Community Building - The Essential Skill For Founders In 2023

I’m going to be honest with you…

I was a founder for years until I realized the power of community.

But I had a bit of a "wake-up call" back in 2013 when it was the power of community that kept me from going to prison.

I had started a technology school called Bitmaker. We trained full-stack software engineers and got them jobs at tech companies like Shopify, Facebook, and IBM.

My business was raided by the government because they were “concerned with the vocational nature of our program and lack of proper government oversight.”

I was given 30 days to shut down the business and was told I could be fined $500,000 and face up to a year in prison.

I was terrified.

I had worked tirelessly to build Bitmaker.

We were positively impacting thousands of lives.

The last thing I wanted was for the business to be shut down. (And, let's be real, I also didn't want to go to prison).

I didn't sleep that night.

And instead, I stayed up all night emailing around 10,000 people explaining our situation, as well as the mission of my business and how we were changing lives.

Within hours the story of my run-in with the government was shared by the Bitmaker community of students, graduates, mentors, instructors, and partners.

And it went INSANELY viral.

We were trending on Twitter in 12 hours.

Some big names like Paul Graham (the co-founder of Y Combinator), venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, and Chamath Palihapitiya (a former top dog at Facebook) had all tweeted about my situation, and shared their support for my company.

A couple of days later I received an email from one of the highest officials in Canada offering me an apology AND a special exemption to continue to run my business.

Needless to say, this incredible experience changed my perspective of communities forever.

And that's why community has been the #1 focus of every business I’ve started since, and a big reason for my success.

In today’s newsletter, I’m going to share with you my personal Community Playbook for Founder OS.

I'll also break down 4 of the components discussed in the Community Playbook (there are 12) and how you can leverage them to grow your own massively powerful community.

Before we dive in...

On Friday, January 27th, I’m hosting a brand-new workshop - 5 Proven Steps For Building A Successful Personal Brand & Growing A Huge Audience.

In this training I’ll be revealing:

• The easiest (and fastest) way to build an influential online presence

• 2 crucial components needed to make money online

• The world’s new “most valuable resource" and how you can leverage it in 2023 to build a 7-figure (or even 8-figure) business

• My proven, copy-and-paste method for building massive audiences

It will be an awesome time, and I’d love to have you join.

Especially if you’re interested in building out a 7-figure (or more) business in 2023.

👉 You can grab your spot here.

Attendance is limited.

Now, let’s get back to the playbook for growing a thriving community 🪂

When it comes to Founder OS I regularly talk about helping founders grow their audience, brand, and community.

Many people think that audience and community are the same thing.

They’re not.

Having a massive audience alone isn't necessarily powerful...

Yes, an audience is an essential component of growing a community, but they aren’t the same thing.

I found this illustration and I think it demonstrates the difference quite well:

An audience is a group of people that you speak to.

A community on the other hand is not just a group of people that you speak to, but one that also speaks back to you and to one another.

And as you can imagine, that doesn't happen by accident.

Building a community is an intentional act.

At the end of this email, I’ll link you to my Founder OS Community Playbook.

In it I outline 12 different components I've used for growing an engaged community.

And while I can’t go over all of them here, I will break down 4 of them with you today.

#1 - Who do we want to bring together?

Communities don’t happen by accident.

They form around a core group of people that have intentionally gathered together and then grow outwards from there.

You must start by knowing what type of people you want to bring together.

Otherwise, you’ll waste a lot of time talking to the wrong people, and won’t be able to ultimately “bring them in.”

But don’t stress if haven't nailed down your ideal community member from day 1.

Make an educated guess and adjust as you start getting real-time feedback.

#2 - What are our shared activities?

Communities are living organisms.

They aren’t static, they’re active.

That means communities “do” things together.

This doesn’t have to be a real-life gathering or anything (although those can be great), but it does have to be intentionally created and fostered by you.

In Founder OS here are some of our shared activities:

• Weekly Q&A with me

• Founder OS Community Collaboration

• 60-Day Founder OS Content Challenge

• Meetups with one another outside of Founder OS

• Learn together, create content, and build our audiences

#3 - Which behaviors or contributions would we like to encourage?

Like in the illustration above, communication in community happens from member to member.

We want to foster a space where community members feel the freedom to communicate with one another.

We want a safe space where they can be vulnerable, ask for help, and share resources.

This keeps the communication going and the community vibrant.

#4 - What are our community members proud of?

Because it was a common goal (or interest) that brought us all together in the first place, it’s only natural that we should celebrate all the wins experienced within the community.

I try hard to cultivate a “when one wins, we all win” mindset, and there’s nothing quite as exciting as seeing a bunch of people celebrate a hard-won goal together.

Here are some of the cool wins we’ve seen within the Founder OS community:

“Since learning Matt’s systems I’ve grown my LinkedIn following to 25k, launched a podcast that does 2.5M downloads per month, and have surpassed my first $1M ARR in my new SaaS business.” - Steve G.

"I’ve already grown 15,600 followers across Twitter and LinkedIn, gotten more than 100 leads for my business, and closed more than $100,000 in new contracts." - Rob H.

There you have it, 4 of the 12 components from my Founder OS Community Playbook.

Also, as promised, here are 3 things to help you build your Community Playbook.

1) Here is your access to the Founder OS Community Playbook (you can use this for inspiration.

2) Here is a Community Playbook Template to create your own vibrant community (fill in the blanks and you've got your own Community Playbook in 30 minutes).

3) You can watch this Loom video I recorded this morning to learn how to use the Community Playbook Template.

I hope you find it helpful.

Take some time this upcoming week to create your own Community Playbook, and then hit me up on Twitter with what you came up with.

Let's win together 🥇

Matt

P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:

#1: I just launched a new YouTube Channel. I'm putting a ton of energy into creating heaps of valuable content that I think you'll like. Come check out my latest stuff, and give me a like and subscribe.

#2: Want to grow your audience and online business fast? Discover how to build a proven system for audience growth in just 2 hours here.

#3: Promote your brand to over 37,231 subscribers by sponsoring this newsletter (Booking into April 2023)

#4: Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn for more operating systems, marketing tips, and community-building systems.

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