The Power of Communities | Gina Bianchini on Community Building and the Creator Economy in 2023

A community is a network of people where they are all contributing and building value for each other. It's not something that you learn in a book. It's not something you learn from a thread. It's something you experience. One of the things that I find so fascinating is that this— there's been this, you know, absolute narrowing of the definition of creator.

So where I want to start is actually sort of like the, the pre-work discussion or pre-interview discussion where we were having, and, and I mentioned something where I was like, oh, like tech is becoming something, right? And, and you said something really interesting. You, you sort of defined how cultures are usually not monoliths. So can you, um, we're going to talk a lot about purpose and community and culture in this conversation.

Sure.

Can you sort of start by defining how sometimes like people think like communities are just like one monolith, like the creator economy or tech and SF, and what role does purpose play in that? Sure.

Well, so let's even just take a step back and think about agency. Each and every one of us has the agency to decide how we spend Our time, our talents, our energy, and our focus. Now, there are a lot of social— and by the way, that is how I define purpose in, in the book. Um, there are a lot of ways that community and culture and how we interact as individuals with other people and in groups of other people, it makes it so much easier to navigate rapid change. It makes it so much easier to build new practices and new habits. It makes it so much easier to achieve results and transformation that we can't achieve on our own, right? So, that's all of the power of culture. Let's just call it culture because I think that one of my key predictions for 2023 is that culture replaces community because community has just become such a generic word in so many different ways. And I think that by choosing a new term, choosing a new way to think about it, we can imbue it with just such more effective and more interesting ways of thinking about the power and impact of community. So, Now let's come back to, oh, the creator economy, or, oh, you know, X, Y, or Z trend. I, you know, I grew up here. I grew up in Cupertino. I grew up in Silicon Valley. I, I have watched tech culture go from literally like hippie engineers tinkering in their garages and in groups, small groups of people, all the way through the dot-com boom and bust, all the way through Web 1, Web 2, and now Web 3, and whatever comes next. And here's what I know to be true. There is not one culture. There is not one set of people that we have to follow and pay attention to. There is not one way of doing this. And the more that, especially as entrepreneurs and founders, that we think that there is one way or one culture or one set of people that we have to pay attention to, we are losing our competitive advantage. We are losing our edge. We are losing our opportunity to think differently. And it's super easy. Like, I'm not saying like, oh, if you're sort of paying attention and thinking that there's one, you know, monolithic culture, you're a dummy. You're not a dummy. What is so challenging about being founders, being creators, being entrepreneurs is that we're kind of making it up as we go along. And as we're making it up as we go along, it's one of the things where it's like we're looking for clarity. We're looking for the way to do it. We're looking for people to tell us what to do and how to do it, but we don't have to accept it. And that's really the difference between, I believe, between success and failure is how can you pay attention to the culture? How can you pay attention to best practices but not be defined by them?

What's interesting in that is like so much of it starts with language, right? Like, because language defines actions, language defines beliefs. And when you look at for creators, the language around success, let's say, like over the last 10 years has all been followers or audience or subscribers, which does that same thing of putting everyone in that same bucket, basically.

Right. Because again, as human beings, we want clear rules of the game. Like, what are we trying to do here? And the power of the crowd, the power of community and culture is really strong. Now, here's the thing. If you are just going to be the 5,000th or 5 millionth person doing the same things, though, what I know to be true is that they die. And all of a sudden, all your effort, all your energy is being put towards something that is, you know, is seeing diminishing returns. And the beautiful thing about entrepreneurship, the beautiful thing about technology is that we get to create. We get to build a world that we want to live in. We need to recruit other people into that world. And the question I fundamentally ask myself and I ask others that I mentor and I guide and think about is, you know, are you just following the crowd? Or are you clear in the world that you want to live in, clear in the world you want to create? And how are you bringing other people into that world? And it's, you know, it's one of the greatest questions of any of our lives. And it's one of the reasons why I wrote the book.

One of the things that came up in sort of our research with, like, Marni and your team was, she mentioned a really key line that I thought about after a bunch of times when I was prepping for this, which was that you're really clear about the positive role software can play in relationships and connecting between people. And even if you look at your background, right, in the context of sort of your background with Ning and building communities through Mighty Networks, and you've raised money, there's that same sort of like thing of like, raise more money, like, get more growth and more growth and all of these different things. When you're actually building a community, when you're actually building a company, how do you refocus the conversation on that connection and the depth versus the width and more and more and more?

Well, so there are a couple of different questions, I think, in that. In that question, so the first question is: I think how do how do you how do you get focus in a community, and how do you it almost sounds like how do you focus a community? How do you also get focus in a team? Then there's the positive role technology can play. You know, in our lives, which one would you like to kind of tackle first? I don't I don't I don't necessarily know that those are. The same exact thing. I think about them somewhat differently.

Which is cool because I think in my mind, I just thought of it as the same thing. So, we can start off with focus with the team and the community and then jump to the next one.

Yeah. So, I think in terms of thinking about focus, we as people want to belong to something bigger than ourselves. It is about The journey. It's about the challenge. It's about the opportunity. And what I believe as leaders we got to do, and I think as founders especially, is not only paint the picture of the future. And again, that's certainly where I tie in the role of what can technology do in the future. But I live in the future. I think about the future all the time. And I want it to happen yesterday. Right. Ironically, but when I can paint a picture of the future and and help other people paint that picture of the future and see it really clearly, that is how focus really comes in to the sharpest lens. And so, when I think about as just a founder, you know, where does focus come from? Well, it comes from. Clarity and a vivid picture more than it comes from a generic mission statement. Mission's super important, but to me, I think that you know you can have a you can have a mission statement that people sort of nod to, but when they start to think about the world that we are building for it, so I'll just give you an example. At Mighty, our goal is to create a world where each and every one of us has. 4 or 5 different amazing communities, amazing worlds on our phones and on our computers. And that these communities are there to automate the stuff that we don't necessarily want to do. Not only just the admin stuff, but also like the stuff that we've actually gotten pretty bad at. Like, how do we introduce ourselves to other people? How do we meet the most relevant people? How do we break the ice? How do we How do we show up and just have the right people connect? And it feels so natural and normal and, and special in a way that actually scales. And that these communities exist for the things that are most important in our lives, whether that's, you know, our career, whether that's our finances, whether that's our friends, whether that's the games we love to play, whether that's our, our, our health, our wellness. All of these things are places where we get to go deeper and pop back up and go into a different world. Now, why do I think that that is the world that each and every one of us will have more fun in, will get more value from, will learn and grow faster than like another thread on LinkedIn or Twitter or watching 14 more videos on TikTok? And those are all fine. But those are so much emptier and actually cause us to grow slower and not necessarily live our most well-lived life. So, the challenge that we have and the challenge that I have as an entrepreneur and the challenge that my team and I wake up every day thinking about is how do we bring more people into a daily life where the communities that they get to go into and explore and meet new people, whether those people are folks that live near them or live around the world, and how do we create those experiences by building cultures, which cultures are how you create self-organizing communities. Culture is how you create new revenue streams. And culture is actually how you create creativity and unlock it in new and interesting ways. And so, that can be summed up in a mission statement, sure. But it's so much more fun to bring people along for the ride and to really clarify what we are building towards. And so, pulling that back into purpose and why you know, why for me, the way to think about and really manifest one's purpose is through what I call future story. Fast-forwarding 10 years and looking back on where you started and where you are, again, 10 years in the future, and painting that picture of the world. Because as you paint it, you get clarity around, do people even want this? Do they think we're crazy? Do they think, you know, that doesn't sound very much fun relative to like, being in a feed that lacks all sorts of context and looks exactly the same with some formatting changes, especially as we're looking at a coming wave of AI that's going to, like, write all these things for us. Like, there has to be progress. There has to be a different future. And it's one that I'm certainly excited to be a part of building.

So, so we're gonna jump around like a classic Tim Ferriss interview, Memento style. Um, this actually brings up 2 questions that were from, uh, your friend Anne. Um, I'll start with the first one, which is the interesting thing here is that you started Ning in 2006 and Mighty in 2011, um, where it's just like been like this like mass thing, right? How did you know so many years ago that there would be an opening in the market for software like this? Um, What was that future story that you had written at that point about that?

Yeah. So first of all, I actually started Ning in 2004 and Mighty Networks in 2017. So just to kind of give a sense of timing. So I didn't know other than It just sort of seems obvious that technology should be an enabler of closer connection, not just massive audiences. Like, it's kind of obvious. And when you start to think about— and I, again, I live in a world where it's completely obvious in my head and to my team where we're building towards, which is how does software play the role of introducing you to the most relevant people, the people that you look around and you're like, oh my God, like, I love this crew. And I feel like the best version of myself with these people. And, you know, to me, that is the great untapped opportunity of software and of people. It's how do we create something that plays to the best of ourselves. And I think, you know, when I look back and what I knew in 2004, and what I knew in 2007, and what I knew in 2010, there was always a sense, always a sense that the most interesting moments in life are those when we are in smaller groups of people with a clear purpose, a clear reason for existing, whether that's a team or whether that's a club, whether that's a company. And that I had an opportunity to bring people together to really explore the full impact technology could have on making those moments and those connections possible for people all around the world in new and fresh ways. And I, you know, we're sitting here in 2 days, a day before 2023, and I just feel like I'm just getting started.

I love that. And shifting time now backwards, can you talk about— and this is another question from Anne— can you talk about your upbringing and How you learned the ideas of community through that?

Yeah. I mean, here's the beautiful thing about community. And again, I think about the ways that community scales with culture is it's not something that you learn in a book. It's not something you learn from a thread. It's something you experience. So, for me, the experience was The fact that my parents, and anytime you had interests and passions and goals, it was in the context of a community. Like, so my father restored classic cars. And so what did he do? He had not only his group of friends that they did it together, but he had like the Model T Ford Club that we would like, we had vests. As a kid, I had a vest. All the dudes had vests. All the wives had vests because it was primarily dudes. It was actually all dudes, not on purpose, but just because of like what the interest was. And we would drive our Model Ts like around the Bay Area. We'd go on, you know, go on beautiful drives. And my mom showed and bred guinea pigs. And so we had the guinea pig club. And, you know, it's not a surprise to me that the personal computer came out of a club like this, the Homebrew Computer Club, which was how Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak met and where they created— where Apple came from. And so, to me, those seeds are now fast forward again a very long time, but those seeds that I saw around how you bring people together around an interest of passion, a goal doesn't have to just be for serious topics, but it also doesn't have to just be for like chat alone. It can be something where we are together creating culture and to create culture, you kind of need more than chat alone. You need content and courses and commerce and different forms and formats for community in ways that You know, for us, really, we realized at Mighty that we're building a different kind of software that we call cultural software. And the reason is because culture is how you create the most vivid and most meaningful and most valuable communities. And that is really why we are here.

What's interesting to me in this is there's so many second-order effects of the way you think about this. Like, by focusing on connection instead of mass, you build a better team, right? I'm curious, like, when you think about company building, are there other second-order effects that have come through this way of thinking about community that maybe other companies that are just focusing on more employees, more employees don't have?

Well, look, so first of all, I think this whole idea that people are focusing on more and more employees was relevant and accurate maybe 6 months ago or maybe 12 months ago, and the world has fundamentally changed. Building a startup has fundamentally changed. And I think that, you know, certainly having gone through this, I think this is my, I think this will be my 3rd downturn. The thing that I know to be true about communities, and I'll give you just an example of this, is that When you have a strong community, you can react very quickly because you are seeing things before other people are, and you are navigating them potentially and adapting to them much faster. So, when the when the pandemic hit, we were able to at Mighty we were able to transition to remote. First and remote only, where we have stayed very quickly. And the reason for that was that we had an expertise in building online communities. And what is a company that is remote first or remote only? It's an online community. And we found that— and these are things that I talk a lot about in Community Design, which is our framework and our our masterclass we teach for creating a community so valuable you can charge for it and so well-designed it essentially runs itself. And what we also teach in community design, or what we do teach in community design, is to observe, orient, decide, and act— the OODA loop. And we call it different things in different contexts, but for us, that ability to move very quickly, not only to how we could operate remotely, but also in terms of what we built, how we built it, how we grew, how we evolved, all came back to following that OODA loop, that observing, orienting, deciding, acting, and then observing again. And when I look at the power of that approach, approach, how to build online communities, how to design a culture, and really taking advantage as a startup for the OODA loop, that's how we will continue to serve our customers as effectively as we possibly can. And that's why we're all here. We're here to build a long-term sustainable platform That ultimately creates that world where each and every one of us have amazing four or five communities that we we dive into, come out of, dive into a different one, come out of. It's where we discover new ideas and where we build the career that we want to build and where we study the things we want to study, and it's where we have the health and practices that we want to have and. Hopefully people are falling in love and other people are making the best friends of their lives. That is the world that we want to live in.

I love that you used the OODA loop in it. I think the first time I learned about it was when I did an interview with someone from the military. So it's so interesting that you've adapted that for communities. I think one result of that is, and sort of like shifting conversation to creators, is in the past few years, you've, as a company, have commissioned a few studies on the creator economy and creators. And the thing I would start with actually in that is there's a lot of debate in terms of like, what is the size of the creator economy? I think in one of your reports, you break down the potential audience and it's over 400 million, right? So how do you define a creator and This, this was a question from Anne, which is, why are you so confident, or that you're really confident that anyone can become a creator, not just people who've devoted their lives to like being a creator or YouTuber?

Well, so first and foremost, let's just be clear, devoted their lives, like the definition of creating and creation as like you make content. For one of 4 major platforms is very young. Like that is not actually like, it was actually not ever the original definition of the creator economy. So, you know, going back to like ancient times of 15 years ago, we talked about Ning creators as creators. Like that just seemed like the right word. So one of the things that I find so fascinating is that this there's been this, you know, absolute narrowing of the definition of creator to be somebody who is building an audience on one of 4 platforms, 5 platforms, such that they are able to have either brand deals for producing content for audiences, or by being able to put content behind a paywall and run a subscription. Now, last I checked, there is no creator governing council that says that that is the only definition of creators. I'm not sure why we want to define it so narrowly. Why? Like, who does that serve? Does it serve the creator? Probably not. Like, As Matt Koval, who is just an incredibly thoughtful creator and runs a YouTube channel called Creator Dynamics, talks about it, he's like, that's really narrow. So it's like, great. So 5 people can have over 100 million subscribers on YouTube, like, and we're like excited about that. Like, why? What is the benefit of that? I don't know who it benefits. Yeah. It certainly does not seem to be benefiting creators. When we commissioned the largest, the first independent and largest study of creators in October of 2021, what became super clear is the emotional toll, the energy that taking, that producing content for large platforms takes. And the fact of the matter is, when you look at the numbers, who's winning? The large platforms are winning. Creators aren't winning. So to me, I think that one, we need to define creators really broadly and that it's not just about content. It is about, are you able to bring people together in a way that creates value in other people's lives? And to do so by producing not just content, but courses, commerce, and community. And when you look at those things, you know, I believe passionately that the future of creation and creating lies in building sustainable, self-organizing cultures that allow you to have a much bigger impact. In people's lives that allows you to create content on your terms, where you want to, when you want to, as opposed to being at the mercy of algorithms and being at the mercy of other people's platforms that are, you know, again, making a lot more money on you than you are on them. And doing so in a way that's so much more easy, so much more easy, so much easier and more sustainable So when you look at that broader definition and you start to include people that are making money online, that are participating in marketplaces, you start to just see that the numbers explode in terms of who gets to be a creator and how they get to be creators. And that's the world I want to live in.

I love that. It's like the sort of like artists on Etsy and the maybe someone who's like restoring like vintage furniture, they're all creators too.

How— who gets— who says that they're not? This is the part that I just find so fascinating, is like, so did somebody wake up and say that they're not? Like, was it— did I— did I miss the memo? Like, why— why and how have we come to define what we've defined? It's really because those large tech platforms made it up. And how do I know this? Because I was there when they made it up, and it's all made up. It's all made up. And so especially as we look at going into a year that is going to have a ton of economic headwinds, one of the things that I think is so important for creators is revenue diversification. I believe brand deals are going to dry up except for, you know, a handful that are going— handfuls Big hands there, but there will be some that will continue. But I think for the vast majority of creators, and especially in this much bigger, more inviting and inclusive world where we get to define what a creator is, having more options in terms of the value you can provide people—that it's not just about producing content; it is really about how you bring people together. To achieve results and transformation in their lives, entertainment in their lives, how they are not just consuming the last video you made, but how that video allows them to go out into their lives and be a force for good. And not just in like a nonprofit-y kind of way, but just be a force for good. We can do that.

It's about the impact, not the number of influence. The one interesting thing too is, could you mentioned brand deals. It's interesting how like most creators look at brand deals as a way to monetize, which is all dependent on the number of audience, which because it's like CPM-based. I wanna read this line from the report that you published, which I remember reading this line, I just stopped in my tracks. It was, for example, one platform, which I think is Mighty, enabled— is enabling creators to build their own network effect, found that of their top 250 revenue-producing customers, the median social following was just 8,500 people. That blew me away. So can you talk about that stat and just sort of like your predictions for this intersection of creators and community and culture for next year based on the report that you're going to publish?

Well, so that was from the October '21 report. And yeah, I mean, it's— so first of all, let's define terms. So a network effect is how the large platforms became the large platforms. It's basically the ability to connect people to each other in such a way that it becomes— those connections become more valuable to everyone with each new person who joins and contributes. So every new person that you bring into a community that you own, that you create, that is not just valuable because they're another audience member, but because they then are able to make connections with other members. It's their stories, their experiences, their ideas, not just yours, that anyone who's showing up is getting value from. And so what does that mean? It means you are creating more value with less work. It means that people have more reasons to engage and more reasons to come back than just your content alone. And it means that you're able to do so much more. You have the opportunity to create subscriptions that aren't based on, again, more content, more premium content, but rather the connections people are making with each other. You're able to actually get new ideas for things that you want to create and that you want to build because you are getting instant feedback and instant ideas from your community. And all of that actually allows you to go and build audiences. And in fact, one of the things we're, we're going to do in the new year is go back to those 250 people that represented 8,500 followers Uh, or on average 8,500 followers, and look at how they've been able to grow audiences by starting with community. By starting with community.

Can you define the difference, which, as you see, between audience and community? Because I know that's very specific to Mighty.

I don't think that's very specific to Mighty. I think that's just— I'm sorry, reality of like what, what, what I think audience is.

I think you have a specific way of thinking about it, right?

Sure. So an audience is I talk at you, you're consuming what I, what I produce, and maybe you, maybe you DM me. A community— and, and look, it's, it's, it's very powerful for the large tech platforms to say that that audience is a community, that it is a network, because it basically makes you think that it is what I'm about to describe, which it is not. A community is a network of people where they are all contributing and building value for each other. So, for example, I talk out at you, and instead of you talking back to me only, you're actually contributing and starting to build relationships with each other. Now, one of the things I find fascinating is the number of creators who, who can have a knee-jerk reaction to this and say, yeah, but that's not nearly as valuable as like the content I'm producing. And let's just think about that. So how much work goes into a keynote or, or a video? Quite a bit. Quite a bit. Uh, because it's all on you. Now, how about hosting a party? What makes a party awesome is the people that you've brought together and the conversations that they're having with each other. That's what makes a party amazing. Which one's easier?

Which one's the party? The party.

So to me, what is so powerful about having your own community, even if you want to keep producing content, is that it actually actually gives you more people to harness and to, to build incredible experiences for that then are going to go out and talk about you and probably talk about you to people that you on your own are not going to necessarily be able to reach without figuring out the game of the algorithm or producing that like next attention-grabbing thread that, by the way, The benefit of, you know, that kind of viral content is great. You get to produce more of that viral content, and then you just have these ups and downs. A community is so much more stable, and it's a stable, consistent source of new ideas and how to actually bring people together, provide value, go out and bring more people in, and build something up from there. So, you know, we started with a community on Mighty of nobody. And today, we have over 80,000 members. Those 80,000 members have turned into an incredible asset, source of inspiration and ideas and insights that we could never, never replicate on social media. How do I know? Because I'm on social media too. And I see the difference between the two. And I'll be honest. One is so much more fun than the other. And no surprise, it's the community. It's not a social media following.

Yeah. And I think one interesting thing that you mentioned about the viral content is that's a beast that you have to keep feeding. So, if something goes viral, it has probably a shelf life of like 2 days, then you have to do another one, right? And it seems like community is something where you actually have compounding results.

Yeah.

Over time. So can you talk about some of those compounding results that happen in the community that maybe creators don't think about?

Well, number one, source of new content. Source of new content. So one of the things you see in a lot of people who believe that they know a lot about entrepreneurship, which again, in many cases they do, they'll talk about, oh, well, the way that you do copy— how many people have, you know, taken the copywriting course that says, you know, the, the more that you're talking to sort of one person and really speaking their language, uh, the more successful you'll be in social media? I, I— you've heard this, right?

Yeah.

Right. Well, guess what you get to do in a community? Talk to people in their language. You're hearing. So, so when I'm running a live stream of a thousand people, I'm, I'm seeing in chat their instant reactions. I'm seeing in chat exactly what their questions are. I know in real time what is happening in terms of how not only are my ideas or the things that I'm, I'm trying to bring to life. How they are playing with the crowd in terms of them back to me, but how they're sparking connections and relationships with each other. So that is incredibly powerful. And so you might say to me, well, Gina, you can livestream on Facebook or you can livestream on Instagram. But at the end of that livestream, those relationships all go away and they're not necessarily building relationships with each other. Now, Compare that to, again, cultural software and building a community with cultural software, where cultural software is about having that live stream and that chat that then evolves after the chat. So you can actually set something up where you're like, hey, or you're like, I'm like, I'm like, okay, so will you guys post in the community in the chat afterwards? your big purpose or, you know, where you want to be a year from now that you're not today. And the conversations that then start to happen between members is not something that you can replicate in Instagram. It is not something that you can replicate on Twitch. And so the power of bringing these different pieces together in one place. And we see it with online courses all the time. The, the effectiveness of a course where the community and the course are together in the same place is profound. It's profound. And so these different elements is how a community just becomes so differentiated. I'll give you another example. We never thought we would build online courses into Mighty directly. That was not why we created Mighty in the first place. And what we found is when we launched networks on Mighty in 2017, almost immediately what we were hearing from people, our hosts, as we call our folks that are creating and growing communities on Mighty, they're like, Gina, Tom, Tim, like guys, just build online courses directly in here. This is obvious to me and obvious to multiple people, but I'm especially thinking about a woman named Missy Elmer. And what we tried to do was we integrated it all in, you know, we didn't build it natively originally, and then we built it natively and overnight the experiences And the and the community and courses, the community-led courses that were created were magical. And and how do I know? Because I created one with community design and the community design masterclass and saw people get results. And not only get results, not only just you know complete the course, but build relationships with each other that three years later still exist. And it's building relationships. in pursuit of results and transformation that again, it's just so much easier to do in a community.

It's really cool that you've mentioned this idea, sort of like building the relationships between people more than just a mass audience. When you think of the success of Mighty as a platform and then hosts as like the success of hosts as community leaders, what are the metrics you look at? Is it the connections between audience members or Is it something else for the success of the community?

Yeah. So, first of all, we don't think about them as audience members. So, that's for somewhere else. You can build audiences on Mighty, but it's not why we exist. So, the things that we look at are certainly the connections being made between members, which again is something that we can measure. But also then, what are the repeat connect— what are those repeat interactions? Where and how are we— is the software able to spark new connections and then build those relationships over time? So, it certainly shows up in not just higher engagement numbers, but what we actually look for is— so, when a community starts, it's, you know, a lot of the host facilitating people talking to each other and those sparks. And so we have with community design a whole way of thinking about what those sparks are, right? And how to create them. A lot of it is strategy. So it's so different from social media where it's like social media, it's like literally you're told post 7 times a day and like be in every comment. And in a community, it's actually on average, our most successful hosts are posting No more than twice a week. And why is that? Because when you have a really clear purpose for existing, we call it your big purpose. When you have really clear members and an ideal member profile, as we call it, these are the people that need your community the most right now, all caps, right? When you have those 2 things, you can actually do a lot less. So this is one of those Really incredible opportunities to work smarter, not harder. And a lot of people that have never done this, or you know, think that it's just like social media where it's just like it's like you're posting all the time, they actually don't believe me and believe us that it is easier. And then when they make that shift, they're like, okay, fine, I'll I'll do this. They're blown away. They're blown away. And they're blown away by, wait a second, why was I over here doing, you know, again, it's not, it's not just 5 posts per, it's 5 posts per platform. So it's like, oh my gosh, I gotta do— and then every platform is telling you that you're gonna have better success and the algorithm will like it better if you have, uh, native content. So native to LinkedIn or native to TikTok or native to Reels or native to whatever. And so now, you're producing, you know, all of this stuff. Whereas with a community, it's literally, here's our purpose for existing. Here's who we're bringing together. Oh, by the way, why don't you guys bring in some, some new folks as well? Here's how we're going to navigate rapid change together. Here's how we're going to build new habits and new practices. And here's how we're going to get results and transformation in our lives that we can't get on our own. We're going to follow our curiosity. We're going to support each other. We're going to share ideas and experiences, not advice. And we're not going to just try to be producing a bunch of content. We're going to actually be building relationships. And so when you just look at all of those things taken together, you know, the metrics become pretty clear. Like, you're going to start With okay, I got to facilitate people coming together. It's the beginning of a party. I got to like hey, you should talk to you know Gina. Talk to Marnie. Marnie, talk to Anne. Here's why. Here's the context. But what we see is typically within three months, sometimes shorter, sometimes a little bit longer, the number of contributions in the community. By members versus the hosts once they make a flip or they make a flip, they make the switch. And that's when the self-organizing magic happens. What we're obsessed with at Mighty is, okay, well, how do we make that for those first few months? How do we get those people connecting to each other faster, more effectively? And we talk about that. That is where we are obsessed. And have a lot of things that we're stewing on and working up and doing from here.

When you were mentioning sort of the surprise that, let's say, marketers or maybe mass audience people feel, I'm literally, if you're just listening, I'm literally going through that as I'm talking to you, which is awesome because those are the best interviews where I learn while asking. So when I'm thinking about community, because it's something I've sort of hesitated on building for a long time. And I'm sure you've heard this a lot, and then we'll come back to the things you're doing to create more connection. But I'm sure you've heard this a lot, which is, I'm an introvert, so I don't know if I should build a community.

Oh, I'll give you 5 better. It's a ton of work. What about all of the trolls? I don't have time to build a community. It's just going to be a ton of work. Like, I don't like people that much. Here's the problem with all of those things. A problem I won't say. I won't say a problem. I'll say here's what is missing.

Reframe.

Here's the reframe on that. Everything that you do gets easier and more energizing when you start with a community. Now, you may have the wrong people in your community. And that's something that you can actually change. You can define your ideal member. It doesn't— and your ideal member does not have to be just the people who showed up. But when you can bring a community together, and one of the things that you have with a community that you just don't have with social media is the ability to charge for that community. So, for example, I can guarantee you, even as an introvert, because I'm an introvert too, when you bring people together where you are charging for membership, you are probably going to figure out how to provide value. But that value is the facilitation of them being able to meet each other. Right. So then you have a new source of inspiration. You have a new ongoing source for ideas for anything else you want to create. Plus, you are using a dollar amount to ensure that you're attracting the best people. People pay attention to what they pay for as well. So I would say there are a lot more tools in a community toolbox, especially a cultural— when you focus on culture and the tools in a cultural software Community Sandbox that you can use, that it that will actually be less work and not just less work in terms of managing that community. And again, anybody can reach out to me and I will set you up with the easiest way to do this. I'm just Gina at MightyNetworks.com. And in doing so. You are going to make everything else in your life so much easier, more meaningful, more interesting, more energizing. And the the faster and and more clearly and effectively you can bring people together, I believe it's the skill of the next decade. Because when you can bring people together and create that network effect, that ability to bring a group of people together. Put them at ease, help them realize the results and transformation that they want in their lives, and reinforce what they need to do in their lives by the stories, experiences, and ideas of other members. It's the best.

So so let's say I decide to do that. I'm assuming you want to have like a few members, number of members to start. So I have like let's say like five ten people I want to start with. What are let's go into it now. What are things I should be doing in the first? 30, 60, 90 days so that when the 3 months hit, it flips into that self-organizing machine that you were talking about?

Yeah. So, it really is a classic case of the 80/20 rule. The most important thing is your big purpose. Why are you bringing those 5 to 10 people together? What are you going to do together? Who are they? What are you going to do together? And what are we all going to get for being a part of it? And the clearer you are about that, everything else in a community is super easy. So the the power of getting your big purpose right. So it literally is is a formula that you know having a fancy MBA, being a part of like every you know executive training leadership program, watching all the frameworks that get thrown out on the Twitters and and. And LinkedIn's. I will tell you that the big purpose structure is the single most effective way of bringing people and attracting people to a new idea. And it's very simple. I or we bring together, and then who you bring together. The more specific, the better. To what are you going to do together so that we can— what are the results and transformation we are going to get in our lives? And that might be related very specifically, and the more specific you are, obviously, the better. But that might be very specifically related to the creator businesses that you want to build, or to find and build a set of manageable practices that bring you energy every day. Like, these are all things you could actually go and create a community around tomorrow. Now, then the question is, okay, What people are interested, what do you do next? So, the second thing, again, these are the 5 pieces of community design and the framework that has really come out of like the fact that I've been doing this and seeing what works across literally hundreds of thousands of successful communities and millions built. So, I have a very big dataset.

Mm-hmm.

And have watched these patterns work over and over and over and over again. So, the second one is what I call a year in the life. So, where are those 5 to 10 people going to be a year from now? What are they going to be able to do a year from now that they're not able to do today? And then, for you, again, going back to that introvert, oh my gosh, it's going to be so much work, blah, blah, blah. What are you able to do a year from now that you're not able to do today that's important to you? because you have a community, and because they have a community. And the clearer you are about that progress, the clearer you are about— because community is about progress. It's about growth. It's about evolution. It's about that hero's journey into a special world where anything is possible. If we learn from each other, apply new ideas, come Coming back to that again, OODA loop of like observe, orient, decide, and act. And so then, great, you've got the reason for that community to exist. You've got the progress that community is going to have. And then it's all about the simplest execution model possible to start with. You can get really sophisticated from here, but the best place to start is with monthly themes, a weekly calendar, and daily polls and questions. It's that easy. So, monthly themes are there to get people talking and create that level of excitement and interest that it's changing. We're making progress. We're tackling new topics. So, that might be in December, managing energy. Or in January, it might be, I don't know, running sales. I am making stuff up here.

Then I can actually share an example if you like. Great. It's sparking for me. Yeah.

Sure.

Because this is like really like this, this is the exercise on how we're going to build Creators MBA, which is the purpose is to help creators that are making more than $100,000 a year get to a million and beyond if they want, in a way where they can save time, they can build a team. And they can basically get off the content hamster wheel, which I think is like something you believe in. And just when you said like the themes that are sparking, like one theme could be around pitching yourself on podcasts. One theme could be around hiring an EA or hiring a general manager into your company. One theme could be around finance.

Creating a community so you have a steady stream of people That are bringing you new audience, that are bringing you new ideas, that are bringing you all of the things that they want to do and you want to do. Because again, I'm a living, breathing A/B test, man. Like, you can sit around and try to like figure out how to like get a viral post on Twitter or YouTube. And then pitch yourself on podcasts. Again, I just wrote a bestselling book. I didn't do that much work. I created a community. I mean, I did work, but like I created a community and it felt like not a lot of work because I was in flow so much more often. I was in the present because I was with people on the same path. And there is, as a creator especially, man, the difference between trying to figure out what that next post is versus like just being present and in flow with people and brainstorming and getting reactions to ideas that are evolving. One is awesome and the other is significantly less awesome.

Yeah. And I think especially for creators, this is so important because most creators that are independent are just sitting there building by themselves without any community around them.

Well, and so I think that's true. That's the design of the system. It's designed so that we are supposed to present ourselves as, you know, authentic yet totally not authentic leaders, experts. We're supposed to have those 5 lessons learned. We're supposed to have those stories of, of, you know, entrepreneurs told in exactly the right way. We are supposed to have and do all of these things. And we're supposed to do it in, in a way that is a hamster wheel. That is a hamster wheel. I will tell you, the only— this week, for example, I've spent a lot of time just like thinking about and looking at social media. Why? Because I'm like, what is this all about? Like, and is it more fun than having a community where I've spent, you know, certainly again building up our 80,000-person community in the last especially in that last year where we added 30,000 members to it and saw just tremendous revenue growth from that community alone. So, I'm almost doing my own A/B test right now and my own comparison. And it's fascinating to me because, one, a community creates an ongoing source of energy and inspiration. And I really believe that if you haven't either been a part of a community, join a community as a place to start. Join our community. Again, just send me an email and I'll get you hooked up in all of its goodness. But there is something incredibly powerful when the design is for connection versus the design is for content. Community is designed for connection. Social media is designed for content. And it's, it's, it is a profound difference.

We started with sort of like, what is the MVP if you're building a community? Let's switch to the other extreme. I know Airbnb has this test, which is when they're defining a customer experience, they do like 1-star experience, 11-star experience, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to like hear some like short stories or examples of either like stuff that you've created or you've, or a community or hosts in Mighty, 12-star community experiences. What does that look like?

Well, given the fact that in the Airbnb example, which I love, you know, the 11-star is like, you get to go to space. Like, let's not, like the whole idea that we have to like now have a 12-star experience. Let's just maybe dial it back and just start with 5-star. Yeah, like it's good. So I look at it and really think about it starts with a magical first experience. And, you know, when I think about that, it's somebody like you walk in and somebody, you immediately know somebody. Oh my gosh, thank God you're here. I went to, I went to a party that I was a little nervous about. Especially like after the pandemic. I think all of us have kind of gotten a little rusty with going to a party. And I walked in and I was really nervous, and I saw a friend of mine and I'm like, oh my God, thank God. But the other thing is that the host can do such a good job of like, oh my gosh, Gina, I'm so glad you're here. And you're known, and you're known. And then, Gina, Awesome. I was so excited that you showed up because I want to connect you to these five people, and here's why. And more importantly, I've told the five people about you, and now I'm going to tell you about the five people. So there's no awkward moments where like you're not trying to like figure out the small talk. Like if if we could eliminate small talk or dramatically improve. What small talk is and what it looks like without it being the alternatives of you're talking about the weather or you're talking about like what you do and like how much money you're generating. Or one of the things I've noticed in sort of a new breed of entrepreneurs, they always start with like what they've done. Like you could ask any question and you're like ready to like dive into a topic and they're like, hold up, let me first tell you. That I got a computer science degree from CMU. I think you, you know, like, and then I worked at Google or I worked at Meta, and it's like, okay, great, but none of that is that interesting to me. But it— I think it's been trained in certain accelerator programs that like you need to start by just always telling people what your background is, which I think is actually kind of So in, again, an 11-star experience in a community, it's, you are shown, you're showing up. And as much as that community can read your mind in the right and the best ways, you're immediately put into the most interesting conversations. I've actually had this happen to me in real life where it's like, I went to a conference that I knew nothing about. And I got to the first session and it was like a small group conversation. And the conversation was awesome. And it was— I looked around the room and I'm like, oh my God, the 3 people I know I love here, but also these other people I'm meeting are awesome. And I fell in love with that community and, and spent a lot of time in it for a long time. So I think that when we think about online communities, it's about What are your goals? What are you trying? You know, what do you want? And then how does that community deliver on those goals? And it can be such different ways. But I regularly think about what makes a magical first experience. And it's actually one of the one of the mini books we wrote last year was all around fifty first. Magical experiences and what those can be. Some of which I think I mentioned that that feeling of like, oh my gosh, I'm warmly welcomed. I'm connected to to the five most relevant people. We have something to do together. The next thing is really clear. I know this is another thing I feel like is is missed a lot of times. This is how we do things here. Like feel free to DM people. They're going to respond. And then basically, hey guys, when somebody DMs you, respond, you know? So it's like, what are those norms? What is that culture that we're creating? Again, why, why we think community platforms really have to evolve to cultural software, because these are the things that are going to drive engagement, going to deliver value, and ultimately why people are going to talk about your community from a word-of-mouth perspective.

As you were sharing the experiences, I was thinking of like conferences I've gone to where I've met someone right away versus maybe like for the first hour I'm like, what do I do? And the difference that creates. That's so interesting. Are there other elements of that 5-star experience that you teach people?

Well, we could, yeah. I mean, how do you help somebody get an insight Immediately that they didn't have before. How does how do you connect members in ways that create those sparks that allow you to hear the story that you need to hear that day in a way that it's like oh my gosh like there's no amount of content I can consume that would have given me that same insight and those insights tend to come from people's. Stories and experiences, again, not advice. And I think most of you know social media is designed for advice.

And once people are in the community, how do you create loyalty within within that group?

Well, again, just we can finish the community design framework. So you have monthly themes, you have a weekly calendar. So one of the the ways that you create Loyalty is you create a practice. That practice is based on creating consistency. So for example, every Tuesday morning we do a livestream, or every Friday at 4 o'clock we have a community roundup. What I think is an aha moment for people, creators who are successful with community, and creating their own communities is when they realize that they can actually do the same amount of work and get 2 or 3 or 4x the impact of that work by just doing it at the same time every week. And the reason that's so powerful is because practice and consistency is something that we really value. As individuals and as communities. Traditions exist for a reason. And then lastly, the last piece is polls and questions. Polls and questions are by far, by far the most engaging features of a community. Now, again, that's different than content only. And the reason is that people are making connections in the conversation that comes out of a poll. And a poll brings somebody in with something that's very fast. And, you know, one of the worst things you can do for a community and building a community is, hey guys, what do you think? Especially, hey guys, what do you think? Related to an external link, also known as the you know the the morning barrage of group text threads that exist. We do not need another place to share links with. Hey guys, what do what do you think? And it's to me that's like the death spiral of communities. It's it's how people basically are like, oh, I guess my community didn't work because. I posted links and I treated it exactly like social media and it was crickets. Well, if you are creating an undifferentiated product, any founder knows, like, that's not going to be valuable. So, polls and questions as the extreme opposite of that is super fast, sparks conversation, and makes everybody a little bit smarter. And a little, you know, a little bit closer, brings people closer to each other. So, we actually created 1,000 community questions as well as the art and science to asking a great question. And, you know, again, there's like 10 phrases and it's so easy. And so, now that we have that, we'll look for ways to, you know, how do we automate that going forward? And we're excited about that.

Interesting. So, you found the questions and now you can almost templatize that for Oh, creators can templatize compelling questions that are super popular tomorrow. Do you have a few examples of those questions?

The way to get people to engage with polls and questions is with an unlocking phrase. So, what is your favorite? What is your least favorite? If you could, what do you value most in A? What's your go-to? What's your number one? What's your dream? When was the last time? What is the reason? Which is the following. We'll put this in the show notes. But at the same point in time, this is the beauty, is that you can absolutely create engagement in your own community in ways that are fundamentally different than what you see in the mainstream. In the game of social media.

And what's really cool is going back to something you said earlier, none of this is what do you do. So when you're, let's say like I'm now imagining I show up into a community and there's already questions like this that are coming and then people respond and I can respond to someone. You're not even giving people a time to go into what do you do, what's the weather or whatever. And that creates that magical first experience that you were talking about.

Right. Or hey, Hey, hey, hey. And it doesn't mean that there aren't like amazing places for gifts and all of the fun stuff to do. But polls and questions are super engaging because it also brings people back. And as people come back, they're engaging with each other. It's super fun.

I'm curious, what does that look like at scale? So, you mentioned the Mighty community, the 80,000+ people. On my sort of like marketing audience building side, I just think of that as like, probably it's like really hard to manage. There's so many people, the quality of the community goes down as more people come in. I see you shaking your head. So what are the assumptions that I have in there that are false? And what does it actually look like to manage a community at scale?

Yeah, so number one, if you have a big purpose, you have progress, and you have clear norms, Why is somebody there? Again, so when you try to bring everybody together in social media, like, people— you're fighting for attention, which means that people are like, screw you. Like, I don't want you in my face. And it's like— and, and the way that the algorithms work is like, they don't care what the emotion is, whatever the emotion, as long as it's keeping you engaged overall. A community that you are designing and scaling around your purpose, around, again, how do you create a better business? Why is the assumption that there aren't 80,000 people that want to build a better business? The other thing that we do is we've built personalization into the platform. Again, personalization that you as the creator control. So, it's not about— and the member controls. So, it's, you can create your own spaces. You can create places to go deeper together. You can also, you know, turn things off that don't make a lot of sense at like the highest level. So, you can have a community of multiple smaller groups. You can also, again, have As we scale an activity feed, as we scale chat, we've done some things behind the scenes so that they never get too loud and too noisy. And it's really about the culture you're building and that ability to peel off into a separate space if things get too big or too noisy.

I want to shift gears towards sort of like your career in entrepreneurship. You said you've raised over $200 million across different companies. How has your thinking about building businesses and companies evolved from when you started?

I mean, I would say the thing that's interesting to me is how much has actually stayed the same. So, you know, my first startup I built, With really fancy people, really fancy names. This was before Ning, at the height of the dot-com bust, which was kind of an interesting experience, to say the least. But the thing that I learned, and this is why I think I'm so skeptical when I hear things like, oh, there's one tech culture.

Mm-hmm.

And it's dominated by tech bros. I am so fortunate as an entrepreneur that I learned in my first startup that all of the trappings and the trimmings of like, oh, so-and-so backs you, or you got capital from X, Y, or Z, or you're smarter because you have this person on board—it's all irrelevant. It's bullshit. Like it's bullshit. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters. Also, this idea that like it's founder or bust, like most of being a founder, most of life as a founder kind of sucks. And the power of being able to build a team, the power of being able to like bring into existence a world that you want to live in, that's really amazing and really cool. But the idea that, like, what's really fun about being a founder is being a founder and, like, going to founder things, like, no, thank you. I think what's really important is to know, again, what is that future story that you are building towards? And the rest is somewhat noise. The rest is noise. And so, I saw something really interesting. Somebody was talking about, you know, things in entrepreneurship take longer than you think that they're going to. I think that's true. I also think that that's one of the reasons why it's so important to know what you're building towards and having sort of think about it as like, urgent patience. Like, my sense of urgency is really high. And at the same point in time, I'm incredibly patient. I think that's been something that has stuck with me. I've always been skeptical in terms of things that people say are the right way to do things, almost probably to a fault. But it's also one of the reasons why I think I've been really successful and effective at what I do and how I do it.

The other thing I was curious about in terms of those things that stay the same, and this might spark something, it might not, but it came from 2 of the references that we did. Anne talked about asking you about how you became so wired and well-connected among both male and female leaders. Thomas just said, ask her about her people magic. So can you talk about that?

Probably not, because I don't— I'm not exactly sure. I just think about having been in the right places at the right times and clear on what I want to bring into the world. I wish I had something more insightful to say on that. But I think clarity has been really important for me. Also, let's not underestimate the fact that, like, be fun. Be fun. Like, bring people together to do fun things and have fun in pursuit of a bigger mission. Take on meaty challenges.

Yeah.

That can be a very attractive quality, I think.

I think that might actually be the answer because so many people don't have maybe that purpose or the big goal that they're driving towards to bring people together. I'm curious, as sort of you've grown, did you deal with either like imposter syndrome or challenges as a female entrepreneur through your evolution and how you dealt with those? Especially when you have like a big mission like this.

Yeah. So, it's interesting. I was an entrepreneur a lot longer than like before imposter— right around like 2011, '12, imposter syndrome became like a big thing. Like everybody talked about imposter syndrome. I didn't have it. I still don't have it. There are days where I'm like, am I good at this? But I don't think about that as imposter syndrome. I also think that that this notion and this narrative that you would ask me that because I am an entrepreneur who is also female, I find fascinating. As if I should have an answer that says, of course I have imposter syndrome, and I you know have overcome it in X, Y, or Z way. Look, I've been here before everybody else showed up. Like, I know I belong here because it's my hometown. I know that I have something to offer, and I know that the world that we are building towards, that world with 4 or 5 different communities that you can really lose yourself in is an awesome world. And I'm confident in my ability to learn. I'm confident in my ability to, you know, say I'm wrong. I'm confident in my ability to adapt. I'm confident in my ability to show up for other people and be a good friend and partner and hopefully leader in good times and bad. So that's kind of it. And I'd like to live in a world where, you know, those same questions are asked of men as they're asked of women. And I actually, you know, again, as we enter a new year, see the The bifurcation of the conversation happening between male entrepreneurs and the conversation happening amongst sort of a visible female entrepreneur narrative are diverging in ways that I don't think are particularly that productive or healthy.

Can you share a bit more than that, on the ways they're diverging that are not productive?

I just think the conversations are pretty different. You know, and and I think that what I think is exciting about where we can go from here is that in this new chapter of this next chapter, there can be more opportunities for. Entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes and all backgrounds and all identities can come together in really interesting ways to share stories, experiences, and ideas that ultimately create incredibly valuable businesses. Because that's why we're here, to bring new future worlds into existence. through the power of business and through the power of creating really healthy businesses.

I love that answer because I think like so much of this is awareness. And I think just the awareness of why is that even a question for female entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs of like different minorities and stuff. I love that because a lot of us go straight to answering the question without even thinking, wait, why is someone asking that? Why is this even a thing that we need to worry about?

Why was there the assumption that I had imposter syndrome And overcame it. Yeah. I remember writing— Again, it goes back to the beginning of our conversation. Like, is there, is there like a governing body that says that I needed to have— like, what does that look like? Yeah, it's pretty interesting.

It is. Um, I remember when I was writing that question in our interaction yesterday, I was like, I don't even think that she would have it, but I'd be curious to ask her. And I think this is a great answer to it. I know we're close to time, so we'll end with the few questions we always end with, and then we'll drive this to a close. What are 3 books that have been the most impactful for you?

That's a great question. I don't have specific titles because I actually— this is a little bit of a cheat answer, but I'm going to use use it anyways, which is, I think the practice of reading is more important than any specific book that I've read. That being said, I would say in terms of business books that I have found incredibly important, Play Bigger is probably the number one. I love Chris Lockhead. I love Kevin Maney. I love the whole group of folks that wrote Play Bigger and really thought about, hey, there's something else going on here, especially in technology, but but sort of across the board with category design. I think that there is something really powerful about that. And then I would say Snow Leopard was also, which is the follow-up book, is awesome. It has some fantastic stuff that really mattered to me a lot this year. I would also, I think the book Atomic Habits is just really short, beautiful, well-said, and incredibly actionable. And it certainly, as I think about the things that I do in my own lane with respect to purpose and community, as a real guide for that as well.

Chris is a— I actually have it right here. Chris is a friend of the pod. Great books. Who are, like, if you were to name like 2 to 3 community leaders you were inspired by, who would those be?

I'll give you one that is on my mind right now a lot, which is Walt Disney. When you think about the fact that he actually started in content, like if we if we look at Walt Disney as an entrepreneur and a visionary today, he started in content and realized that. It was really risky, really empty, and actually created Disneyland to be a different reality and a different community for people. And by the way, he was told all the same things that you said at the beginning in terms of thinking about your own community. Oh, what about the trolls?

Mm-hmm.

What about, you know, people up until the point that Disneyland was created, As the most magical place on Earth, you know amusement parks were essentially like carnivals and like Coney Island and places that were kind of gross with like circus people that had probably been to jail and could only get a job working at amusement parks. And he made the decision: No, no, no, we're going to do something different. We're going to create something that is. Is clean, controlled, and magical. And the ways that he created a community that heightened people's experiences, imagination, wonder, and sense of wonder, happiness, was nothing short of absolutely revolutionary. And fast forward, you know, nearly what, 60 years at this point. And we have this opportunity to reimagine community in the same way that before Disneyland and then Disney World, the very concept of bringing people together in imaginative and incredible ways was just different, just not there.

Yeah. And I think within that reimagination, I know you also mentioned that we're heading into difficult waters in 2023. For you, what does that future story look like in terms of what you're excited about and how can we help you get there?

Yeah, I love that question. I believe that 2023 is the year where creators finally figure out it's just too damn hard to be a creator with the current rules. And it is the year the creators finally diversify and finally think about what they are building and what they are creating in new and evolving ways. And I think that that is beholden for each and every one of us to speak that into existence.

And if you want to do that, the book is Purpose. The website is mightynetworks.com. Anything else you want to leave people with, or if people have questions, where they can find you?

I think I've said it a couple of times, just gina@mightynetworks.com or gina@purpose.co.

Either works. Awesome. This is one of my favorite interviews. One of my favorite interviews has been like my frame is changing while we're talking. So thank you for a frame-breaking conversation as we head into the next year.

Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. You're welcome.