we're already at like the 25 30

minute Mark

um always open for any questions I love

anything Community Building wise and I

have so many other examples that I

wanted to list but couldn't But

ultimately just wanted to say have fun

you know the community building

experience is meant to be a fun one

because you're not just building it for

them again it's not just about them it's

actually also about you right it's about

being an integrated component of your

community and it's about showcasing that

passion

um with one another and making them feel

like you're one of them and that's

really the most effective way to grow so

again have fun

um and definitely reach out to me or

anyone else if you have any questions so

with us that wraps up my community

presentation

is from the audience I think yeah we're

very very helpful

um yeah a lot to digest you know thank

you so much

time for putting that together I think

Community is one of those things that a

lot of companies and star founders try

to figure out that they don't end up

solving it or they kind of lose their

motivation

I think your presentation is really

great for kind of inspiring people to

actually rethink community in a

different manner I'm definitely going to

be taking a look at this stuff away from

it all right we're going to dive deep

into the questions

um I don't know you got like over

ridiculous amount of questions in here

so I don't know how many of these we can

kind of go through let's try the five to

ten till the top of the hour and leave

some time for networking

um all right I'm just gonna bring these

up on stage um folks please be your

question to the Q a part look at the

existing questions upload it because I'm

going to go through the more the most

popular ones all right uh so hail from

London's asking I feel like this is a

philosophical question but does

community come first or product

you know all these product managers they

would love this question but uh do

curious to know your thoughts

um so I sort of would think about where

you are in your startup building phase

so for example if you've yet to begin

um building a community is really a

great source of understanding where your

first initial customers are coming from

right and so before you build anything

um and also keep in mind that I was

previously a product manager so I think

about everything when it comes to a

product mindset in terms of developing

product so again before you build

anything you need to know that your

customers want it right so it's not

about building what you want it's about

building what customers want and so in

that case having a community having that

customer list having that initial list

of even 10 people is a great way to

understand that okay okay what I'm

building actually makes sense

right so in this case I would say it's

sort of like a chicken and egg right

whereas if you're

further in your face so let's say you

already have a product right again part

of product building part of startup

building is constant iteration so one

thing that you're always going to want

to understand is okay well I've built

this thing is it effective and is it

moving the metrics that I want it to

move how do you know that you know that

by engaging your users and your

customers and so again who are your

customers and your users part of that

could be your community members

um so it's sort of hard to answer

necessarily but that's sort of how I

would approach it

um the other thing that's interesting to

note here and I highly recommend people

look into is community-led growth versus

product-led growth right again

community-led growth is one where hey

you leverage a lot of Word of Mouth the

things that I've explained product LED

growth is when hey your product is so

good and your services are so great that

it continues to generate the same thing

so in reality they actually quite tie

into one another right you have products

and services and you have customers for

them and it's just a matter of where

exactly you feel like your strengths are

and what it is that you want to do

um and to wrap up this answer the third

thing I would also note is understanding

your responsibilities and your um your

strengths as a founder or as a team

right if you feel like you have team

members that are really all about

community building and that's where

you're passionate about

um perhaps starting with community and

being able to discuss some of that and

sort of like getting these customer

insights is the way to go whereas if you

have a really technical minded team

where they're building fast and they're

down to experiment and they're down to

Pivot and switch

maybe Building Products should be the

thing that you're actually starting with

so a bunch of things that can determine

your strategy so hopefully that helps a

little bit

I think that was a great response um

very very insightful I would love to add

to it but you know I just want to thank

you to these questions and then maybe

towards kind of give our two cents at F5

because I feel like at fiber in a

similar boat we're trying to be more

Community Driven and hence the reason

for these type of events and stuff

um let's bring up the next question from

BJ from Ann Arbor he's asking how do you

incentivize people

to join your community without spending

a ridiculous amount of money or well

should you be spending like actual money

on it as well so what are your thoughts

on that

so just for reference our community we

have spent

oh I don't want to say zero dollars

because we have given out a few swag

boxes to Great community members but

generally it has been a zero dollar

initiative

um the only thing that we've mainly been

spending on is employee time right like

team member time to facilitating some of

these conversations or making sure that

the community is filled with high

engagement impactful content so that's

just a reference from us now

I would say that the way to do it is

really to think about the I guess the

personal reasons why someone would join

your community right at the end of the

day we develop startups to solve a

problem but those problems might be

service level because at the you know

when you dig deeper into every single

problem there's a personal response or a

personal reason for each of them right

so I find that the best way to

incentivize people is tapping into that

personal desire so as an example for us

we run a online training program we do

that by running really Hands-On

collaborative

live learning boot camps right so that's

what we do why do customers come to us

they come to us because they don't know

product management and they want to

learn or they want to build an MVP and

they don't know how right or they find

online courses right now too theoretical

but that's that's just the surface level

of what it is that they want to do right

if you dig a little bit deeper what they

actually want is okay well they feel the

sense of imposter syndrome right they're

switching careers they've never had that

experience before they want to find a

place where they feel like they belong

and that they have the tools to success

already within them they want to feel

like their perspectives are valid and

that they have what it takes right and

so when you get to that third level it

becomes really easy to speak to

someone's personal desires it becomes

easy to say hey we're a community not

just for career switchers looking to

break into Tech we're a community for

people that really want to showcase to

others that they can achieve their

dreams right they want to make a change

in their family's lives lives and they

want to support other people in doing

that so when you actually dig into the

emotional problem that they're solving

it becomes a lot easier to say hey join

our community if you believe in that

mission you're going through it yourself

and eventually you're going to be on the

other side so come now and help us help

other people do the same thing right we

all want to make impact in our lives

some of us might not have a direct path

to knowing how right thinking about the

instant pot example they're community

members yeah you know I make a few memes

Etc but that's their way of Storytelling

right that's their way of showing what

it is that they've learned and helping

others along the way

um and so some of these are examples of

how you can also not spend a bunch of

money but still bring in

um

true fans and people that are willing to

help one another by digging deeper

yeah these are great responses I'm so

glad this is being recorded because I

think for a lot of people they need to

kind of go back and revisit your answers

but I think yeah you have so much

knowledge in this space it's great

um let's do a few more just to hang on

and maybe I'll try to burn through some

decent lightning rounds but uh Gora is

from Mumbai is asking how do you build a

community for B2B products and we've had

two or three questions in in the chat

here about hey I'm medical devices I'm

doing something that's a little bit more

enterprisey like what would your

thoughts be on this or suggestions I

would say

um so the first thing that I would say

is actually again we have a bunch of B2B

Founders In This Very conversation so if

you have an answer definitely toss it in

the chat as well

um because again a core aspect of

building Community is realizing that

it's not just the speaker having the

answers it's that us as a community

we're all here for one thing we're

passionate about building community so

let's help one another build that

community so that's the first thing I

would say

um the second thing that I would say is

that I've noticed a lot of B2B companies

building Community initially starting

with again their customers right so if

you're an Enterprise sales or like if

you're doing Enterprise sales you have

Enterprise companies already if they're

open to it because again there's privacy

concerns when it comes to B2B as well so

that's one thing to note

um if they're open to it you can get

them together to do information sharing

conversations right so again helping

connect your customers so that they can

help one another and become more

embedded in your products ecosystem the

other thing I would say is you can go

one level beyond that right you don't

need to be a oh you know I'm a medical

device company and I do this specific

thing and I've built this community

around doing the specific thing for my

company right you can go one step above

of saying okay well we're a medical

devices company but here's our goal

right our goal is to

reduce pollutants in the air for people

at hospitals I'm just making something

up right but there's going to be a lot

of companies and ultimately a lot of

people and a lot of organizations that

are going to be interested in that they

don't particularly need to use your

product to do that right but now you're

tapping again into a personal more

emotional desire for what it is that

they're trying to do right and again

this gives you as the community Runner

it doesn't mean that everyone is going

to use your company or go through your

company or be a customer but it

establishes you as a brand that they

trust right it gives you brand Authority

and it also gives you access to this

community of people that again might not

be your customers right now but maybe

they can eventually be your customers

and all of that opens up doors as well

to what it is that you can ultimately do

for your startup um so I would probably

think about it as like two different

tiers

awesome thanks uh once again great

response so the next three questions

let's try to keep them uh liking round

or just as a little bit briefer because

I think they're really important and

then we can kind of break out for

networking because I don't think we will

have full time uh all right let's go

what do you do about the haters in your

community you know and all the people

that are saying they're passing the

negative you just ban them and move on

do you try to do a retro and figure out

what's going on

what are your thoughts

so in this case I would say that

um a community again it should have your

core fans that doesn't mean your fans

won't have feedback right

um in this case again depending on the

size of your company and also where this

community is held one having an approach

where you can hop on a call with them

right like if they're giving you

feedback again any feedback is a gift

you want people to give you feedback and

if they're bad that's an opportunity for

you to grow and learn just like the

instant pot example

um but I would also think about whether

again if they're willing to really like

drag you through the mud whether that's

a community right because that doesn't

really sound like true fans maybe that's

just a space where they're connecting

and conversing and maybe that should be

an indicator to you that hey you need

another place where you can actually

filter through some of this and bring in

the people that are there to help you

right that are intertwined with the

mission

um so I would think about some stuff

like that I also know some groups have

just deleted those comments

um I would prefer not to do that mainly

because like transparency which is why I

highly recommend just responding to them

anyway and being like hey I want to

learn right because again that's a good

practice for other future prospective

members of your community to acknowledge

that hey this organization I can trust

them they're willing to hear feedback

and they're willing to build what it is

that we need them to build

yeah great response um all right Reena

from Toronto is asking how do you prune

your community members

um this is based on engagement and

actually without actually offending them

you just put them up the platform if

they're inactive after three months or

what's your

suggestion there

yeah so for anyone using Discord there's

actually a prune function so it actually

tells you if they've engaged opened read

anything within the last X days

um and so usually if they haven't

responded or seen anything in 30 days we

will prune them now are they offended

perhaps but you know what they can

always email us to join and so far

nobody has emailed us right actually two

or three people probably have to be let

back into the community which we've let

them right with a caveat that hey we're

trying to keep this community really

active really engaging and so if you're

there we will expect you to actually

participate so that is what we have done

other things that you can do that let's

say you're pruning your community

newsletter right this is as easy as

running like a re-engagement campaign

sending them something like again you

can tell who has open who has read and

all of those other details

um it's also important to prune your

newsletter mainly because it affects

your deliverability over time so doing

that we send a re-engagement campaign

hey you haven't responded in so and so

we noticed that you haven't been

interested in doing something like that

um overall though I would say that

people who haven't been engaging

generally don't care and so I would not

let that be a reason for not keeping the

core community members people that are

actually giving value and just

prioritizing them instead

I love it that's a great response all

right last but not least this is a very

good question by Casper

how do you measure impact of your

community on your business uh

but on that yeah so the first thing is

that again understanding where Community

fits into your strategy because I'm sure

as startup owners Founders operators Etc

we can spend so much time on just

defining the kpis and metrics right

right and that's time that's spent away

from your startups so again depending on

where which stage you're in that's an

important thing to actually understand

um number two so if you're running a

community on Discord like we are there's

not a lot of really great built-in tools

that help you measure engagement

right but if you're using another tool

like a circle or you know there's

focused Community Management platforms

that will give you high level details

that you need so things like number of

conversations started right daily active

users who's logging on who's connecting

with one another

um those are platforms some there are

some platforms where those features are

actually built in and I would highly

recommend tapping into that if you've

decided that community-led growth is a

core part of your strategy

um for us again we've noticed that in

the early stages understanding where

customers were coming from through some

of our lead forms that was the easiest

way to measure nowadays I'll be honest

it becomes really hard to measure return

on investment right because we're having

students meet up in person and connect

with each other at conferences that we

don't know of until we see a LinkedIn

post

um and it's not worth our time as an

organization to go out and message

everyone was like oh have you done this

this week right and so that's just a

caveat that for us it's faster for us to

actually just hey every week we've done

this here's been the number of comments

here's the people that we're noticing

have been engaging let's make sure that

we call them out on our newsletter and

showcase them and connect them with each

other

um and for return on investment let's

just continue to see how well is our

referral program working right before it

was over 85 now a great source of our

um Learners are coming from other

channels right so that's an example of

huh you know you could say that well the

community initiative isn't actually

working you could also say that oh we

found other ways of growing right and so

it really is a hard question to answer

um but that's sort of how we've done it

no that's great

um Hello thank you so much that's you've

been an awesome uh instructor and host

for today's webinar you've answered

those questions amazingly

um you know we hit about

459 people at one point right now we

still have 268 people so I'm sure a lot

of folks and plus we another few hundred

will get this recording uh so you know

thank you so much for taking the time as

you can see at the bottom you're getting

a lot of

uh just before we wrap up here and open

up for networking any final thoughts for

the audience on like

um just just parting wisdom

um pardon wisdom wise I feel like I've

said a lot but again ultimately have fun

um have fun in delivering value to your

audience or your community and in return

they will give you so much as well right

it really is a reciprocal relationship

that you're building

um but just remember that it is not up

to you to be the node right it's about

passing on that baton and knowing that

the mission that you instill goes far

beyond whatever it is that we're doing

in this very moment

um so outside of that though again I'll

be sharing a bunch of resources well one

I know this deck is going to go out to

you guys

um but in the next few days I think I'll

also make a lot of posts on my LinkedIn

about other resources and just lessons

that I've learned because this has been

a good experience for me as well to

reinforce some of what I've experienced

um so definitely connect with me on

LinkedIn and feel free to reach out

there if you have any other questions

and also to reach out with one another

as well so thank you all so much for

tuning in and um sharing time with me

thanks so much and I do encourage

everyone do follow Helen she does post

some awesome stuff from videos to memes

and I remember I remember the one you

did on the Apple Vision one that was

that was pretty cool

um okay we'll wrap up here folks

um we're in the session you'll kind of

see a bunch of tables feel free to jump

onto the table and talk to each other uh

Helen thank you so much and then

everyone enjoy the rest of your

afternoon evening or

good night