How To Build A $20k/month Community Business (Beginner’s Guide) | Greg Isenberg (#187)

Kipp Bodnar (0:00)

Today we're talking with Greg Isenberg, CEO of Late Checkout, a business builder and community expert. And he's going to give us his framework on how you define and build communities. We're going to break down what makes a successful community, why AI might make communities more valuable and more important than ever, and if you're a founder, when and how you should think about adding communities to your business and business model.

That and much more, all on today's show.

Kieran Flanagan (0:31)

All right, welcome back, Greg. We are going to do part two. This part is all going to be around community. If you want to understand how to integrate community into your company, make community part of the company, make it part of your kind of growth engine, stick around. We're going to ask Greg how to do that. The other thing is if you want to build a community business where community is actually the business, stick around because we are going to figure out what is the community business you should build in the future.

So Greg, welcome back, part two.

Kipp Bodnar (1:00)

Friend of the Pod, Three Timer. I think he's our most visited guest. I mean, Greg Isenberg. It's wonderful to see you, my friend.

Greg Isenberg (1:08)

Good to see you, part three, baby. And the only thing I'll add to the agenda is why you should care about community.

Kipp Bodnar (1:15)

I was hoping maybe we could start there with the definition caring part of community. Both how do you define community and the ways to build a business or grow a business, where would you rank community and like effective strategies for doing that?

Greg Isenberg (1:28)

See, the problem with when people say community led business or community based product is people are just throwing the word community like it ain't no thing. Like it ain't no thing.

And for some of those businesses, it actually works. And sometimes it's just marketing speak that I think is really masking it. When there's a real true community based product, it is magical and I'd love to define what that is. So maybe we'll start with that. So, you know me, I love frameworks. And I came up with a framework called the Tribe Framework in order to test, is this a community? And Tribe stands for T, is there togetherness? R, are there rituals? I, is there member identity?

B, is there belonging? And E, is there engagement? Now, if you don't have those things, you don't have a community and you don't have a community based product. The difficult thing with saying what community is is it touches so many different disciplines. Having member identity could mean having a brand that really just connects with people. Having engagement might mean you have to build some IRL experiences like programming or events. And I'm happy to unpack this as much or as little as you want, but I think the reality is a community based product is a mix of design, brand, product, social.

In a way that makes people want to go on the rooftop and scream about your product.

Kipp Bodnar (2:59)

Can you give us an example of a business that people might think is a community? Like somebody who has a community that's actually not a community and a community that is a real community by that tribe definition, just so people could like tangibly understand what is and what is not a community.

Greg Isenberg (3:14)

I was talking to someone earlier today who has an Instagram account, which is basically funny memes.

And I don't want to give too much away because I don't want to like, but he's got multi-million followers and he makes memes directed at, I don't know, 18 to 24 year olds. Now it's incredible what he's been able to create. He has a real business, like the guy is making about $2.5 million of profit per year on about 3 million followers on his Instagram account. And he kept repeating the word community.

Yeah, my community, my community. Now, when you look at the tribe framework, it just doesn't fit the tribe framework. It's just an audience. And there's a difference between an audience and a community. If this guy stops posting on Instagram, his engagement will go basically to zero. Now, if he was a real community and he was hosting a real community, that wouldn't die. That's an example of an audience versus a community.

Kieran Flanagan (4:17)

When I think of tribe for community, I think we can get into like rituals, identity and engagement, but I kind of understand those ones. The real hard thing is the together and belonging. I want to kind of just dive into that a little bit. The reason I selflessly want to dive into this, I want to try to like use my favorite show at the time to describe where I'm going with this question. So I'm obsessed by like Squid Game Challenge.