Create Community

How To Find Good People: A Conversation with Niloo Ravaei and Nina Iordanova

Have you ever felt like your life is missing deep, meaningful, long-lasting connections, even though you get along just fine with everyone you meet? 

That’s how Niloo Ravaei and Nina Iordanova felt before they met. They quickly became best friends + co-founders and set out to build a dating app. They thought there was a better way to date and find meaningful relationships, so they built an AI matchmaker that works over text message. But, they realized along the way that they were solving the wrong problem.

Today, their startup has evolved into Good People, a community that brings people together in 3-month long cohorts and creates shared experiences.

In this episode, Niloo and Nina share the many twists and turns of their startup journey and why *community* was the answer all along. They also chat with Marsha about how to lead with vulnerability and how to make and foster meaningful connections. 

Episode Notes: createcommunitypod.com/episodes/good-people

Check out the Commerce Chefs podcast

What does it take to create a magical ecommerce brand?

Join hosts Kyle and Tom as they pit the world’s most intriguing DTC visionaries- the “Commerce Chefs” -- with provoking questions to uncover the secret ingredients that make brave brands enduring classics. Whether you’re a seasoned eComm leader or an up-and-coming maverick, each episode will find something unexpected at the intersection of passion, performance, and leadership in practice. Listen on your favorite platform now!

Empowering Ordinary People to Create Community Change: A Conversation with Joanne Taranto

Joanne Taranto is driven by a passion for empowering ordinary people to create community change. She's the Founder of Good for the Hood - an Australian social enterprise that’s all about bringing ordinary people together and giving them the tools to create meaningful change in their local communities. 

This is a feel-good, deeply moving episode that you don’t want to miss! Jo and Marsha chat about how to get started in making a difference in your community, how to mobilize and empower the people around you, how to make your initiatives sustainable, and so much more. 

Episode Notes: createcommunitypod.com/episodes/joanne-taranto

Check out the Commerce Chefs podcast

What does it take to create a magical ecommerce brand?

Join hosts Kyle and Tom as they pit the world’s most intriguing DTC visionaries- the “Commerce Chefs” -- with provoking questions to uncover the secret ingredients that make brave brands enduring classics. Whether you’re a seasoned eComm leader or an up-and-coming maverick, each episode will find something unexpected at the intersection of passion, performance, and leadership in practice. Listen on your favorite platform now!

Crisis Is An Opportunity: A Conversation with Chris Carder

This episode provides a unique look inside the community of a serial entrepreneur and angel investor.

Chris Carder is the Executive Director of the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Schulich School of Business. He leads the development of accelerator services for the university and various programs and partnerships throughout the wider innovation ecosystem. He also heads up the ‘Schulich Startups’ community - now supporting more than 150 student/alumni companies.

Chris believes that with crisis comes opportunity. When COVID struck, Chris and his team at Schulich partnered with Google, Shopify, the City of Toronto and more to create the Digital Main Street ShopHERE program. This program helped create online stores for small businesses and employ hundreds of students. Chris shares how he’s navigated through 2020 to make a massive impact and create community. 

Episode Notes: https://www.createcommunitypod.com/episodes/chris-carder

Building Community is Not for The Faint of Heart: A Conversation with Holly Firestone

Holly Firestone has built and run some of the largest enterprise communities and community programs in the world at Atlassian and Salesforce.

She is currently Head of Community at Venafi, where she’s building a community for security professionals that are invested in the success and management of machine identities.

In this episode, Holly opens up about the ups and downs of her community journey. Holly and Marsha take a deep dive into community and mental health. They explore some solutions to better support community professionals. 

Episode Notes: https://www.createcommunitypod.com/episodes/holly-firestone

 

Creating Internal Communities with Google's Carter Gibson

Does your company really need an internal community?

Carter Gibson thinks so. 

Carter is currently the Internal Community Management Program Lead at Google. He leads strategies to establish foundations of moderation, amplify positive contributions, and advocate Googlers' needs to decision makers. The challenge? Retain, define, and evolve Google's world-class corporate culture as it adapts to an online-first world. 

In this episode, Carter chats with Marsha about his winding career and personal journey and all things internal community. 

Episode Notes: https://www.createcommunitypod.com/episodes/carter-gibson

 

Dancing With Fire: A Conversation With Crimson Rose, Co-Founder of Burning Man

Crimson Rose is a co-founder of Burning Man, the Black Rock Arts Foundation and the Burning Man Project. Her life passion and work have focused on the arts, artistic expression and community.

Crimson began participating in the Burning Man event in 1991 and was the original fire dancer. She developed the organization’s Art Department, including the infrastructure that makes the large-scale participatory art works that Burning Man is renowned for possible.

In this very special episode, Crimson shares the journey that led her to Burning Man, the growth and evolution of this magical community, and an inside look into its business operations and challenges. She shares the heartbreak of cancelling the physical gathering in Black Rock City in 2020, how Burning Man pivoted to VR, and how we can keep the fire of our communities burning through COVID.

Episode Notes: https://www.createcommunitypod.com/episodes/crimson-rose

 

How To Grow Your Network with Daanish Ahamed of PR Ramp

Daanish Ahamed is the Founder of PR Ramp - a student focused PR association that provides networking, mentorship and resources for students and graduates.

Primarily a screenwriter and director, Daanish is an ambitious young professional now pursuing a career in public relations and marketing. 

If you’re a new grad or young professional, you don’t want to miss this episode. Daanish and Marsha chat about creating win-win mentorship relationships, how to land amazing volunteer roles, and how he’s building the PR Ramp community.

Episode Notes: https://www.createcommunitypod.com/episodes/daanish-ahamed

Does Work From Home Suck for Community? A Conversation with Neil Martin

Neil Martin is the Co-Founder of Project Spaces, coworking in downtown Toronto for entrepreneurs, digital nomads, and remote professionals.

Neil met his cofounder Jeff at university and they founded Project Spaces in 2011 because they were tired of working on their startup from the living room. With no playbook to follow, and armed only with a wifi connection, a keg fridge and a foosball table, Project Spaces was born.

In this episode, Neil shares the ups and downs of the Project Spaces journey, how he makes new community members feel welcome, pivoting through COVID, and his thoughts on the future of work.

Episode Notes: https://www.createcommunitypod.com/episodes/neil-martin

Learn more about Project Spaces: https://www.projectspac.es/fuckup

Have You Been Sleeping On Community? A Conversation with Angelica Coleman

Angelica Coleman is the Senior Community Manager at Snowflake, a cloud platform that helps companies mobilize their data. There, she’s leading the technical community and creating a community engagement program filled with organic brand ambassadors.

Previously, Angelica was the Director of Community at Lesbians Who Tech. Along her career journey, she's also worked at Dropbox where she created and led the Black Dropboxers Employee Resource Group.

Angelica and Marsha chat about how to scale community programs, improve user retention, and delight customers. Angelica also shares her honest advice for new community professionals who are looking to grow within the industry and for companies that previously slept on community. 

Episode Notes: https://www.createcommunitypod.com/episodes/angelica-coleman

Investing, Community and Uniting Black Professionals with Kobie Fuller

Kobie Fuller is a seasoned Venture Capitalist who deeply believes in the power of community.

Kobie is a General Partner at Upfront Ventures, the largest and longest serving venture fund in Southern California. He’s led investments in companies including TheWaveVR, Cordial, Bevy, The Mighty and MetaCX. Over his career he’s invested early in notable companies including Exact Target (sold to Salesforce for $2.5B) and Oculus (sold to Facebook for $2B).

Outside of VC, Kobie was the CMO at REVOLVE, one of the largest global fashion e-commerce players, where he built a massive community of influencers.

As a Black VC, Kobie wanted better visibility into his own community and couldn’t believe that a centralized network of Black professionals didn’t exist yet. So, he founded Valence, a community that’s on a mission to unlock the global combined power of Black professionals to create massive economic and social progress.

In this episode, Kobie shares what VC is really like, how brands can create movements, and how he’s building Valence.

Episode Notes: https://www.createcommunitypod.com/episodes/kobie-fuller