AJ | Recent CEO of Foundrs and Fractional Community Consultant | The Difference Between A Nurtured Community And A Passive Audience

In this last episode of the FounderTech Decoded podcast in 2023, we are fortunate to close this Series 6 by getting talk to AJ, who has recently stepped down as the CEO of the leading invite only entrepreneurial community Foundrs.

We get to hear how its original founders initially conceived of, formed and launched such a successfully a community. Accompanied by the insight of what it was like to have the privilege to be subsequently charged with the responsibility to continue to nurture and support it.

We learn how Foundrs achieves its success via a super active online founder support network and a combination of onsite events and intimate gatherings. To be then further fuelled and underpinned by a combination of common identity, shared sense of ongoing purpose and a consistent evidencing and surfacing of ‘behind closed doors’ member conversations and peer support - when management aren’t even looking or promoting that member interaction.

We discuss how the rise of leading syndicates like Ventures Together and pioneering accelerators like Unrest that are increasingly designed to deploy capital very quickly and diversely are aligning and feeding into the approach and ethos of successful communities.

Intelligent capital that is looking for ‘Default Alive’ lean approaches increasingly fuelled by FounderTech and avoiding the ‘Fatal Pinch’ of being ‘Default Dead’ by now avoiding a formerly encouraged blitz attitude to scaling quickly and early. 

Finally we get a nuanced insight from AJ as to how to distinguish an “Audience” from a community, as its engagement dynamics become more and more important and central to the early stage founder investor conversation. Primarily that the former is when you’re talking and broadcasting directly 1-to-many and the latter is when the communication is amplifying many-to-many interactions. Insights that he is now looking to share and nurture in his current role as a fractional community consultant, here to now support others trying to now launch and nurture a genuine engaged community.

 

Connect Further

> https://www.linkedin.com/in/aj-foundrs/

> https://www.foundrs.co/