← The $100 MBA Show
The $100 MBA Show
MBA2274 Extended Interview: Tom Ross - How to Build a Thriving Online Community
00:50:30
Sometimes, it’s not the brand that’s the star of the show — it’s the community. As today’s special guest explains, an intentionally fostered community can be as valuable an asset as your product!
Loading summary
Transcript102 lines
- [00:00]
Omar Zenhom
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com.
- [00:18]
Ryan Reynolds
Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com Today's episode is sponsored by NordPass Business. As business owners, we're constantly juggling countless login and password information to access all the different apps we use to run our business. Getting into these apps without a great tool and system can be a productivity nightmare. NordPasses eases the burden of access to business accounts, making it possible for your team to work across devices and apps uninterrupted, login share and make payments efficiently backed by the high a standard of cybersecure technology. If you're a business owner, this is a must have see NordPass business in action now with a three month free trial. Just go to NordPass.com 100-mba and use code 100 MBA to get three months for free. Again, that's NordPass.com 100 MBA use code 100 MBA foreign welcome to the $100.00 MBA show. Because a better business begins with you. That's why we deliver daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started by co founder back in 2014. And today's episode is a special episode, one of our extended interviews. This is when I sit down with a brilliant mind in business and entrepreneurship and ask them all the questions that we all want to know and share that candid conversation with you so we can all benefit from their insights. Today we're going to sit down with Tom Ross. Tom's an old friend. We've known each other for over 11 years and we actually started our entrepreneurial journey together around the same time. We built our businesses, supported each other, and celebrated each other's successes along the way. Tom is a founder of design cuts. Designcuts.com is a great place for designers to get great assets, media templates, all kinds of amazing design tools and assets to help designers around the world and through that experience he built a passion for growing communities and became one of the industry's biggest thought leaders when it comes to community building. And that's what our conversation's all about, how to build a thriving online community. I grill Tom on what really matters, how to get momentum, and how to really benefit in the long term by having an online community. We launched our online community Ninja Town for our webinar software, Webinar Ninja, about a year ago. So I had tons of questions about how to improve it and make it better and better every day. But I also wanted to find out how can this really help us, all of us, improve our bottom line and grow our business? This is a very insightful conversation. I can't wait to share with you. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Today's extended interview is with Tom Ross, the incredible mind behind designcuts.com and learn.community. you're going to hear us jamming about community building, what makes a great business, and how to learn from your audience and give back to them through community. We're going to jump right into the conversation with Tom Ross, but I will be back to wrap up the episode and give my takeaways, but for right now, let's get into that convo.
- [03:54]
Omar Zenhom
Tom Ross, awesome to have you on the show. Tom. We are old, old friends, regardless of the fact that we've been out of touch a bit, but I'm glad that we're having this talk today.
- [04:04]
Tom Ross
Omar, thank you so much for having me on, man. It's great to reconnect. I was just saying before we started, I'm a big fan of the show, so I'm excited to chat.
- [04:12]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah, it's been too long. We chatted a bit on Zoom a few months ago, just catching up and it just felt like old times again. Just for a bit of background for those who are listening, Tom Ross runs a great company called Design Cuts, helping designers with, you know, different elements that they can use to help improve their projects. And I learned about him through a community that we were both part of. Corbett bars community fizzle. This is back in maybe 2013, maybe even 12. And we, we both kind of came up around the same time, learning the hard way, scrapping together our own businesses, becoming entrepreneurs. It was a different time back then and I felt like the world was smaller back then. Like, like you're in the uk. I was in the US at the time and we just, we, we stayed in touch every day and we talked to each other in these forums and Things like that. And I'm so glad to see so much of your success over the years from afar, but also just getting to know you a bit. And we're going to talk a lot about community and how that influenced us and how we both have been trying to produce our own communities to serve our own audiences. But I want to ask you a quick question about those days in Fizzle. What do you remember most about who you were in. This is almost like a decade ago, who you were as an entrepreneur? Yeah. Yeah.
- [05:36]
Tom Ross
I mean, I hope you don't mind me saying this. I think we were, like, a couple of rookies.
- [05:40]
Omar Zenhom
Yes, we were.
- [05:42]
Tom Ross
Much earlier. Yeah. I remember seeking out a lot of help and a lot of mentorship. The team there were amazing. So it was, you know, Corbett and Chase and Caleb, if you remember.
- [05:52]
Omar Zenhom
Yes.
- [05:52]
Tom Ross
And, you know, I just. I love communities. I've always loved running them. I've also loved being in them. And something. I've got, like, a soft spot for old school forums. You know, some of my best times growing up were, like, making friends in these spaces and. And that community was awesome. You know, I got to know people like you. And I remember there we were, like, sharing what we did every day publicly, like, figuring it out. We, you know, we were giving back. So I think I got the title of Fizzle Whiz because I critiqued, like, 400 people's landing pages or something, because I was like, I want to be a person of value in this community. But really, I remember a few years later, like, going back through some of my old posts, and you could see the evolution of an entrepreneur happening in real time. And I could see the same thing with you and many of our friends. And there were a lot of success stories that came out of that community. Right. So many graduate success stories.
- [06:48]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah. And the one thing I remember from those days were how hungry we were. You're talking about being a valuable member of the community. We're, like, saying yes to everything and working hard and, you know, collaborating and working with each other. You know, I remember also feeling a bit competitive. I remember, like, like you said, you were, like, kind of a star student. And I was like, man, this guy's crushing it. I got to catch up to Tom. And, you know, Matt Giov was doing interesting things. John Corcoran was doing interesting things. These are people now that, you know, have helped me, has have introduced me to so many people over the years. And I wanted to start with this because for those who are listening, one of the things I've learned along the way in entrepreneurship in the last 20 years is no one does this alone. Like, you got to do this in a community with other people. I know that we all became hermit crabs because of COVID and we kind of, you know, are kind of closed up our circle a little bit. But it's so much easier and funner when you are doing this with other people. And, and it's. I. I can't imagine how hard it would be if I didn't do it that way. Would you agree with that, Tom?
- [07:58]
Tom Ross
I would totally agree. And you have to remember that community and when we met, that was kind of pre social media boom. And I don't think social media does it like community does it. In terms of, you know, that deep networking and relationships like social media, it can be incredible, of course, but a lot of it is very much an ego game. You know, it's people chasing the followers, chasing the audience. It can be this kind of one way broadcast. Whereas these communities, you made like legitimate friendships and there was that baked in trust and you felt like you were in this safe, private space where you could open up and be vulnerable. Very different from the very public space of social media. Right. And I think there's something super special about that. So I'm, I'm excited. I think community, it's always been there, but it feels like it's having a bit of a renaissance right now. And there's been a lot of boom and hype. And I think part of that was around Covid. Right. There was this epidemic of loneliness that went with that because everyone was stuck at home. So people started seeking out these old school almost communities again. But. And I'm getting very geeky here, but you kind of had like 10 years worth of tech added on that.
- [09:06]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah.
- [09:06]
Tom Ross
So now it's like you've got really cool technology and platforms and a lower barrier to entry, but you still got the kind of very human innate yearning for connection.
- [09:14]
Omar Zenhom
I love it. We're going to get back into this idea of community building and how to do it and what not to do and all that kind of stuff. But I want to back up a little bit and I'll talk a little bit about what was Tom Ross like growing up in the uk? What was your home like? Like your upbringing and how did that influence you today or in the. In the last few years as an entrepreneur?
- [09:39]
Tom Ross
I think it influences everyone massively. Right. I mean, that's. That's where the foundation is built. My parents were very supportive growing up. I got a younger brother Grew up in the south of England. And yeah, you know, it was a pretty. Pretty good upbringing overall. A lot of the. The usual teen angst and stuff. I would say I. I wasn't like a rock star. I wasn't my best self growing up. A lot of my personal development, I think, has come in in later years. I don't know if you can resonate with that at all.
- [10:12]
Omar Zenhom
Totally.
- [10:14]
Tom Ross
And yeah, like, here's a weird personal fact. I was underweight for, like, pretty much my entire youth.
- [10:20]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah, I resonate with that. I was. I was pretty thin. I was pretty thin myself. It was so impossible for me to put on weight. I tried everything. And, you know, my parents are Egyptian and that sounds acceptable. They're like, you gotta eat. What's wrong with you?
- [10:33]
Tom Ross
You know, like, my wife's half Egyptian, so. Yeah.
- [10:38]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah.
- [10:40]
Tom Ross
But, yeah, you know, there's stuff like that along the way where I look back and I'm like, that wasn't super fun. You may have had similar. But people feel like they can just comment on that where they wouldn't perhaps do that to someone that was like, overweight. So, you know, all of the usual kind of teen angst and insecurities and whatnot. And I definitely had a nerdy side because I remember being 12 years old and my best friend, who's still one of my best friends now, he was kind of a genius. So he taught himself HTML in two days when he was 12. And then he showed me this, like, he right, clicked on a webpage and hit View Source and all this code came out. And I'm like, oh, my God, it's like the Matrix. Like, people build these things. That's insane. And. And we started making websites together from 12 years old. And we had like all of these random projects growing up. Like, some of them we built for the fun of it and didn't even launch it. Others we launched and, like, made a little money through school. And so when we connected in fizzle, I already had whatever it was like 10 years of just experimentation.
- [11:39]
Omar Zenhom
Right.
- [11:41]
Tom Ross
So that was kind of the. The entrepreneurial side, but also I freaking love design. So I got Paintshop Pro and then got Photoshop. And I remember growing up, my dad, in the summer holidays, my dad would be getting up at 6am to go to work, and we would cross in the hallway because I was going to bed and I'd been up, like clicking 10,000 times in Photoshop, like learning photo manipulation and all this kind of stuff. So I guess you could say I got pretty obsessive. About design, about marketing, about. About community.
- [12:12]
Omar Zenhom
Right.
- [12:13]
Tom Ross
I definitely put my 10,000 hours in like as a youth.
- [12:16]
Omar Zenhom
I love that. And it's interesting because everybody has their own window into entrepreneurship, even if they neglect it and then they come back to it later on and build their business. That happened to me like my parents are immigrants. They, you know, came to America so that we can have a better life, so they can have a better life. And money was tight, you know, and so it was not normal for me to ask my parents for money because I kind of felt the pressure. So I was always looking for ways to make my own money. I would sell my Halloween candy at school, things like that, to try to earn a buck. And then I kind of neglected that for a bit because I went into teaching for 13 years as my career. But I side hustled for a long time because it's funny because some of that stuff is so fun and it kind of resonates with you and especially when it's low risk, you kind of feel like it's a bit of a challenge.
- [13:08]
Ryan Reynolds
Today's episode is sponsored by NordPass Business. Did you know that over 60% of organizations report that access issues impact their productivity regularly? In the same report, 31% said access issues are the source of daily disruptions to their workflow. That's a lot of energy and time lost in your business. Luckily, there's NordPass business to save the day. We highly recommend that every business get NordPass business. Why? Because NordPass business is a password manager that will save you time and energy, allowing your team to focus on what matters most. You can store and access all your online accounts from anywhere. Stop storing important credentials in Google sheets and Excel files and popping it on your desktop. Or God forbid, you're writing your passwords in notebooks and sticky notes. You and your business deserves better. But it's not just passwords. You can share your company credit card with other teammates securely. NordPass lets you keep an unlimited number of company cards close at hand and offers a simple and secure way to share that information with teammates and hold departments on demand. Give and revoke access effortlessly. So when new teammates join or leave, NordPass has got your back. NordPass is so confident that you're going to love NordPass Business. They gave us an amazing, amazing deal. See NordPass Business in action now with a three month free trial. Just go to NordPass.com 100mba and use code 100mba three months of NordPass Business for free. Just go to NordPass dot com 100mba and use code 100MBa.
- [14:47]
Omar Zenhom
As you were building your business design cuts over the years, what would you say has been the biggest challenge in terms of getting that business to a point where it's sustaining your lifestyle?
- [15:01]
Tom Ross
To be honest, it kind of went like a rocket in year one. So I was the only full time employee at this point, but I worked 18 hour days, seven days a week for a year and a half, which I would not advocate for anyone. And you know, we went from zero to a million dollars in a year.
- [15:18]
Omar Zenhom
Right.
- [15:19]
Tom Ross
Like bootstrapped. So it was pretty immediate that it was generating decent revenue. I then, you know my backstory. But I then burnt out, spectacularly hospitalized myself. Had like chronic health issues for years, like this whole gigantic mess. It was like the. I felt like the poster boy of don't be an idiot and burn out because Dark ages. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, you learn a lot through all of these. So the company's like a decade old now, which is crazy. And we've been through so many evolutions. We've got a team of 20 people now, so it's definitely not all reliant on me. We've got an incredible team, you know, very talented, amazing people. We went remote, so we had an office. We shut down over Covid, so my wife and I, like moved out to the country and we now hire people all over the uk. But yeah, it's. It really has been a roller coaster. But what I like to think we have done is we stayed true to our core values.
- [16:22]
Omar Zenhom
Right?
- [16:22]
Tom Ross
And one of them is community. I know we're going to talk a lot about that today, but you know, that was at the forefront. Even when it was like just me full time, it was bringing together those early users. We did all kinds of crazy stuff. We had a group called the Ambassadors and we would actually film behind the scenes in our office as we built the company and then share that with our core customers and then talk to them and let them have input on how we built the company. So building with them at scale, that's amazing.
- [16:53]
Omar Zenhom
One of the things I really admire about your business, because Nicole and I are very conscious about when we hire new team members, that we try to have as much diversity as possible, general quality, just so that one, I always say to people like this is not just to do the right thing, this is also to do the right thing for your business. Like, you want to inform your business in a very diverse way. You want to make sure that people that you have different inputs. If you want to impact the world, you have to have the world kind of represented in your. In your company. One of the things I noticed is that you hire a lot of women in your. In your team. And I want to ask you a little bit about, like, how that experience has been. Is that intentional or is it more of just how it's evolved given the work that you need to get done?
- [17:44]
Tom Ross
Yeah, great question and thank you for noticing that. As CEO, I wish I could stand here and be like, that was completely intentional from day one. Truthfully, we hired the best people. And to this day, I'm not exactly sure why, but we had majority women applying and the best candidates were often a woman. And so I think now we're around like 75%, maybe 80% women at our company. And, you know, most of our senior team are women, and they're incredible. And honestly, it just worked out that way. So. Yeah, like, I'm glad that as well, because I completely agree. You know, that is so important to a company. I think it makes us very different. Like, I look at some of the tech bro companies.
- [18:30]
Omar Zenhom
Yes.
- [18:31]
Tom Ross
And I don't know, maybe it kind of stems from me as a founder. Like, that's not really my vibe. And I think what you put out, you attract. And so I'm definitely not like a tech bro in any shape or form.
- [18:43]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah. And I love the fact that there's got to be something there. Like, you know, like that women who are obviously highly qualified, they're coming to your company, they're attracted people. People have plenty of options to where to work, you know, but they're, they're coming to you. Obviously there's something that you're producing in the company that is making it a more welcoming space. You know, I know this because we, you know, you run out of kind of a design E commerce kind of business. But for us, one of the challenges we have in tech is getting women in tech to, To, To. To come to our company and work. And we're even eager to hire people that are maybe not as senior, they're junior, and then we can train them up. But it's, it's actually quite hard because you have to attract them. You know, there's. They have a lot of options now.
- [19:33]
Tom Ross
You know, it has to be a concerted effort, I guess, and in some space where that's not happening. Yeah. And, you know, I'm in some communities and networks for entrepreneurs, and the figures are really shocking, particularly around fundraising.
- [19:46]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah.
- [19:47]
Tom Ross
Like, the number. Yeah. The number of women entrepreneurs who are getting funded is just like abysmally Terrible. So.
- [19:54]
Omar Zenhom
And when they are funded, it's because their co founder is a man.
- [19:58]
Tom Ross
Yeah, like I, I hear some horror stories from a lot of my friends who are female founders. So there is, there's work to be done is what I would say on that.
- [20:06]
Omar Zenhom
There's, there's lots of work to be done. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about what we mentioned a few times today already. Community. We saw the impact of being part of a community when we were, you know, like you said, rookies trying to build their businesses, help each other out. I myself for the last 10 years have been trying to reproduce that experience for my users. You know, I want them to have what I had because it gave me a chance to one, share best practices, learn from other people's mistakes, understand what it takes to become successful. So like when I saw you and Fizzle, I thought, okay, this guy's actually working these amount of hours, he's producing this kind of work, he's, he's giving back this much. I need to do stuff like that in order for me to be as successful or get close. And I think that's really helpful because it's hard to live in your head as an entrepreneur is very lonely. Right. And it's good for you to, the more you interact, the more you're part of a community, the better your your business is going to be, but also your mental health and your well being as an entrepreneur, I think. And this is, this is why I've been trying to do this. And recently in the last year at Webinar Ninja, our software company, we launched Ninja Town, which is our community for our members. And it's run by wonderful Jenny, Jenny Lee, who runs our community over there. She's the mayor of Ninja Town. And it's incredible what we've seen in terms of what the community has done for the company. Not only has it helped our users, you know, be able to use the product better, get better outcomes and results, success stories, all that kind of stuff. It has an incredible effect on Churn. Like it just people maybe if they're not using the product, they love the community, but then they go back to the product because the product is being used in the community. So it's a cyclical nature. We've seen our Churn numbers basically half since we launched the community, which is incredible. Right. And we're just so big fans of this because it's been such a good initiative and it's just a great place to be with your, with your community in terms of learning about your customers learning about what they need and what they want and what they're struggling with.
- [22:15]
Tom Ross
I want to talk, if I may. So with that community, I need to check this out for sure. And it sounds like you're doing an awesome job. You alluded to some of the value for you as a company. What would you say is the main value for your members in that space? Like, why did they go there?
- [22:31]
Omar Zenhom
They go there because my belief is they'll meet up maybe on a webinar. We have member webinars. They'll chat on our coffee hour webinars. Right. And they'll meet interesting people. But they want to continue that relationship. And I think it's about. They want to have relationships in business that are doing similar things. They want to have friends, really. That's what it is. Right, right. And I'm basically creating the space and the time for them so that they can meet other people in a comfortable way and just have that camaraderie. And when I look back on my own experience, it's true. That's one of the things I love the most, is that, like, these are my people. I got to find my people, my community. I think that's probably the number one thing.
- [23:16]
Tom Ross
Love that. Yeah, that's. That's so awesome. And, you know, what you said about Churn really stood out to me because what we see a lot of in the community space, especially this year, because things have been tough economically, often people don't invest into community because it's hard to quantify. But what you just said, you launched a community and your turn rate halved. That's huge. Right. And that can be quantified. And, you know, if you really dig in, community is so valuable. But I also believe it exponentially gets more valuable.
- [23:47]
Omar Zenhom
Totally.
- [23:47]
Tom Ross
So as it matures, you know, in three, five, ten years, like the connections inside and the loyalty that's going to breed and the asset that's going to become is huge. But I think in a world of, like, immediate wins, people launch a community and don't see their business change overnight. And they're like, oh, we need to go focus on sales or ads or whatever it may be.
- [24:06]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah.
- [24:06]
Tom Ross
Because communities are a totally different beast.
- [24:09]
Omar Zenhom
Well, I definitely, in my experience, recommend running a community if you're trying to beat the beast of retention because you got to give them other reasons to stay or to continue to buy. Even if you run an e commerce store and you sell clothing, having a community allows them to keep you top of mind and see the value, remind them of the value that they get from your products and services so they can continue to shop. I think that it's a captive audience, which is, which is so, so valuable in today's world of distractions and social media and all that kind of stuff. And one of the things we talked about earlier was this idea that, you know, social media is like this one way megaphone situation and community is more like a town hall. A chance for everybody to participate and learn from each other. I want you to talk a little bit more about that and how you have built your own community and put your own flavor in your own communities as you. As you've been doing in the last couple of years.
- [25:13]
Tom Ross
Yeah, sure thing. So there's this kind of bugbear in the community space because everyone started shouting about community, particularly in the last couple of years, and 99% of the time they're talking about an audience. So people say, oh, my community. And what they mean is their newsletter subscribers, email list.
- [25:32]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah.
- [25:32]
Tom Ross
Podcast listeners or. Yeah, Website traffic, whatever it may be. And as you said so perfectly, a community is more like a town hall experience. And the easiest way to define it is an audience is one speaking to many. It's very one way. And a community is many speaking amongst themselves. And so if you think of any communities that you've been in, you know, the owner, the community leader doesn't need to be there for this connection to happen. Like in my communities, when I go to bed at night, members are still helping each other and talking and interacting, creating friendships. And that's the power of it. Right. Whereas with my content, it kind of all has to come from me, more or less. Yeah, it can be shared and stuff, but they're very different things. And so I think when people are launching communities, they need to be quite intentional about it. And this is why my whole side hustle is like teaching and writing and talking about community building. Because what I see is there will be companies who are not like you, Omar, because you have a background in loving community. What most companies do is they throw up a community platform, they push some people to it, and then just sit back and hope some magic happens. And they haven't defined what the community is for, how it's going to help people, the value of it to the business. They just kind of do it because community's the hot new thing and invariably, you know, it kind of fizzles out. And then they say, our community doesn't work. It failed me. It wasn't worth it. I got no roi. And it's like Community actually takes a lot of work. You know, you need to plan it out, you need to invest time. Like, you really need to be committed to it and you need to understand how it works. And again, I think a lot of people are kind of in this social media mindset.
- [27:14]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah.
- [27:14]
Tom Ross
And so if they're not from a background and community or they don't hire someone or learn this stuff, it can be really, really tough.
- [27:21]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah, I definitely agree. And one of the things that we learned when we started Ninja Town, our community, when we first started out, we were like, how do we make sure that we, those conversations continue even when us, the team, myself and Jenny and all that stuff are not stirring up conversations? So we leaned on our, our best users. We basically said, hey, you are our top 10 users. You guys are amazing. You show up to every webinar. You're great. Would you like to be an ambassador in this new community we're starting? And that was just a great way to kind of empower them to say, hey, you can post your ideas, what you're doing, what your landing pages, your registration, conversion rates, all that kind of stuff. And that was really important to get to what we believe was the critical. For us, the turning point was 200 active members. Once we hit 200 active, that was really enough for people to start feeling like this is their community and it's kind of autonomous. Do you agree with that and what would your advice be for people that are trying to get to that 200 mark?
- [28:24]
Tom Ross
I think it varies. I always say there's no one size fits all. So I've seen much smaller communities that actually can be very successful. There's also communities in different formats. So you get asynchronous, which is more like a forum community, which I presume that's what Ninja's down is, and same with ours. But asynchronous is different. Right. Because people are chatting in real time. So depending on the sector, the purpose of the community, is it utilitarian? Are people dropping in there to get help with a specific thing and then they bounce for a few months? Or do people want to live there for a social aspect? So, honestly, I can't say. Yeah, 200 is the number. But the reason I smiled is I wrote a free book called the Community Manual, and I interviewed a bunch of really, really successful people in the community space. One of them was this guy, Dom McGregor, who founded Social Chain, one of the largest social media agencies in Europe. And he actually gave a quote for the book and he mentioned 200 people in terms of critical mass.
- [29:22]
Omar Zenhom
Wow.
- [29:23]
Tom Ross
So whilst I stand by my point that it varies, you've got very good company in terms of believing in that 200 number.
- [29:31]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah. I mean, in our company, we have a scorecard. We fill out every week and each department puts in their numbers. And we just noticed that when, when, when Jenny put her number for 200 beyond that point, it started to snowball and. And it, you know, the activity got more. And things got a little bit more buzzy and things like that. Yeah.
- [29:52]
Ryan Reynolds
Talk about a little bit about setting.
- [29:53]
Omar Zenhom
Up a community, because I know that this is what you do on your side Hustle. You know, you got tell us a little bit about your website and how you set it up. Just so if somebody's like, okay, this sounds great, I want to get started.
- [30:06]
Tom Ross
Yeah, sure. So I'm such a community geek and I really have run them in some form from the age of 15, so 20 years now. And it's at the backbone of my company, I've been doing all this stuff and I'm not very good at switching off in the evening. So for me, I have to keep busy. If I take a vacation, by the end of it, I'm scribbling ideas. And so for my hobby, I actually launched a side Hustle community where I teach community building. And it's my favorite domain name ever. It's learn.community.
- [30:36]
Omar Zenhom
Amazing. One word, 400 bucks.
- [30:39]
Tom Ross
Yeah, I was super happy.
- [30:40]
Omar Zenhom
That's a great buy. That's amazing.
- [30:42]
Tom Ross
Thank you. So, yeah, so I launched that and I do a lot of writing there and events and we look after our members and it's been incredible. And I've really learned so much from our members as well. And you mentioned this idea of member led. Right. It shouldn't all come from you. And that has been one of the biggest learnings. So as soon as we started opening up workshops or shining the spotlight on our members, instead of my expertise, I was like, huh? I'm actually learning almost more from them than they are from me, and they're learning from each other, and that's such an amazing thing. So to your question of, like, how do you start a community? I want to give a few tactical steps, but one of them is definitely take that spotlight off of yourself and shine it on your members and empower them. Look for the active users, like, try and ask them if they want to do an event or produce a bit of content or guide someone else. Like, it's so, so powerful. And the more you do that, I promise you will not regret it to this day.
- [31:40]
Omar Zenhom
And by the way, this is like a great opportunity for them. Like, I remember when we were in Fizzle, and they're like, hey, we're going to do office hours. You want to present? I was like, wow, they're going to let me present in front of their audience. Like a free audience. Like, so this is kind of easy ask.
- [31:54]
Tom Ross
Yeah, yeah, it really is. And people often overthink this. They're like, oh, would anyone want to? What's in it for them? Kind of thing. It's really easy. Just look for the people that are naturally sharing already and then try and amplify that and facilitate that even more. But yeah, in terms of actionable steps to launch, I think first of all, you need to figure out your concept, because again, you don't just want to launch a community and hope for the best. So try and get clear on your member Persona. Who are you serving? What's the value proposition? How are you trying to help them? So we have all kinds of community builders and learn community. We have a community for arborists, tree surgeons, believe it or not, for writers, for entrepreneurs, for small businesses. All kinds of different communities. But each one of them has done a pretty good job of we know who we're helping and we know what we're helping them with. We're trying to give them this transformation from being in the community, take them from point A to point B. So I think you need to distill down to that initially. But then again, what a lot of people do is they go invest in a community software or platform, they spend ages building this thing, they make it way too complicated, and they launch and it's quick as. So I'm a huge believer in validation, and that goes beyond just community building. And I know back in the day in Fizzle, we learned a lot about this stuff, but with my community, I said, I don't want to launch it unless I got 100 founding members. And so I opened it up and I did wait lists and all this kind of stuff, and we got 400 applicants. So I was like, cool, now I need to go build it. So I didn't build anything until I had members there, like, knocking on the door, waiting.
- [33:36]
Omar Zenhom
Yes.
- [33:37]
Tom Ross
And then I freaked out and, like, built it in three days or something because I was like, I got to get this thing ready.
- [33:42]
Omar Zenhom
And I build anticipation, which is great.
- [33:45]
Tom Ross
Exactly, exactly. And I see the opposite so often where, like I say, people build this complicated beast and then no one even wants it. So I would say, like, figure out your concept. Validate it, try and get, you know, some level of demand or proof that people want this thing, then launch with a bang. So I did a launch party, got a bunch of people on a call from the wait list and like made it really fun. Gave a tour of the community, like addressed any last minute questions or objections. And then I was like, go, go, go. Like everyone, we open the doors and people in the comments like, just sign up, just sign up. So the social proof was crazy. So if you can try and make it exciting, don't just like give a slow trickle, like open your doors and barely shout about it and people trickle in. That's no fun. And then once you're in, really the hard work begins. So I'm sure you experienced this in your community, Omar, but in the early stage, this is what David Spinks refers to as the siege stage. This is where basically you are the driving force behind everything because you haven't reached critical mass, you haven't reached maturity. And this is where the worst thing you can do is sit back and hope it works out. You have to basically like take people by the hand and guide the behavior that you want to see at the start. Unless you're starting with a ton of members or something like that. But for most of us, you have to really, really drive it. And so what does this look like tactically? One of my favorite tactics is private to public. And so I will have one on one conversations in DM with members and be like, hey, so glad you're here. What are you struggling with right now? I'd love to help. They tell me and start opening up and I'd be like, that's amazing. Would you mind posting that in the forum? And I will help you, but other members will help you too.
- [35:28]
Omar Zenhom
That's great.
- [35:28]
Tom Ross
And by doing this, there's a constant influx of content from members and questions and stuff that they wouldn't have posted without the prompt. But because I'm there behind the scenes guiding and prompting it, it goes in the public feed. So the other members are seeing this and be like, oh, there's some really varied, interesting stuff going on and this is a very active community. And then you can take it a step further, go in the comments and start tagging up other members and be like, hey, like, you know, I think you'd be able to contribute to this conversation and ideally you have some level of like member data so you can kind of see who might be a good fit for that.
- [35:59]
Omar Zenhom
Right.
- [36:00]
Tom Ross
I love that you can do that. Yeah, it's very unscalable Right. But that kind of manual early work, that's how you get a community off the ground. Like you just drive it. And even now to this day, I do some of that stuff. Like it's definitely more mature and learn community and you know, members are helping each other and we got some power users and stuff, but I still believe in that stuff and it's really fun. Like I'm in a community for Marketplace people. It's got 1600 members and I still see the founder doing a lot of these tactics himself because it's powerful, you know, like getting a dm, being like this person just posted a question and you are like the perfect expert, given your background to help them. Would you mind? Like that's how you kind of facilitate these interactions until they start to happen more naturally.
- [36:44]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah, I like this kind of set of push pull to pull them into it at people because you have to remember, you know, they don't have it open on their browser constantly, you know, or they have the app open all the time. So these mentioning them will give them a ping or an email to say, oh, jump back in, somebody's calling your name. And I love this concept because, you know, not everybody is going to be signing in every day.
- [37:12]
Tom Ross
Which is fine.
- [37:13]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah, which is fine. And I love the whole M.V.P. ing it up, queuing it up, creating excitement, creating anticipation. Because you only have one chance to launch, you know, it's one opportunity, you might as well take it and make a big deal. I want to talk a little bit about asynchronous versus synchronous because I've been a part of a lot of groups that are asynchronous, but I've been in some slack channels, for example, I guess you can call that a community with other entrepreneurs and it's kind of like feast or famine. It's like either really buzzy and you can't catch up with all the messages that are going on in dms or it's like crickets and then you hear from somebody like once a month. If somebody's starting out a community for the first time, do you think that they should go with synchronous, Asynchronous or. It depends.
- [38:04]
Tom Ross
It depends as ever. And both can work. There's awesome communities in both models and there's terrible communities in both models. So I think often it comes down to personal preference. I really love asynchronous because partly time, I don't have time to be there, like live chatting with members or live chatting as a member I love that with Asynchronous, often you can organize content better so, you know, people can search and find answers from posts that were months ago. That's really difficult in a synchronous community. And I just like the fact that it's a kind of lower pressure, right? Like you can ask for help and come back a week later and there's a few replies. And I just enjoy that model. That's what the model was in Fizzle. I loved it back then, honestly. I think if it was like a live chat stream, effectively, like that kind of discord Slack model, I just get lost. It gets swept away. And I come back two days later to 250, 57 unread messages and I'm like, I can't catch up with that. Like, I don't want it.
- [39:05]
Omar Zenhom
It's. It's a good point because it's seen as like a library of resources too. When it's asynchronous, people can go back to the archive, look up conversations, look up videos you posted or tutorials. It's funny because there's a. There's a startup community, like a co working space for startups here in Sydney called Fish Burners. Nicole and I kind of like alumni that go to pitch nights and things like that. And I was just having a side conversation with one of the judges of the pitch nights and I was telling him about the community I started and, you know, within my SaaS company and what, what we're trying to do with it. And he gave me this angle that I never thought of. He was just like, oh, wow, that's a great asset for your valuation. I was like, what? He's like, oh, that really creates a lot of value for your company because they're people that just buy communities, forget about the software, you know, And I was like, oh, okay, I never thought about that. But it's true. I mean, it's seen as an investment and I think that's a good reminder for people who are starting communities because it does take time and it does take a bit of effort and investment of all those things. So. But it is a great investment in your company because if somebody ever bought your company one day, they have this great resource, resources of knowledge and information and training and a captive audience, and it's huge. And it's funny because we mentioned Fizzle, the community we started, and Corbett sold his community. He sold Fizzle recently, which is a shame because a lot of people can't join it anymore. But. But at the same time, I'm Happy for Corbett because he was able to capitalize on that asset he built. Is that something that you think about when you are building your community or do you. You're just in the moment right now, trying to make it as best as possible?
- [40:46]
Tom Ross
I do think about it, actually. So it's not the driver of why I'm doing it, but the entrepreneur in me can't help but think about this stuff. So I was thinking the other day, the side hustle community, full disclosure, this is a hobby. I work an hour a day or less on this. It's a passion project for me, but it's a little over a year old and it's making $50,000 annual recurring revenue and it's growing about 5% now month on month.
- [41:14]
Omar Zenhom
That's some good pub money.
- [41:16]
Tom Ross
Yeah. Right. And I was thinking about this. I was like, this is basically all profit as well, because it's just me and there's not many overheads. It's subscription revenue, which I believe is closer to like 10x multiple. Right. In terms of ebit. So I'm like, so this thing is technically worth half a million dollars after a year and could easily go on to become a million as like a freaking side hustle, like fun hobby for me.
- [41:44]
Ryan Reynolds
Totally.
- [41:44]
Tom Ross
And that's not my intention for it, but where I find it very interesting is like adding this model into existing businesses. So there's definitely power in free communities. Like at Design Cuts, we have a free community. And similar to your business, it adds so much and we love giving back to our members. But I have a lot of friends right now who are crushing it as solopreneurs. They're doing force launches and books and consulting and all this kind of stuff. But they're now starting to come to me more frequently saying, how do I launch a paid community? Because what their business lacks is a subscription model. And so they're constantly in launch mode and relying on ads and there's no reliability. Right. Even if they're doing super well. And I think increasingly we're going to see creatives and entrepreneurs wake up to the power of these kind of paid subscription membership communities. I think we're going to see a world boom in them in the next few years, to be honest.
- [42:43]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah. And we experienced that ourselves when we're in our community fizzle and we gobbled up the training and the videos in the first two weeks. We're not signing up every month, we're not paying every single month because of that. We did it for the community because of the chats and because of the calls and things like that. There's one more thing I want to touch on. In person meetups, events, kind of turning your online community into an in person event. The reason why I bring this up is because Nicole and I started an event here in Australia called oscon. It's, it's a, it's a, it's basically a business retreat for busy entrepreneurs that don't make the time to make friends. And it's up in the snow and we do skiing and things like that. And we ran the first one last August and running again this August, it. It's absolutely the easiest thing I ever sold in my life. Like it's so easy because people are dying for a chance to hang out, have fun and somebody just to take care of it for them. Like, hey, you just tell me where to go and I will pay you money so I can have some fun for a few days. So have you seen online communities turn into in person meetups or events and done it successfully?
- [43:51]
Tom Ross
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like I, I actually think it can work both ways. So there have been conferences and events that then attendees don't want to just connect once a year. They want that ongoing community. So an online space makes a ton of sense, but equally it can be really validating. Right. If you have an online space and members are speaking up saying, hey, can we do this? And often it can be self initiated. Right. So you might see breakaway groups being like, let's do a London meetup, let's do a New York meetup. That kind of thing happens quite often. So yes, I think both ways is incredible. But the similarity is you as the leader, you should really just be a facilitator like you say, people will pay. People are grateful and glad to have someone that is organizing this stuff because they don't want it. And so whether you're like booking a venue and bringing people together and making it fun, or you're hosting online events and connecting people, I think more and more people, when they start communities and run them, need to think of themselves as like chief facilitator.
- [44:52]
Omar Zenhom
Yeah.
- [44:53]
Tom Ross
Not like the one everyone should listen to, or not the expert, not the loudest person in the room, but just the person who is like organizing and connecting and making things happen.
- [45:03]
Omar Zenhom
The only thing I would add to that is one of the pieces of feedback I got from the event that we run is that I was too much of an organizer and I kind of took a step back too much and wanted them to enjoy themselves. And the feedback I got overwhelmingly from Everybody is like, well, we didn't get a chance to get to know you. We wanted to hang out with you and you were kind of busy making our life fun and great. And I thought, okay, maybe I need to get more involved and get somebody else to help me out next time around, things like that.
- [45:29]
Tom Ross
So, yeah, that sounds like a good step. But I mean, I'm, I'm quite extroverted. And I remember going to Creative south, one of my favorite conferences, obviously, on behalf of design cards. Like, it's in the design space. And that was incredible, right? We were connecting with like, people who listened to our podcast, all kinds of people who had been friends online and we'd never met in real life. And I just got incredibly hyper, drinking margaritas for three days, running around Alabama and making friends with like 200 people. And that is the power of it, right? It's like, yeah, connection and friendship on steroids just like packed into a few days.
- [46:08]
Omar Zenhom
That's the perfect Tom Ross vacation right there.
- [46:12]
Tom Ross
Oh, yeah.
- [46:13]
Omar Zenhom
Staying busy, staying active. I love it. Tom, it was awesome chatting with you today. Thank you so much for, for sharing everything you've learned and, and being so selfless about it and really just putting it out there for our community to learn from, for our listeners to learn from. I, I'm. Later on in the episode, guys, I'm gonna let you know how you can learn more about Tom, how to follow him on social. But Tom, I want to just take a moment to say one thanks for your friendship. It's been great getting to know you, being your friend, supporting each other throughout the years. My message to everybody out there is find you a good dozen Tom Ross's so that you can be able to, be able to make your life a little easier. It's, it's so much easier when you're, when you have friends and community that are really looking out for each other's best interest. And it's funny because I've never had the experience with you or the other people that we've met along the way where it's, it's competitive or we're trying to steal each other's lunch money. It's, it's a, it's really a great feeling to know that the space that we're in, online entrepreneurship people are pretty decent overall.
- [47:19]
Tom Ross
Yeah. Yeah. Well said and thank you again, man. I mean, I'm so glad we reconnected. And even for the years where we were both head down working, I was such a huge fan of watching your ascension. It was super fun to me. So you're completely right. No notion of competition. I was watching the company take off and the podcast take off and just smiling, to be honest, because I couldn't help but think back to super young us with carefree, no responsibilities, figuring this stuff out. I got a baby daughter, Morgan, all that adult stuff. But, yeah, it's been really, really inspiring and fun watching your journey. So to reconnect and be on here. I'm honored and thank you so much.
- [48:05]
Omar Zenhom
Thanks, Tom. Appreciate it.
- [48:07]
Ryan Reynolds
What a great discussion with Tom Ross. I really enjoyed it, not only because we're old friends and it was easy, kind of to talk to him and get the answers we're looking for when it comes to growing your community, but also I always found Tom to be very generous with his information, with his knowledge, and always willing to help. I highly recommend you find yourself a Tom Ross that you can become friends with, that you can learn from, that you can catch up with on calls like this one. I'm so glad I met Tom and other entrepreneurs like Tom when I was coming up because I needed a support system. It's really lonely to build a business, and you need people around you not only to motivate you and help you, but also just to be honest with you and give you critical feedback and also let you know, hey, it's hard for me, too. It's supposed to be hard. The best thing I did when I started my entrepreneurial journey is make friends. So glad I can call Tom a friend. But it wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for communities. We were part of that community fizzle. So join a community or start a community so you can be a connector and meet interesting people that you can lean on, and they can lean on you. You can get better, you can grow faster, you can do it more enjoyably when you're doing it with other people and with all the tools, with all the communities, with all the groups online, it's never been easier and we have no excuse. Make sure you check out Tom Ross over@designcuts.com and of course, learn.community. you can follow him on Twitter tomrossmedia. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you love today's episode or any of our episodes, the best compliment you can give us is to share it. Share it with your friends and family on social. Send them over to 100- MBA-NET and let them know, hey, this podcast rocks. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. A lot of people think it's good to be a part of a community because of the motivation. Because sometimes you're not going to feel like working and the community is going to be able to push you and help you and make you feel like a winner. That can be true, and it's often true. But really, a great community holds you accountable, make sure you give updates and that you are held to your word. When you say you're going to work on a project and complete it by a certain time, you do it and they ask you how's it going and they give you hell when you don't have it done. That's the kind of friends you need because you can't just rely on your own discipline, your own motivation, your own will. Use whatever's at your disposal, even if it means leaning on other people to hold you accountable. Business is hard, so use what you can to make it a bit easier on you. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.