I've been having some hard conversations with clients lately. Good hard, but hard. They're all circling (no pun intended) the same question: what is community actually worth? And one client's little sentence, "I wouldn't pay that much for that," has been sitting with me all week, because I've seen it everywhere. I've felt it myself.

In this entry:

• The client whose members keep voting yes with their wallets, while the founder hesitates

• Why community value is so hard to point at (you can't screenshot belonging)

• The real consulting work: helping founders see what their members already see

• Something to noodle on: what does your community make possible that members couldn't get anywhere else?

The Diary of a Community Builder is a daily, behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to build and run a membership community and a community-led business. Real entries about community building on Circle, membership pricing, the value of connection, and the honest, in-between moments of growing an online business, without the highlight reel.

Want to take it one step further? The Diary lives inside coCreator Society too. Each day's question drops in the community, you leave your own entries, and we support one another while we build our community-based businesses, together, out loud.

Come join us 💛 https://cocreatorsociety.com/

ABOUT THE DIARY OF A COMMUNITY BUILDER

The Diary of a Community Builder is a free daily podcast from Rachel, a Circle Expert and founder of coCreator Society. Every weekday at 6am Eastern, a new entry drops: musings, behind-the-scenes moments, and lessons from inside real membership communities and community-led businesses, plus one question to noodle on in your own day of building. It's the messy, honest, in-between of building something that lasts. For full-length strategy episodes, listen to the Community at Heart podcast wherever you get your shows.

This week has been kind of a tough one at our house, and it's for the silliest-sounding reason: our dog walker relocated, suddenly. I know how bougie that sounds. Stay with me. Because between the Instagram-influenced puppy, missing our sweet Harper, and a week without help, this entry ended up being about the thing I struggle with most: asking for help at all.

In this entry:

• The puppy, the sudden relocation, and a week without the help I'd finally allowed myself

• Why hiring that first dog walker was emotionally hard, not logistically hard

• The pressure on female entrepreneurs to do everything, all at once, beautifully

• Something to sit with: what are you white-knuckling that someone else could carry?

The Diary of a Community Builder is a daily, behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to build and run a membership community and a community-led business. Real entries about community building on Circle, the founder life behind the business, asking for help, and the honest, in-between moments of growing an online business, without the highlight reel.

Want to take it one step further? The Diary lives inside coCreator Society too. Each day's question drops in the community, you leave your own entries, and we support one another while we build our community-based businesses, together, out loud.

Come join us 💛 https://cocreatorsociety.com/

ABOUT THE DIARY OF A COMMUNITY BUILDER

The Diary of a Community Builder is a free daily podcast from Rachel, a Circle Expert and founder of coCreator Society. Every weekday at 6am Eastern, a new entry drops: musings, behind-the-scenes moments, and lessons from inside real membership communities and community-led businesses, plus one question to noodle on in your own day of building. It's the messy, honest, in-between of building something that lasts. For full-length strategy episodes, listen to the Community at Heart podcast wherever you get your shows.

hit my desk around 6am most mornings, iced coffee in hand. In this entry: the Christmas gift that ended up changing how I build my weeks. An Oura ring, some stress data that did not lie, and why my almost-call-free Mondays are now one of the most productive days of my week.

In this entry:

• Why I stopped packing Mondays with back-to-back calls

• What my Oura ring's stress data showed me about stacked-meeting days

• Gated Mondays and 6am mornings, where the actual building happens

• Something to noodle on: where are your protected pockets of focus time?

The Diary of a Community Builder is a daily, behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to build and run a membership community and a community-led business. Real entries about community building on Circle, founder routines, focus and sustainable growth, and the honest, in-between moments of growing an online business, without the highlight reel.

Want to take it one step further? The Diary lives inside coCreator Society too. Each day's question drops in the community, you leave your own entries, and we support one another while we build our community-based businesses, together, out loud.

Come join us 💛 https://cocreatorsociety.com/

ABOUT THE DIARY OF A COMMUNITY BUILDER

The Diary of a Community Builder is a free daily podcast from Rachel, a Circle Expert and founder of coCreator Society. Every weekday at 6am Eastern, a new entry drops: musings, behind-the-scenes moments, and lessons from inside real membership communities and community-led businesses, plus one question to noodle on in your own day of building. It's the messy, honest, in-between of building something that lasts. For full-length strategy episodes, listen to the Community at Heart podcast wherever you get your shows.

Woof. We made it, one full week of the Diary. And I saved something for Friday. This week, an email landed in my inbox. The one you quietly wait for through months and years of building. The one that says, hey, we see you. I can't share details yet (first steps are fragile little things), but I can tell you I busted into tears at my desk, and why.

In this entry:

• One week of the Diary, done

• The email I've been building toward for years, and what it felt like when it landed

• A confession: I don't talk about how I got here. I'm going to.

• No question this week. Just a send-off for everyone in the quiet building years: don't give up.

The Diary of a Community Builder is a daily, behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to build and run a membership community and a community-led business. Real entries about community building on Circle, partnerships, the long game of building a business, and the honest, in-between moments nobody posts about, without the highlight reel.

Want to take it one step further? The Diary lives inside coCreator Society too. Each day's question drops in the community, you leave your own entries, and we support one another while we build our community-based businesses, together, out loud.

Come join us 💛 https://cocreatorsociety.com/

ABOUT THE DIARY OF A COMMUNITY BUILDER

The Diary of a Community Builder is a free daily podcast from Rachel, a Circle Expert and founder of coCreator Society. Every weekday at 6am Eastern, a new entry drops: musings, behind-the-scenes moments, and lessons from inside real membership communities and community-led businesses, plus one question to noodle on in your own day of building. It's the messy, honest, in-between of building something that lasts. For full-length strategy episodes, listen to the Community at Heart podcast wherever you get your shows.

I have a custom client dashboard that Molli and I built, and it is gorgeous. Really, really pretty. There's just one problem: it doesn't work for my brain. In this entry, the confession of how I spent an afternoon this week, why I worked around a broken system for way too long, and the sentence I finally had to say out loud.

In this entry:

• The beautiful client portal that everyone was slightly confused inside of

• Why pretty and functional are not the same thing

• The maintenance work nobody posts about (and why it counts)

• Something to chew on: what's one thing in your systems you could update?

The Diary of a Community Builder is a daily, behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to build and run a membership community and a community-led business. Real entries about community building on Circle, systems and workflows, client experience, and the honest, in-between moments of growing an online business, without the highlight reel.

Want to take it one step further? The Diary lives inside coCreator Society too. Each day's question drops in the community, you leave your own entries, and we support one another while we build our community-based businesses, together, out loud.

Come join us 💛 https://cocreatorsociety.com/

ABOUT THE DIARY OF A COMMUNITY BUILDER

The Diary of a Community Builder is a free daily podcast from Rachel, a Circle Expert and founder of coCreator Society. Every weekday at 6am Eastern, a new entry drops: musings, behind-the-scenes moments, and lessons from inside real membership communities and community-led businesses, plus one question to noodle on in your own day of building. It's the messy, honest, in-between of building something that lasts. For full-length strategy episodes, listen to the Community at Heart podcast wherever you get your shows.

We just kicked off our very first book club inside coCreator Society (a little dream, quietly checked off), and our first pick followed me straight onto vacation. In this entry: a button on a hotel room phone, a 17-year-old lighting up like a six-year-old, and the thing that actually makes communities sticky. Hint: it's not your content calendar.

In this entry:

• Our first Society book club pick, The Power of Moments, and how Maggie brought it into my life

• The pizza button, and why the button is the memory, not the pizza

• Why tiny moments of delight bring members back more than the big launches do

• Something to noodle on: what's the pizza button in your community?

The Diary of a Community Builder is a daily, behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to build and run a membership community and a community-led business. Real entries about community building on Circle, member experience, retention, engagement, and the honest, in-between moments of growing an online business, without the highlight reel.

Want to take it one step further? The Diary lives inside coCreator Society too. Each day's question drops in the community, you leave your own entries, and we support one another while we build our community-based businesses, together, out loud.

Come join us 💛 https://cocreatorsociety.com/

ABOUT THE DIARY OF A COMMUNITY BUILDER

The Diary of a Community Builder is a free daily podcast from Rachel, a Circle Expert and founder of coCreator Society. Every weekday at 6am Eastern, a new entry drops: musings, behind-the-scenes moments, and lessons from inside real membership communities and community-led businesses, plus one question to noodle on in your own day of building. It's the messy, honest, in-between of building something that lasts. For full-length strategy episodes, listen to the Community at Heart podcast wherever you get your shows.

We just launched a beautiful new community for Cathy Heller, and within hours, the first real post landed. What two members said in that thread, completely unprompted, had me sitting at my desk with goosebumps, and immediately voice noting my team. Some entries are strategy. This one is why we do any of this.

In this entry:

• Behind the scenes of launching Cathy Heller's new community and app
• The first real post, and the unprompted conversation it started
• Why what people say unprompted is the truest data your business has
• Something to noodle on: what has someone said about your work that you never asked for?

✨ Explore Cathy Heller: https://cathyheller.com/cathys-circle/

The Diary of a Community Builder is a daily, behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to build and run a membership community and a community-led business. Real entries about community building on Circle, community launches, member engagement, retention, and the honest, in-between moments of growing an online business, without the highlight reel.

Want to take it one step further? The Diary lives inside coCreator Society too. Each day's question drops in the community, you leave your own entries, and we support one another while we build our community-based businesses, together, out loud.

Come join us 💛 https://cocreatorsociety.com/

ABOUT THE DIARY OF A COMMUNITY BUILDER

The Diary of a Community Builder is a free daily podcast from Rachel, a Circle Expert and founder of coCreator Society. Every weekday at 6am Eastern, a new entry drops: musings, behind-the-scenes moments, and lessons from inside real membership communities and community-led businesses, plus one question to noodle on in your own day of building. It's the messy, honest, in-between of building something that lasts. For full-length strategy episodes, listen to the Community at Heart podcast wherever you get your shows.

For years, when something happened in my day, I'd Slack a voice note to my team or my business girlies. The goosebump moments. The hard days. The wins that got celebrated loudly. And those voice notes were more honest than anything I ever published.

So I started keeping track of them. And now they're yours too.

In this first entry:

• The habit that started it all
• Why this isn't another Instagram, Threads, or Substack
• What's waiting for you every weekday at 6am Eastern
• Something to noodle on: what happened in your business last week that made you pause?

The Diary of a Community Builder is a daily, behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes to build and run a membership community and a community-led business. Real entries about community building on Circle, member engagement, retention, launches, working with AI as a community builder, and the honest, in-between moments of growing an online business, without the highlight reel.

Want to take it one step further? The Diary lives inside coCreator Society too. Each day's question drops in the community, you leave your own entries, and we support one another while we build our community-based businesses, together, out loud.

Come join us 💛 https://cocreatorsociety.com/

ABOUT THE DIARY OF A COMMUNITY BUILDER

The Diary of a Community Builder is a free daily podcast from Rachel, a Circle Expert and founder of coCreator Society. Every weekday at 6am Eastern, a new entry drops: musings, behind-the-scenes moments, and lessons from inside real membership communities and community-led businesses, plus one question to noodle on in your own day of building. It's the messy, honest, in-between of building something that lasts. For full-length strategy episodes, listen to the Community at Heart podcast wherever you get your shows.