What I Have Learnt: Growing a 700-member community

Full Transcript

(0:02 – 1:20)

Welcome to the Good Business Podcast. This podcast is designed to help you understand how you can create a business that’s good for people, planet and the profit line. It’s called the triple bottom line.

My name is Chris Edwards and I’ve been an entrepreneur now for 15 and a bit years. You may know me from my first business, which is a digital media business in Asia called Honeycombers. We have about 2 million readers a month to that business.

Or you may know me from Launchpad, which is a community of conscious entrepreneurs. We’re clocking up to about 700 members and that community exists of 11 different nationalities across 11 different countries. Today’s episode is a really special one.

It’s our 51st episode and I really wanted to share with you my journey about creating Launchpad and really what I’ve learnt from creating a membership business. So it’s just been two years since I launched the community of Launchpad and it has been an absolute right, highs and lows, lots and lots of learnings. So in today’s episode, I really wanted to share with you the top eight key learnings that I have, I suppose,

learnt from running a community.

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And as a bit of background, if you don’t already know, this is not my first rodeo. I have been running businesses for over 15 years, but it’s always interesting when you take on a completely new business model, how some things are similar to other businesses and some things like running a community are very unique to running a community. So if you are thinking about starting a community or adding a community to your business, this episode is for you.

Or if maybe you’d just like to be a fly on the wall in my own personal reflections on what I’ve learnt in the last two years creating Launchpad, this episode will also be for you. So here we go. Firstly, number one, no big surprise, but number one is people are key.

So running a community is very talent heavy and really what your product is, is really relationships and having the right people in your community, like foundational members, and also having the right people around you, whether it’s your team members or advisors or just key people that you can lean on as a sounding board. Yeah, I think you need to be very careful with who you craft into your team and your inner circle for guidance. So that is my number one, people are key.

And that is similar, very similar to my other business running habits. I think it’s a very big point and one that I put right up at the front is that I just really think if you want to enjoy what you’re doing, you need to surround yourself with smart savvy people, and you need to employ and engage people that are really challenging at their goals. Number two is creating a community, you need to be really clear on what your goals are.

So number two is goals. And for me, I have two goals really with Launchpad. The first goal is to give back and lend my experience, my wisdom to other entrepreneurs who are building businesses that are ethical and conscious, so that I can lean into support entrepreneurs that really do need support.

It is a really hard, hard and lonely role being an entrepreneur. But I just also really want to because I can afford to take the opportunity to give back and help entrepreneurs who are building really what I think are fantastic businesses that have a triple bottom line. So that’s my first goal is giving back.

(4:01 – 5:13)

And my second goal for Launchpad is really to diversify my business. So my business honeycombers is very lifestyle B2B focused and our clients are hotels and schools and yeah, really, I suppose shopping centers, anything to do with lifestyle, but it’s very B2B and it’s very large in the town and Launchpad gives me an opportunity to support smaller businesses, but also have a different revenue stream that’s probably slightly more secure than a lifestyle media revenue stream, which can swing around very quickly. A membership business model has a lot of recurring revenue, which is just a more stable income

revenue.

So they were my two big goals and I do need to keep coming back to them because yeah, it’s a hard business in some ways, but I think if you’re clear on your goals, you always come back and feel passionate about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. So that’s number two being clear on your goals. Number three is being clear on your values and the culture you want to create.

(5:14 – 11:07)

So I’m very passionate about culture and I’ve worked really hard in my businesses to create a culture that I’m really proud of and that is something that people will talk about. And I suppose more than anything really to love being a part of and with Launchpad we’ve been very clear about who we want to attract and what kind of values those businesses have. So we have a hashtag KindestCommunity and our values are very clear around being ethical-based and conscious and supporting each other and really lifting each other up.

So it’s a very strong community value and we’re very clear about our values and we’re really trying to attract people that align with those values. So that’s number three. Number four, something I’ve learned from creating a community.

Well I think systems and processes is very key in creating a community. There’s a lot of people that you’re serving and the more you can streamline and systematize those, that piece or that service piece, everything becomes easier. So we use a lot of tech at Launchpad.

So we use things like Mighty Networks which is a community platform. We use WhatsApp for community communications. We use Active Campaign for emails.

We use ClickUp as our project management system and then we’ve got a host of other ones like Riverside for this podcast, Google Suites, PlannerLink for social media, First Promoter for referrals and then ProfitWell is another one we use. So lots of systems in there and lots of processes and the more we build out systems and processes, the easier the business becomes to run. So definitely systems and processes are really key for making it easy to run a large community with lots of members.

Number five, I’m laughing because I think this is what I’m constantly learning. I’ve written down here number five is to set boundaries. So I am wildly optimistic and enthusiastic and often I catch myself over committing or putting too many hours in to be honest and I really need to always keep stepping back and thinking about personal boundaries and work boundaries but also boundaries aren’t a bad thing and people do respect boundaries.

But yeah, I think you really need to be clear on your boundaries to run a community successfully and also to feel good about the amount of time you put in and what you get out of it. So setting boundaries, it’s a

big one and it’s one that I think I’m constantly working on. Number six, something I’ve learned from creating a community is the power of word of mouth and really that’s really how we’ve grown so quickly with this community.

So we started literally two years ago with no members and today we’re sitting at close to 700 members and I think over half would have come from word of mouth and so one thing we’ve been doing to kind of fuel word of mouth and also to reward our members is we set up a referral program and we use the software firstpromoter.com for that. But this way we are actually remunerating our members and really giving back to people that are really, I suppose, actively out there talking about how wonderful Launchpad is. So if you’re a member and you sign up for our referral program, which any member can, you are able to get a 25% commission on any new member that signs up with us for their first one year’s membership.

So if rather than just the first payment they make, if they pay monthly to us, you get 25% of the whole first 12 months of payments. So I feel like it’s a really generous referral program, but I really do believe in the power of word of mouth and I think it’s been absolutely fundamental for our growth. And I suppose that to add to that is if you do believe in word of mouth, you feel really great about putting in the extra hours and really delivering a lot of bank fever, which I think we do at Launchpad in terms of what you pay, which is like between, you know, it’s about $40, $50 a month and what you get back for that and the amount of, I suppose, support and contact and opportunity to learn and opportunity to network.

And really, it’s really that feeling supported and feeling connected, which I think so many entrepreneurs need. All right, number seven. Number seven is using feedback in a constructive way.

So we do get lots of great feedback at Launchpad. But one thing that we’ve tried to do is really funnel that feedback into surveys and one-on-one interviews so that we can use it to kind of creatively come up with ways we can better serve the community. We are about to launch a new program, which really, the ideation of it really came out of feedback from members.

But yeah, when you ask everyone on mass, you’re able to get really clear on what the community wants and needs, and it really helps you steer how best you can serve the community. So number seven is using feedback in a really constructive way. Number eight is, oh my goodness, it’s probably the biggest one, which is my biggest learning is that actually just the true impact of having an incredible network.

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I’ve already had a good network, but Launchpad has, you know, expanded my network and really given me access to so many brilliant minds from branding experts to finance experts, legal experts. You know, I’ve got new friends with all of these expertise, and the value I’ve got from that, I was never expecting. And yeah, I suppose I underestimated the true impact of having a really incredible network of

amazing experts and entrepreneurs.

And I think even not just the technical experts who I have learned on, but actually just listening and engaging with other entrepreneurs has really helped me sharpen my own mind and my own skill sets in my own businesses. So I’m not just learning from people with really great technical skills, but I’m also learning from the challenges that I see in other business, and that’s helping me think really creatively about my own business. It’s a big list.

I just wanted to say I have absolutely loved creating Launchpad. It has been a real joy. And I’m actually, yeah, I can’t really put into words how much I enjoy Launchpad.

It is a labour of love. I definitely put it in a lot more hours because I just really do love helping others and love connecting. And yeah, I suppose supporting entrepreneurs in lots of corners across South East Asia is a real joy.

So if Launchpad sounds interesting to you, please hit me up in the DM or come and check out Launchpad. We’re at www.watchpad.group, and we are a bunch of people, humans that are supporting each other to grow conscious and equal businesses. And I’d personally love to hear from you.

Before I close out today, I just want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land of which I’m recording podcast, which is the Arakwal people of the Bundjalung Nation. My name is Chris Edwards, and I hope that this little summary inspires you to potentially create your own community or membership for your business, or just learn from my experiences over the last two years. And I hope that you’re inspired to create your own good business.