The Community Builder Show Travis King

Earlier in 2020, Travis got the opportunity to connect with Co-Founder of Late Checkout, Greg Isenberg. Listen in as Greg shared some of his thoughts in addition to:
Episode Highlights:
There's a shortage of startup founders and people working on startups to fulfill market needs
We're entering an Entrepreneurial Renaissance that will go down as one of the most interesting periods of all time
If you can clone yourself or if you have deep insight into a particular community, you can most likely build a startup around it
And you could probably make at least seven figures from it
Meetup story about https://twitter.com/heif (Scott Heiferman) and Meetup Crawls
From a Startup point of view, your ability to create something that speaks to that community and gets them to try it is high.
There's a thirst and hunger right now for new products
Facebook started off as a tool for college students - the book of faces, literally and eventually they added social networking and all the additional features we now know
Utility precedes community in a lot of senses
How to identify a potential community of people to serve and build a tool for
Uber Drivers, Lyft Drivers, and the Gig Economy (DoorDash, Seamless, etc.)
"Hey this is a group for Uber Drivers, Lyft Drivers, and the Gig Economy (DoorDash, Seamless, etc.)"
Understand what they need - maybe they need an analytics tool that shows them how to make more money, or maybe what they really need is a map of drivers around them, or a part line, or a clubhouse area, etc
How do you serve your community?
The purpose of a server is to attend to the needs and wants of a particular community of people and your job is to deliver that value to the community you serve
When it comes to community-oriented products, it's about distilling the needs and wants of a particular community in a really succinct way that makes people feel at home
Every product that is mainstream started with a small group of people
Uber example
Reddit Example
In B2B, don't forget you're still working with people
Make sure you speak in plain English in a way people understand
What keeps Greg up at night
His ambitions
Being best in class
Greg shared insights about his substack and what he does at Late Checkout
Greg's key traits of a successful community and his process
Step 0 - Where do you have a fundamental advantage over other people? What types of communities do you know better than anyone else?
Canadian app for people who are from Canada and live in the US
Questions about naturalization, getting citizenship, and there are probably other people who may have questions
Where do they have those questions? What are the most common questions?
Step 1 - Start with research and identify a few communities and you're going to select one to go deep with.
Deep like a week doing research, and coming up with a hypothesis - where is this? Where is there an opportunity to help people? How do we serve these people?
Step 2 - Observing and looking at the data
Many data sources including:
Trending SubReddits, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok Twitter, Meetup, Spotify, Clubhouse or LinkedIn
Go deep on one of the above platforms to really understand where people are and what their needs are
Step 3 - Develop experiments with the goal of obtaining feedback
If Greg were to rewrite Lean Startup today, he would add a community lense to it
add steps around the research and bringing in the community and speaking to moderators, on Reddit, speaking to moderators on Facebook, and co-building the product together
Step 4 - Design sprint and then a community design sprint
Step 5 - Determine if your startup can hit product-market fit or not
2 Favorite Points:
If you have a key insight into a particular community, you could probably build a startup around it, and you could probably make at least seven figures from it.
The purpose of a server is to attend to the needs and wants of a particular community of people and your job is

Special episode that is an experiment with my friend Blake Hudson. This is a on the spot coaching session that he took me through to share how he helps people develop self awareness, accountability, and ultimately, how they coach themselves to success.
This is an experiment so, not sure exactly where this will land, but hope you find this helpful.
Blake Hudson Bio:
College recruiter, business owner, politician?! Blake’s career background may be varied, but all his prior pursuits carried one uniting theme: a desire to help people find fulfillment in who they are and what they do. Cue Victory Lap, a company which espouses a similar mission and is responsible for jumpstarting Blake’s sales career. Blake’s first interaction with Victory Lap was as a student! During the VL sales bootcamp, Blake realized that the skills he had developed in his previous roles would also serve him well in his sales career. Empowered by the bootcamp, Blake landed an SDR role at a Chicago fintech company, where he continued to hone his sales craft. When the unique opportunity arose, Blake returned to Victory Lap—this time, as an Admissions Director. When Blake isn’t in the downtown office, you’ll find him at the nearest basketball court, Barnes and Noble, or hanging out with his best friend — Annie.

On this episode, Travis sit's down with Athlete Transition Specialist and former NFL wide receiver, Justin Brown. In this episode, Justin shares his signature DIVE message with us:
DEFINE
Define who you are as a person, student then in your gift and talent.
INVEST
Invest in themselves personally, academically and in their talents and gifts
VALUE
Add value through acts of service in their communities ( home, school, extracurricular activities; programs and teams )
EXECUTE
Execute by surrounding yourselves in communities in school and outside of school that will hold you accountable to the definition that you made for yourself, ultimately forcing you to hold yourself accountable to the standards you set for yourself.

This is an unreleased episode that Danielle and I recorded in 2019 - oh how time flies! Listen in to learn what Danielle is all about and how to take ownership of your life.
About Danielle
Danielle Gertner is a functional fitness coach, speaker and trainer teaching people to own their excuses and unleash their fullest potential.
Driven to inspire people everywhere to take ownership over their excuses and unleash their fullest potential, in 2016, Danielle Gertner founded Gertner Grind, a platform that challenges the mainstream approach to wellness and inspires people to see the world as their gym.
She was tired of trying to fit the idea of wellness that society had created so she decided to go on a journey to make wellness fit her world, no matter what that world looked like at the time. This sparked her passion for guiding others along the way to build a powerful foundation for their own lifelong transformation.
Over the last four years, Danielle's passion to impact has only continued to evolve and today, she travels the world as an functional fitness coach, serving hundreds of people through her online transformation programs, customized workshops and retreats.
Danielle believes that in order to live the life you have always imagined for yourself, you need to do only one thing - own your shit. And so she is on a mission to own her shit so unapologetically that anyone who comes across her message are inspired to as well.
Danielle has worked with high school and college students, athletes, business professionals and those that fall somewhere in between.
Danielle has also had the pleasure of sharing her message alongside brands such as Under Armour, PopSugar, Voyage MIA, GoSesh, RedCon1 and many more.
The best way to summarize her coaching philosophy?
Work to own your truths loud and proud. Once you do that, the world is yours.
Danielle Gertner
https://www.daniellegertner.com/
instagram - https://www.instagram.com/daniellegertner/ (@daniellegertner)
facebook -
linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dgertner/ (@dgertner)

During this episode of The Community Builder Show, Travis sits down with Jason Harris, President and CEO of Mekanism Inc., a San Francisco-based creative agency and the Author The Soulful Art of Persuasion. Learn about his 4 principles for success, how he’s leading his team through adversity, and even what he’s doing to stay connected with his friends. This is one you won’t want to miss.
Jason Harris Short Bio
Jason Harris is the co-founder and CEO of the award-winning creative agency Mekanism and co-founder of the Creative Alliance. Harris works closely with brands through a blend of soul and science to create provocative campaigns that engage audiences. Iconic brands include Peloton, Ben and Jerry's, MolsonCoors, OkCupid and the United Nations.
Under his leadership, Mekanism has been named the #6 Most Effective Independent Advertising Agency in the US by the Effie 2020 Index. Mekanism has also been named to Ad Age's Agency A-list and twice to their Best Places to Work. Harris has been named in the Top 10 Most Influential Social Impact Leaders, as well as the 4A's list of "100 People Who Make Advertising Great." His methods are studied in cases at Harvard Business School.
Episode Highlights
Principle 1: Original
Be Yourself - Everyone Else Is Taken: Don’t be afraid of wearing your personal idiosyncrasies on your sleeve. Collect role models and draw inspiration from their uniqueness. And stick to your core values
Learn to Be a Great Storyteller: If you want to make your point of view real to an audience or someone else, you need to be able to transport them emotionally through narrative
Never Be Closing: Let go of short-term transactional thinking and focus on building meaningful relationships

Principle 2: Generous
Give Something Away in Every Interaction: Whenever you cross paths with someone, your goal should be to leave them just a little better off than they were. Whatever you give, make sure it’s genuine as you are laying the groundwork for collaboration
Practice Positivity: Cultivate your sense of gratitude for the good things in your life, recognize that every interaction could result in something great
Take Others Seriously by Showing Respect: Keep your promises, be as present as possible, and admit your mistakes quickly and sincerely

Principle 3: Empathetic
Make It About Them: Develop a natural curiosity about others, listen and learn more than you judge, and seek to understand others more deeply
Seek Out Collaborations: Find value in joining forces with people from diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise
See Commonalities, Not Differences: Seek out the common ground and what you share with, approaching each individual as an equal

Principle 4: Soulful
Live Skillfully: Hunt out new skills and keep learning to develop passions that create a life defined by proficiency
Be an Inspiration: Strive to be inspirational in your daily life by preaching less and acting more, finding a cause to fight for, and reaching out to those who inspire you
My Notes on Jason’s 4 Principles
Be Original
Beliefs, what you value in life
Have a point of view
Be yourself, everyone else is taken
Be *Generous*
Give things away without expecting anything in return
Builds trust and helps keep business flowing
Jason had a ball hog mentality and knew it wasn’t right
Over time, developed the idea of mindfully being a generous person
Try to give something to everyone you come in contact with
Advice or an article to let people know you’re thinking about them
Be Empathetic
Collaboration
Connecting with people
Working on ideas together
How do you become a collaborative business person
Be Soulful
Trying to give something back that’s bigger than yourself
Examples for agency owners
Positive persuasion vs negative persuasion
b2b marketers, sales, people, entrepreneurs
Habits under each of these principles
Leadership
How are you leading the Mekanism internal community right...

Travis talks with Partner and Chief Social Officer at Mekanism, Brendan Gahan about how live streaming is having an impact in building communities, the shift taking place in influencer communities, his thoughts on consumer behavior, and more.