In this podcast episode, Gina Bianchini answers a listener’s question about growing a community for first‑time mothers. She argues that the most successful paid communities are built around people who are in a state of transition—new parents, recent graduates, career‑switchers, etc.—because they are highly motivated to connect, engage, and pay. She outlines a simple formula for identifying an ideal member: focus on the people you enjoy interacting with and who energize you. She stresses that niching on a group that is already comfortable with their current situation leads to low enrollment, whereas targeting those undergoing change creates clear demand for results. Gina illustrates the concept with examples, such as attracting early‑career marketers who later draw in senior executives as mentors and sponsors. She then promotes the People Magic platform (built on Mighty Networks) as a tool that lets creators launch courses, memberships, challenges, and events all in one place, enabling them to scale their community without the endless content‑creation grind. The episode concludes with an invitation to listeners to adopt this transition‑focused, People‑Magic‑enabled approach to break out of stagnation and build thriving, paid communities.
If you pick a niche where you focus on people who are happy with where they are, they're not going to join and they're certainly not going to pay you money. The people that are going to show up at your event have one thing in common.
Dear Gina, I have a community for first-time mothers that I'm having a hard time getting off the ground. Everything I see online says to niche down, But I'm worried I will alienate potential members if I get too specific. What do I do?
The first, and I would argue probably the most important piece, it is your ideal member. And it turns out that there is a relatively simple formula for identifying your ideal member. Now, a lot of people out there talk about it as like, pick your niche, then figure out who your ideal customer is. Some of that's true, but here's what I've found to be the easiest thing in the world. Number one is figure out who you like and who brings you energy and who you would be excited to bring together and help in ways that they're not even thinking about. That is your ideal member. Now, here is the formula in terms of how do you get your first members? How do you get your first customers? You want to start with human beings. But then the second and most important piece, the people who join paid communities, the people who buy online courses, the people who participate in challenges, the people that are gonna show up at your event, the most motivated of them have one thing in common. They are in transition. So human beings in transition are absolutely the people to focus on. When you are launching, whether it's a course or a membership or a challenge or event. A niche is great, but if you pick a niche where you focus on people who are happy with where they are, they're not gonna join and they're certainly not going to pay you money. The people who are in transition are the most motivated to meet people like them. Whether that's new dads, whether that's people who just moved to a new city and just graduated from college and are looking to meet their 20-something era friends, or whether it's the people that are meeting each other because they're all starting in the same industry together or they're exploring sobriety together. People join communities, they take courses, they participate in challenges, and they show up at events When they are in transition. It's also when people are the most comfortable and the most justified in terms of showing up, engaging, and also paying money. What's great about people in transition as well, you have the best opportunity to really clearly provide them clear results. They actually want to go from where they are to a new place. And your community is going to help them get there faster, better, in a more energizing and joyous way than anything else they can do. So would you rather go to a party and meet people on the same path who are excited to meet you, or sit around and watch more videos? Now, you might say sit around and watch more videos, especially if it's videos of me, but— That is the wrong answer. When you are able to go to an amazing party with amazing people who are on the same path, you're going to learn more, you're going to have more fun, you're going to have more energy, you're going to be inspired, and you're going to accomplish the things that you could only dream of accomplishing. It's a no-brainer. When you focus in on an ideal member who is a human in transition, they are the core of your community. And they bring in other people. So you can always expand out from the people that are in transition. I'll give you an example. One of the things I see a lot is people who show up as hosts of Mighty Networks who want to bring together people in the C-suite, so executives at companies and executives in marketing or user experience design or lumberjacking. When you focus on people who are really experienced and who already have their network, you hear a lot of times, well, they don't have time for a new community. They're not interested in a membership. And what tends to happen is the person who's the host, that might be you, oh gosh, nobody wants to join a community. That is simply not true. If you go to the up up-and-coming marketing executives. If you go to the people who are just starting off in their marketing career, they are highly motivated to join your community and to create people magic. Then what happens is that you have an incredibly engaged community. And you know those same C-suite people, those same executives, who couldn't be bothered with a community of their own. Well, guess what? They're actually probably going to show up to speak at events and be a part of mentoring those up-and-comers. They're probably also going to be excited about what you're doing and how you're doing it and potentially even sponsor it because they love what is happening in this community and the fact that that next generation is going to be able to navigate Their careers together. That's invaluable. And it's all because you focused in on the people who are the most motivated to meet each other, the most motivated to pay, and the most valuable to each other. They're the most likely to help each other. And when you look at what's possible, then sky's the limit. So if you are successful and you're hungry to level up, People Magic could be the next tool in your toolbox. Because what we see regularly at Mighty is people coming in with successful online courses, ready to launch a paid membership, ready to pull their challenges in, be able to launch events, and to do so all on the same platform. In a way that's just not possible anywhere else. So if you're ready to level up, you are absolutely in the right place and you too will be able to take full advantage of People Magic. What I'm gonna show you could be those aha moments that are gonna allow you to break out of the rut that you're in, the exhaustion, the trying to build an audience when you're not exactly sure how to do it. And it just feels like it's like a tsunami of content that you're supposed to create every single day. And if you're at all feeling like you're moving further and further away from your goals and you're just about to give up, you are in the right place because I wanna at least offer you a different approach. I'm Gina. This is People Magic. Until next time.
