Partnering with Cultural Leaders, A Playbook for Community Building - Tactician: #00114

Man, when cultural leaders invest in your business, it's not just money—they bring swagger. It’s like suddenly your lemonade stand is the hottest club in town.

'Jay-Z touched this lemon. $50 a glass.'

Partnering with Cultural Leaders

• Why Read: 

  • Learn how to strategically engage cultural leaders as investors and partners, leveraging their influence and expertise to amplify their company's impact.

• Featuring:

  • Megan Holston(@meghalexander), Derek Dolin(@DerekDolin), Deborah Embaie, MPA(@Debbie_Embaie), Partners at Cultural Leadership Fund at Andreessen Horowitz

• Link: 

  • “Influence Meets Innovation: How Founders and Cultural Leaders Can Work Together“

Key Concepts and Tactics:

1. Alignment and Authenticity in Founder-Cultural Leader Partnerships

   • Point: Founders should find cultural leaders whose interests align with their vision and build around shared passions.

   • "The first step is finding partners whose interests resonate with your vision. Solid alignment is not only about shared professional interests or expertise but also shared personal passions."

   • "Customers can smell inauthenticity a mile away. Force-feeding a narrative or a relationship that does not make sense simply for the sake of publicizing a catchy name rarely works in today's environment."

2. Assessing the Value of Different Types of Cultural Leader Investors

   • Point: Founders should assess what type of cultural leader investor aligns best with their company's needs.

   • "While athletes and entertainers can offer widespread brand visibility and buzz, executives bring years of actionable industry insights, operational experience, and extensive professional networks."

   • "Beyond making sense with your vision, doing a more in-depth assessment of your company's needs can help get clear on the exact type of experience, influence, or network your company would benefit from at this stage."

3. Building Strategic Relationships with Cultural Leaders

   • Point: Founders should leverage their network, be direct and efficient with asks, make it easy for cultural leaders to engage, understand their schedules, and take the long view in building relationships.

   • "Leverage your existing network to get in touch with the right people...a warm introduction or direct contact with the individual or their closest decision makers (such as managers and/or lawyers) can set the stage for a successful pitch."

   • "When communicating an ask of any leader—athlete, entertainer, or executive— keep it concise and actionable while expressing your gratitude for their time and support."

   • "All the magic doesn't happen at the same time. The most important thing is to remember you're building for the long-term–finding common ground, fostering mutual respect, and continuing discussions so that you're well-positioned for when the perfect opportunity arises."

4. Knowing Your Value-Add as a Cultural Leader Investor

   • Point: Cultural leaders should bring more than just capital by sharing expertise, networks, and becoming thought partners to founders.

   • "Engaging with early-stage tech companies means bringing more to the table than capital. We've said that the age of the "disengaged celebrity" is over. Founders want these relationships to be a two-way street."

   • "For athletes, entertainers, and executives this could look like sharing expertise, opening doors through your network, and becoming a thought partner to founders."

A Playbook for Community Building

Why Read:

• Understand what community truly means, set appropriate goals, and explore diverse strategies for building a thriving community that genuinely connects people.

Featuring:

• Kevan Lee (@kevanlee), Co-Founder at Bonfire

Link: 

• ““518. Community Playbook”

Key Concepts and Tactics:

• Defining Community:

  • Point: Understand that a community connects people to people, not just people to a brand or product.

  • "A community connects people to people. By this definition, a community is NOT: The comments of your social media posts; That group of customers you invited into your Slack; Your webinar attendees; Your CRM. All of these things could become aspects of your community strategy, but it won't count as community until people are connecting with each other, not solely with you."

• Differentiating Between a Slack Group and a Community:

  • Point: Recognize that simply creating a Slack group does not automatically create a community; it requires content and engagement among members.

  • "Slack is one type of digital community space, but simply opening up a Slack group and bringing people in does not create a community. Even bringing people into a Slack group and having a community manager post a bunch of fresh content doesn't automatically mean you have a community, either. Most times, you will need a content plan and some initial grinding to get the community gears in motion, and then once people start posting on their own, engaging with one another, that's when you can claim the title of community."

• Understanding the Types of Communities:

  • Point: Identify the two main types of communities for tech companies: communities of practice and communities of product.

  • "For tech companies, you typically see two different types of communities: Community of practice — this is for people to join together around a shared topic or interest; Community of product — this is for people to join together to learn about a specific product and get help, best practices."

• Avoiding the Growth Trap:

  • Point: Understand that community should not be viewed solely as a growth marketing channel, as it requires time, space, and patience to build properly.

  • "Trying to fit community into a growth marketing channel is like trying to fit a pineapple into a pencil box. It's never going to fit, and you're going to destroy the pineapple in the process. Of course, community can and does contribute to business success. But starting off with hard ROI goals for your community is going to starve it of the time and space and patience needed to build community right."

• Setting Appropriate Community Goals:

  • Point: Establish goals and outcomes for your community that focus on engagement, activity, sentiment, and referrals, rather than solely on growth.

  • "Community is not an overt growth play, but it can — and should — have goals and outcomes. Here are the ones that I've been most successful implementing: Engagement — Total comments or conversations, or you can calculate it as a rate; Weekly active users / Monthly active users; Sentiment; Referrals (a bit more growth-y and only works for more mature companies)."

• Exploring Diverse Community Spaces:

  • Point: Consider various digital community spaces, such as Slack, Circle, Discord, Reddit, Facebook Groups, and content/course communities.

  • "Remember that community is a philosophy. Digital community spaces are where they live. (Told you I'm a stickler for definitions.) Here are a few favorite spots where I've seen great digital communities lately: Slack, Circle, Discord, Reddit, Facebook Groups (really!), Content / course communities like Kajabi or Thinkific or Podia."

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