How to organize a massive public launch for your community 🚀

Heavily inspired by a convo I had with @hey_bernie about @odyssey_dao's launch that got them...
• $124,000 in funding
• 4,000 discord members
• 5,000 twitter followers

(THREAD 🧵) @hey_bernie @odyssey_dao This assumes...
• You've created the basic structure for your community
• Have all the tech figured out
• Have a decent understanding of your target members
• Are ready to invite new members to your community

Let's dive in ⬇️

If you're building a community & you want...
• Better retention
• More engagement
• Faster growth

...the key to this is a focused experience for your members ✨

Lose focus & everything else falls apart.

Here's a framework to keep your community focused & growing in 2022 🧵 Why "lack of focus" kills communities:

A room of lukewarm opinions won't evangelize & draw in tomorrow's members.

You need to consistently create evangelists — people that constantly share your community with friends.

Here's how you optimize & focus the experience ⬇️

Communities are the backbone of the internet.

It's how we make meaningful connections with other humans.

But I've studied 100s of communities in 2021 — most STILL struggle w/ engagement.

Here's 7 ways I've learned to boost engagement overnight 🧵 1/ Ask human questions that create conversation 🤔

Boring: "who are you" & "why'd you join" 😴

Instead, ask something that starts a convo by default. My favorites:
• What's the best meal you've ever eaten?
• Your coolest celebrity encounter?
• Fav pic on your phone?

How to run the perfect investor meeting...

a short framework ⬇️ Your goal in meetings? Drive FOMO

Investors are terrified of missing the next Airbnb. Your need to come off as a founder who's...

• Super smart
• Building something massive
• Already got a ton of other VCs interested

Here's how you start the call & give that impression ⬇️

Most common question investors ask during a pitch:

🚨 How are you going to use this money?🚨

Getting this wrong kills your whole pitch.
And 90% of startup founders answer it poorly.

Here’s how you nail it 🧵 First off — this is trick question!

What investors DON’T want to hear:
❌ “Here’s a breakdown of our expenses over the next year”
❌ “We’re going to pay ourselves a salary & work on this full-time”
❌ “It’s all going to a dev agency”

Instead, they're looking for 2 things ⬇️

I pitched 100s of VCs during @HeartbeatChat's last round

There are unspoken, hidden rules in the VC world you're expected to figure out.

Learn them & fundraising becomes MUCH easier.

Use these 5 hidden rules to raise 10x faster 🧵 1/ VCs are looking for good stories

Investors have chances to offload shares 1-2 rounds later in private sales. They just need to be sure your story is good enough to attract follow-on investors.

You can craft a really strong story through trends:

https://twitter.com/MurtazaBambot/status/1457819990351126534

Most startups pitch like this...
• Problem
• Solution
• Market Size
• Competition
• Biz Model
• Projections
• Team

But, this is the WORST way to tell your story.

Instead, here's how you craft a BILLION dollar story that always hits the mark 🧵 The standard problem-solution pitch treats fundraising conversations like a checklist ☑️

It has the right pieces... but it's not a memorable story 😩

Investors have to sell you to the rest of their partners. All you've given them is a list of facts.

You need a better flow...

I've coached 250+ founders over the last year.

Some never raise & struggle for years.

Others raise MILLIONS & build massive companies.

Here are 4 things the best founders do insanely well 🧵 1/ Build a community around you

Incredible founders build an entire ecosystem to support their efforts — customers, investors, hires, influencers

The easiest way to do this is through consistent, honest updates.

Our first investors came right off our update list:

I used to STRUGGLE to raise money.

But in the last year, I've:
• Raised $700,000
• Turned down $1.1MM
• Helped other founders raise $20MM

Here's what I changed 🧵 Part of how you convince people is through your story.

The other part is SIGNALING

It's the subtle things you do over email & during meetings that make you seem more in demand.

Yes, you need a good story.

But story + great signaling can get you fully funded in 30 days.

Just got a masterclass in community from two 19-yr-old college students ✨

@brandonthezhang & @aaditsh run Maker’s Mark (MM) — a cohort-based course on Twitter audience building

Here’s the secret to how they built one of the most engaged learning communities I’ve ever seen 🧵 1/ Teach fundamentals that can be applied instantly ✅

MM's feedback loop:
1️⃣ Teach skill
2️⃣ Students apply skill
3️⃣ They win

Wins can be small. Get people through this loop fast & engagement sky-rockets.

Week 1: MM taught thread writing. Students gained 100s of follows fast.

After my first thread blew up, 17 founders reached out about fundraising.

I was happy to coach all of them 😄

But, I found myself sending the same threads over & over.

SOOOO....

If you're about to start fundraising for your startup, here's what you should read 🧵 {1 of 5} Strong fundraising pitches center around market tailwinds 📈

@Julian frames this perfectly:
• 1-2 new tech/legal infrastructure changes
• a new cultural acceptance

Doing this makes your pitch bulletproof 💪

https://twitter.com/Julian/status/1404893926440333317

Every new competitor scares me.

My insecurities take over 😬
"Are we REALLY doing enough at @HeartbeatChat?"

As a founder, I'm working to process competition in a healthier way (& you can, too)! Here's how...

THREAD ↓↓ 1/ Realize that every startup is rife with problems 😫

Competitors leave these problems out of Techcrunch articles, but they're still there.

You've likely solved some of these without knowing 🚀

"Every one of you is sh*tty in your own special way"
- @supalyt to YC startups

1 year ago I knew nothing about communities.

But building @HeartbeatChat, signing customers, and raising our $700k pre-seed — I became an expert. FAST.

Now you can do it too 😉

Here's my curated list of resources to make you a "community" expert overnight 🧵 1/ The Community Building Crash Course by @jayclouse

People join communities for either
(A) transformation 💪
(B) support ❤️

Pick one to start. (Add the 2nd later)

Reduce time to gratification on your chosen goal to create insane community retention.

bit.ly/3B1pTFS

I failed out of Georgia Tech's coding classes.

Now I run a tech company.

Over 5 years, I taught myself to code. I found the right community & learned enough to even build my own products.

This is how I did it & how you can too 👇 I started where everyone does: CodeAcademy

I whizzed through their beginner courses — Python, JS, Ruby, and others. But I didn't learn much.

Yeah, now I knew what a print statement was, but how tf do you use them?

I needed something practical. A project.

I want to introduce myself 👋

Over the past 4 years I...
• Built a startup
• Became homeless
• Lost $2,000,000 & all our customers
• Started @HeartbeatChat
• Built a team, new product, & raised $700k in 6 mos

Here's my story 🧵 (2017) In college, I saw my friends struggle to get hired.

So built a job board with my roommate — you could 1-click apply & submit 150 tailored applications in 15 min.

It grew fast.

n.pr/3lO0glR