Beginner Maps Nityesh and Piyush

Chris Samila is the co-founder of Partnership Leaders - a strong bootstrapped business that provides community, connections and resources for partnership professionals.



This episode is supported by Curated Connections (https://curatedconnections.io/) - a simple matchmaking tool with an easy-to-justify pricing.


In this episode we discuss:


Organising conferences and city-wide events with a volunteer-led strategy
What does a partnership professional do?
How Partnership Leaders (PL) charges their members
Creating resources that create a strong hook
Why they use a paid Slack to host the community
How he turned an email thread into a community
Building culture in the early days
Charging for a free community
Reducing churn
Tech stack for running the PL business
Chris' hiring philosophy

This episode is supported by Curated Connections (https://curatedconnections.io/) - a simple matchmaking tool with an easy-to-justify pricing.

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Nikki Thibodeau is the Senior Manager of Community and Customer Advocacy at Calix. She is also the founder of The Community Community - where she is building a safe space for senior community professionals to grow, together.

Previously she has worked in various roles, rising through the ranks of the community team at Shopify.

In this episode, we discuss:


Nikki’s “unidentified superpower”
Community Manager work vs. Community Lead work
Starting The Community Community
150+ applications on community launch! How?
Making a community valuable without making it busy
Dream Team and Co-lead
Someone got her dream role over her at Shopify
Going to Harvard and being the top candidate
Tips for job seekers
Asking for a higher salary
Most recommended resources

Resources:


Curated Connections - https://curatedconnections.io/
Nikki’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikki2987/
The Community Community - https://thecommunitycommunity.com/
CMX Masterclass - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUC9Vz9R3tpJwpRgHMyH_PASlVDNw3_DB
Common Room Blog - https://www.commonroom.io/resources/
Jenny Weigle - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyweigle/
Venia Logan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanthavlogan/

Jessica is the Head of Community and Events at Hampton - a private and highly vetted community for founders and CEOs started by Sam Parr.

She has more than 7 years of experience building communities of startup founders at venture funds and startup accelerators.



This episode is supported by Curated Connections (https://curatedconnections.io/) - a simple matchmaking tool for communities with an easy to justify pricing!



In this episode -

00:00 Teaser

01:28 From Teacher to a Community Professional

08:17 Managing digital and in-person experiences at a community of founders as someone who is not herself a founder

22:08 Routine Roulette

27:43 Landing a role that was never posted

31:52 When community is the business and not just a bonus

39:55 Why women should not be concerned they won't be taken seriously if they are nice and gracious

43:29 Advice for job seekers

50:10 Two books that inspire her work

54:50 Action item for the listener

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Links and Resources:

Curated Connections - https://curatedconnections.io/

Jessica's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-spivack-lowenstein-52b2a962/

Hampton - https://joinhampton.com/

Grand Central Tech - https://www.companyventures.co/grand-central-tech
Community Club - https://www.community.club/

Community Hacked - https://www.communityhacked.com/
The Vendry - https://thevendry.com/

The Art of Gathering - https://www.priyaparker.com/book-art-of-gathering

Unreasonable Hospitality - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60018618-unreasonable-hospitality



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Madi Pignetti is the Head of Community at Contra - a commission-free freelancer marketplace. But she was a software developer before this. In this episode she shares how she made the pivot and what her work today looks like.

Show notes:

00:00 Teaser
01:50 What is her work as the Head of Community at Contra
07:30 Measuring the contribution of community towards the Contra business
12:43 Personalities more suited for a community manager role
17:19 How experience as a developer makes her more empathetic in her current role
25:30 Routine roulette
29:40 How she stayed optimistic after quitting her full time developer role and not knowing what to do next
37:00 From an ambassador to landing a full time role at Contra
46:09 Resources for people getting into community
49:48 One action item to get the ball rolling

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Links and Resources:

Madi's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/madi-pignetti/
Contra - https://contra.com/?userType=independent
Building Brand Communities - https://amzn.eu/d/dblwmNS
The Art of Gathering - https://www.priyaparker.com/book-art-of-gathering
SuperHi - https://www.superhi.com/
Community Club - https://www.community.club/

--- --- ---
Thanks for listening! If you have come this far you’ll love other episodes. But you probably don’t have 1 hr every week to listen to all the episodes. That’s why you should sign up for our newsletter.

We recently started it to share the key insights from these conversations in a more digestible, readable format.

So go to http://beginnermaps.com/ to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Amanda has been led by what she found interesting throughout her career. So she completed a 6-month coding bootcamp last year, after having spent 20 years in events and marketing.

In a recent career pivot, she joined the Rails Foundation - a non-profit dedicated to supporting the Ruby on Rails ecosystem, as the Executive Director.

What is Ruby on Rails? It is a web development framework that has been used to create tools like Shopify, GitHub, Basecamp, Twitch, Airbnb, Twitter and thousands of other apps that millions of people use every day.

In this episode, we talk about her journey and how she got here -

00:00 Teaser
02:01 Rails Foundation: what and why
07:41 What does the executive director of a non-profit do?
14:43 Difference between working for a non-profit vs a for-profit
21:27 How a curiosity to learn a new thing got Amanda the role of Executive Director at Rails Foundation
25:51 Routine roulette: A typical week for Amanda
31:40 Big things about producing an in-person event
35:38 Getting speakers for an event
37:37 Making networking in events easy
39:05 How Amanda got into events
41:23 What not to do when organising a conference
43:22 Key to generating serendipity in your career
48:37 Advice for people building a community for developers
51:44 Applying for 10 jobs vs focussing on that 1 job you really want
55:14 One action item for listeners

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Links and Resources:

Amanda's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandabrookeperino/
Rails Foundation - https://rubyonrails.org/foundation

--- --- ---

Thanks for listening! If you have come this far you’ll love other episodes. But you probably don’t have 1 hr every week to listen to all the episodes. That’s why you should sign up for our newsletter.

We recently started it to share the key insights from these conversations in a more digestible, readable format.

So go to beginnermaps.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Marcie Walker is the Head of Community Engagement at Gatheround - a startup building a fun, new online events platform that makes virtual events actually fun.

In this episode, Marcie shares all the lessons she has learnt in building herself a career in community building.

Some things we talk about:


00:00 Teaser
04:50 How work in community is dependent more on what the community needs rather than your title
13:32 Virtual vs In-person events
16:59 What Marcie is working on now
23:21 How flywheel marketing can justify RoI on your community efforts
28:50 Routine Roulette
33:11 Getting the job at Gatheround by writing her own job description
46:08 Advice for 20 year olds
01:04:58 Resources for community building
01:06:50 One action item for listeners

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Links and Resources:



Gatheround - https://gatheround.com/community

Community Club - https://www.community.club/

Noele Flowers - https://www.linkedin.com/in/noeleflowers/

Sarah Greisdorf - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahgreisdorf/

--- --- ---

Thanks for listening! If you have come this far you’ll love other episodes. But you probably don’t have 1 hr every week to listen to all the episodes. That’s why you should sign up for our newsletter.

We recently started it to share the key insights from these conversations in a more digestible, readable format.

So go to beginnermaps.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.