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TRANSCRIPT: Building a ComMeownity
Colin:   Uh, all right. Welcome to our sixth session of serial entrepreneur club.

 Very excited to be doing this on the great startup club on clubhouse. Uh, today, it's all about building a community for your business, and we want it to take from two, two different perspectives. One from, uh, someone who is very successful at it outside of clubhouse on Facebook, Instagram, and another, uh, person who's been very successful on clubhouse.

 And the first person I will mention here is Michelle van Tilburg. She's actually the president of.club and also the CEO and the largest shareholder of Meow Arrington's. Next we have the great hiker himself, ed Nussbaum, who has created talk club, community club, OJI club, and startup club. And I think there's a few more there.

 Sorry, ed. If I missed a few and of course we have Rachel our co-hosts and she's, she's the one recording today for the first time, she's actually, she's actually filling that role. And she's also the blogger of serial entrepreneur club. I brought Karen where's Karen, I'll get you on stage in a minute.

 Karen Karen's head of the EO chapter and so Florida, and she's our moderator in training for new sessions. Um, and also of course we have our lead moderate today, Jeffrey SaaS. So over to you, Rachel, for the Rachel recap and then to Jeff to moderate. 

 Ed:  Thank you Colin. Hey everybody. We're having a very happy day over here at serial entrepreneur club.

 So far every session with se club has been dynamic full of knowledge and value and featuring exceptional guests and speakers. We're so grateful to you. Our listeners and contributors to recap our session from last week was indu CEO, Lil Roberts. We focused on using clubhouse to scale your business. Here are six tips for exactly that.

 One get a hot domain name and web extension that aligns your business and messaging use engaging on brand titles in your rooms, feature your clients in a big way to talk to the topic and to speak to testimony about your business 

 Michele:  amplify. 

 What 

 Ed:  you're doing outside of clubhouse on clubhouse, uh, invite influencers into your rooms and embrace monetization on this platform.

 For the knit Ingrid details. I've written up a tidy blog for you all hop on over to serial entrepreneur thought club or S e.club for short, to get the scoop and to check out our upcoming sessions. Remember to follow me here on clubhouse to receive invitations to our regularly scheduled sessions every Friday at two.

 And finally, just a reminder for this room, practice kindness with one another avoid interruptions. Our philosophy at SC club is that we give to get. So please no pitching, no plugging, no selling with that. I'll hand it off to our lead moderator today. The one and only extremely talented. Jeff 

 Michele:  sass. 

Jeff:  Thank you, Rachel.

 Clearly my reputation exceeds me, but I thank you for that anyway. Well, thank you everyone for joining us. Um, for those who are listening, you'll notice the you'll notice that the, um, Uh, hand raising is off at the moment, but about halfway through this session and we go until 3:00 PM. So at around two 30, we will open up the hand raising and invite people up on stage to ask questions.

 But the first half we're going to hear from Michelle and ed and talk to them directly on stage. Uh, and remember, if you do come up to ask a question, please acknowledge that you're okay with being recorded. So today we're really going to focus on. Uh, how clubhouse is both a conversation starter and a community builder.

 And we're excited to hear from both Michelle and ed, we'll start with Michelle and I'll ask Michelle to tell us a little bit about, um, the Ellingtons and the community you have and how you got it. And then we'll go on to ed and then we'll take some questions from the panelists. So thanks very much.

 Thank you all for coming today and joining us and Michelle, I'll leave it to you. 

 Michele:  Thanks so much, Jeff, and thanks to everyone who's listening today. So yes, we're going to, you know, at least tell you our five top tips. We're here at Meow Lincoln, stuck, calm, which now we actually have me al.club. And Melton the cat duck club, how we've grown our audience to be over 1.4 million Facebook followers and over 600,000 Instagram followers.

 So just diving into it, we're all about cats. We're all about the welfare of cats and the cats. Uh, and, and, and our cats people. We don't like to say we're owners. We're actually, uh, we're owned by our cat pet. So without further ado, just diving into what we see as the top five things that, um, folks can do to generate a community.

 So our first tip is this the social good for us? We take this extremely seriously. It is what we, you know, live and die by. Um, basically we have a motto at our, you know, on our business. That's basically you shop. We give, they pur everything that we do. Um, we do it in a very authentic way. Um, we sponsor cat rescues.

 We donate, donate to cat causes and everything to make and help the cats live healthy. So it's, it's a really big deal with us. Um, are, you know, everybody on the team, everything they do is all around that motto and it's all for the social. Good. Um, number two, what we like to do is we like to be totally tapped in to where our core audiences and understand and deliver content and products that address those passions.

 So for example, Um, we're extremely diligent on content over here, um, on to our social media channels, as well as on the website, um, things that we do, our articles, we do, um, at least one comic a day. Everybody can check that out. If they like it, it's completely free of charge. It's. You know, also shown on our Facebook channel as well as Instagram and on our website.

 Um, you can sign up for that. If you're interested in checking it out at Milton, the cat.club. We also do at least four social media posts today. Um, the interesting thing for us as we really try to keep a balance between adding, you know, value and selling. So we do very little selling because for us, our core objective is to really build the audience.

 Um, by offering entertaining content. So that leads me to the second point, which is our content strategy, our content strategy. Um, and this is after years of experimentation is focused around Umer. And what I would call, you know, edutainment knowledge. So our Umer comes in the majority, I would say about 75, probably closer to 85% of our content.

 And then the knowledge component comes around our blogs, where we still have a very, you know, friendly town, um, to help people, help cats as well as, you know, um, In anything around like health and welfare and just general education, then moving on to our next point. You know, all this sounds like it might be easy, but it actually takes an extreme amount of time.

 Um, if you want to really grow organically, which for us has been always our notion. We don't buy followers, we don't buy influencers, et cetera. So it's taking us. You know, well over five years to get to the point where we have this many followers and we are very careful to listen to our followers, they give us lots of good feedback and we actually take the majority of it.

 And then last. Not last, but the next, but not least is our, is our team. And I would just say, you know, to everybody out there, this is, you know, uh, you know, the, probably the most important component for us. We have a team that's extremely passionate around cats. We haven't changed. That's very dedicated and it really comes through in the content.

 And I honestly don't believe that we would have. Ben as successful at building community, if we didn't have this. So I strongly suggest to anyone who is really serious about building a community, whether it be on or off clubhouse that you really pay attention to, you know, who is building your content. Um, and that they're really, you know, in alignment with what your goals are.

 It it's very obvious if they're not, and it's very obvious because your rewards are followers if they are, and then last but not least, um, for us, it is important to monetize. It's not always at the top of the teams, um, PR you know, priorities, but it's the way that we pay for. This website is a way that we pay for all this quality content.

 Um, for us, it's an ever evolving, you know, strategy for us. Um, we've been able to start to. Introduce, you know, new products, we're always looking for quality products. Like we said, that support our passion and our motto, which is the health and wellbeing of cats. Um, we've fortunately, we were able to introduce what you know, many of set are the world's best cat trees.

 Last holiday, Susan, and we continue to iterate and build out products. So that's it at a high level, um, you know, just sharing with you, our journey and some tips that we've, you know, implemented into our business to build this massively engaged community. If you're interested and checking us out, you know, you can, you can come to me out club, you know, um, we're starting to start some rooms every Saturday.

 Jeff:  Thanks Michelle, Michelle. Michelle, thank you. Before I go to ed, just real quick, can you give us a sense of the size of the  community outside of 

 Michele:  clubhouse? Yes. So we have about 1.4 million Facebook followers, and it's growing all the time and we have over 600,000 Instagram followers. 

 Jeff:  Great. Thank you very much.

 I just wanted to put that in perspective. And now ed, first of all, thank you so much for joining us here today. We appreciate it. And going from a fairly large community outside of clubhouse, I'd like to turn the floor over to you to tell us more about building these great communities inside. And for those of you who don't know ed, um, he was an O G.

 Uh, clubhouse member. And in fact has the OG club as well as talk club, community club and the club. We're all here in today, startup club. So ed, thank you so much for joining us and I'll turn the floor over to 

 Ed:  you. Hey, I'll uh, first thanks for, uh, sharing some of the stories of other communities and in the end, uh, Everyone has a different approach.

 And mine has always been as long as I'm spending time with clubhouse. Why don't I try to make it a little better place for myself and others and SU the clubs are really just there as a catalyst and infrastructure layer. To make it easier for people to find each other connect and do things together, which the club house is already get at and just trying to help it further along.

 And so startup club was really just the club for people to make a club, to make it easy for people to find each other who were doing different things in the startup ecosystem and to make it easier for them to find each other, learn from one another work together. And so it's been kind of inspiring to kind of put that infrastructure there in place.

 So as ClearPass grows more and more people are finding value out of startup club because now they can more easily find one another. Uh, and it's worked tremendously. Well. I mean, just the. The just from a one metric alone. I think there's probably well over $50 million of venture venture and angel investing has come through people who've met through startup club.

 So that's kind of inspiring and all the other clubs that I've started kind of the similar type of theme of, you know, as long as I'm spending time on clubhouse, what con what can I do to, from like infrastructure there to help support other people. And so community club has 30 amazing admins who are.

 You're doing your best to welcome new members to help people find a way on clubhouse. And so, and a lot of these people were out there doing things on their own. And so a lot of it was just going spotting with people who were supporting the community and then community club was supporting the people to support in the community.

 So instead of doing rooms of 10 people, they could be doing rooms, a hundred people. So the people spending their time hoping they could help more all at the same time by. Big organized in that club and all that other clubs or of similar theme. And so it was more just trying to make that difference, trying to be that catalyst, trying to provide that infrastructure layer.

 And, uh, so it's kind of a different take on community because it was more just trying to be that catalyst of a social help with community self assemble and, and work together and learn from one another.

Jeff:  Great. And, and you've been involved in building communities in different areas and industries long before, uh, clubhouse existed.

 Are there things that are unique to clubhouse that you've found that you do differently or, or things that make creating a community, a unique experience within clubhouse versus outside of clubhouse? 

 Ed:  Uh, yeah, there's always differences, but I think the similarities are at least my approach, like a proud of this.

 I hope run some really big, uh, groups, two pages on Facebook and those were centered mainly around the grand Canyon. And so grand hikers group I think, is around. 50 some thousand people now, uh, the, how the, a group is I think around a hundred thousand and all those groups were just designed as community support forums to help everyone learn from one another.

 So it's kind of a similar theme of you get, you find that find existing tools, put a little effort into kind of being like catalyst, building the structure. So people can help one another. And so that principle is kind of the same on clubhouse, uh, but of course, different medium and, uh, different things.

 And so clubhouse, it feels like a fundamentally new and unique animal in the world, uh, being, uh, you know, femoral being an audio. And it's just been kind of fun trying to figure out how to. Adapt, you know, things from other platforms, you know, things that do apply and don't apply over here and the general themes and principles do, and the kind of the details slightly differ.

Jeff:  That's great. And thank you. Uh, and just to reset the room quickly, for those of you who are just joining us now, um, this is serial entrepreneur club within startup club today, and we're talking about building a community on and off clubhouse. And we're hearing from. Michelle van Tilburg. Who's the CEO of Meow LinkedIn's dot com, a very large cat community.

 And of course, ed Nussbaum of startup club and OG club and community club. Uh, and I'd like to see if anyone who's on stage. We've got some great panelists with us, Paul and Gary and norm. And if any of you have any questions for either ed or Michelle? 

 Ed:  I have 

 Paul:  more of a have question and I don't know, maybe potential value add for Michelle.

 Um, since you guys are posting four times a day, I mean, that's a ton, um, one of the things you had mentioned, I think it was the last point. I should have written it down, but I was walking around. So I apologize. Um, you'd said making sure that like people that are posting are posting on brand, like we do a time with nano influencers and getting content, like, like user generated content, like.

 Do you see that as a, as a crucial partion of your strategy or in general, just user generated content. Like I just, I'm always intrigued to see how other brands are doing that and working with, um, you know, their community to just to start getting like UDC. 

 Michele:  Yeah. It's a great question. Um, for us, we do have an ambassador program where we.

 We leverage and work together with our ambassadors to create content. Typically it's a photos, not so much of posts, but you bring up a really great point, Paul. I mean, this is an area that I really do want to move further into. Uh, it sounds like you're like you do as well over the next year here because clearly the community, especially ours have been engaged for so long is so deeply.

 I know they're, they will really, you know, help us kind of like increase the frequency and I would think the quality. 

 Jeff:  Yeah. 

 Paul:  Um, yeah, I'm always just intrigued to hear what other people are like, what we've done in our. In our business. Like we do not have one where you have 600,000, um, on mountains. For instance, I think it was like 14 for us.

 Um, but I was able to track. Some story views like that our, our network has done and we've had in the past 18 months, 9.8 million views on stories just from our nano influencers. And so I'm always intrigued to hear like how people are doing what they're doing. I feel like we have a good program in place, but I'm always looking to up level.

 So, I mean, we could connect on that too. Just I want to pick your brain and, you know, I can, I'm sure we can give you some value on our end, too. 

Jeff:  Thanks. Thanks for that, Paul. Well, and as a reminder, I do see a lot of party hats in the audience. So if you're new to clubhouse, you know, one of the greatest ways to improve your experience is if you hear someone speaking, if you hear someone on stage and you like what they're saying, you should definitely tap on their profile and follow them.

 And that's how you start to curate a better group of followers for yourself by following people whose information and input you appreciate. And speaking of that, Paul, you brought up, um, Um, UGC. It's kind of interesting because you know, in other platforms, people struggle to get people to contribute, uh, user generated content in clubhouse, the interaction we do, all of this, what we're doing right now, arguably is user-generated content, right?

 We're opening up rooms and, and everyone who contributes to that room is contributing to the content. Um, ed, what do you think about that in terms of content and clubhouse? 

Ed:  Uh, well, it's another unique nature of clubhouse. The group discussion dynamic is as I think most of us discovered kind of a different thing, just the, in the very subtle interface things within clubhouse promote a whole different type of conversation where in the real world, if you've discerned people on stage or trying to be in the same conversation, fiscally kind of difficult, we're probably.

 Know, break off into maybe two different discussions, just like physical proximity. So that alone is unique, especially when you have stages like 30 people. That'd be really hard to do have everyone in a single conversation. We're rolling, but it's possible. And clip outs similar with the mute button where, you know, in terms speaking, that's, doesn't always happen in the real world.

 So there's a lot of small things like that, that, that make it easier to create. The the, the, the content together, uh, in a way that the world doesn't really, uh, enable despite the bare physics, how the, how close you are to hear someone speak, uh, the, uh, the dynamics of the taking turns. But also it's one of the things that I think a lot of people are.

 Maybe more comfortable speaking than trying to oppose a perfect tweet or compose a perfect photo. And so all of a sudden you have a lot of people participating who might not otherwise have, and other social media, because clubhouse doesn't feel like social media, it feels it's social in a good way for the most part.

 And so that there's a lot of unique dynamics that make a different where people, where people can participate. And then the other interesting thing about clubhouse is it seems to give extroverts the energy they need. But introverts don't feel overwhelmed in most cases. So it's kind of an odd level playing field between extroverts and introverts, but also might not happen in the world world.

 So there's a whole host of different things like that. They kind of add up to be, uh, something special and usually dinner content in the terms of you described is something kind of different because of all those dynamics. 

Jeff:  Yeah. I think those are, those are great points and, and, and this notion of, of, um, Surely I've witnessed some of the most orderly conversations I've ever participated in within clubhouse.

 Definitely not how it is in person. And I agree with you a hundred percent. There are people I know who are not very comfortable speaking on a stage, you know, in front of an audience of people in the real world who have come to be very comfortable and very good at speaking in front of rooms here within clubhouse.

 So it's a very different experience. Um, those are great points. You brought up. Thank you. Uh, anyone else on the panel have some questions for Michelle or ed? Yep. I do. 

 Colin:  Jeff, uh, Michelle, I understand how you took the community. You built it up and you were able to monetize it and hopefully I'm not putting you on the spot, ed, but how does an entrepreneur.

 Like yourself, build such a large community. How do you monetize that community and what are you allowed to do within the guidelines of clubhouse? 

 Paul:  Can I ask a clarifying question on top of that call on. Of course. So on monetization, was this the plan from the start or was it not an organic thing that just happened?

 Because like, I guess some of the planning behind it, cause there are communities that start and it's all just about organically helping. It sounds like ed, you run a bunch of those in like, you know, the grand Canyon heifers and all that stuff. And then there's people that, then they say, well, I can monetize this.

 So was it like a organic thing where you just all cat lovers and then you decided to monetize it or was it an intentional from the start. Um, we're going to start a cat community and monetize it. 

 Michele:  Yeah, it's a great question for us. We always did want to monetize and we always believed that we should take the very community philanthropic approach, which is actually true for us.

 Um, we believe. That the best way that we can help the cat community is by donation. And we didn't have deep pockets by any means, so that, so we knew we needed to build up the e-commerce portion of the business so that we could donate. And I think I might've mentioned it if I didn't, I will. Um, our, our, our main mantra is you shop.

 We give the pur and it really is true for us. Um, We sponsor cat rescues. We sponsor cats, you know, donation fees, et cetera. Um, so it really wasn't means to the, to an ENT. And it's just worked out very well because of the passion that we have. And we try to contribute, you know, by offering content on and off, you know, the platforms.

 So I think I mentioned, we have me Ellington's dot com, which is the e-commerce site. We have, um, Melton the cat.club where we. Um, take signups, you know, free signups. People can get our daily comic via email. Of course they can see it on social media as well. And we actually just launched meow.club, um, as a means to start to, you know, see if there is any interest from the clubhouse community and talks specifically not commercial, but specifically around welfare for cats and wellbeing.

So it's great. 

Jeff:  And Colin, when did you get your question answered there? 

 Colin:  No, no, we got ed on the ropes. Now he's going to answer it. 

Ed:  Yeah, all the communities that I've helped spark or catalyze, it's always about, you know, connecting everyone with everyone else so they can learn from each other, which is a benefit to me and everyone else.

 And so to me, you know, there's way more than more than one way of getting value out of the community. Money is one of them. But ultimately to me, it's always, if you, if you do a good job of. Thinking about catalysts for bonding of a structure, for people to connect with one another. The magic happens for you and everyone else.

 And so grandkid hikers were never directly monetized, but that led to a great business opportunity, which, uh, sparked my last business. And so, you know, by being present by, by helping other people connect, you know, that I also got that same benefit. And so a lot of it just kind of. Being being the catalyst, being the change.

 I want to see, to be able to run into people that, that I want to talk to more and usually great things come out of that for myself and others. So no explicit, uh, you know, plans to monetize any of those communities, but usually opportunity comes out of that. And, uh, So it's not necessarily traditional approach, but as can go back to use your content, you know, where it sounds like, you know, ma you know, some communities already scrubbed the room.

 It's very much like, yes, you know, you are actively creating content to me. I am kind of possibly creating infrastructure and making it available to everyone else. And that benefits me and everyone else. And so, you know, along the way, you know, how the opportunity to, uh, be, you know, some of, you know, start started club meet some of the people that I've always been fans of.

 And watch their businesses and, you know, startups succeed. And, uh, so that's a huge one for me to be able to say, Hey, would you like to come and speak the startup club? We have, you know, a huge audience that would like to hear from you. And so getting sure, you know, stage with some heroes, um, and a column used to made an introduction to one of those as well.

 So getting extreme benefit out of club clubhouse and startup club, just from the people I've had an opportunity to meet and the people that the people opportunities Lezlie too. 

 Colin:  That's pretty amazing. I know from the nineties, when we launched two cows, two cows, by the way, it was a software download site.

 I know now it's considered to be more of a, a domain name and telecomm, but back in the nineties, Well, we will watch two cows. We made it free and believe in our bandwidth was very expensive. We just believed in sharing software globally. And we launched that. And then the opportunities came three, four years later.

 You know, if someone came along and said, this is a really great service and we want to buy it and we were able to sell it for, for, uh, a very nice profit. 

 Paul:  And are you at Liberty to talk about that path that you took? You said that an opportunity arose and it, and it spawned your. Your recent business, are you, are you at Liberty to dive into that a little bit?

 And Jeff, if you have something else in mind, feel free to take it, take it away, but I'm intrigued. And I feel like that would be valuable for the, for the audience as well as, I mean, me as a speaker here too. 

 Ed:  Yeah. Really long story to do justice, but I'll try to do a short version of it. Um, that, uh, the, what most people think of the grand Canyon is I should grand Canyon national park.

 What's now grand Cantrel park was actually a home to a lot of native peoples that Teddy Roosevelt gently kicked out. Uh, and most of those peoples are still in the grand Canyon region and the grand Canyon is a big place. Uh, the park is only small part of it. So East of the grand Canyon is Napa nation, uh, and the whole Hopi Hopi reservation, uh, And just on the South from the grand Canyon, uh, West of green canister park is to have the  tribe.

 And what's allowed is Walapai, which is better known as grand Canyon West. And so through grandkids huggers group, which originally started as we'll miss things centered around grand Canyon, national park, you know, I got to know a lot of the native peoples around the Canyon and, uh, The how the Supai people, uh, were the ones that were primary living.

 What is now a grandkid national. And they, uh, as well, many native peoples, the, the, they were very mistreated by our, the federal, the us federal government and the, they were seasonal people. They would live in the camp. They would live and farm in the Canyon during the summer and go up on the room to hunt during the winter.

 Uh, and when. The creative, the park, they got trapped in a side Canyon, just West of grandkid national park, which was one of their seasonal villages where they would farm during the summer. But it wasn't an area that was had enough agricultural land to really support the tribe. It was subject to flush floods, uh, and they weren't allowed to go up on the remedy anymore.

 So it almost literally killed the tribe. And, uh, but it turns out as with many things, uh, the unintended side effects. The second you gotseen photos or video of have a Supai, how Sioux falls, uh, it is like Hawaii. dropped in is. One of the most beautiful spots on earth. Uh, and most people would probably 

 Blue-green Hawaiians to how waterfalls in Sedona, red rock in the grand Canyon. And so it had always been kind of like a hiking swimming hole, summer weekend destination for people in Arizona who kind of knew about it. But as social media took off. Uh, and people started sharing photos of have a soup halls, meaty falls, Beaver falls.

 It just, you know, any one of those falls will be a destination center. Right. And a demand started going up and, uh, The, the village is whole tribes may be about me, about 900 people now, uh, about half live in the village of  in the grand Canyon, which is one of the most remote spots on, in the U S it's. Uh, the village is eight miles from nursery road.

 Uh, and to get there, it's basically the elevation change about to empire state buildings, uh, you know, over the eight mile hike. And that where the road ends, that's like 67 miles from even the nearest gas station, which is on Walpole land. Uh, so it's really remote, but social media, how to take off. And the, uh, the whole tourism office was basically.

 Like two to four people answering phones, taking reservations, and back in, uh, 2017 last time they did phone phone reservations. The, the point system, the whole village collapsed people were dolling thousand times for like weeks just trying to get through. And, uh, so. Because of the grandkid Hydrus group.

 And because we had done a group trip down there with a bunch of people from the Facebook group, I got to know the tourism office manager and seeing issues both from their side of it was cast and office, trying to deal with that kind of demand. And then seeing it from the customer side, through the Facebook groups of people, just utter frustration, trying to reach and snicker reservation.

 And there were a lot of inefficiencies, a lot of problems, but, and. Uh, I actually had been working, pulled a team together to work on a complete different startup. And we saw the struggles that visitors were having. The tribe was having the tourism I was having. It's like, Hey guys, happy to help. And so that became the beginning of my last business, uh, of.

 Basically applying technology and social media to kind of help solve that. W was originally just the unique problems of the Havasupai tribe and the tourism department. And so it was essentially building what was equivalent of a ticket master scale system for the, the tribes reservation system and the, to put in context, like we had no idea what the demand was.

 We just knew that it was big. And so, uh, when we first went live on February 1st, 8:00 AM, uh, 2018, uh, per second, we had a half million people hit the servers and, uh, and, and, uh, we sold the tire you're out and about an hour, uh, and the significance LA was huge on so many levels. One was that, uh, For the first time ever the tribe actually get an inventory management.

 Oh, the context is that the product is two things there. One is that actually three, they have a campground and the campground is between how Sioux falls and beautiful falls, how this falls. Is this beautiful, a hundred foot, a hundred foot high waterfall meaningful is this Epic 200 foot waterfall. And in between those two waterfalls, you have this nice meandering blue-green water along the Creek, and each side of that Creek from how long is it?

 The campground. It turns out that is the highest demand campground in the world for very good reasons. It's epically beautiful. Uh, and so we put in a solution to make campground reservations and also have a little 20 small 20 room lodge in the village. And so, uh, as of this year, that lodge is now online as well, because both of those.

 And so both of those now we've managed to basically cut out like probably 99% of the phone calls so that one, so people can actually get through on the phone lines to act as customer support and service. So there are solutions based in the camper vendor, customer support, and, uh, became a way for people to actually not have to dial.

 Yeah, thousands of times for weeks on end, trying to reach, reach it, and also allow the tribe finally, to have kind of more better inventory control, which changed a whole bunch of things, because it used to be like have a thousand people now in the campground over the weekend and said, no one during the week.

 And so just simple tools that, that kind of re-engineering helping to, re-engineer like the whole process of the tourism industry. So that's kind of where the loss of business started from. And that started from just being, being more tuned to the Canyon, being more aware of it, uh, because of the grand Cain hikers group.

 And because we had facilitated a group trip from people from the face group down to have the Supai. So that gave me a lot of insight to both the product, the. The P the, the, the problem that was neat, that could be solved by technology and social media, both on trucks and on the customer end and happened to have the team that could do it.

 And so we wanted did it, and there's a lot of fun and made a big difference. And, uh, And then, you know, each year we kind of respond, the system made it better for visitors and for the tribe. And then there was a whole host of other things, which makes it a longer story, but that's probably enough for the intro to what it was, but so it wasn't really monetizing it directly, but because we had that big base of group, we then also had a communication channel to help get the word out about the new systems to help get customers, get, get customer feedback.

 As an ongoing focus group of what people wanted the system to do while we were also talking to the tourism office and trying to understand their needs. And so we were able to see the full, full set of the problem and really put a good solution in place for everyone. 

 Jeff:  Well, that's a great, great, uh, story of entrepreneurship that, because you know, we're talking about syrup, serial entrepreneurs and startups, and there's a lot of serendipity in being an entrepreneur and you were the right.

 People at the right place at the right time to be able to create those solutions for the location. And I think you touched on it earlier. I had to in, in clubhouse, one of the appeals is the serendipity opportunity to come across and meet people that you wouldn't ordinarily get to speak to. And also, I think as you pointed out ed with the creation of your clubs, there's also an opportunity for sort of.

 Planned serendipity, where almost you can influence some serendipitous things, serendipitous things to happen by joining rooms of people you'd like to meet by contributing as a speaker. And so you have this unusual combination of collisions and serendipity, but also the opportunity, if you're smart, right.

 To try to manipulate and plan those stairs for this moment. So I think that's one of the appeals of clubhouse. So before we open up it up for questions, I just want to see if norm or Karen, anyone else on the panel have any final questions for Michelle or ed. And then I'm going to open up now for everyone to raise their hand.

 If they'd like to ask a question and remember, please, when you come on stage to ask you a question, we are recording this session. So please state your name and acknowledge that you're okay with being recorded. Before you ask a 

 Ed:  question. Yeah, just, just a quick additional thought to what I was saying earlier abuse.

 That's I haven't really tried to tell that story, but so it could probably came out on kind of did a little disjointed, but in the spirit of like, you know, building community and the topic of this room, one of the things we did was we started working with the tribe is. Yeah, basically created that. How the Superman house, who Paul's group of Facebook with are referred to, and that was kind of similar thing that we're doing with grand Canyon hikers group of community support so that everyone could learn from each other, keep moderate, keep, keep each other out of trouble, uh, you know, make the most of their adventure because oftentimes this was people flying across the world, hiking into the program at region and, and so on.

 But, but everything we did with that too, is kind of developed community, uh, and including creating monthly groups. So like, you know, we have to have a , uh, falls, may groups. So people who were going in may could get to know each other even before the trip. And there was a lot of friendships at belt on that.

 So it was a way to have a community. On Facebook and enhance the actual world experience. So people felt more comfortable. They knew other people going, they could hike in together. They often shared Kent, you know, campsites together. And so all those things by adding a layer of community to the existing business often made a huge difference.

 And so, yeah. The initial community led to that business opportunity. And that business opportunity always kind of viewed through the lens of community. So we of, we kind of helped community build among visitors to the visitors to, uh, have the soup, which made a big, positive difference for them and also for the tribe, because then people were more likely to stay out of trouble or because they had, you know, they knew other people going on the trip that were also down there.

 So all those things add up to be something way greater than the sum of its parts. Yeah, the 

 Jeff:  community's fed off of each other, almost like a symbiotic relationship. That's great. Um, Norma, Karen, do you have any questions that anyone in the audience, if you'd like to raise your hand now, I believe, uh, hand raising is open and you're welcome to ask questions for ed and Michelle or anyone else on the panel.

I've got a norm for, 

 Norm:  um, Michelle it's norm. Uh, you've got, uh, a ton of followers on Instagram, and I also know that you publish a, um, uh, a cartoon of Milton every day. 

 Jeff:  Do you ever 

 Norm:  utilize those cartoons? Uh, so that it points over to clubhouse. Can you incorporate sort of a clubhouse, uh, event into those Ana uh, cartoons?

 Michele:  Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know the answer to, um, we are going to start some rooms around cat focus, wellbeing topics. Um, I hadn't thought about incorporating the comic con it, I'd be interested to hear your, your thoughts on that. They are popular. Well, 

 Norm:  if I like looking over it, just that your icon right now with Milton and the, uh, the podcast, Mike, uh, I mean, that's hilarious by itself.

 And then, you know, people, you've got a huge following, w I'm not sure a million. People on Instagram and I'm not sure how many downloads. I know Milton itself has downloaded about 2 billion downloads, but, uh, I you've got leverage there. And I think there's, uh, an incredible way to leverage that. Get the people, not every, not all the time, but once in a while, just kind of feed them, clubhouse, feed them the podcast.

 And then on the, I'm not sure. I don't think you guys are doing a podcast yet, but I'm sure that'll end up happening. I know with our podcast of what we've done is we do a podcast on the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and then we get everybody together on the Monday and we bring the guests on and then we create a.

 Clubhouse a room and we get them to answer the questions. And, uh, that's something that, you know, we've been able to find very interactive. Uh, there's a lot of shy people that, you know, they, they it's okay to type. Um, but they don't want to come onto a podcast, especially if it's a video going live on Facebook, but this is such an incredible, um, platform.

 That's so many people will come up that would never talk, um, on a podcast that will come on here and ask questions. So again, that's kind of a long-winded approach of kind of what we, what we're doing, but if I had the, the huge following that you have and the niche, because that's the other thing that. It has to be looked at here.

 You've got a brand and, you know, being able to grow that micro brand on clubhouse is something that I think is a hundred percent achievable, especially with this new sort of paradigm shift. So, uh, I think it's really cool. And I just, I got to say it again. 

 Jeff:  I really love that little icon 

 Norm:  of Milton with the, with I'm going to call it the Yeti mic.

 Michele:  Okay. No, that's a great idea. You know, people do have lots of conversations about every little nuance of the comics. Um, I liked your idea about having the community come on and chat about it. It would be fun. 

 Paul:  I love it. And I mean, I want to know too, like the evolution of Milton, like when did, was he integrated as a, as a strategy?

 Like we're going to do this funny comic about cats. Like, was that from the start or did that just evolve as mountains group?

 Michele:  Yes. Um, great question. He evolved naturally. And actually this past year we gave him a friend Millie. Um, actually she came about during, you know, the isolation due to COVID, but it really was a natural progression.

 Um, because you know, we wanted content that people would enjoy. And what we find in our persona is that. You know, cap people really, it's not just like buying things for your cat. It's really being really active in discussion and enjoying each other's stories. 

Jeff:  I love that. 

Paul:  I was just in it. I was just going to say, like, on that point, like norm told me about this, I don't know, probably two months ago, norm Milton and ever since then, I've been thinking through for, for our brand, um, bone littles.

 We. We are like hyper niche. We sell reusable, swim diapers. And so we're super seasonal, but we are, are people generally speaking, are, are your busy moms between, you know, mid thirties, ish have two or three kids. And I've just been thinking for ever since then, like, I want to do something like that. Um, start a comic and maybe have feature baby or, or a busy mom or something like that.

 I'm, I'm rambling at this point, but I just want to say that I'm 

 Jeff:  inspired. 

 Michele:  Thank you. 

 Jeff:  Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Um, yeah, I think that, um, just to reset the room, we are here at serial entrepreneur club on startup club today, and we're talking about building a community on and off clubhouse with Michelle van Tilburg of B Ellington's and ed Nussbaum of.

 Startup club. And, uh, there are, raise your hand if you're interested in a question and I see someone now and I'll bring you up on stage and just a moment, uh, Jillian, and I just want to mention, when you think about the comic now, the comic is a visual, a visual. Item, uh, and we're in an audio platform, but I think it's inevitable that we will have character voices and people in character hosting rooms and speaking on clubhouse.

 So if you had a voice behind Milton, uh, you could have Milton appearing and talking, and I actually wish I was a, a voice actor right now because I think there'll be a lot of work for talented voice actors on clubhouse in the coming months. Uh, so I think that's inevitable to happen. Uh, So I'd like to welcome Jillian to the stage.

 And Gillian as mentioned, we are recording this, so please state your name and that you're okay to be recording. And then go ahead and ask your question. 

 Gillian:  So my name is Joanne and, um, yes, it was okay to record me. So, um, anyhow, I got invited to club. I was sure a friend and I'm in the process of building a FinTech platform for her remittance platform, for the Caribbean and Latin America, for the immigrant and refugee community to send money back and forth and to receive payments.

 So when I got into clubhouse, I was thinking, Oh my God, well, I'm not saying my friend wanted me to take. To, you know, to join him. So I joined and the moment I joined, it tells you how many people, you know, on this platform. And then it was like 200 and something people I'm like, what on earth is this? This must be a cult.

 So I saw a lot of VCs that I know on here. So I call him, I'm like, what are you doing on this app? So I started joining in different different rooms and it was really amazing, but in the process, we are working with the world bank and they're supporting us on this frontier. And we had a question about. A week before we started the club out before I started club house.

 So how will we going to do like a test market with the product for the immigrant community in America? So while I, my clubhouse, I go on, I see there was all these Caribbean, um, you know, clubs. That's why went in and I started to speak and I said, Oh my God, would you be interested in being part of a test community for the product?

 And within 48 hours, I had about 500 people signed up to test the product. I could not even believe it. So then I towards, okay, let's create the community are wrong because. Every immigrant ha Oh, I want to cry. I've every immigrant has a story about why they're sending money back and forth to their families.

 And I thought, wow, why didn't I take the people who reach out to me and create a community office? Clubhouse went to Woodbine can be create a community of stories, of personal stories of why they're sending money back and forth. And what's the reason for the money back and forth. And so I started sharing this sort of VC and then I shared it with a UN DP and then were completely blown away.

 So I got them on to clubhouse. I just did a talk with a hundred women in Davos. And I shared about clubhouse. I shared about the power of all of these startup clubs. And I'm telling you, since I've been in cup house during the course of the. The pandemic. I was really depressed about, you know, how we are going to really make the startup work during the course of being locked down.

 And what I got out to, I was in Aspen with some friends and I said, you know what? I'm just going to shut down this. Um, start up, give the people back the money who invested and be done. I got onto clubhouse and in 48 hours, when I started checking into the rooms and meeting people in product, the UX and UI people, I got really reinspired again, I've connected with the most amazing people to help this product really happened in a very big way.

 And I think if it wasn't a club house, we would not be where we are today. So I just wanted to share this. I want to share it by the community off the club house, which you're working on right now. It has really empowered me and, you know, really energized me and reinspired me about what I'm doing, because I'm about to change a lot of people's lives in the Caribbean.

 So I just wanted to share this and I sent you an email and you have not responded. So I am requesting that. Give me as well to my email. Thank you very much. 

 Ed:  Well, thank you for sharing what you shared, that's inspiring, but which email address did you send it to? The, the, the club email address or my personal one?

 The club 

 Gillian:  email address. I'm not looking for my canvas looking to have a talk at the club. 

 Ed:  Yeah, yeah, I'll get, yeah, I don't, that's not me running that, but, uh, I will, I will I'll follow up on it. So thanks for giving me that. 

 Jeff:  Thanks guys. Thank you, Jillian. And that was an example of planned spontaneity, right?

 It's right there. Right, right, right on stage in life. But also what Jillian pointed out is. The diversity of communities and discussions and topics that you can find in clubhouse are, is truly amazing. And so if you're smart about it, you could find people to talk to about virtually any topic. You may have an interest in whether that's a personal interest or a business interest.

 So there's real opportunities there. Um, again, if anyone has questions from the audience, please raise your hand. We're happy to bring you up. We've got about nine minutes left. Before the top of the hour. Um, and here we have a hand 

 Ed:  raised, so I will bring it. I was going to ask 

 Colin:  Karen, Karen, you have, uh, you, you have run a community of entrepreneurs in the, and you've often said it's like herding cats.

 And I just wanted to sort of get your thoughts on that. 

 Michele:  Yeah. So, hi 

 Ed:  everybody. I want you to know first and foremost, this is my very first time on stage. I've been in many club house rooms. Um, 

 Michele:  And I came on this one at the behest of Collin and he promptly 

 Ed:  asked me to come on stage and I said, 

 Michele:  okay, that seems going on here.

 So, um, and Karen you're okay to be recorded, correct? Oh, yes, I'm fine with that. 

 Ed:  Of course. So, um, I work in an organization called entrepreneurs organization and it is an international organization in about 61 countries. And I run to the South part of chapter, one of the biggest. Um, chapters in the world made a made up of over 250 members.

 So, um, I've been working with EO for probably about 13 years. And Colin is still running, is like herding cats. She's thinking about a lot of high value entrepreneurs whose businesses are over a million dollars or more in revenue annually. And just trying to get them all together to plan for events. Um, for get togethers, just to be a community and deduce it, do things.

 Yeah, it is a little bit like herding cats, but you know what, I've been doing it for 13 years, 13 years. So obviously I love it. And I'm, I've made them a lot of amazing friends. We have a lot 

 Michele:  of 

 Ed:  wonderful, wonderful entrepreneurs in the group who have, uh, been just doing great things. Colin is one of them, as a matter of fact, So I've known calling now for about 13 years and an employer with his several businesses that he's, um, he's exited from and he's, I'm working on right now.

 So 

 Gillian:  yeah, that's that's Karen 

 Michele:  and I'm done speaking. 

Jeff:  Thank you, Karen. And thank you for sharing that. And thank you for saying you were done. Speaking. People will hear that, um, that actually started for those of you who are new to clubhouse. There are actually people who are. Um, listening to clubhouse who are actually, um, deaf and they use, uh, transcription.

 So they're reading things on a screen when they're listening to rooms. And one way of them knowing when someone is done speaking is when someone States that. So we just have a few minutes left. So I want to give, um, re pool if I'm pronouncing it correctly and Francis a chance for a quick question. And then we'll go to Collin and Rachel for our wrap-up.

 So ripple, go ahead. 

 Ed:  Thank you so much for having me on the stage. So, uh, let me quickly introduce myself. So my name is rappel and, uh, I have over 16 years of it experience in building website, web applications and mobile applications. And, uh, over these years, I've got chance to work for few fortune 500 companies like Sony, Hitachi, Dell technology 

 Jeff:  ripple.

 Did you have a question for Michelle or ed or any of the panelists? 

 Ed:  Yeah, the question for, uh, the moderators here is I'm planning to start the community and I'm new to clubhouse. So, uh, what would you advise me on this thing,

Jeff:  Michelle or ed, would you like to answer that or any of the other panelists? 

Colin:  Well, I think we need to understand, like, what is your, what is your idea first around the community? 

Gillian:  So I'm 

 Ed:  planning to build a community for people who want to start up, or they are solopreneurs who are looking to build e-commerce or online marketplaces so that I can help them to achieve their minimum viable 

 Jeff:  product.

So probably this club, the startup club, uh, that ed created, if you follow, uh, and become a member of that club and then follow the rooms that are being scheduled within that club, probably a lot of the people that you want to eventually reach are going to be showing up and having discussions in many of those rooms there.

 And if you're new to clubhouse, the best way to get started is to start by listening. Get a sense of what's going on in the room. And then when you have something to contribute, raise your hand to become a part of the conversation, and then you'll get to be known amongst that 

 Ed:  community. 

 Paul:  Yeah. That's the, in addition that I would just say, make sure that, like Jeff said earlier too, you're going to get your hallway curated based on who you follow.

 So if you're wanting to build more in the tech and the startup space, them, I mean, excellent advice, make sure that you're following, it'd be a part of the startup club. You know, see what you can do. Basically, clubhouse that I've seen. My experience is all about. Who gives the most value, just giving as much as you can.

 And ed explained it perfectly. I mean, this, obviously it was a Facebook thing, but if you just continue to give and give and give the law of reciprocity is going to kick into effect. And then eventually if you're looking for business, people are going to find their way to you. Um, so I would say, you know, follow people.

 That you know, that you can, you can gel rhe gel with. And what I've seen is I've created true friendships on this app that I, and now following people in the rooms like calling, I've never met in person I'd plan on one day meeting, um, But then you developed this affinity. When you see, when they're speaking, they get to know you, they know that you have good advice and that's one of the best ways to start building your, I guess, following if you're wanting to make an impact and helping people do startups is, is, uh, they're giving and following.

 Jeff:  Yeah, thank you, Paul. And that's great advice. So we just have a few moments less left. So Francis, if you can be our last question and make it quick, if you can, cause I want to give time for ed and Michelle to give final remarks. And then we wrap up with Colin and Rachel. So Francis welcome. And please state your name and that you're okay with being recorded.

Francis. If you're there on mute yourself and ask your question. 

 Michele:  Oh, thank you so much, 

 Ed:  Dr. Francis Richard's here. Yes, I am fine with being recorded. Just want to say thank you for this amazing community. I'm a newbie less than a week on, um, clubhouse. And my question would be if, um, one person, cause I know we're limited on time.

 Could you share an amazing story from being on club house?

Paul:  I can do a quick one. 

 Ed:  No 

 Norm:  mine was just a, it's something very simple, but it, it shocked me how many people, uh, once I think I don't, I'm not sure if it was Paul or if it was Jeff, somebody said about sharing and so. I speak in the e-comm space. People, you know, follow me in e-com I come into these rooms. I listen, sometimes I get called up and I started talking.

 One of the things that absolutely shocked me was how many people actually checked out and started following Instagram. And, you know, I might've got the odd person here or there you'd be on, you know, talking and all of a sudden you have 30 people just click on your name. Now that might not be a lot for.

 For some of you out there, but to get 30 or 40 or 50, right. Instagram followers. Um, and I was wondering what, like I was talking to my son, Kelsey, who does my social media, but what is going on? And we kind of tracked it back to any time that you were talking on Instagram, people were following. If they checked out your profile, Uh, it had to be that, and that that's exactly what it was.

 So there's a lot of things that happen. Uh, and that's one thing. The other thing is one of the Paul, Paula and I are partners. And one of the things that we talk about is before you do anything, You have to become an authority before once you have authority, there has to be trust. And if you want to make sales, uh, you have to have both of those authority and trust equals sales.

 And with clubhouse. You become an authority so you can talk. Now there's not a lot of people talking about brand right now. And I think that is something that will happen in the future. People will start talking more and more about their brand. Um, you know, we don't know where this is going to go, but I think that's going to happen.

 And people are going to be like, if you've got a kitchen knife and you've got that brand, you can have a, you know, talk about kitchen tips, benefits, features, whatever it is. And. I, I am really, I'm quite interested to see what's going to happen and I'm seeing it happen just in my e-comm space. So if I'm, if all of a sudden I'm on and I'm talking like I am now, I'll get some questions.

 I'll get questions on e-com. I know Paul's got business. He doesn't pitch at all. I don't pitch at all. And all of a sudden people are contacting us because we're an authority in something that. Just because of clubhouse, which is just an amazing, it's absolutely amazing to me. 

 Jeff:  It's a great place to share your knowledge.

 Thank you, norm. So just before we go, ed, do you have any final statements and thank you again, ed, for taking the time to join us today, we really appreciate it. And it was great to hear your backstory about what you've done with the hiking too. 

Ed:  Yeah, no, just so I'll get thank you for the room. Uh, thank you for the questions and, uh, Personally, uh, sort of back to you.

 Jeff:  Great. And Michelle, any final comments from you and thanks for sharing the Meow LinkedIn story as well. 

Michele:  Um, just thank everyone who's attending and contributing. You know, I continue to be amazed with the quality of engagement and audience on clubhouse. Um, I've kind of coined it, you know, where the connect to go to connect.

 I'm. You know, just astonished at the level of, um, giving that people do and how accessible people are to each other. So it's a great place to hang out. 

 Jeff:  Thank you, Michelle. So before I hand it off to Colin and Rachel for final remarks, I just want to thank everyone for coming and remind you that if you like.

 When you heard on stage, please follow the people on stage. Uh, also look around you in the room, see people who are near you and consider following them. Because if they're in this room, it means they're also interested in this topic just as you are. So with that, thank you very much. And Colin, I'll turn it over to you for your final role.

 Colin:  All right. That's that's awesome. And you know, cats, diapers, hiking, Caribbean. It. They're all about creating clubs and communities. And it's, it's amazing to see in this session. I learned a lot, you know, when I talk about websites, I say it's all about the content stupid. When we talk about communities, now I'm going to say it's all about the value stupid.

 Uh, next week we have another session on Friday at two. O'clock how to promote yourself on your club, outside of clubhouse. We're so excited because we had an experience here with serial entrepreneur club, where we registered serial entrepreneur.club and Google picked us up. And we're now number one on Google for the term serial entrepreneur club.

 And that's pretty cool. It happened after five weeks. I cannot underestimate how important is to have a website for your club. And last week we saw the good time show.club launched. So that was pretty cool, really excited to see that happening. We've had such great sessions and you could listen to them all on our website@serialentrepreneur.club.

 And for those who cannot spell www.se.club, have a great day. Thank you.

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TRANSCRIPT: Building a ComMeownity

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