599. The Power of Community for Product-Based Business Owners with Gina Bianchini of Mighty Networks

It's, it is a complete misnomer to say my community when what you have is an audience. The definition of community is when you are facilitating the relationships between people, not just followers.

Hi, I'm Jacqueline Snyder and this is.

The Product Boss podcast.

I've helped launch and grow thousands of product based businesses, even one of my own. And over the last 20 years, I've seen behind the scenes of businesses just like yours. Whether they are makers, manufacturers, artists, or food and beverage businesses. I have spent so many hours studying it all. I've discovered what makes them successful, what mistakes they could have avoided, how did they turn their ideas into successful business? And what are the strategies that they have used to make more sales and be discovered by more customers. And this is what this show is all about. Whether you're just starting out or you're looking to become a million dollar product boss, I'm here to give you the permission to chase your dreams, no matter how big or small. All you need is the right mindset, a little creat courage, strategy and support, and you too can be the next.

Million dollar product boss. Let's do this. Gina, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you. I mean, we got to meet in person in LA and Venice at another event. And I'm really glad that you're here to speak to product bosses. So if people don't already know Mighty Networks or you know just a little bit more about you, like, I'd love for you to introduce yourself to our audience.

Yeah, sure. So my name's Gina Bianchini. I'm the co founder and CEO of a community platform called Mighty Networks. And what we offer is a entrepreneur or a creator or a brand to be able to show up and just like a Shopify store, create your own branded web application, even mobile apps if you want them. But for us, it's all about how do you create a community, how do you create online courses, how do you create a membership, like a paid membership or a free membership, as well as events, live streaming and other things that really bring people together and, and engage them more deeply. So that is what we do at Mighty Networks. And most people will not have heard of Mighty Networks because our whole goal is to build some really incredible software and give you all the credit for it.

So good. So what inspired you, like, what inspired you to create many networks, like from a community perspective, what did you see missing in the market that then you thought, I need to create places where people can create community online that's outside of what we're all used to like on the social platforms.

Yeah. So fundamentally I did, I have been working in this area of, let's call it branded communities, going all the way back to when Facebook was just a, like, just on college campuses, which just at Harvard. And one of my very good friends founded LinkedIn and I was like one of the first hundred people on LinkedIn. And so it was very much a time and a place where a number of different things were being experimented with. So in this sort of Web 2.0 world at the time it was called, and basically my, my co founder and I really figured out in this past company that when you could bring people together around an interest, around a passion, around a goal, amazing things would happen. And so that platform was called Ning. And we gave people a way to create their own social networks, their own communities under their brand. And it took off. So it was, it was almost in some respects like a precursor to Facebook groups. And what we got wrong in that model was that we thought it would be an advertising business, not a subscription business. So that was, that was sort of one piece of what we got wrong. And then the other piece is it, it didn't make, we didn't make the shift to mobile the way that like we wanted to and needed to. So I started Mighty Networks really because I wanted to recreate and move forward and make progress on this fundamental need that we have to bring people together around an interest, a passion, a goal, a purpose. And that is the origin of Mighty. And I think that the things we have done differently are obviously, or at least I hope so, I hope it's obvious at this point is we're a subscription business, so people pay us a subscription. And we also enable you to, that our, our customers are as we call them, hosts to, to charge for or create free communities, memberships, courses. And we were mobile first, so you can even on our fancy pants plans, have Your own branded iOS and Android app to deliver your community, your courses, your memberships. I, I would say the thing that motivates me and the reason why I do this work is because I believe software has the greatest potential to bring all of us not just closer together, but to help us discover the most interesting people, break the ice, bring people back to collaborate on different things. And if we think about social media, none of those things are happening without a tremendous amount of work. Like, there's no reason in the world, in a community why software couldn't play the role of like your favorite friend who is like always introducing you to people. But they're always really cool. I like, I can name two, two of my friends and they always know somebody's super cool and introduce me to really cool people and then they're there to break the ice. They're there to like, hey, let's go do these things together. And it's fantastic. Software can play that role. And that's really to me, the, the future, what we call it people magic. And it's about how do we use software to make connections and help people make friends or collaborators that just, just simply is never going to be possible on Facebook or Slack or Discord or Telegram for one really simple obvious reason, which is all of those platforms were built for people who already knew each other. And the real people magic happens when you aren't just thrown into a chat and whoever's talking is like your entire experience with that community. The real magic and people magic happens when introductions are made and relationships are nourished and you just have all of those perfectly placed and perfectly timed connection points that until now and really until AI just wasn't possible. And that's really where we're focused now at Mighty is how do we, how do we create communities and courses for people to be able to make the best friends of their life. That is a really big goal and it's one I'm really excited about. And you know, we're going to be working on it for a while and.

That'S what makes sense. Yeah, that's so cool. We're going to get real here because it's true. I mean some of this stuff like really, you know, love or hate social media. You're right. It's so much about connecting people who already know each other and having this ability to use software to create a place, a community. I like visuals, so I'm like, it's a living room I'm inviting people into and hosting so that they can interact with each other online. In this super busy world.

There's always this sort of sense of like social media being this really sophisticated software that's like, oh my God, it's like, you know, evil and like scary and like really like sophisticated and all like what was that, that Netflix movie that like there was like a control room or whatever. The reality is it's pretty simple software. It's I post, you consume it and all the sophistication is happening in how do I target you with the right like as many ads as I can get away with. And who those ads are from is where they've invested all their time and effort and energy. And that's cool. Like, it's created, you know, a trillion dollars of value. That is completely all right. It also speaks to the fact that social is not interested in making you friends. It is interested in consuming your attention for as long as humanly possible so that the volume of ad inventory goes up. And again, I'm a capitalist. I don't fault anybody for that. And I think that the only way out of that is to create something better and different. And specifically one where it's not about you consuming content or producing content, but actually building relationships with each other. And that has all sorts of benefits. But the main one, especially as business people and entrepreneurs, is when you create this kind of people magic, a couple things make it really lucrative, and not for bad reasons, but actually because you're providing a tremendous amount of value to people. So, for example, if you are meeting people that you are excited to meet and who are stoked to meet you, you're probably going to stick around longer, especially for, like, a new community. And if you stick around longer, you'll probably meet some pretty interesting people having some pretty interesting conversations about ways to be more successful or achieve the go goals that you want to achieve or, you know, help you navigate challenges that you might have, which all leads to you probably achieving something that you want to achieve. Like, for the same reasons that you have brought together, you know, product people that are building interesting product businesses and everybody's, like, excited to meet each other to, like, learn about what's working and, hey, are you having the same problems that I'm having, et cetera. If you stay longer, you get better results. What happens when you get better results? Well, number one, that community is a lot more valuable to you. You're probably like, you're probably not going to leave it. Which means if you've charged for it, and I recommend charging because people pay attention to what they pay for, then that's more money. That's actually legitimately more money because you're also creating a lot more value. And you're not just creating value from your content or from, you know, your physical product that you sell. You're creating value from the relationships that you have been a facilitator of or a conduit of. What do you tend to do when you have something work in your life that you're really excited about and you've achieved your goals and it's because of this community or these courses that you've taken? Well, you talk about it and you talk about it for free. Why because it's not about the product or the service. It's about the results that you have gotten when you can create something that you can quantify the value of it. Meaning, hey, I belong to this community and I found my next job and my next job pays 10% more than my last job. Well, the value of that community on some level is the 10% difference between your last job and your job. So you probably are willing to pay more money. Last time I checked, while I have an MBA from Stanford, you do not need an MBA from Stanford to know that that makes a really great business. So people, magic and the kinds of things that we're talking about that aren't, you know, aren't just a chat app will directly make you more money. When you can introduce people to each other, not just throw them in a, you know, throw them in a chat. I love chat, but it's chat without introductions and context is, it's really challenging.

Yeah, people, people stay for the community, they stay for the friends. It's the thing that, you know, it's, it's a reason I've stayed in programs for a really long time where I was like, I don't want to lose the people in with. So let's switch gears a little bit into the idea of this community driven approach for E commerce or product. Okay, so tell me a little bit about how. Because I want to kind of blow people's minds here, right? In the way of we know what we know, right. We know we can do in person and meet people in real life. We know that we could go on social because everyone's always like, how do I grow my social account? Which. Exactly what you said, you're not paying ads. They're not wanting you to necessarily grow organically. And so this idea then of. And I've seen a lot of success with people creating their own Facebook groups and community and. But then thinking about this new way of business of creating community around products. So let's dig into that a little.

Well, I would frame it slightly differently, which is most people buy products because they are a conduit to something that they, that the person, the consumer wants. So whether that's, you know, I'm buying a new outfit because I want to kickstart my workouts and like a new outfit is going to give me like an awesome, you know, an awesome feeling or I'm going to buy new weights or I'm going to buy a purse, which by the way, I went to a wedding, totally knew I should have bought a purse. Did not buy the purse. Regretted not having a new purse. But I digress. I'll give you one of my favorite examples which is Martinez Evans and his Slow AF Run club. And it started as a community and now merch for him of people who identify with the slow AF movement, back of the pack runners merch is like one of his, you know, I think if not the top revenue stream, but it's top three. And if you think about it, you know, in that case he started with community and then built a membership subscription. He sold a best selling book all through the power of the community. He also launched virtual races during COVID and then in the last year has really stepped up his merch business, physical merch. And because of the community it is selling out. So that's one I think very good example. And if we just sort of play that out, which is, you know, people don't necessarily want to belong to a community that is just about that product. But you know, take beauty products for example. What's the community? It's the application of the makeup or the beauty products or the clean lifestyle. And so anything that you are tying to something that is the purpose of, of why somebody's buying your product in the first place, that is a incredibly valuable opportunity for a community or training or courses. So I just think any product today has a competitive advantage. If you're thinking about how does my product fit into the lifestyle of my consumer and how am I making it such that there are more things to do. So those are, you know, some of the ways. And then, you know, I looking outside of mighty for examples, you know, the OG of this, that is, I don't know what their market cap is today, but it definitely starts with a B is Lululemon. You know, Lululemon launched by going into new markets and new neighborhoods and identifying the yoga studios and selling with the, you know, selling with the yoga instructors at the popular yoga studios. So to me, I think anytime I have a good friend who has worked in e Commerce and D2C for 25 years at this point and I'm always just shocked. I sit there, I'm like, wait, so you guys don't have like an ongoing recurring revenue and you have to like, once you get a customer, you have to like get them again. And the thought just kind of blew my mind because in subscription businesses and membership businesses, you know, where the retention rates are in the 90 plus percent because people pay attention to what they pay for and all of the value and everything that we've talked about, you know, Product. Product is a natural extension of that. I think the main place people, you know, potentially mess it up is they think about products as a transaction because they're like, oh, my God, I got to sell some stuff. And when you can treat it like a relationship, not only between you and the consumer, but between the consumers with each other, man, something magical happens.

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So I think there's a couple of ways to do that. There are obvious ones. Like you said, you know, skin care, and maybe it's like a skincare community or. I just met someone yesterday who stem skin, I think is her company. It's like 25 million on its way to 50 million. They created community around acne and aging skin. So combining those, it's not for the tween teen, but it's for the more mature person who has that. But it was, it was basically teaching people how to care for their skin. What causes cystic acne? Like, there's the. There's the educational part and then there's also the community around it. And the last part is the selling of the product, but the product happens to solve the problem. I think, you know, if I think about some of the students that I have, one of them, it's called Davin and Adley, she sells nursing bras, so maternity nursing bras. And so there's a whole group of women, when they're in that realm, that they may want to be in community as they're going through that. Or another. One of my students, she's a vet and she created this company called Pasha, which is gua Sha for your dog. And there are people who need to know, like, okay, I've got an aging dog, I've got a dog with issues. How do I treat the dog with gua sha? So there's that part, right. But I think there's people out there thinking, okay, I sell candles, I make jewelry. What kind of community can I create there? So I think the other side to this of what you were talking about is interesting too. And I've been an affiliate, I've been a brand ambassador for different companies like you said, Lululemon Activewear. Could you get, you know, all of the yoga instructors in there and make them ambassadors? When I've done, like food companies, they have us come on in. So it's a secondary version of maybe not thinking about your general customer, but the ambassadors or the influencers that you can create community around them.

Yeah, the. We have had a lot of ambassador communities. That is absolutely an obvious way to go, I think, pushing yourself and, you know, certainly I try to push myself as an entrepreneur every day. There's something really interesting though, around. Wait a second, could my business have a membership component to it? And, and again, when people pay attention to what they pay for and they pay a little bit more. I mean, if you just look at the, the, the brands that have expanded membership just through, just through a price discount like Restoration Hardware, they are socializing the context of a membership. And so, or even Alo Yoga has their version of. When you buy online, you get at least a free month of yoga and wellness, Yoga and wellness membership in what they're doing, which is more of a content site, which is great. When you think about just for example, the, the dog business, it's certainly that, but it's also people being able to like celebrate their animals. And so when you, when you think about what is possible, when you bring people to. Together around that kind of an interest or a passion or a practice or, or a goal, like, if I had a candle business, I would be absolutely focused on home decor and entertaining and what, what is possible there. And I think what we're going to see over the next 24 months is that more and more, it's not just going to be about content. People might come for content, but they stay for the community. They stay for each other. And the reason I say the next 20, you know, 12 to 24 months is because the software is getting better and better. Being able to run a community without any work, and especially the community as it gets more sophisticated. You know, I. I don't know if anybody has had or been in a Facebook group that has what I like to call the Saturday night special, which is. If you're running a Facebook group, it always sort of seems like it blows up, like on a Saturday night, and you're like, I just want to watch a movie. Like, I just. Or like, I want to be out at dinner with my friends. Like, why is this Facebook group, like, going toxic at this moment? And with, you know, so first of all, that's much more likely to happen on Facebook. That's not a community thing. That is a. That is a Facebook group thing.

Can we. Can we talk about that? Because when I had seen you speak and mention it, it was like this major aha moment for me. So you had said, we talked about Facebook groups, and now listen, they have served and they've served my company, and they serve so many of us in so many ways because it was a way to gather people into a virtual room and do stuff. But you had said, like, there's just this. There's this way that people approach Facebook groups that they don't maybe on the mighty network or anywhere else that they. They are. So let's kind of talk about that a little bit.

Yeah. So communities all have a culture and things that are okay to do and things that aren't okay to do. The problem with Facebook is in the goal of growth. They kind of let everything fly and what that meant. And then, you know, in creating kind of one feed of everything and then turning up the juice on the things that were really charged, like, the things where people had high emotion, whether that emotion was happiness, whether it was anger, whether that was sadness, what they created was a dynamic where it became acceptable to show up to a group and act like a jerk. And in part, it was because the three posts before your group on somebody's Facebook feed were outrage. And, you know, on one side, it was outrage for people or against people. And so you show up in that group and you're like, I'm angry. I'm going to be a Jerk. The way I saw this was actually going back to the yoga with Adriene exam example. They had a 35,000 person Facebook group before they moved to Mighty and moved to having their own branded apps and their own standalone community. And the, the way Sarah Bowman, who was their community manager and COO said to me at the time, she's like, people were coming in hot, they were coming in mad to a yoga community. Like, no, no, like that's, that's not, like, that's not okay, that's not a thing. And so they found Mighty and they were doing experiments like, hey, is my community going to be happy here? Is this going to work? And they found that they could ask the exact same question and get totally different answers. And that's only become more and more of the case because the culture that you create in your community, people are showing up because they're stoked to be a part of it and, and support, you know, you get some good content. But the faster that we on the software side can introduce them to great people and break the ice and have questions that are amazing and like all of that good stuff, then you've, you're off to the races. You've created something that number one sells itself, number two, runs itself, and number three is really positive that you don't have to break up fights on a day Saturday night. And by the way, breakup fights that you're like, how did this happen? And I'm, I didn't start this group to break up fights. And so I don't even know how to do it. And that's the other thing that we'll start to see software get more and more sophisticated at like de escalating things.

Yeah, I mean the aha for me was like, you know, you don't walk into a stranger's house and you know, take your dirty feet and put them on their couch. Right. You're very polite, but it's almost like going to your mom's house. Right? You're used to like a certain culture and you're like, yeah, I'm gonna throw my feet up. You know, it is that case. I mean, we run, we've run. You know, we had like 15,000 people in a group that we ended up shutting down because I think people don't realize how much work it goes from the back end of us having to have team that's constantly monitoring, constantly making sure exactly what you said. There's no Saturday night special or people aren't tearing us down in it, or they're being kind to each other. And we're so fortunate that our community is very kind to each other. But it just takes one. We have a, we do these challenges and we have a pop up group that we, we host for people to come into this Facebook group. And this time around, we decided to air our videos just into the Facebook group, not on an, on an external, you know, it's called Zoom or something like that. And our show up was so much lower because I've actually seen over the last six, seven years people are removing themselves from that platform because they don't want the talking toxicity that comes with when they log in. So it's a cool, it was a really cool awareness that I got from you. I was like, yeah, like, that's why I don't like it. That's why it's not the best place. I love community and I want to have that, but I want to have it in a safe environment that everybody feels comfortable, but they also understand the boundaries and their roles.

I think we're going to see more and more people being able to move into this new world, this new model of your own branded community. Because the reason why people weren't leaving Facebook when staying with Facebook groups is it's like, oh, well, everybody's on Facebook already. So like, nobody wants to like, have another login. And then, you know, new things come along that are better and you're like, yeah, they actually do. Like, they're fine. Like, and, and that's what we've seen.

So thinking about community, what would you say are kind of like the, the main pillars when someone's thinking about community, that would create this like, sense of belonging, what they should think about when they're thinking about building a community.

Great question. It really comes down to five things. Five things. And I, I've been obsessed with this question. So this is why I'm like, it's five things, it's five components, and then it's really just like five mindset changes or agreements that you kind of make. So on the, like, structure, the five pieces, you need a big purpose. You need a reason for the community to exist. You have to be able to answer the question, like, what is this? Who's it for? What are we going to do together? And what am I going to get for doing it? So the big purpose kind of has this very specific formulaic structure which is I bring together and then a really specific, what we call your ideal member. Who are the people that need your community the most right now in all caps. And like, the answer might not be my current customers. It might actually be, oh, I could build a community for the next set of customers that I want because they have the biggest need for meaning and building relationships with each other. So I bring together. And then who do you bring together to? So people are listening. This is why the formula is so powerful, is because people are listening for these cues to. And then what you're going to do together in your community. I always like to push myself beyond learn, share and grow. Because that's sort of feels like. Like what you start with is like a community is there to learn, share and grow so that we can. And then what are they going to get for participating? So that we can have a beautiful house, so that we can bond with our children in the earliest days of a new life, so that we can navigate how we want to elevate, you know, our profession together we have a lot of professional networks or build new practices that allow us to be fully there for ourselves, our families, our friends, so that those benefits, if you will. So I bring together two so that we can. That is literally the reason I'm spending so much time on this. That is literally 90% of creating a successful community because you dial those things in. It means that the people who are showing up first of all, even before they join, they know the communities for them or not for them. Like, the worst thing you can do is start a community, be like, all people of planet Earth are invited to this community. Because I really want to be inclusive. Inclusivity is amazing, but you've got to make it so that somebody knows whether a community is right for them right now or not. Then communities are about progress. They are about helping people get from point A to point B. And, and this, I, I think just doesn't always. This, this is a light bulb moment for many people because progress feels sometimes like, oh, you have to do all the work yourself. It's like, no. Communities make progress so much easier in your life. Like you're just gonna do. It's it. If you go out to dinner with people who aren't drinking and you don't want to drink, it becomes a lot easier than if everybody is like boozing up and you're the only person not drinking. Like, community matters. The people you surround yourself with matters. And so the progress is what we call, I call your year in the life. So that's what do you want your members to be able to do a year from now that they can't do today? They can't do today. So what are they going to be able to do a year from now. And what's nice about a year is you can actually get a lot done in a year, but it's not like tomorrow. So you're not like, you know, already bummed out by, you know, February 15th or whatever because you've already like missed your resolutions. So the Year in the Life is so much fun to think about. It's like, oh yeah, what do I want people to be able to do? And then after you figure out what you want people to do, then it's like, oh, well, what could I do if I've been able to create a community or courses that somebody is able to do that in a year, what am I able to do in a year? And that might be, you know, control more of your own schedule, travel more, live by your values in a new and different way. So that's the Year in the Life. And then there are monthly themes that all ladder up to the Year in the Life and then ladder up to the big purpose. You see where I'm going to go with this? And the monthly themes, you want them to be meaty and meaty enough so that people are sharing their stories, their experiences, their ideas. Not advice. Advice actually shuts a community down. Stories and experiences and questions. Expand engagement, Expand engagement. And then from monthly themes, it's really important to have a practice and to make a community a habit. So that is being able to have a weekly calendar. So just has to be one or two things a week, but you do them at the same time and you'll get a totally higher engagement because people can start to expect at 9am on Tuesday mornings we do this, or at 4 o' clock on Thursdays we do this. And then finally, daily polls and questions. And daily, like polls and questions are by far the most popular things that we have seen in, in and across communities and courses. And it turns out that there's a formula to great questions. And we've even built what we call the infinite question. And you're never without a great question to be able to ask your community. You can literally like schedule it and set it up and let it go. So those are the five pieces. Big purpose, year in the life, monthly themes, a weekly calendar, daily polls and questions. And then in terms of the mindsets and agreements, you know, number one is try new things. Number two is stay curious. Like it's. This is. Communities are messy, people are messy. It's great. The whole point is you try things and if you're afraid of failure or like, oh, it has to be perfect. First of all, it doesn't. And second of all, you'll lose time and the magic of community. So try new things. Stay curious. Number three is reframe, reframe, reframe.

So if.

If the first thing that you feel is, oh, my gosh, I'm failing, you're not. Like, the right reframe is, what can I learn from this? What. What do I want to try differently next time? And then the fourth is listen, but have a point of view. So it's you. You don't want to start and run a community with the, hey, guys, what do you want to do? Like, people want leadership. They want you to take a stand and to have something they can react to, and then you can adapt. That's great. But starting with something is actually really important. And then the last piece is just trust the process. Like, I just told you nine other things, and they totally work. But it's super easy to basically be like, she doesn't know what she's talking about. I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna do. I'm just gonna, like, repurpose things the way I want. And then it's like, wait, why is my community not working? And it's like, well, because it's not social media. It's not about. The posts that work on your socials don't necessarily bring you a community. And by the way, they don't on social either. It's. It is a complete misnomer to say my community when what you have is an audience. The definition of community is when you are facilitating the relationships between people, not just followers.

That's such a clear explanation. So thank you for saying that. Yeah. So I do want to kind of switch gears a little and talk about you as a woman in business. So like you said, you have your NBA from Stanford. You serve as a board of director for a $2.7 billion broadcast and digital media company. So knowing this, right, A woman who's been a part of Silicon Valley, that's in the business world. You know, I talk a lot about glass ceilings, and I joke that there's the Oprah Winfrey glass ceiling, right? Like, that's Oprah's version. Then there's a glass ceiling that when we work for other people, are created by the job that we have. But as entrepreneurs first, we actually start off creating our own glass ceiling. And it's so much lower than anything that we would set for ourselves, right? Because it's our exposure to people. It's our. You know, it's what we know, and we don't even know what's possible or that potential. So what I really want to teach my listeners is to lift the lid. Like, I'm not saying smash through it, I'm not saying breakthrough, but let's just lift the lid to see what's possible. So as a woman in business running, you know, software and all these things, what sort of, you know, what did it take for you to first believe or think bigger that you could even have this like audacious, beautiful dream of a woman stepping into this kind of career?

Initially I fell into it, but I also, like even just in the question, like as a woman, I don't. That is not the first thought that I have every day and I don't know that it ever was. And I feel like at the times in my life where I've started my identity or sort of sentence with as a woman, I have actually found things harder, not easier. And so I, I sort of equate it to putting, you know, a bag of rocks on your back or on my back where it's like, oh, well, I still have to go raise money. And it, you know, it's, it's sometimes more discouraging when you think that it, you know, somebody's saying no to you not because of the quality of your idea, but because of your gender or because of your race or color or background or where you're from. And the reality is that as an entrepreneur, those things can't matter like that. That cannot be how I process the world if I want to enjoy this path. And so the way that I've gotten comfortable with it is to start with my mission, which is I'm obsessed with, with how, you know, and it's partially ego, but it's also partially because I'm looking around, I'm like, nobody else is doing this and somebody needs to, and somebody needs to show that this is possible, to be able to use software to make amazing connections between people and to surround a person when they join a community with love and attention in all of the right non creepy ways. And so for me, what has been the most critical aspect of, you know what, whatever success I've had is I start with the mission and me as the messenger. I don't spend a lot of time on it. And I think that that has made things easier for me. And I've tried it the other way and it hasn't gone that well.

Was it modeled for you that anything was possible, or do you think it was your own personality that you're just like, it's me and anything is possible.

No, I, I mean, I rarely think that that attitude and mindset is possible without being surrounded by that. I think that you, you know, any of us really are the, you know, are the result of the five people we spend the most time with and, you know, anybody in your life that is making it harder for you to see, you know, see clearly the world where you are successful and what it means to live in that world and operate in that world. And what does that world smell like and taste like just so it makes it as vivid as possible. Sad that sounds, but also happy when you can make room for the people that do lift you up and that do help you think bigger. And then you. And it's infectious. It's like, well, then how can I help other people think bigger and how can I lift other people up? And it just becomes this really positive, you know, feedback loop and, and flywheel, if you will. So to me, it's, it's, you know, I'm fortunate to grow up in a family that, like, didn't think that anything was not within my ability as a, as a kid to try or, you know, to aim for. And what I think really motivates me today again is this, is this vision and this mission of we're going to go prove that community software and very sophisticated community software, because we believe that that's what it's going to take is the answer to people making friends and not being so lonely and not feeling disconnected.

Yeah, I love that. So, you know, and what I'm hearing, and it kind of loops it all back, is that when you said it's who you surround yourself with. And I know when I was coming up and I was building my business, I was 26. And, you know, their podcasts were not a thing, online communities were not a thing. I had to go find the people. And a lot of us in the fashion industry, for example, we were in competition. We weren't in collaboration together. So it was sort of like, I'm not going to share that resource with you or we're not going to share how I do that. And, you know, it was very separate. So, like, over this last 20 years of like, the shift of technology, of software, of access to people, I think it doesn't. We don't have that excuse anymore of like, I'm not exposed. It's really paying attention to you then. And that's when I saw the shift in my business, like a decade in was I found a group of other entrepreneurs, they were women that were doing big things and I was like, oh, this is possible. I can have both and I can be with my kids and have a million dollar plus business. You know, I can do things like that. So I love that you say that because I think as our listeners are listening one, I really wanted them to think about community for their product businesses. But also the flip side of who are you surrounding yourself with? What communities are you getting into that are lifting you up, that are allowing you to see what's possible and hearing how you explain that, that, you know, it's like a bag of rocks on your back. You just never even brought that into.

Your, into your brain.

You're like, we're just going to. I have a mission and I'm going, I'm going forward and nothing's going to stop me.

I don't, I, I've tried the other path and it just doesn't work, at least for me. And I haven't seen it work. Like the numbers would have changed much faster over the last 14 years if, if it worked. To just look at everything through the filter of, you know what, what makes us feel less than.

Yeah, so good. All right, my friend, I have your book but would you mind sharing with our listeners about your book where they can follow you about Mighty Networks however we want to connect with them?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I wrote a book. It's called Purpose Design a Community and Change youe Life. And in addition to some of the community design techniques and principles that I just shared a little bit give you a taste of. I also have the whole first third of the book is all about how do you build a set of practices to really find your purpose and make it matter. So that's the book. You can go to Purpose Co and find a bookseller near you or just send me an email and I will get you a copy. And then I am on Twitter or X I guess it is now Enab Instagram. I don't post to Instagram a lot but is just Gina Bianchini B I A N C H I N I or you have the show notes and then on LinkedIn as well.

And if anyone's interested in Mighty Networks, you'd head to Mightynetworks.com we will put all the links in the show notes. Thank you so much for being on and sharing so much with us and I hope that our listeners got a lot out of this and they'll connect with you.

Hey, before you go, I want to remind you, and you know this, that I am on A mission to empower women all over the world to build.

Product based businesses that give them the.

Security and freedom that they desire to build the life of their dreams. So I know I can help you do this by teaching you how to nail the core four foundational pillars of a standout brand. And what I've seen people do is they've gone from coming up with an idea to making a product and jumping to sell it, but they've missed the core for foundations. So I am so excited to invite you to join my totally free masterclass, your four step playbook to stand out in a crowded market and get more customers so that you can grow your business of your dreams no matter where you sell and no matter what you sell. In just 90 minutes, I'm going to teach you the core four foundational pieces your business might be missing. How you can stop stop wasting time and money on things that don't work. And how you can focus on things that are going to work instead. I also want to teach you my proven ways to build an audience that buys from you and tells their friends about you. And we're going to dig into what might be blocking you from your growth and your potential and how you can turn it around.

And really, my friend, I just want.

To teach you how you can build a standout brand and get more customers and have more, have more sales. It's going to be amazing and I cannot wait for you to dive in. So come join me. Grab your totally free spot and head to theproductboss.com standout to get access. Again, head to the productboss.com standout to get access. All right, I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you for being here and listening all the way through the Product Boss podcast. If you if you love our show and it has helped you in any way in your business, would you mind doing two things for us? Subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode and leave us a review. Reviews help other product entrepreneurs know that this is the place to be to grow their businesses and realize that they're not alone. And we know that you all know that a five star and honest review helps you sell more products to more people. So you know that your reviews help us reach reach more listeners around the world. Remember, what we give is what we receive and we are all about helping each other in the Product Boss community. We are all in this together. We would be so appreciative of you if you could take the time right now to subscribe. Leave a review and even share this episode on social or someone you know so we can impact more lives. And remember, subscribing means that you will get notified each time we release a new episode so you never miss a thing. You have helped us grow and climb into the top 10 of all marketing podcasts and together we can keep climbing. Thank you friends and remember, there is room at the top for all of us.