Ben Regier’s career is unique. Previously, he has served in the US Marine Corps and has been a store manager at Starbucks. Now, he is pioneering community-led sales as the Community Development Representative at Commsor.

In this episode we talk about - 

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Links and Resources:  

Ben’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/benregier/

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Sophia Haq is the founder and CEO at Muslim Women Professionals (abbreviated MWP) - a non-profit that promotes the empowerment of Muslim women globally. Here, she is building a community where diverse women can embrace their Muslim identity and build professional skills through mentorship, networking, and guidance.

That's not all. She's also the Senior Program Manager at XRC Labs - venture capital firm and accelerator. Here she builds curriculum, spearheads community development, maintains relationships with the portfolio companies, and many other things.

So, you can see how Sophia lives and breathes community.

We talk about:

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Links and Resources:

Sofia’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sofiahaq/

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Derrick is the community manager at Thrive TRM. He pivoted into the community industry in 2022 after 11 YEARS of experience in the sales industry.

Chapters:

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Links and Resources:

Derrick’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/derrick-chiu/

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Sharath Kuruganty has worked with some iconic community led companies like Product Hunt, OnDeck and currently Threado, where he is the Head of Community.

A fun fact - Threado’s co-founder, Pramod Rao was guest no. 2 on this show. So this conversation has been a long time coming. What made it happen this time is Sharath's recent win where he sold his side project Shoutout to a UK based product studio. He started building this project about two years ago and reached $30k ARR with it.

In this episode:

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Links and Resources:

Sharath’s website 👉 https://5harath.com/

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Thanks for listening! If you have come this far you’ll love other episodes. But you probably don’t have 1 hr every week to listen to all the episodes. That’s why you should sign up for our newsletter.

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Bri Leever is the founder of Ember Consulting where she helps companies as their Brand Community Strategist working to create a community out of their superfans.

In this episode:

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Links and Resources:

Bri’s LinkedIn 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/briannaleever/

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Thanks for listening! If you have come this far you’ll love other episodes. But you probably don’t have 1 hr every week to listen to all the episodes. That’s why you should sign up for our newsletter.

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Shre is the fractional Head of Community for Lenny Rachitsky’s paid community of 10,000+ product-minded people - one of the most popular paid online communities.

But that’s not it. He has pivoted away from lucrative careers in management consulting and at big companies in his pursuit for more meaningful work. Today, he is a consultant and describes himself as Dobby - a slave elf from the Harry Potter world who freed himself.

In this episode:

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Gabrielle Leith is the Community Manager at Grapevine.

She has a really interesting career path going from working in films at Toronto Film Festival to getting her first community role using a side project she started - Supper Club Cinema.

In this episode -

4:50: How she started a side project in community building

16:55: Getting her first job before she even knew about community management

19:17: Why side projects are a great way to discover your passion

25:30: How she found her latest role at Grapevine through CMX Slack

30:30: Why feeling personally connected to the mission of the community makes your job easier

34:50: Working as the solo CM in a 40,000 member community

40:52: Pros and cons of working at an energising role in a startup

48:41: Is CMX a scam?

55:00: Rapid-fire round

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Teaser of Gaby’s side project, Supper Club Cinema: https://youtu.be/iUs0E11X9R8

Connect with Gabrielle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielleleith/

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Mac is the founder/CEO of Commsor and Community club - 2 names that everyone in the community industry is familiar with. He is an entrepreneur, a visionary and the originator of the community-led movement. 

Commsor provides software, strategic services and education to help companies unlock the power of community-led growth. Every guest that we’ve talked to has attributed getting help from their "Community Club" community when they were starting out in the industry.

In this episode:

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Erin O’Neill might be the first community professional who planned her transition into community management.

Almost everyone you’ll meet in the community industry, has accidentally fallen into their first community job. But not Erin.

She decided that she wanted to switch her careers, discovered community management and succeeded in moving into it! Today, she is the Head of Community at RevOps Co-op.

In this episode:

(1:52)  - What motivated Erin to switch her career

(6:00) - What fascinated her about community management

(9:10) - How she revamped her Linkedin and connected with 40+ professionals

(18:03) - Raising kids, making dinner and going for walks while doing a full-time job

(22:51) - Managing a community of practice you know nothing about

(24:21) - Asking for mentorship from strangers

(28:30) - Chaos of working at startups

(37:44) - How to take advantage of a community of practice as a member

(42:37) - What’s next for Erin?

(45:11) - Rapid-fire!

You can connect with Erin on her LinkedIn.

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Prashant Mahajan is the founder and CEO of Zeda.io - a startup that’s building a super app for product teams. Previously, he had been a rockstar Product Manager at multiple high growth startups where he’s built products that have touched the lives of millions of people.

What’s interesting about him is how generous he is with his time. He often spends his time writing posts on LinkedIn or Twitter, doing podcast appearances and giving webinars to talk about his journey being a founder and previously, being a PM without a traditional MBA degree.

In this episode we dive into:

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