Creator Interviews: Gina Bianchini; create a way for people to have their own network effect

Hey, hey, you're listening to the Level Up Creators Podcast. Amanda Northcutt here, founder and CEO. We help creators and digital thought leaders like you turn your knowledge and experience into rock-solid recurring revenue, and we are so glad you're here. Welcome. Today we're talking about the future of AI and membership communities with our distinguished guest, Gina Bianchini, the CEO and founder of Mighty Networks, a digital business platform that powers what it calls people magic. Which we'll dig into in just a minute. Gina is the author of the 2022 Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Purpose: Design a Community and Change Your Life, and has a really impressive career history as a successful entrepreneur. Importantly, Mighty is trusted by brands from TED to Tony Robbins, Mel Robbins, no relation by the way, Marie Forleo, Jim Kwik, Fortune, and soon to be Level Up Creator School. So I'm so excited to have you today. Uh, welcome, Gina.

Thank you for having me.

I'm pumped to have this conversation. We're pumped to about to be on the Mighty Networks platform, which I think this episode might air by the time we have that all in place.

I mean, could it be, could it be better?

So serendipitous.

No, I don't think so.

All right. So our listeners have a little bit of background. You and I met at Craft and Commerce, which is ConvertKit's annual conference in June of 2024. We are recording this at the end of August in 2024 and kind of realized on day one that we were sort of cut from the same cloth and just really hit it off, which is an amazing thing to happen at a conference. And our approaches to business and serving our customers are remarkably similar. And so, again, so pumped to have this conversation with you today. I hope our listeners get a tremendous amount of goodies from it and actionable takeaways. So, let's get started. Let's do it. First off, how do you define community? And is your definition different from social media or other platforms?

Yeah, so the answer is yes. So taking a step back, the reason I am obsessed with kind of what is sort of generally known as community is because I think that the role for community in people's lives is super important. It's, you know, as human beings, we are made for community. And that the power of technology to actually make that Opportunity for community, the way that we as human beings are meant to live in community and work in community and achieve results and transformation in community, is just profound. However, we live and work at a time and a place where community has been genericized to mean any large group of people. And the true accurate definition of community is one where people are able to meet and build relationships with each other. And I take it one step further. And what we do at Mighty Networks is take it one step further to what is called, at least in Silicon Valley, a network effect. And a network effect basically is the dynamic that is how Instagram became Instagram, LinkedIn became LinkedIn, Twitter became Twitter, Facebook became Facebook. And it's that— and this is super, super valuable to know and understand, which is that when you create a network that gets more valuable to every member with each new person who joins and contributes, which is only possible if you're actually getting people to talk to each other.

Yeah.

That is what is going to drive extraordinary engagement. What happens when you have extraordinary engagement? It's how you get retention. People stick around. They have lots more reasons to come back. They have lots more ways of getting value than just your content alone. And then what happens if they keep coming back? Well, they're probably gonna build new practices and, you know, change the habits that they wanted to change by becoming a member of a community in the first place. They're going to learn the thing that they want to learn. They're going to try the things that they want to try. And then they achieve results that are otherwise impossible to get on your own. And they're doing it alongside people that they're getting insights from, people that they're learning from. We learn from stories, experiences, and ideas of other people. More than we learn from one person's content alone. And then the final piece comes in, which is what happens— like, Amanda, what happens when you achieve something you didn't think that you could achieve and somebody helped you do that?

Hmm.

Probably talk about it. Probably talk about it to a lot of people. Probably talk about it to a lot of people and like will follow up and be like, you need this too. And so this, this opportunity to start thinking about building community less as I'm the hero or the creator of the community, and more I am the host of the community, where the whole purpose is not to consume my content, but rather to meet other people, to create the scaffolding to meet and build relationships with other people so that you get extraordinary engagement, amazing retention, because people come back and have lots more reasons to come back to get results that then drives that flywheel of new people coming in and them also having amazing results. That's how we have big tech. That is how— it's not some evil system. It is literally what I just described. It is the fact that when you're building a network effect, you are able to create something Something radically more valuable than what you can do when you are an individual creator who is building an audience. And that's not to say that an audience is not valuable, but first of all, you don't have to build an audience before you have a network effect. And the network effect leapfrogs the value and has all sorts of other benefits.

Yeah. I mean—

We call it Google magic because whenever I say network effect, and this probably happened actually right here, Amanda, which is your eyes glaze over and you're like, what is she talking about? If you can create people magic and use software to do it, you can create 6, 7, 8-figure businesses with 99% profit margins because your people are coming together. And the value that you have created is not producing a lot of content, but it's raising your hand and being like, I'm the host of this thing. I'm going to bring people in and then I'm going to get those people to meet and build relationships with each other. And then I'm going to get them to go talk about it to other people. So, I don't even have to be a good marketer.

Yeah, it's a great virtuous cycle of value, feedback, people spreading the word through other social media platforms. I mean, it's not just like talking to a friend in the coffee shop anymore, one person. It's shouting from the proverbial digital rooftop of their Instagram account and LinkedIn accounts and everything like that. And I don't know, do you know the original person who said people come for the content but stay for the community? Who coined that phrase?

I feel like, you know, I, I think the first time that I saw it And he was definitely saying it about somebody else had said it was Hunter Walk, who's a friend of mine from, from business school, um, who's an investor now in, in Silicon Valley. But I, I, I agree, and I will take it one step further. Come for the content, stay for the community is phase 1. Phase 2 is your members inviting other people, and so it's come for the other people.

Yeah.

And get some content.

Yeah.

And content becomes the— it just becomes the scaffolding for things people do together.

Totally. Yes. Emphatically, yes. And I mean, it's amazing how the power of a host, a creator, and now I think I would even say people come for the creator and stay for the community and the content's over here. Maybe they come for access to the creator, to be more specific. But yeah, you're absolutely right that, I mean, we talk about core content is sort of the stable foundational content within a membership community. It's available 24/7, 365. You add to it over time if that's the vibe of your membership or you need to continue adding content. But yeah, it's these amazing connections that are happening between individuals and even like on a peer coaching level. It's just amazing how, um, small the globe is now that we have amazing pieces of technology like Mighty Networks. So kudos.

Well, this is the other thing to, to think about as well. So yes, it's like come, You know, come for the content, stay for the community. Increasingly, though, what's the size of that community? Well, you can have 10 people. That's just a— that's a party. And that is a— the stories, experiences, and ideas, not advice, the stories, experiences, and ideas of other members does not require you to create a lot of content to get people there in the first place. Yeah.

Yeah, that kind of like minimum viable product. Obviously it's different depending on what the nature and again, vibe of your community is, what your value proposition is, what the transformation is. But yeah, getting people in the door and having 10 people in the community, especially if you don't have like a big social media following, I count that as a win. That's a great jumping off point from which you can build. And then you've got, you know, this group of customer evangelists who are again shouting from the digital rooftops about the amazing things that you're doing.

That's right.

And if you're starting with a small group, you have the opportunity for this like One-on-one help in a small group setting, which I think magnifies the impact that you're able to have with those individuals and therefore the likelihood that they are to be angels for your brand.

And also the individuals having with each other. So this is also where it's like, it's less about you and it's more about you as the host or facilitator. And so it, once you make the, the shift to how am I creating these relationships between people? That is where I see creators over and over and over again feel like the clouds just parted, the sun is shining down on them, and it's like, oh my gosh, this is different. This is different because in social media we're told, we're told we have to post 8 to 10 times a day. And then, you know, not only are you having to post 8 to 10 times a day, and that's how people are getting to know you and you're building your personal brand and all of this stuff, it, it, you know, my joke is the only reason I'm on social media doing all of this stuff to produce this content is to get people to see that they don't have to actually be on social media producing all this content. Um, but the thing that I think is, is really important is even as you're thinking about your, your content being there 365. The thing that's so interesting about us as human beings is that the opportunity to talk to other people tends to be more valuable than content. And I'll take it even one step further. So many times I've seen this now over and over. I saw it all the time during the pandemic, especially, which is that in, in a In a world that you believe values content over relationships, what's the most valuable thing you can do? Well, create a lot of content. And then seek to market that content. So it's, I have 10 hours of video workshops. Doesn't that feel, as a creator, like it's really, really valuable to somebody? It's like, look at what I did. I took all of my knowledge, I took all of the things that are amazing to me, and I put them into 10 hours of video workshops.

Yeah.

What I have seen, unfortunately, is on the other side, somebody is like, kind of like the stack of National Geographic magazines or like New York Times.

Aspirationers.

Yeah, where they're just like, oh, that's awesome. And it feels actually hard. And it feels like you're— it has almost the opposite impact than you intended to. And there's something in there that I haven't sort of cracked the code on how do we have this conversation where that the difference, and then somebody's like, but wait, I had 10 hours of, you know, video workshops. It's like, well, somebody else saw that as like a negative, not a positive. And then the worst feeling in the world, which happens to me more than I would like to admit, is wait, so I just went and did all of that work. And it actually had the exact opposite effect.

Yeah.

That I, then, then why I invested my time and energy into it. Not fun. Not fun.

Yeah, no, that's not, that's not a great feeling. I mean, I think most people are familiar with the statistic now that between like both free and paid courses, more than 90% of people do not complete the course that they picked up for free or purchased. And so that's kind of like a mind-boggling statistic. Uh, so yeah, the community events. Uh, I mean, we're all also, I'm sure, familiar at this point with statistics on loneliness and Gina, I was catching up on, uh, some of your podcast episodes over the last week or so. And you cited some really unnerving statistics about loneliness in our society. And so, like Gina is saying, the opportunity to serve as the host and the curator of community and bringing like-minded people together who are at the same, to use your word, Gina, transition point, who are, you know, feeling the same pains and desiring the same sort of like value outcomes and transformation. It's an incredibly powerful position to be in, and in a way that is— that should feel humbling and like an honor, like to serve as that sort of like community curator and relationship connector, right?

For sure. It's so fun. I think that's the part that kind of gets missed, is just how much joy and sense of impact you can have when you've brought people together that take your ideas and run with them. And I think that it's different than what we tell ourselves about content. What we tell ourselves about content. There's something really— we are meant to live in community. Human beings are social animals. And there's, there's a reason that, you know, we learn the best from the stories of other people. Yes.

Oh my gosh, we could get into all sorts of science in that regard. We all, we all learn so much more effectively through narrative and through storytelling and through personal experience. And so yeah, the, again, ability to curate Like-minded people who are kind of in the same, going on the same path, connecting them with one another, serving as that host, being the facilitator, and teaching can be again with both from the host to members and also from member to member. I think is so cool. I want to ask you a question. So you have an amazing career already behind you. I mean, like you're decades in the making of this incredible, incredible story of a career. You already have a bestselling book. You have a wildly successful company. You do purposeful work, which is really cool. And you bet on membership communities a long time ago. I mean, really, maybe it wasn't sort of in its infancy in Silicon Valley, but I think to the rest of the world in, you know, the late or early 2010s, late 2000s, like that was pretty damn new, right? That was, that was a pretty different thing. I worked at a membership community starting in 2000 and 5 is when I started in this, what is now called creator economy. Uh, but I wasn't aware of more than 10 other membership communities on the entire internet. But you put all your chips on the table toward membership communities a long time ago. So I wanna, I wanna unpack that a little bit. How did, how did you arrive at that conclusion that this was the right move?

Yeah, so I, always valued community. And I just happened to be in and amongst a very small group of people in Silicon Valley who were exploring and experimenting with the earliest user-generated content, the earliest social networks. So this is Reid Hoffman, Marc Andreessen, Mark Pincus, the PayPal team.

Yeah.

And They were friends of mine. And so, what was really clear was that people love people. People love people. This was at the very earliest shift from kind of Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, which was about people connecting with people. And it just made sense to me. And then in pretty short order, One of my other friends, Marc Andreessen, was really interested around the idea of, can we create almost a website builder for social applications? So, in the same way that the web browser was what unlocked the ability for anybody to create websites, could we create an equivalent of a platform for social applications? That could unlock people's creativity, the idea that millions of flowers bloom, and also that the fundamental belief that the world bends towards decentralization, it bends towards all of the niches and transitions and unique ways of being able to do things in the world. And so that's What Mark and I founded in our, in our company Ning. And what was clear was that the first version didn't actually work. It wasn't a developer platform. It was for normal people who could create their own social networks at a time and a moment where they had fallen in love with MySpace and Facebook had not actually like launched to the world yet.

Yeah.

And I fell in love with people's creativity, people's creativity, their joy, their, you know, in many cases did not fall in love with this piece, but like people are messy. They, you know, people can be dark. But what I saw running a platform of nearly 100 million people around the world, 3 million Ning networks created for every conceivable interest and passion and goal, and about 300,000 of those were active on a monthly basis. People are awesome. That when you net it out, people are creative, they are interesting, they love meeting each other. And if anything, the kind of winner-takes-all dynamics of what happened next, I looked at that, you know, in terms of like, Facebook, in terms of Instagram, in terms of these major platforms, I looked at that and I said, okay, that's a big nut, but I still believe long-term that the world bends towards people's creativities. The world bends towards niches. The world bends towards communities that I want to live in a world where somebody opens their phone and there's 5 or 6 different communities where they're actually able to meet other people around a common interest, around a transition that they're in, in their lives, moving to a new city, starting a new school, you know, becoming a manager for the first time, becoming a parent for the first time, grieving loss early, celebrating the wins and the joys of— People coming together around the things they love. And I made a decision that I really did not care what felt inevitable. I didn't care what felt impossible. I was going to bring a team together and we were going to create a way for people to have their own network effect. That thing that created these amazing communities. And fast forward, and it turns out that the missing piece technologically to being able to let anybody in the world start with 10 people and let the software get to work surfacing the most relevant people to each other, even with 10 people, what are the things you have in common? Who's near each other? Who's like each other? Who cares about the same thing? When you think about a host of a great party or the facilitator of a great workshop, they have 2 things that we now have with software: data about who's in the room and natural language. So now imagine that instead of being, thinking about AI, for example, as just something that's there to produce mediocre content to slap up on social media so that you can post 8 times a day and not You know, become completely depleted as a human being because it's not natural.

This is not—

community is natural to people. Social media is not natural to people. So that is the vision for Mighty Networks. The vision is how do we use advanced technology? How do we use advanced technology that includes AI to create amazing experiences for people so that anybody can be an amazing host? Anybody can make those introductions because software can see patterns and see connection points that increasingly it gets harder and harder for us to do as human beings, like especially as communities scale.

Oh yeah.

And then what, you know, ultimately becomes the, the really the holy grail of what we're building is how does the software get smarter and smarter so that You know, again, you as the host or you as the creator can invite 10 people in, give them an incredible experience just from the relationships that they're building with each other, and that each of them bring in 2 more people. Because if we do that, everything grows. And so now, as a creator, you get to be a human being first and foremost. You get to do the things you love. You get to If you're a great marketer, you get to do more marketing. And if you're a terrible marketer and that's not where you get joy and energy, you don't have to do it because the software's doing it for you. And that's how even today in, in, and we're just getting started on this, even today, it's why we are able to help people get, you know, hundreds of thousands and million-dollar launches and run their mighty networks with 99% margins because the community is running itself. And that's only going to get more and more real for more and more people.

Let's talk about this a little bit more. Well, first, okay, we've had like, we've talked about 20 minutes about, I mean, just the amazing benefits of a creator starting a community, becoming a host, becoming that linchpin in this community of connecting people, relationships, building relationships between each other, network effects. Let's distill this down into like maybe it's top 3 to 5 points. What are the core tenets of the most successful communities on the internet? Like what are the bullet points?

I think the most interesting thing about community is that as a creator of a community or a host of a community, you really, you really need to understand And be very clear about one thing, one thing, and everything else gets really easy if you're clear on this one thing, which is who, who are the people you serve and specifically what is the transition that they are going through? Where are they and where do they want to go? The biggest challenge of creating community Is the answer being, but wait, there's so many ways that I want to apply my ideas. Won't I get bored of serving just this one kind of person going through this one kind of transition? I don't know anybody who's in— ooh, I almost dropped my glass here. I didn't.

You did not.

I don't know anybody who's in that transition, yet I want to create a community about that. Um, those are things that I have heard out of people's mouths having done this as, as long as I've done this. And it, you know, when you can be really clear about the people you serve and where they're starting and where they want to go. So I break it out into your ideal member. That's the person who wants or needs your community the most right now, where right now is in all caps. And then what will be their best year ever? And it's just a fun, better, more interesting way of thinking about what are the results and transformation that they want and are joining for. And the reason that you want to really stay focused on somebody going through a transition and being really clear about the results and transformation or their best year ever is because that gives you the foundation to be able to go and talk to people about it.

A paid membership. Controversial statement: people are all you need. You do not need a course. And, and we also have, you know, course and course outlines and all sorts of good stuff there, but you don't need a course. You don't need a lot of content. You want to just host members coming together. And so if it gets that easy Then you go back to, well, what's the thing you've got to actually get right? What's the thing that as a software builder and technologist, I can't help you with? I— the one thing I can't help you with— I can help you with all the other pieces, and it's only going to get more and more so— but the thing I can't help you with is picking the person that you want to serve going through a transition and having clarity around what is their best year ever. Yes. And being able to speak their language, communicate to them effectively using their own words about what that transition would mean. But that is a very interesting paradigm in terms of coming up with like core value proposition is, okay, yeah, if we know where you are, where you want to go, how we reverse engineer the process to get there and are thinking through that lens of, okay, well, that process should be building toward what is their best year ever as you know, fits within the paradigm of the community, what the value proposition is. I think that's a very interesting question. That's a really good exercise, I think, for any creator to do, to come up with—

Exactly.

Any product or service, literally, that would help with your product ladder so much.

So much easier. So much easier to do. Like, because— and I'll like— because the whole like pick your niche, well, I've been trying to pick a niche for, you know, a decade. Like, I understand niches. Like, I have, I have seen some niches. But what I realized in teaching this to over 10,000 people is that it's easy to get stuck when you're, when you're picking a niche. It's so much easier to go through the filter of who's the person and in what transition are they? Because when somebody is in a transition, like I sort of, it's sort of sad to say it this way, but it's also true of extra points for pain and suffering. But when somebody is going through a transition, they are the most motivated to join something. They are the most motivated to contribute. They are the most, you know, motivated to bring in people like them. And they are, they are the ones that are going to fuel your community and be the heart and soul of it when you're starting. So I'll just give a couple of examples of this. So what's so interesting to me is the number of people, let's just take professional professional networks, professional communities, the number of people who show up and they're like, I'm building a community for C-suite executives. And I can't figure out why the C-suite executives aren't interested in my community. So I asked a simple question of like, okay, why, you know, why aren't they interested? Well, they're really busy. Busy is code for they're not going through a transition.

Not a priority, not urgent.

And so, so then you want to take a step back and say, okay, well, who in your world is going through a transition? Well, there's 2 really interesting transitions. Number one, someone who's a mid-level manager who wants to become a CXO. Those people are hungry. And guess what happens? You get enough of them together and they're bringing in their mid-level They're mid-level folks. You've got a community. And then what happens is all those CXO people, they're like, wait a second, what's happening over there? Hmm. Yeah, I think I'd like to be a part of that. I think I want to be able to mentor or have an impact or have my legacy. And now all of a sudden, you've got them engaged. And you've got them engaged in a way that's really valuable to a larger group, larger audience. A larger community, and then what's really cool is that for those people, you know, at some point they're going to retire. Or you know what? If you're a great community that not enough people create is the community for CXOs who are excited about their next chapter, either because they're retired and they're trying to figure out how to give back. Or that they're looking for their next job. That's when people want to join things. So you just hear that it feels small, but it is the most important thing because when you play it out, even 2 or 3 years from where we're sitting right now, the software will be good enough to take care of all the community management. Full stop. It's already on its way. You will not need a community manager to run an extremely valuable six, seven, eight-figure community over the next two to three years. You will not need a staff. You will have software that is surfacing the most relevant members to each other, breaking the ice, automating the things that that you might want to. Override the software or define the software to do. And then what's going to happen is all the rest of it just becomes dynamic, dynamic meetups, like the ability for your members who are near each other to meet and, and get to know each other in person, like all of that will be taken care of by software. And, and so when you look and think about all those, you at least I spent a lot of time, you can tell, I spent a lot of time thinking about this. And so when you think about this, the thing you've got to get great at is understanding and being comfortable with the decisions that you have to make upfront for who you are going to serve and which transition they're going through. And how good are you at being able to capture what would make their best year ever? Everything else gets easy.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a great brainstorming exercise. Like take 2 hours and sit down with a notepad and pen at your favorite coffee shop or however you go about doing this and like do it. Okay, well let's talk for a second about technological advancements. So first of all, for those of you who don't know, Mighty Networks is moving more quickly than any other community platform, at least that I'm aware of, in incorporating AI-powered features. And I'm not talking about lightweight content creation stuff that ChatGPT can do for you, but So much more. And it all kind of doubles down on Gina's positioning here with like the importance of community. So Gina, tell me what's available now and what's coming down the pike and what in the world is like— further explain People Magic Profit to me and how AI fits within that.

Sure, sure, sure. So fundamentally, And this is why it's a container of both advanced software and AI. So, it's using both of those pieces. A lot of people will say, oh, it's all AI. It's not. Like, it's, you've got to, if you want to create something beyond ChatGPT or beyond Claude or beyond, you know, any of them.

Gemini, whatever.

Yeah. Gemini, whatever. The LLMs, you actually have to build additional software around it. What makes it awesome and proprietary. So, what we've done at Mighty Networks is it's all around how are we introducing people to each other, full stop. Like, how are we introducing people to each other? And so, when you think about the magic that can come from people being able to meet and build relationships with each other, that's why we call it people magic. So, it is about the connections because one of the things that has been fascinating for us is Last November, December timeframe, my data science team came to me and was like, Gina, this is really interesting. And I was like, hmm, what is really interesting? And they were like, we can predict with 93% accuracy whether a Mighty Network succeeds or fails based on one factor. And that factor was member connections. So the frequency members were at and the diversity of members DMing with each other, contributing answers to the same question, answering the same questions, attending the same events, having the same conversations, you know, being in the same conversations with each other. So we went all in on, okay, how do we Surface the most relevant members to each other? Well, number one, we want to show top members. So, you know, our version of, of gamification is not like points. It's look at, here are the most active, contributing, awesome people in this community around your interest, your passion, your goal, why you are here, the transition that, that you want to be at. Members near you. We're the only platform that has members near you, which I think is kind of weird. Um, but it's a super obvious thing from where we're sitting.

Yeah.

Then member categories. So we have sort of a, a, a V2 of that in place today. We're about to launch in about, I guess it's probably about 6 or, 6 or 8 weeks now, the second, third generation of that, which is custom fields so that you can define exactly who you want to have meet each other. And even being able to say, hey, I want people of this background to meet people of this other background. It's not just similarities. It's also, you know, how do you want to create the collisions that are so important to a community and something working in community? And then on top of that, building automations. And so if you think about what automations are, it's just a series of if-then statements. So if a member joins and they have You know, their their most popular channel is on Instagram, and they have over 100,000 followers on Instagram, and they're interested in you know how they grow from 100,000 to a million. Put them in this space over here. Like if then very simple. This is the and for those and show them this and encourage them to meet these kinds of people. You start to see how. The, the entire set of dynamics that, that you want to set up. And then also that the software that you can just rely on the software to set up and be like, hey, we got you.

Yeah.

It's incredibly powerful. Like, yeah, to the point where it's like, you know, our, our internal team at times is like, oh my God, like, that's awesome. The fact that we can do that. Holy moly, what are people going to do with this in all of the right ways? So Yeah. It's in its simplest form, it's a community that runs itself. That is, you know, again, having done this for over a decade, like that's the holy grail of community, is a community that you can set up and say, these are the people I want to have meet each other. This is the stuff I want them to do together and to have it just run. And what's beautiful about this is that the intersection and interplay between automations and AI is natural. It creates these collisions and it creates these experiences that I think increasingly will be things that unlock innovation, unlock joy, unlock value, unlock results and transformation people want to have and can't get on their own. And it's never too early to start experimenting and taking advantage of even what is there today at Mighty Networks. So today— and that's absolutely unapologetically a commercial for Mighty Networks.

Yeah.

But, you know, today what's available is members near you, members like you, These member categories, the ability to set up these automations where you can basically say, okay, if somebody is like this, I want them to meet other people like this, or I want to put them in this, again, this space to be able to take this course. Or if they have taken these X steps, then I want to unlock this, this workshop for them. All of these things are possible on Mighty today. For us though, it's all about the lens of how are your members connecting and building relationships with each other. That is what sets us apart and that will always be the thing that sets us apart.

Yep. I mean, clearly you all have like firmly planted your flag there. You've made a data-driven decision, uh, you're calling your shot. And so this will be so interesting to see what the world of creator communities look like 5 years from now. And it'll also be interesting to see the statistics that come to bear about the number of in-person, real-life IRL relationships that Mighty Networks has facilitated amongst like its communities in aggregate. I mean, that is such a powerful and again, very purposeful, like that's so purposeful and meaningful. And like, can you shift the tide on like loneliness statistics? You know, can your organization actually move the needle on that front by changing the way that content is not just consumed, on, you know, doom scrolling on social media, but actually like pulling everyone into the conversation within their favorite 3 to 5 communities. So I'm fascinated by how this is going to play out. And you've got a pretty good corner on the market. And I love where you all have planted that flag and are taking the company. I think it's very—

Well, I appreciate that. We, we're going to need all the help we can get because this is really a Big. This is a big, big bet.

Yeah.

And it's an obvious one when you start to sort of think about it. But it's also, you know, I think a few of the things that we've done that I think kind of put our values up front, you know, number one, every single person owns their Mighty Network. This is the Members own their content, but the host of the Mighty Network has a license to everything. And it's not about the value we're building. We want to build the software. We want to build the ability for a network effect in a box to happen. But you own your relationships. You own your content. You can pick it up and take it somewhere else if at any point in time it's not valuable to you. That sets up the dynamic for us to make sure that it's valuable for you and to you and to your members. Yeah. Uh, and that it's your brand, you get credit for it. Uh, and it's, it's one of the things that is, is kind of fun in my job because people are like, oh, I've never heard of Mighty Networks, but like I'm in this community from You know, called Dream Club, and it's amazing. You should really think about like taking some of the things that they're doing and bring it into your platform. I'm like, yeah, I think you're right. And and and I know that you know we are doing things so that you know you get all the credit. And you know sometimes we'll come back and be like, hey, talk about Mighty. We're you know what are we like chopped liver? But it's, it's really important to us that this is about people connecting with each other. And it turns out that it's better and easier for you as a creator to make those connections with other members, as opposed to, you know, it being about Mighty in your face all the time, and that there's some central feed in Mighty Networks that, you know, that's how somebody experiences the the community that you're creating. That's just not how we operate.

Okay, I thought of something as we're having this conversation that I want to get your opinion on. So I'm sure that you're aware that something like 90% of 16-year-olds and like thereabouts teenagers want to be content creators or influencers. Like, that's the number one job that is desirable. And so do we at some point reach a tipping point where there's Way too many hosts and too few members.

I don't think so.

We got to really niche down our marketing though. Then I mean, that feels like competition being yeah. Tell me what you thought.

I don't. I don't think so. Look, what do we want as people, as human beings? We want to be seen. We want to belong. We want to achieve. Anybody says that they don't wanna take on challenges or go on quests, they're hiding behind whatever it is they're numbing themselves against the world to. And today, if you are under 16 and you're looking around, that's what it feels like society values. And on some level, we are running a series of A/B tests on our next generation, and it's not, it's not pretty. But here's what I know to be true. I know that more people as members of communities can get those same needs met. And actually met, I would say, much more effectively. They can be seen, they can be valued, they can be aligned in a group of people taking on bigger and bigger challenges together.

And these are the things that create I hope that you all in your organization are able to communicate this to like this younger generation who feels like being that person that other people look to and who has a million followers and that, that, that is seen as the be-all end-all. It's like, nope, that's actually not going to bring you the fulfillment, um, that we know based on decades of psychological research is going to bring you. Well, I think that's a great point.

Exactly. Well, but there's, there's a wider set of things, though, that by ignoring community, and thinking that the answer lies in, in whether it's individual therapy, or, you know, individual coaching, there's a role and a place for those things. But if, if you do those things at the expense of ignoring building a community, and having people be a part of a community of other human beings, Yeah. It actually doesn't work. It just doesn't work.

Yeah.

So, that's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about community is because when you have the baseline of people being able to meet each other, and this is why software is so important to employ in this fight, in this role, in this renaissance of community, is because Number one, the, the ways that we've defined online community are rudimentary at best. Chat is not going to make you the best friends of your life. It might actually—

Social media comments.

—reinforce relationships that you already have, but it's not going to make you friends. Um, forums are actually not great for, you know, text in general is not a great way to build relationships with other human beings. That's not how our brains are wired. So, and then all of the software either is not very sophisticated because it's not that old and it hasn't had time to sort of bake and do all of the things that we're talking about. Or alternatively, it was built for people who already knew each other, built for people who already knew each other. And so that's where If you are thinking that all these things that I'm talking about are not possible because you know what a forum is like or you know what chat is like, what a community will look like and how it will operate 18 months from now, 2 years from now, will be fundamentally different in terms of the things that it will enable a group of people to do. And again, we're just getting started. Yeah, just getting started.

The next 5 years are going to be so, so interesting. It's fun to be kind of like on the ground floor of this next phase of the internet and relationships and all those kinds of things. All right, we are about out of time, but I want to talk about your podcast a little bit. So, um, your new podcast is a hit.

Duh, it's a hit. I don't, I don't say that Boastfully, I say that I'd like— I kept my mouth shut and I was like, damn, this is— I think people actually like this thing. I'm like, oh, okay, all right, that's cool.

Why do you think People Magic has resonated so much with people? Like, what's—

Honestly, I think it's because we kept every episode under 15 minutes.

Unlike this one. Yeah.

Every episode is under 15 minutes and And so you can quickly get a really good sense of how to build a digital community and a digital business.

Yeah.

And how to do it in a bit of a different way. So I'm always going to push myself to be like, okay, can I make this easier? Can I make this easier? Can I make this easier? Oh wait, could I make it even easier? And I'm not afraid to like throw something out. That could be better, even though it's you know again the precursor to People Magic Profit was community design, and that's you know over again over ten thousand people have gone through it. The podcast has actually reached a lot more people at this point, and actually did it in like a month. And in part, what has really resonated with people are some of the things that we've talked about on this on this podcast: pick a person in transition. Help capture their best year ever. Turn it into your pitch or your big purpose, and it follows a very specific formula that is going to guarantee you people are going to understand what you're trying to build. Then deliver your community with monthly themes, a weekly calendar, and daily polls and questions. And finally, put the packaging around it to be able to get people to pay with an offer, a launch, And a magical first experience. And those are the things that are going to set you up to be able to take full advantage of your own network effect, your own people magic, your own ability for you to see people meet each other and be like, oh my God, this is awesome. And not only is it getting easier and easier, which is also one of the reasons why People Magic Profit even feels easier is because it is. Fast forward 6 months and the number of things that you'll be able to do and take full advantage of just gets trivial relative to what they would have been 2 years ago, or certainly sadly even on other, you know, other community platforms today.

Yeah. And what I love about your podcast is, you know, start from the beginning if you haven't already listened to Gina's podcast, which is People Magic. How to Build a $1 Million Community. You can find that on any major podcast platform. Again, start at episode 1. It's a very like linear journey that goes into detail on like everything that we've discussed today and more. So I really appreciate your attention to, like you're saying, removing friction. Like you've created a frictionless customer journey for your customers who are hosts to then create frictionless customer journeys for their customers, the members. So I love like the sort of like meta nature.

That's the goal, man.

Of what you're doing. That's the goal.

That's what we're trying to, trying to accomplish.

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Gina. This has been such a fun and interesting conversation. I'm wondering if you have a quick parting shot. And of course, other than the podcast, where can listeners find you online?

On LinkedIn, I'm just Gina Bianchini on LinkedIn. I'm on Twitter occasionally @GinaB, and you can find me at Mighty Networks. So that's probably where I spend the majority of my time.

Awesome.

Happily, I might add.

Oh yeah. We'll, uh, we'll drop all that in the show notes as well.

Awesome.

Anything else?

Nope. That's it. All right. Thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate it, Amanda.

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