How to Build a $100,000 Online Community in 3 Easy Steps | Mighty Networks Founder

Every creator, every entrepreneur should have the ability to build their own community. It is the most valuable asset you can create, and it's the most fun for members.

I'm excited today to have Gina Bianchini. She's the founder and CEO of Mighty, and she knows communities better than anyone I know.

Communities are fueled by people going through transitions. You get those people together, they know they're a part of something special. That's where Crystallizing your pitch follows a really specific formula, which is—

What are those steps that you would take in order to turn around a community that you can see like, this is going to die?

The network effect is the solution to this problem. You want a community culture that is about, hey, I'm just here so you guys can meet each other. It's like having a party where you can go upstairs and go to bed. My team came to me with 93% accuracy. They could show whether a community would succeed or fail based on one metric.

Gina, let's say that you join a community and you know within 12 months this community is gonna be dead. What are those signs that you're noticing that like tip you off that that's gonna happen?

Yeah, so the number one tell that I see typically is learn, share, and grow. Learn, share, and grow are like 3 super important pillars of any community. that somebody is not clear in why they are bringing people together and what is the point of the community.

Yeah.

So if you are, you know, if you're for everybody, you're kind of for nobody. And so learn, share, and grow are my, is sort of my starting tell that there's a problem. Then the second thing that I'm looking for when I'm kind of analyzing a community, especially one that doesn't have a lot of engagement in it, is, What is the culture that is articulated for the community? So this is another thing that happens a lot is that people will start with all the rules. So it's like all the guidelines.

Here's what to do, here's what not to do.

But it's always what not to do. And it's also, it typically is kind of either boring or mean. And so, you know, you'd never walk into a party and basically be told, all these things that you can't do. Like, that's not actually how you get people connecting to each other.

Right.

So, you know, a community that is too generic, learn, share, and grow, a community that is too focused on trying to avoid bad behavior and not actually giving people the good behavior, like, what are the cultural norms of this community? And then the final kind of tell that I would be looking for is, is it a lot of people just giving advice? Advice shuts a community down, whereas sharing stories, experiences, and ideas, and really building a culture that is about sharing stories, experiences, and ideas expands a community and what you can actually get from people and get from it.

So we were talking before and you mentioned This one metric that you would look for and that you would judge the health of a community based on. What's that metric?

So my team came to me last December and they basically pointed out one thing. With 93% accuracy, they could show whether a community would succeed or fail based on one metric. And that one metric was not how big was the creator's audience who created the community. It wasn't the quality of the content, the number of videos in the course. It was how many members were connecting with other members, how many members were commenting, how many members were replying in the comments, how many members were DMing each other. All of those connections were what ultimately created a sustainable, durable, and high-quality community. And, and just, you know, take a step back. The reason we're talking about community, and for a lot of people, community means lots of different things. So I like to be really specific and precise in our definition. A community in our definition at Mighty Networks is a place where people can build relationships with each other. So this is not your audience on social media.

Right.

That, if you wanna call that a community, God bless, but in our definition, it's very much about the relationships between members of a community. And so if you are not building relationships between members in your community, the probability that your community will fail is significantly higher. And when we talk about communities, they are monetized through paid memberships. in this definition, in this model.

Mm-hmm.

Monetize through courses and course sales, monetize through paid challenges, monetize through events. So community means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For my definition and our definition, it is very much about what is that core product that you are monetizing as a creator. And so if you are not able to create connections and relationships between members, we even gave that a name called people magic, then the probability that your churn's gonna be really high, your engagement is going to be very low, your courses are not going to be finished, and the problem with courses that don't get finished is they're not gonna buy the next thing from you.

Right.

Goes up dramatically if you are not looking at how do you Create relationships between your members. And for a lot of people, a lot of creators, that is the afterthought to what they are building across their creator business.

Well, I think so many of us are told that, hey, if I want to make a bunch more money as a creator, you know, first I start with the ebook, then I do something else, maybe I have, then I have an inexpensive course. But really the community and the membership is the ultimate thing that I wanna launch. And then creators get there and maybe they have a successful launch, $50,000, $100,000, multiple hundreds of thousands. And it goes great for a while. And then they're like, oh, I love this recurring revenue that's coming in. I'm getting paid every single month. And this is, you know, and it's growing and this is going to be fantastic. But then what always happens is churn kicks in. Everyone talks about recurring revenue. No one talks about churn. And then you realize that without a lot of intentional effort, that community starts to die out. And so it's such a big problem. And so what I'm wondering is, in our fictional community, and maybe you can picture a community that you've observed this with, if we installed you as the community leader or the behind-the-scenes coach, something like that, what are those steps that you would take in order to turn around a community that you can see like, this is going to die?

Right. So good news, we don't have this problem as often on Mighty Networks as on other places, but—

Well, 'cause there's part of it that you've solved it with software, right? That's the amazing thing is that we can take best practices and we can put them into code and like put these guardrails on people. But yeah.

The other thing though is this is a problem I have been obsessed with for a decade.

Yeah.

A decade plus. I am a huge, and a passionate believer that founders need to be obsessed with the problem that they are solving. You are obsessed with what is communication and how does that work?

How do you build an audience?

How do you monetize an audience? How do you build an audience? Like, how do you scale alongside other creators? For me, it is how do you create a community that gets more valuable to every member with each new person who joins and contributes?

Okay, the network effect.

So that network effect, correct. And so the network effect is the solution to this problem. So fundamentally, you know that you don't have a network effect yet if you have that, you know, great, great launch and then the slow decline.

Mmhmm.

Now, here's the good news. The good news is you can't— this is actually good news that's gonna sound like bad news. You can't grind it out.

Okay.

You cannot grind it out thinking that if only I make more videos, if only I do more things, if only I offer more value of my time because I just added 4 more courses. People are drowning in data. They are drowning in content. Your content that you think is creating value for somebody is actually just creating work for them.

Hmm.

Instead, when you can create the scaffolding for them to build relationships with each other, then they now have all sorts of reasons to come back. They are coming back because you've set up these packages for them to go through together. And I'll give you some examples of that in a moment. But like, the key thing is that when you go to that place as a creator of like, my viewers value is the content that I'm creating, and therefore, if I'm going to address churn, I need to create more content. That is the wrong answer. The right answer is taking it from the top. So number one, you've got to identify who are the most motivated people. Now again, when you had your launch, you might have actually been able to bring in a lot of people who were curious, and it was the novelty of it. Great. Communities are fueled by people who are highly motivated. Well, who are the most motivated people? Turns out people going through transitions. So for example, somebody who is hungry to build a $10,000 a month email marketing business probably joined your community in the first place. If you're selling an email marketing paid membership and you're all excited because you do email marketing, so you email marketed the email marketing paid membership. I think that happens occasionally here and there.

Yes.

But fundamentally, that person is motivated because they want to go from point A, which is that they are not making $10,000 a month, to point B, which is that they are making $10,000 a month. But there are literally millions of transitions because for every transition, you also have a segment of people. So it might be a transition of how do I build a faith-based local business? And by the way, how do I become a part of a network of faith-based local businesses? Or how do I become the very best engineering manager that I can be because I'm a first-time engineering manager?

Right.

Well, that's a transition. You're not an email marketer. You're not somebody who's running a successful faith-based business. You are not somebody who is a first-time engineering manager. to you are those things. Wherever you can find and really crystallize a transition, you will attract, and the clearer you are with that transition, the more you will attract the most motivated people, and the most motivated people show up the most often.

Hmm.

They contribute the most, and they invite the most people. They are the ones that are going to be shouting from the rooftops about the results that they've been able to get. So when I'm looking at how to solve for a network that's stagnating or just needs to be refreshed, I am looking for what is the transition, is it clear enough? And then once you have that transition and it's crystallized and it feels really good and you can see that people are really, they lean in when you start to talk about it, then what do they wanna get from it? So I talk about this just because I get bored after a while, as your best year ever. Like, for your member, what would allow them to have their best year ever? Because we live in a time and a place where a little bit of exaggeration and a little bit of flair is how you're going to stand out with your value proposition.

Mm-hmm.

So identifying somebody in a transition and then delivering their best year ever, That gets you 80% of the solution. 80% of the solution. So if you're stagnating, if it's going down, if your churn is creeping up, the faster you get to what your transition is and what would allow people going— what would it look like for the people on the other side of that transition to have had their best year ever? That's where you are just cleaning up and—

And—

crystallizing your pitch, which is your big purpose. And it follows a really specific formula because it's how people hear things, which is, I bring together, or we bring together people in a transition so that they can, whatever it was you defined their best year ever as. Now, if you are already, well, I launched, I was successful, I don't have to go back and look at that. Look, it already worked.

Right.

My response to that is, sure, but the tighter you are, the more you're going to find your sort of hot core center of people who are in that transition, those most motivated people. You're going to build the next chapter of your growth and your reacceleration of growth by focusing in on those people. Focus in on those people, you win. Then what are you actually doing? Big fan over here of 3 simple things, and 3 simple things that we have automated at Mighty for the most part, because all you're doing with these 3 things is creating containers. Called them packages before, but let's just call them containers. Containers for people to meet and build relationships with each other. So number one, big fan of monthly themes. Why? Because it introduces novelty into a community. So a lot of times when you have that, like, community kind of go down, it's typically because you are like, okay, I was all excited to launch this. And then you're staring down the barrel of, like, looking at, oh my gosh, what do I do? Like, so I share articles or I'm like, hey guys, or I'm like livestreaming, you know? And it just feels really random.

Do you see often that the energy in the community tracks pretty closely with the energy of the community leader?

What I would say is it depends on if you have these 3 things set up.

Okay, so if you don't, then you have this very direct correlation.

Absolutely.

And it makes for a frail community.

Correct. Because you've essentially made the community about yourself. You've got, again, when I went back to sort of earlier, it's like you want a community culture that is about, hey, I'm just here so you guys can meet each other. And if you do your job right, it's like having a party where you can go upstairs and go to bed.

Yeah.

Which might not be everyone's goals, but certainly—

I can relate to that goal.

Yeah, that's my goal. So I want there to be a raging party and people are having an amazing time and I don't have to be there. So what monthly themes, so I'll give you the 3. It's monthly themes, a weekly calendar, and daily polls and questions. The monthly themes is there for novelty. You need to have novelty in a community so that there is always a reason to come back and listen And share the stories, experiences, and ideas that are related to you in that transition, all in service of and striving towards your best year ever. You're contributing your stories, experiences, and ideas, and other people are contributing their stories, experiences, and ideas. Another way to think about it is like how they're going to apply your course.

Mm-hmm.

Or how they are going to, work together to apply the framework that you're teaching or the membership that you've worked really hard to bring those people in that transition together with each other. So monthly themes, they're for novelty. The weekly calendar is there for the habits. So this is the other mistake that I see. Again, a lot of times it's just people are like really enthusiastic. They're like, I'm gonna do something every single day and I'm gonna be in the community, 'cause communities are super fun. It's like, When you have brought 30 people together in 30 days, or 300 people, you're like, oh my God, this is so fun. I'm in here all the time. But then, like, life's gonna get in the way. So you wanna have a foundational level of activity that does not require you.

Yep.

So monthly themes don't require you. You just have to think of 12 themes, and guess what? Our good friends, At ChatGPT, at Claude. We even, we even built a People Magic GPT you can use. Real easy to create those 12 monthly themes. You can even do 2 themes in a month now. The weekly calendar is there for habit. So not just the habit of do they come on the same day at the same time every week, but do they get a notification at the same time?

Mm-hmm.

on the same day every week. Just knowing and remembering that, you know, that muscle memory, that Tuesdays at 7:00 AM, I'm gonna wake up to a notification about a member profile in a community—

Yep.

That I want to be in because I'm in a transition and I'm really excited about having my best year ever related to that transition. I'm going to read that. I'm gonna be connected to that community. And so, You are better off doing 2 things in a week, whether it's the kind of the big question of the week, maybe that's Tuesdays at 9:00 AM, that's when you post it, and you can schedule it in advance. And on Thursdays, we have a livestream that is about members coming together. One of my other favorites is like a give-ass day. Like you highlight a member and it's like, what's one thing that they have to give? What's one ask they have for the community? And then, hey everybody, your turn. What's your give, what's your ask this week? And you just have something really simple. That order actually does really matter so you don't create a community where everybody's just always asking for things.

Asking for stuff, yep.

Which is not that much fun. That is the one thing on guidelines where I'm like, dudes, no spam. Like, don't—

Everybody chill.

Don't pitch your stuff. So that weekly calendar of just 2 times a week, If you just do 2 things a week, but you do them consistently for a minimum of 4 weeks, you have already done more to create a durable, sustainable community than 99% of the population. Because they, a lot of times people are like, oh, well, it's about me and my content. So if I put up a course and everybody will just take that course and then they'll talk about it, Maybe, maybe, but you're better off with monthly themes, the weekly calendar, and then finally daily polls and questions. Now, when we first kind of launched this concept of daily polls and questions, first of all, people think that it's a lot of work. Well, again, like one of the things we've built at Mighty is an infinite question engine.

Mm-hmm.

So taking what we could see with millions of questions that have been asked across the platform, over the last 3 years alone, and really dialing in what is a question that works really well to create engagement, and what is a question that will be very much left alone.

Yeah, what do you notice in those questions? Because I could— I see it even in interviews or something where someone basically asks a question, it's not true yes or no, but it's pretty close. And so I wonder what those patterns are.

Yeah, so the things that we see, There are literally like 12 opening phrases followed by the topic. And all of the opening phrases that have the most engagement on them are something that someone can answer in less than 15 seconds. So it turns out—

Okay.

That if you can answer the initial question or the initial poll in less than 15 seconds, somebody is much more likely to comment on that question or poll. Then guess what? Now that they've commented on it, they're notified when other people are commenting on it. And the whole point of Daily Polls and Questions is that people are meeting each other in the comments.

Right.

So unlike social media where it's, you know, and now we're at a point in social media where it's like, would you like an AI comment? And you can tell when you're reading the comment.

You can 100% tell. It's happening so much right now.

And it's like, they're fine, but they're not human. They're like, it's not about the answer.

It didn't add to the conversation.

No, we do not. We do not have AI answers in Mighty Hours. What we have is AI to show you similarities between members or AI to help create these questions that then generate authentic conversations and, and messaging between members. So the, those, the sort of opening phrases are things like, what's one What was the last time? So it's—

It's specific.

It's specific. So specific is going to get you greater results because think about it for yourself. The worst thing that you can do is, hey guys, what do you think about this article? So first of all, when you share an article thinking that you're going to drive engagement and then you're bummed because nobody actually replied to it, you are one of 15 articles that that person has received that morning to read. Like, and it's across, you know, their email, it's across their text messages, it's across their DMs on every platform. And so—

Your kid's school just sent something out that you're supposed to be in.

Yeah, all these things. So that is the like, hey guys, what do you think? And then the other problem is not only are they not gonna read it, But then they don't actually know how long to answer it. Is it, do you want like an essay?

Right.

Do you want like an emoji? Like, what do you want in terms of your answer? So what we found is you are so much better off literally putting in, you know, who is your network for, and even like, who is this space within your network for, and then turning on this question engine, and it will just produce a bunch of questions for you that follow these dozen unlocking expressions or unlocking phrases and topics. But the whole point is that you want these things to be quick. Like, what's the, you know, what's the, what's the most used emoji on your phone? Or, you know, or do you—

Yeah, super quick. I can pull it up and look at it.

Exactly.

It's probably raise hands for me.

Yeah, exactly. Mine's like been prayer hands recently. I'm like, thank you, with prayer hands. And so those daily polls and questions are there not to build a knowledge base in your community. They are there to build relationships between your members.

Yeah, 'cause you have to have, they're like the kindling that can create that.

That's right. And so when you have monthly themes, that's novelty. The weekly calendar is habit, and the daily polls and questions are connections.

Okay, that makes sense. What do you do, this might be a bit of an aside, but I'm thinking about the communities that run whether it's in like a Telegram or WhatsApp, or maybe especially there's a bunch, I can actually think of a few that I'm a part of that live on Facebook groups. And the people in them, I think, now only use Facebook for that. But the argument that I would hear a lot is that if you wanna make a community, you need to do it adjacent to where the attention already is. And so, people have struggled when they're building out communities in their own forum or in something else? Obviously, all these things that you're talking about help with that, but like, how do you really address that head-on?

Here's the thing. That is the only challenge that I have taken on over the last 15 years. So fundamentally, number one, culture has changed on this. Culture has absolutely changed on this. So the— each one of these platforms have kind of a different a different limitation or a different challenge. So Facebook, the biggest challenge with Facebook groups is that for the most part, Facebook groups still are showing up next to all of your other Facebook groups. So you can't actually focus. There's no focus on Facebook.

Right. Which is the pro and the con, right? Because I came looking up, you know, some random thing and then I'm like, oh, but here's what came in this random community. Yeah, it used to be vice versa.

Yeah. So Facebook groups used to be great for lead gen. The problem with Facebook groups for lead gen is they're not your people. Like, they are advertising and heavily promoting competing Facebook groups. They are not giving you any information about your members in your Facebook group. And at the end of the day, you know, the algorithm in terms of what it actually shows people, unless you actually go to that Facebook group and look through everything, which is very challenging to do, Facebook is controlling the experience that you are creating for your members, and what that has meant in practice is that all of that toxic culture of Facebook is showing up in your Facebook group. There are things that you are allowed to do as a human being on Facebook that you are not allowed to do in dedicated spaces or in real life.

But I guess what I'm wondering more of is how do you Like Facebook is powerful because it already has that attention habit. And so—

If you're over 30.

That's probably very true. How do you build that attention habit for your community separately? Right, to the point, it's not just when I remember to go to it or when I get a notification.

So you gotta lean into notifications for sure. The other thing though is this is one of the reasons why it can't be about you as the creator alone. Because the reality is, if you can just bring in 30 people in your first 30 days, what's fantastic is those are 30 people with 30 different stories, 30 different experiences, 30 different sets of ideas, and you're all there for the same reason. So what I'm advocating for and what we have seen build multiple million-dollar businesses, 'cause the other thing is, people aren't gonna spend a lot of money for your Facebook group. People aren't gonna spend a lot of money.

Yeah, the perceived value is way different.

On WhatsApp. And people aren't even gonna spend a lot of money on your Slack team. And the reason is you can't actually get to know people on those things. And everybody's trying really hard because of that sort of fundamental sense of, well, this is where everybody is already. But the reality is, if you can really get to know people and connect with them, because there are custom fields that people are filling out.

Right.

There are specific experiences and specific people that you are meeting that you are not going to meet in Slack, no matter how hard Slack community managers are trying to set up the channel with the introductions or the welcome channel and all of this stuff. There just aren't full-fledged people and profiles on those platforms. So fundamentally, you've got to actually have more sophisticated software to create the level of engagement that brings people back. But you also want to take advantage of the network effect you're creating so that— just think about it in this way. If somebody is coming back because they've connected with 10 people, They're gonna get a lot more notifications. And because of those monthly themes, a weekly calendar, and daily polls and questions, they have lots of reasons to come back, especially if it all ladders up to them able to get results and transformation they're not gonna get on WhatsApp, they're not gonna get on Slack, and they're not gonna get on Facebook groups.

So again, it's not about necessarily the content that you're producing as the community leader, It's about forming more and more of those relationships.

Yeah, and the relationships are what bring people back. And the reality that I think is kind of funny is just the number of new things people pick up all the time. And they pick them up when they are valuable. They would rather have something that is novel and valuable that helps them achieve results and transformation than, to try to shoehorn it into a WhatsApp group.

Right. Well, I'm just thinking about in my Flywheels course and community that I just launched a couple weeks ago, the people in there, it's fascinating. Like the way that people are earning money in their creator business, where they live, what they're interested in. Like one of the first Flywheels that was submitted for feedback was from this gentleman who, he's a music producer, he's Norwegian, he lives in the south of France. You're like, what is this? His business is making more money than I would've ever guessed that it is. And he's like, here's the very specific problems that I'm stuck on. What feedback do you have? And so, just in his questions, there's these little hints. You like click through to his profile and you're like, oh, I want to know more about what you do. And then I'm like, oh wait, he's a pilot as well? How does this guy get any more interesting? That's right.

That's right. And that's why we invested in custom fields. So, your Flywheel's profile page is totally different than our Mighty Networks 30-day countdown to January challenge.

Right, 'cause someone's arts and crafts.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And now you start to think about who does that guy wanna meet? And how do you start to dynamically create the places and ways for that guy to meet the most interesting and relevant and valuable people in your Flywheels course? That's people magic. Like, that's the behind-the-scenes technology that if you were creating platforms that were built for people who already know each other, you're not prioritizing those things. And that's fine. Like, you've built incredible businesses not having to prioritize those things. But this is something different that has been, you know, again, sort of shoehorned into these other places.

Right.

When what's now possible with technology and what's possible with software, so that that guy can create this 3-dimensional, beautiful view. And then for the next person who comes in and they see that guy and they see what you and that guy have created together, They are sitting there saying, oh my God, this is the most— where do I pay you more money? That can't happen on platforms that have not invested in these kinds of profile pages and surfacing of who are the relevant members to each other.

Yeah, that makes sense. I wanna ask about the phrase people magic. There's a lot we talk about of what it actually is and what it means, but from a meta perspective, I wanna talk about, The difference, you could position that so many different ways. You could say like, well, what's important in communities or what's important in Mighty is how we connect or all of these things. But you boiled it down to a single phrase that I assume is trademarkable and that like you can really, really own. From like a product differentiation perspective and positioning, how did that come about?

Oh, because we have always had this passionate belief. The belief I started the company with was that the asset of a network effect. It is what creates—

Explain a network effect to the public for a second.

So a network effect is, and I'll tell you why we call it people magic. A network effect is basically the ability to create a network that gets more valuable to every person with each new person who joins and contributes. So if you think about today, Facebook, Instagram, Meta is a $1.4 trillion company. And Disney is a, I think it's a $189 billion company. What's the difference? Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, they don't actually need content. People are contributing. It's about the relationships. It's about all the things we're talking about. Disney's a content company.

Yep.

So I knew and felt very passionately that every brand, every creator, every entrepreneur should have the ability to build their own network effect, because it is the most valuable asset you can create, and it's the most fun for members, because somebody comes in—

It is.

And it's like, oh my God, this is amazing. I can meet all these really cool people. They're awesome. I'm able to achieve results and transformation, because I'm going through a transition. I'm able to meet other people who are in this transition. It's fantastic. And nobody else was doing this. And I keep, I was waiting for other people to actually create a platform for brands and creators and entrepreneurs to go and build their own network effects that they own and that they control and that they can scale. And instead, the social media platforms all basically hoarded it to themselves and said, hey, why don't you go build an audience? We'll keep the network effect and you can pay us if you want to reach other people and all this stuff. Thank God for capitalism. So what happened though was that when I would talk about the power of a network effect relative to content or community or some of these other words, people would just kind of look at me like you are looking at me. Like, I think I know what that is. That sounds nice. I don't really understand what you're talking about. Or like, for a lot of inside—

It's like the academic term. Correct.

This is the one that makes me feel something. And for a lot of kind of inside Silicon Valley people, they were like, but only big companies, only, you know, we should only be able to have that. Like startups should only, should be the only ones to be able to have and build a network effect. And I'm like, no, like we can build a platform to make those dynamics possible for anyone, just like Shopify has done to democratize e-commerce. We want to do this for network effects. But basically too many people were like, eyes glazing over and just like smiling and being like, oh, that's so nice. And so I finally was like, okay, screw it. It's people magic. And from the minute that I started calling it people magic, and if you think about it, it's like when you have that ability to walk into, you know, or join a community and you are immediately shown the most interesting and relevant people.

Mm-hmm.

You're immediately welcomed. You're immediately seeing value, especially for a high-ticket course or a high-ticket membership. It is magic.

Right.

It is magic. And so the minute we started calling it People Magic, everybody understood it a lot better.

I love it. I'm thinking a lot about creators that stand out, and I'm curious if any come to mind for you. who have defined their own terms, or instead of saying like, oh, this is broadly how things are, they're like, no, it's like this. Like one example for me is, as I became obsessed with flywheels and studying them in every which way, it wasn't like, oh, what are some interesting attributes of flywheels? I basically got down to like, there are 3 laws that define a flywheel.

Yeah.

And then it positions you as the expert in a certain way. It like gets people leaning in like, well, What are the 3 Laws? And it packages it up in a way that someone, like it's portable, right? Someone can take it with them. Are there any creators that come to mind for you, maybe in the Mighty community or otherwise, who have taken their ideas and put the right branding or portable stories or something like that on it?

Yeah, I think that the folks that really stand out to me are the Category Pirates and Christopher Lockhead and Eddie Yoon and Kat. Like they've just done such an incredible job of, really mastering the whole idea that you create categories, then companies, then products, and that categories are what, what wins, and that you can, you can create a category and you can— in fact, actually, you can design a category. They've been hugely influential and impactful in my thinking. And I think what's been the most interesting is the sort of— I almost think about it as like the category pirates universe. It's like they have all of these different sort of expressions and thoughts about different things and very good at naming and claiming, as they would call it. But one that was really striking to me And I think helped crystallize much of our positioning and thoughts around people magic is force a choice, not a comparison.

Okay, force a choice, not a comparison. What does that mean?

It means, how are you different? What is the thing that you have created that is different, not better, but different? If you are sort of coming back to, well, we're better, or we're higher quality, or something like that, even those words are comparison words. And just that kind of a framework has been really important, I would say, to me as a founder and to my team in terms of getting really clear about why do we exist?

Mm-hmm.

Do we exist to compete with other platforms? No. Do we exist to deliver everything that everybody wants right now or whatever is sort of the latest, greatest thing? No. We exist as a platform, right or wrong, win or lose, to bring the most valuable asset in the form of a network effect, also known as people magic, to creators, to entrepreneurs, to brands, and all of their members, so that they can build relationships that are extraordinarily valuable in ways that are simply not possible today. That forces a choice.

Mm-hmm.

Versus me saying, well, we're a better, course platform.

Or like, do you have this feature versus that feature?

Or we're the best community platform. And kind of coming full circle to the start of our conversation, I think that this is really important in terms of being clear about your transition, being clear about the best year ever, being clear about who is it, who is your ideal member, who wants and needs a community, a paid membership, a course, a challenge, an event for this specific group of people. Who are going through this specific transition, and what are you able to provide that is different in pursuit of results and transformation that they can't get on their own?

Yeah, I wanna bring that to my Flywheels course and community, 'cause I'm thinking a lot, you know, I'm right in the middle of, we've launched it, we did a 6-figure launch, got a whole bunch of great people into the community. And, you know, I wanna set the community up for success long-term. And I can see, like, falling into some of these traps that you talk about, where you're like, okay, how do I make sure that I'm having all the time to give feedback on everyone's flywheels and I'm a core part of this? And I can see how that would drive a lot of engagement for a while, but it's inherently fragile. Maybe the first thing, there's a bunch of places I wanna go, but since we're on the choice versus comparison, how would you think about applying that to a course and community like the Flywheels product?

Yeah. First of all, I think the Creator Flywheels is already pretty differentiated. Like, you know that this is pretty differentiated because you talk to a lot—

Right. It's not like SOPs for business owners.

Right, exactly. Exactly. It's not like, here's how you build your email marketing stack. What I would say is, number one, thinking about what the next 12 months look like in terms of those monthly themes. Being able to think about what is that weekly calendar cadence, and what are those things that, again, Right. that, you know, you're almost holding back a little bit right now, so that you can see where you can take your foot off the gas, where your members are starting to connect with each other. And then, you know, how well are daily polls and questions working? Then what I would think about is how do you start to build the culture today?

Yeah.

For those members to bring in the next set of members. Because that fresh blood, it's, again, it's just like, you want people to have a great time at a party that you're having until you go upstairs, and then they're still having a great time. But you also, when the next time you have a party and you're like, hey, bring a friend, Mm-hmm. You want that person who came to your party to go like, oh my God, you totally have to come to this. This is awesome. Like, I had such a great time at the last party. You wanna come. So how are you building, you know, that foundation today for, here's your flywheel, how are you going to help me, and how are we together gonna go spread the word?

Mm-hmm.

The good word of flywheels and what that could mean. And finding those places where the value of the network of people who share the same language and have the same training gets more valuable as they are bringing more folks in. So why would they bring somebody in? Number one, they look smart. More than they're getting paid, it's, I wanna look smart, I wanna be helpful.

Mm-hmm.

I want to have somebody say thank you. That intrinsic motivation is really, really powerful and can be done in a very natural way. So now, if you think about, and one of the other sort of techniques I really like is, what can my members do 12 months from now that they can't do today? As they are doing those things, What are those motivating moments to be able to bring more people into this movement?

I'm thinking about Jason Gaynor, who runs Mastermind Talks, which is this amazing entrepreneur community that I'm a part of. And 2 things stood out based on what you're saying. First, he talks about at their, you know, they have both their live in-person events and then their online community, and both are really important. It's not like, oh, here's just a casual place to follow along later. after the event. It's like, they treat both equally. And he was talking recently about what's the balance of new versus returning members at an event. And he really likes to go 70/30, right? That balance of 70% know what we're about. They have existing connections. They understand the culture, the values, and like the container that we're making. And then 30% to bring in this new energy, new blood, and keep things vibrant.

That's right.

And the other thing that they do that I think is interesting is you can only join the community if you're nominated. And what you were talking about, there's these little things that I don't think I'd noticed before. They'll say things like if they're celebrating a community member who's done something great, book just hit the New York Times list, Inc. 5000 for their company, whatever, they'll be like, oh, and this person's amazing. Oh, and Dan nominated them for the community.

That's right.

And that's that, like, look smart, credibility.

That's right.

But it also has the subtle cue of like, oh, we know who nominated everyone. So only nominate good people.

Right.

We're not gonna announce from stage, like, Nathan nominated this person who we had to kick out.

That's exactly right.

But it's implied.

Yeah. And you naturally are out in the world meeting interesting people. So a lot of times, Just putting that intention out there in a community can be really powerful in terms of bringing new people in.

How do you think about nominations or invitations or all of that in a paid community? Obviously, Mastermind Talks, as an example, is a— it is not a cheap community by any means. It's a pretty high ticket to join. In the online sense, it feels, It's interesting of like, you're doing these broad launches, maybe you're launching to email lists of thousands or tens of thousands of people, and anyone can buy? Or this like private invite only, you have to nominate?

Look, I think you can do both. So here's how I would think about it. I would think about it as, number one, what's the front door so that there is, and we have simple application questions that you can set up on a Mighty Network. those will get even more sophisticated or the option to have something sophisticated from here. But what I would say is once you have something you really like, because you did go out to the big email list, I would experiment with how is your community ready to have those nominations?

Yeah.

And especially for paid, like this whole idea that the only thing that, you know, have in common is we were on an email list and now, you know, and we both ponied up versus, hey, I'm inviting you to this thing that I've spent money on because I think it's really valuable.

Mm-hmm.

That's incredibly powerful. So there's no reason why you can't kind of think about, number one, even in the recruiting process, even in the large email list, that there is a bar for who can join.

Right.

But then also, you know, it's a little bit like funds where it's like after a while they've made so much money that they don't have to actually have limited partners anymore. A community can be like, we only— we have so much demand and a waitlist from people that have been nominated.

Right. That's all that we're taking on.

That's all that we're doing. And especially if you think about that 70/30 or I think 60/40. But this idea that online communities have any reason to be less valuable than IRL. First of all, I think IRL and online are gonna continue to blur because it's increasingly trivial for us to build software that connects people to be able to meet up live, you know, and do so in these amazing entrepreneurial pockets like what you're building with Kit Studios, like where we are, you know, right now.

Right.

And I did not get paid for that plug. It's just authentic. So I think that, I think this idea of really experimenting with nominations and experimenting almost from like a member's first time, like, you know, as you start to get comfortable here in Creator Flywheels, I want you to also just keep your eyes out for creators you think would contribute to this community that you are excited to learn from and who you think other members will be able to learn from? It's just, it's almost a throwaway expression, but what you're doing is you are inviting members, you're building, again, a positive culture.

Mm-hmm.

So think about the fact that you could have that as kind of your opening signal of community culture, Or you can basically be like, remember to not murder any other members or say horrible things you would never say to their face if you were in person. You know, it's like you have a choice. With how you set that up from the beginning. But if you set it up with like, hey, we're building something special here. And what we are building that is special here has a role for you to play in identifying more special people to bring in.

Mm-hmm.

That's very powerful.

One thing that I'm thinking about with, you know, my course and community is how you would set that up where, you know, members can maybe gift the course to one other professional creator, right? 'Cause I'm trying to expand my network. I'm trying to bring in more people. And honestly, I'm just trying to get this content in the hands of more people 'cause I can watch the transformation that it has. And so, yeah, building those mechanics in, I think is really interesting. If we go back to the idea of churn and the dying communities or the, you know, we're turning around—

Last gasps.

Yeah, exactly. How do you think about communities that are worth reviving versus the ones where you're like, actually, that's trending down, it's not worth reversing that trend, and we should actually start fresh? Yeah, I think I will always start at the top with what's the transition, what's the best year ever, Is there an example of a community where you were able to get clear on the transition, help the creator, help the leader get clear on the transition and revive that?

Yes. The reason I'm hesitating is I have done it so many times.

Yes.

What I would say is the best communities are living, breathing, dynamic things. And one of the techniques that I have seen work extremely well is, especially with high-ticket memberships—

Is that anything over like $1,000?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, so is to think about it as seasons or sort of months so that there's sort of a moment to be able to just check in. And if it's ongoing, and again, this whole like, MRR, you know, monthly recurring, it's a fad. It's like in the same way that it's great and it's wonderful, and I think software is going to make it easier and easier to build monthly recurring revenue. But there's also no reason why you can't have annual recurring revenue. It's even better. Turns out it's even better than monthly recurring revenue.

Churn is lower.

Like, churn is lower on annual. Or at that point it's like, okay, well, What if you had semiannual?

Mm-hmm.

So thinking about kind of what those check-in points are, I think is, especially for people that are afraid of starting a community or afraid of this, like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get stuck with this thing and then it's gonna like go down. What I would say to kind of when not to revive something, I think you gotta go back to if there's, No transition. You did it because you weren't that interested in it, but you were like, I did it 'cause other people were doing it and I thought I could like—

People said it was a good way to make money.

Yeah, and I thought I could like do something on a platform that was gonna give me a bunch of members. And I like, you just kind of go down the list. It's like, nah, like if you love creating content, go create content. If you love making YouTube videos, Go make YouTube videos. That's like, great. There are pros and cons to doing that. The power of community is that you meet the guy from Norway. You meet the most interesting, incredible people. And I don't think there is a bigger impact you can have than having— and by the way, bigger ego boost. than watching people take your ideas and make them their own.

Hmm.

When somebody is able to create a creator flywheel, and they're like, oh my gosh, or even what I was saying in terms of like the decisions that I've made as a result of, you know, force a choice, not a comparison, that's the most, Like, that's a high that, like, you just wanna chase. And so if you approached a community as a transactional thing where it's like, I just wanna extract the most amount of money out of people, and, like, your engagement's going down, your churn's high, you know, go make YouTube videos.

Right.

Like, that's fine. Like, no harm, no foul. If you think that there is a, kernel of that transition, that ability to help people meet and build relationships with each other that can create outsized value, and therefore you can charge a premium for it because people pay attention to what they pay for.

Mm-hmm.

Then I would say, let's, let's talk about what is that transition? What and how can you create that promise of their best year ever and turn that into a pitch about who you're bringing together and why. Set up to run on autopilot your monthly themes, your weekly calendar, your daily polls and questions, and make sure that you've got a magical first experience when they join where it's like they know they're a part of something special.

Yeah, I think when I, if I was looking at a community that was trending down and I was wondering, Should I, like, should we revive it? Should we start from scratch or shut it down? One question that I would ask is, has this, like what you're saying first, have we targeted people in transition? Is there a transition that we're actually helping with? And then do we have examples of creating a transformation? Because if you're like, hey, we're a year in and I can't point to like 3, 5, 20.

Oh, I disagree.

No, you don't think so?

Yeah, I don't think so. I think at any point in time, this is the amazing thing about communities, they are forgiving. And if you didn't know what you were trying to do with your transition, or what the best year ever would be, then you, like, you don't have to grade yourself on that. And the other thing is, you could learn something from what your members are struggling with. where you're like, I'm gonna tackle that problem. I'm gonna tackle that transition. And that is gonna be where we take this from here.

And so you might, yeah, like rebuild the community around a different transition or the same transition articulated better.

Exactly, exactly. I'll give you an example of something that I have seen regularly that when you hear it, you're like, oh yeah, that kind of makes sense, which is, The number of people who show up wanting to bring C-suite executives together.

Yeah.

Like, the number of people who are like, I'm gonna bring all the marketing executives together, and we're gonna learn from each other. We're gonna learn, share, and grow. And the problem is that those people are super busy. But you know who really, really wants to understand where marketing is going, and like how to think about the super dynamic world of marketing today, the marketing manager, the marketing directors, the up-and-coming hungry people that are like, I'm here today, but I wanna be in the C-suite.

Right.

You get those people together, and now 2 things happen. Number one, you're gonna have much more motivated people. You're gonna be able to navigate the same topics of like, where's this all going? What channels does anybody use anymore and why and how? And then you can think about that clustering by health and wellness, by small startups, by large brands, by large brands working on large brand social media. Like, you just kind of go through all of the permutations of who wants to meet and build relationships with each other who are in that sort of up-and-coming marketer. And then guess who's really interested in finding a role? The C-suite, they're like, wait, what's happening? Wait, what's happening over there? Like, I wanna be a part of that.

I think there's so many things that I love about that, but one is the demand and interest, right? They actually have time to apply it. People are close enough to the tactics, right? You get a bunch of CMOs together or CEOs, honestly, and it's like, hey, what works right now? And you're like, actually, I don't know. I'd have to talk with the person doing the work.

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. So that's what I mean by what I would be, what I would be seeking to analyze, seeking to understand. Like, are you trying to get— are you listening for who is the most motivated? Are you thinking about how you bring those people together?

Yeah, that makes sense. The other thing with the marketing directors is that they're still spending the company budget, right? They have the company credit card. And so from a pricing perspective, all of that, Yeah. You know, you can charge more.

That's right.

Maybe he doesn't have the exclusivity feel of the C-level, but like there's a lot of marketing directors that you could reach.

And exclusivity means different things to different people. I think we need to separate exclusivity from rank.

Yeah.

And what I've found is, you know, the most interesting people are the ones that are in the trenches with you.

Right.

They're at the same point of transition that you are at. And that's when you can also then start attracting in people who are like, hmm, that sounds fun. I'll teach. I've got something. I have something to learn and I've got something to teach.

With your background in building some of the most original social networks and then working on community for such a long time, I just see the level of expertise that you bring to all of this. And so when you reached out, I guess it was a year ago, just a little over a year ago, that you said, hey, what would it look like for Kit and Mighty to have a bigger partnership and to work more closely together? Like, I was really, really excited about that. And then what was—

Me too. I'm glad you responded.

Yeah, there's probably another world where I didn't respond to a Twitter DM and then we wouldn't be here today. But I think what was so interesting about it is, the approach that we both have to people, right? Where we, both of our companies believe very deeply that people are at the absolute core.

Yeah.

You have coined it in a super smart term of people magic, where you're talking about, you know, the connections. And we think of it the same way. I don't have the same clever term. I gotta figure out what that is for us. But we're talking about, you know, as a creator, it's the connections that you make with other creators to build, you know, that's the creator network, to drive recommendations and to grow your audience. And then once you have that audience, they're not connected to each other. They're connected to you, but they're not to each other. And so that's where I was like, oh wait, this is a perfect fit to bring in Mighty and the people magic and to, you know, connect everyone with each other. So then you end, as a creator, you end up building something that extends so much further beyond you. Yeah, what else would you add about that?

Well, here's what I would say is, number one, the reason I reached out is, is all the creators that I respected, ones that were just starting out actually, that I would meet because they were mighty hosts, as we call our customers, they all used ConvertKit, now Kit. But also the big folks I knew also used Kit.

Mm-hmm.

And so when the time came where we, you know, we sat there and we're like, we are obsessed with building a network effect. We want to create people magic. And when we looked at like all of the pieces that would be required for us to like really have a state-of-the-art email delivery platform, email service provider, we're like, okay, I guess we could go build that, except that that's not furthering our mission of people magic. To your point, like where you're asking—

Right, stop focusing on what you're best at.

No, and for us it's like, how do we create connections between people. And that is software that is, it requires focus, it requires excellence, and it requires expertise. So that was when I was like, well, why don't I just send Nathan a DM and we find a way to integrate so we could offer our Mighty hosts the very best, highest quality email platform, which has turned out to be so much more.

Right.

and integrate that as closely into Mighty as humanly possible without us actually building the software ourselves. And so that was why I reached out. And so when you were like, yeah, let's do it, I was like, oh my God, that's awesome. Like, this is so—

It actually worked.

This is so great. And, you know, I think it's been wonderful because not only can our hosts build email in such a way that number one, it's a great way to bring people back because they can actually highlight those weekly calendar events.

Yep.

They can highlight those give/ask days. They can highlight the monthly themes totally integrated into their Mighty Network such that the tags that are on ConvertKit are the same tags that are on Mighty and vice versa. But also, It's a phenomenal way for our customers and our hosts to go get, especially if they're starting out, to go get email subscribers through the creator network, both paid and organic, in a way that, you know, we don't have that at Mighty. Like our whole philosophy and approach is your network is yours, which means we don't have a marketplace today of different people being able to exchange.

Right.

Certainly it's something that we're looking at in the future, But the Creator Network is incredible. And the fact that you've already, through your network, you know, 10 million subscribers, I think you told me.

Yeah.

10 million subscribers have been generated through this Creator Network. I want our hosts to be able to take full advantage of that as they are growing their communities, as they're growing just the number of people they can have experiencing people magic.

Well, I think it's an example of us each doubling down on what our companies are great at. And like, we get the question actually fairly often, like, oh, when is Kit going to add courses? When is Kit going to add membership or something like that? And I'm like, I understand that to check a feature box on a pricing page, that's easy. To do it well and to go deep with this level of expertise is very, very hard.

And maintain it.

And maintain it, and it's all at the expense of your core product.

That's right.

Like the thing that you say you're truly great at. And so to partner in that way, I think is so, so important. And I'd just say the same thing for any creators listening, to think about that in their own businesses, of what are the things that they're truly great at? Not what's some member or random email subscriber saying, like, hey, it'd be cool if you did this as well. But how do you, as I say a lot, like how do you build that skyscraper and focus on that? You know, the core of the business and not get distracted by all the other little things.

One of my friends was telling me about her kid's favorite thing to say to her in his certain brand of snark, which is, Mom, that sounds like a side quest. And, you know, I was laughing because it just— the world we live in today offers so many side quests. So many distractions, so many things. It's like, oh my gosh, but what if, what if the answer to my business is this other thing over here? And we're all fighting for attention. And so I think, you know, where there are opportunities to partner, where there are opportunities to, you know, choose platforms like Kit, where there are over 200 integrations in your app store.

Yep.

similar to Mighty. That kind of make versus buy or make versus partner decision is really important.

I love it. Well, so if anyone's listening and is building a community, I just launched my community on Mighty. You should do the same thing. So you go to kit.com/apps, so you can come in and jump in, start a trial of Mighty. Gina, you have put out a huge amount of amazing content on the web, right? Sometimes you get these founders who are like, oh, I built a company, and it was chasing a wave or whatever else, but you have like this deep expertise behind it. If people want to both learn more about Mighty, but also like follow you and your content, where should people go?

My podcast, it's called People Magic.

I love it.

15-minute episodes. We're in, we're out. You're smarter. I hopefully have offered something, but you can also find me on LinkedIn as Gina Bianchini. Twitter, now X, as @gnab, Gina B.

Sounds good. Thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you.

If you enjoyed this episode, go to YouTube and search The Nathan Berry Show. Then hit subscribe and make sure to like the video and drop a comment. I'd love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were, and also just who else you think we should have on the show. Thank you so much for listening.