Community Building Techniques
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A story about two successful community building initiatives in San Francisco that created strong social networks through consistent hosting.
"There was this guy on San Francisco's subreddit about 5 years ago. He posted a picture of himself holding a beer at a bar in Haight Ashbury saying 'Come down, your first drink's on me.' People made fun of him at first, but he did it again the next week, and continued for literally 60 weeks in a row. Eventually, he became famous in the community - everyone would say 'Oh you want to have a good time? This guy is really nice, he'll buy your first drink.'
And we did something similar - we used to do these roommate mixers in San Francisco. We would only spend $500 but we became the most popular people for a long time. We did it every week for 2 years. I would go to a bar and say 'Can I get $2 beers? I'll come every week and spend at least $500.' They'd agree and I'd just say 'Here's my card, stop it at $500.' It was pretty sick."
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.