Gina Bianchini - Helping Creators Build Communities - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 51]

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
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Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Founder's Field Guide. Founder's Field Guide is a series of conversations with founders, CEOs and operators building great businesses. I believe we are all builders in our own way and this series is dedicated to stories and lessons from builders of all types.
Founder's Field Guide is part of the Colossus family of podcasts and you can access all of our podcasts including edited transcripts, show notes and resources to keep learning at joincolossus.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:37)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:02)
My guest today is Gina Bianchini, founder and CEO of Mighty Networks, which gives creators a platform to start, grow and own their social communities. In our conversation, we cover the differences between leadership and management, the lessons Gina learned building a similar business in the 2000s with Marc Andreessen and the elements that make up a thriving community. We talk about community design, finding ways to connect like-minded people, why it's so important to create movement and what the future may hold for creators.
Please enjoy this great conversation with Gina Bianchini.
So Gina, we were just talking about some of our favorite books and especially Bob Iger's book, specifically the opening of that book when he's dealing with the opening of, I think the Shanghai Disney World or Disneyland and the horrific death of a child at another resort in Florida all in the same morning. It's this harrowing experience. What in your professional career does that episode most call to mind? Like what was a period of just deep intensity in your work and what do you remember most from that episode?

**Gina Bianchini** (3:04)
I wish I could say that there was one day where it like all kind of hit, but anybody who chooses this path of entrepreneurship knows that on any given day, something's probably going pretty well.
And then something is like a mess.
And to me, both the challenge and the fun is, okay, how do you show up for a podcast when you just had four other meetings that are massively context switching? How to treat that as a challenge that I wanna take on versus, oh my God, I just need to stop. Like I just need to stop and like have lunch and have a break. When I was trying to raise a Series A and we were at the 11th, 12th hour and they tried to change the rules on it. And at the same point in time, navigating a brand new customer that we closed them, it would make the biggest difference in the world. And yet I feel like the times I have had those moments, what I just described actually has happened to me, I don't feel like that is a different day than any other day where I'm like, okay, how do I keep the North Star of what we're doing? How do I keep the things that I'm really proud of and excited about in perspective when I'm like navigating something where I'm like, why didn't that get done the way that I thought it was gonna get done? What did I miss? How did this work or how didn't this work?

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (4:28)
You mentioned you were interested in how entrepreneurs manage their energy through the course of a day and you're kind of alluding to it here too.