January 12, 2026

How to Build a Community People Trust with Matt Carnevale

1 hour 6 minutes

#320 | Matt Carnevale, Head of Community at Exit Five, joins Dave for a discussion about community building. They dive into a bunch of the lessons learned from building the Exit Five community over the last few years, including specific plays like onboarding, matchmaking, and moderation. If you’re thinking about community building in 2026, this is a good primer; plus the guys give their opinion on what “community” actually means and whether you should build a private community like Exit Five or focus more broadly on community building.

Timestamps

(00:02) - – Matt’s path from BDR to Head of Community at Exit Five

(09:00) - – What “community” actually means (and what it definitely isn’t)

(13:45) - – Why most B2B communities fail before they ever get traction

(18:25) - – Community vs. content: what gets people in vs. what makes them stay

(23:00) - – Why Slack groups aren’t a strategy

(27:45) - – Treating community like a product, not a marketing channel

(35:16) - – The role of trust, curation, and saying no to the wrong people

(40:51) - – What community managers actually do behind the scenes

(47:46) - – How in-person events changed the Exit Five community

(53:56) - – The biggest lessons Matt’s learned after two years building Exit Five

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter
Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

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Brought to you by:

Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.

Consensus - An AI-powered interactive demo platform that lets you put personalized, self-serve demos on your site to turn anonymous researchers into high-intent leads. Learn more at goconsensus.com/exitfive.

Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive.

Convertr - The enterprise lead data management platform that sits between your lead sources and your CRM, automatically validating, enriching, and standardizing every lead before it touches your systems. Check them out at convertr.io/exitfive.

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Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

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