Episode 04 - Community as Currency: Building Genuine B2B Growth with Jeanine Suah - EIR Live

Episode Transcript
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Jeanine Suah (00:00):
Think differently about how we've been doing this
thing this whole time. Take itback to the basics. Think about
reciprocal value. It'sliterally, how can I help you
and how can you help me? And youcan literally, in the B 2 B
space, use that and leveragethat as a legitimate channel for
growth built and based onauthentic relationships, genuine

(00:22):
connection, and that lastslonger than any type of hockey
stick growth.

Ilya Tabakh (00:26):
Welcome to EIR Live, where we dive into the
lives and lessons of lessons ofentrepreneurs in residence. I'm
Ilya Tabakh, together with my cohost, Terrance Orr, ready to
bring you closer to theheartbeat of the innovation and
entrepreneurial spirit. Everyepisode, we explore the real
stories behind the ideas,successes, setbacks, and
everything in between. Foreveryone from aspiring EIRs to

(00:48):
seasoned pros, EIR Live is yourgateway to the depth of the
entrepreneurial journey andbringing innovative insights
into the broader world. Checkout the full details in the
episode description.
Subscribe to stay updated, andjoin us as we uncover what it
takes to transform visions intoventures. Welcome aboard. Let's
grow together.

Terrance Orr (01:11):
Alright, everyone. I'm very, very excited for
today's episode with JeanineSuah, not to be confused with
anything else, to be clear. Sheis the master of community
building, community communityled growth, and helping people
build influence around that. Notonly that, she's also a serial
entrepreneur, but me givingJeanine's background wouldn't

(01:33):
give it any justice. So,Jeanine, I'm gonna ask you to
introduce yourself to theaudience, to our guests.
Tell them a little bit moreabout your background, and we're
gonna dive straight in becauseI'm ready to get to this
conversation Let's

do it. Let's do it. So my name is Jeanine. In a
nutshell, I'm a goal givingentrepreneur who started out as
a founder. Now I currentlyinvest, had some really fun
community led growth roles alongthe way at multibillion dollar
companies.
And, ultimately, my goal in lifeis to just forge better
connections, more meaningfulconnections in market, and help

(02:05):
b to b companies grow.

Love it. See how clear and concise this is? She's
like, let's get to it. I'm I'mI'm ready to get to it. Like,
let's let's dive in a littlebit.
Right? So, you know, on thepodcast, we love to dive
straight into theentrepreneurial journeys of
innovators, entrepreneurs, andinvestors. Right? All of which
you've played, you know, rolesin and still playing a role in
today and and driving theecosystem. Can you walk us

(02:29):
through your entrepreneurialjourney?
Right? We wanna hear the warwounds. We wanna hear the
successful things and how thatled to the things that you're
doing now. And we'll we'll we'llbridge you there. Can you can
you start us off there?

So let's take it back to grad school. So did my
master's program in appliedlinguistics, lived in Brazil for
a couple years, and thatunderstanding of just community.
If ever you've spent time withBrazilians or Caribbeans, my
family's Jamaican, It's allcommunity. Everybody's taking
care of everybody. It's justthis idea that you contribute to

(03:04):
the greater whole.
And so after grad school, youknow, I was like, okay. What is
something that I could do next?And so while I was in grad
school, I worked at a companycalled Eddie V's where I was
their lead hostess and marketingassistant and was responsible
for helping them execute onthese really high end events.
And so my manager from EddieVease basically called me one

(03:25):
day, and he's like, look, I'mlaunching this huge co working
space. It's 30,000 square feet,5 different floors.
Do you wanna help me run theevents program? And so just in
being in the space, I learned alot about tech. I learned a lot
about community as it relates todifferent ecosystems and then
started building out my owncommunities because I saw a huge

(03:45):
gap in the market. I was like,okay. This is cool, but, like,
nobody looks like me.
And, essentially, what happenedwas that I I dove deeper into
the problem and found a solutionwhich ended up being, then the
Doyen company, which was aplatform to help badass women
grow, connect, learn how tobuild their businesses. And
eventually, we turned that intoa coworking space, which was

(04:08):
then Think Global. So that'skind of like the entrepreneurial
journey. There's obviously morepoints, but, you know, gotta
keep it cute.

You know what's awesome? Maybe jumping in real
quick. Tech folks and community,it it's sort of, an interesting
oil and water situation fromfrom kind of my experience
sometimes. I'd love to sort ofget you to spend, you know, a
beat or two just telling us whatthat was like, you know, because
the word community is used alot. And in even your point

(04:36):
about, you know, what communitylooks like in Brazil versus what
community might look like in theMidwest and the US or in the
South or whatever.
Right? These are, you know, sameword, different experience. I
would love to kinda have youtalk about what what you found
out and maybe what you learnedin that experience because, you
know, having kind of a technicalbackground and spending a long

(04:57):
time in engineering school, youknow, community looked different
there than than some otherplaces. So I'm just curious,
kinda how you experienced that.

So being in this co working space, which was
called Station House, there wasessentially, like, this
ecosystem built around it. So itwas in downtown St. Pete 2015,
like, all these different peopleare coming in. And then from a
higher level communitystandpoint, you have community
development happening andredevelopment from the the city

(05:27):
perspective and from, themunicipality perspective. So you
have all these different peoplefrom all these different
backgrounds, meaningprofessional backgrounds moving
to the city because the economicdevelopment is already working
on, like, business attraction.
So my first exposure for in in aco working space like that was

(05:49):
all these different people whohad been in Silicon Valley, who
had been in New York, who hadbeen just building in this
really fancy, cute, chicbuilding using their office
spaces to collaborate and growtheir business on a on a global
scale. And so, essentially,there were these little micro
communities within the entire coworking space, and it was really

(06:10):
cool to see. But, again, giventhat a lot of these people came
from the valley and came fromNew York and they were like,
quote, unquote, like, tech bros,I didn't see a lot of people of
color nor did I see a lot ofwomen. And so that was my first
experience of like, okay. Whatis this startup community thing?
And it was also really coolbecause you also had influence

(06:33):
from the city who hosted smallevents like 1,000,000 cups. So
it was just a really cool fusionamongst several different
communities coming essentiallyfor the all the the same reason.

Yeah. Just a little fun side story. I was in the
room in early days of MillionCups in Kansas City, when I got
started at the KauffmanFoundation. So it was really
interesting to sort of see thatspread to more than a 100
cities, around the world andsort of kinda see what what that
does for a spot, but also kindawhat it could do for other

(07:07):
places, you know, because I'dI'd traveled to Denver and some
other folk places as well andkinda visited their 1,000,000
cups, and it's just reallyinteresting to see, you know,
how these things develop. But,you know, sort of the overlap of
community plus kinda some ofthose networks, I think we'll
we'll probably jump into thattheme, but it's a, you know,
tiny world when you get into,sorta EIR networks and kinda how

(07:28):
these things work together.
So, funny to hear, or I guessawesome to hear about 1,000,000
Cubs.

I'm gonna build on this because, Ilya, you were a
scholar in residence. You werein you you were in residence,
you know, technically, right,with with Kaufman, and that
exposed you to to a bunch. And Iwanna start to sort of bridge,
you know, Jeanine's backgroundinto sort of her entrepreneurial
phase, how she got started. Butshe loves some things out
people, and I'm not gonna lether get away with that. So so,

(07:56):
you know, talk to me about howthe Doy Yang company, right,
transformed into later on whatwhere I met you during that era
of the find app.
Right? And then we'll bridgeinto, you know, the XIR thing.
So talk to more talk talk to usmore

about that. So here's the story. So the doyen
became a pop up concept where weleverage we we meaning my ex
business partner and I, weleveraged underutilized spaces
as like a makeshift co workingspace. And so the whole point
was how can we validate thisbusiness model of community and
monetize this community in orderto create a sustainable

(08:35):
business? So within 3 months, wegrew to 300 members, so we knew
that, okay, this is definitelydemand.
And so what we then decided todo was, like, alright. We've got
this amazing traction. We'vealso been going and doing some
internal market research, and weknew that in order to grow and
scale at the level that wewanted to, we needed to go to a

(08:55):
bigger city. And this was in theera of WeWork y'all when WeWork
was just, like, had justreceived not just received, but,
like, pre s one, but postinvestment from SoftBank where
they were just popping up,growing at an insane rate. And
so we knew that, like, okay.
To have kind of these roots inthe ground, a lot of times you

(09:16):
need a physical space. And so wewalked our happy behinds to
Miami, not walk, but droveprobably every week, slept on
some couches, but drove back andforth every week to Miami and
eventually launched Think Globalin February of 2020. We all know
what happened in March. And so,essentially, it was one of the

(09:38):
hardest experiences of my life.During that process, I was also
going through a divorce, andthen we eventually had to close
the business due to COVIDbecause we just it there was no
sustainable way to stay open.
And so on the journey to thinkglobal, I had met 100 and 100 of
founders, was providing 100 ofresources for founders, and we

(09:59):
essentially created this, like,digital conference called the
Black Female Founder Conference.Then we had speakers from
JPMorgan, from Meta, from, froma couple local agencies in
Miami, and essentially the gapthat I saw and after collecting
data, it was that 86% of ourfounders felt that they had
difficulty with fundraising. Andso as we were kind of closing

(10:23):
out the business just because,of course, we had to figure out
a more sustainable route tomonetization, I wanted to go
into tech because I love techand I love investing. And then
my business partner went intoanother space, and that's kind
of how find was founded. It waslike, okay.
I have all this data. I knowthat this is a problem when it

(10:44):
comes to fundraising, when itcomes to founders even
understanding how to get accessto resources. Let me create a
solution for them that made it abit more fun, exciting to be
able to access that informationin the click of a button.

Incredible. And and today, there are some
examples of things like find inin the marketplace right now. So
timing means everything, andit'll teach you that on your
entrepreneurial journey. Forsure.

Everything. I'm always ahead of the game, and
that that's not a flex.Actually, it is a flex, but it
also creates some I'm a veryforward thinker, so I think 10
years into the future. But alsowhat that means is that the
market doesn't always adapt andunderstand what you're doing.
And so the the platforms thatyou're talking about today are

(11:30):
TikTok for business or whatLinkedIn is now doing with
video, but essentially that thewhole thing was like, how can I
create a combination betweenNetflix and Quibi to create
these bite sized video basedcontent pieces that you don't
have to watch the full thinglike YouTube because it's not
based on, you know, durationwatched?
It's literally based on, okay, Ineed to get the answer to how

(11:52):
what is fundraising? What iscrowdfunding? And I could query
and find a video that explainsto me quickly what is
crowdfunding.

I just wanna jump in, point out a couple things.
First of all, I I agreeaggressively almost that, you
know, I I tend to sail a littlebit ahead of, the current epoch
also. What's fun is these thingscome around, and so building
sort of that muscle memory andand the kind of recognition of

(12:20):
kinda what happened before, whatwas the timing, what was the
technology, what was all thesethings. When it comes back, you
have a very different, you know,kinda technique, approach,
things that you're looking for.So, you know, it's exciting for
me, like, to say that, you know,you saw timing's everything.
Because the timing's gonna comeback, and I think in many cases
for, kinda, platforms, a lot ofthat's playing out today. So I'm

(12:41):
excited to see kinda what you dowith that muscle memory. I think
the other thing is just when Idid the Kaufman Global Scholar
experience thing, I really duginto kinda communities and got
to spend a little bit of time insome interesting ones and sort
of sit next to folks that, youknow, had been involved in the
Cambridge ecosystem and sort ofin in the valley and things like

(13:02):
that and kinda listening to themtalk about what were the
foundational companies, whorolled out of that, how the
networks work, that kinda thing.I'm excited to sort of hear
about, you know, how yourexperience went and then how you
have an opportunity to connectwith some other folks in in
other ecosystems. Right?
Because I did this in the in theMidwest in the early 20 tens

(13:25):
where a lot of the Kansas City,Saint Louis, you know, kinda
Midwestern cities were kindawrapping their head around what
what is community, and what roledoes the city play, and what
role does tech companies play.And different cities had, you
know, kinda different, pedigreesof core technologies and things
like that. So it's reallyinteresting to kinda have those
community builders and andfolks, like, sit next to each

(13:48):
other and talk about what's thesame, what's different, what can
they learn from each other. Andthere's a lot of, like, good
insight and translation thatI've seen kinda happen in those
conversations. And I, you know,I actually think in in the
Midwest, there's less of thatexchange today than there was in
kind of the 20 tens.
It seems to come in kind ofcycles, but I think that

(14:09):
conversation is a reallypowerful thing. So I just wanted
to call a couple of those thingsout because it it really kinda
resonated with me because theykinda flash back to me coming
out of academia into sort ofmore of the entrepreneurial
world.

Same. And we're even seeing it now to your point
about, like, being 10 yearsahead. Back then, my investors
didn't fully understandcommunity. And granted, the
business model was crap. Like,they didn't they're not gonna
like, VCs are not gonna investin a in a physical space unless
you're a WeWork and you have,like, the ability to scale at

(14:42):
rapid pace.
But, again, we all know how thatwent. But I think that we're
seeing it now with community,community led growth, like b to
b community. It's now becomingthis, like, buzzword that
everybody's jumping on, and I'monly like, a lot of my
colleagues are are, you know,amongst ourselves. We're like,
yeah, dude. We've only beentelling you this for, like, the
last decade.

(15:03):
But at the same time, we'rehumbled because finally, the
market understands what is trulyhappening and how it is a
legitimate business growth tool.So I hear you on that 1000%.

Something that that kinda surprised me in in in that
world is, you know, Terrance andI had both spent a little bit of
time in sports. And so in in theplace where, sort of attention
becomes and community becomes acurrency, It was interesting to
see, kind of, the AndreessenHorowitz folks back a couple
influencers several years agoand, sort of, live sports and

(15:38):
kind of those types of, eventsgetting a different role in the
attention ecosystem. So I thinkthere are a couple of, like,
little nuggets of, you know, howpeople are changing their
thinking around, you know,attention, connection, place, a
couple of these differentthings. And I think, you know, I
saw it play out in the kind ofsports and all the things that

(16:01):
happen around sports ecosystem.You know, Terrance has probably
more background in it than I do,but just a couple couple trends
that may be in parallel withsome of the things you're
talking about.

No. 100%. And, you know, let's talk about community
as currency, you know, on on onon that thread. Let's talk about
community as currency and how,you know, Jeanine, the first
time you went to go createcurrency for a fast growing
company like Brex as an XIR.Talk to us about, 1, it's a

(16:33):
layered question.
When you first heard about therole as on as being in
residence, like, what was yourfirst exposure to that? And 2,
what led to the opportunity atBrex, and what did you do there?
Give us that story.

Honestly, it's one of the best stories I have in my
life, and I'll lay it up bysaying, like, the fact that I
didn't fully know what theposition was, but based on the
description, I was all in, wasjust the most beautiful
serendipitous moment that Ipersonally have experienced

(17:07):
today in my professional lifebecause it it set the it set the
the tone for everything movingforward. So here's what
happened, y'all. Okay. So as Iwas building find, I was also
building my own personalcommunity and, you know, I had
been doing crazy things in Miamiecosystem just like trying to
become the go to person thatfounders sought whenever they

(17:29):
came to Miami. That was, like,my goal as we were transitioning
out of Think Global, out ofFind.
So what that meant was, how do Ilearn how to scale myself? And
it was through video. And so, ofcourse, if you haven't noticed
by now, I kinda have, like, ADHDslash crazy energy. And so I was
able to bottle up all thatenergy into video and then make

(17:50):
myself visible and have peoplestart to talk about it within
rooms that I had never even beenin. And so what that did was it
laid the foundation for me tothen get connected to multiple
people.
And one of the people that I gotconnected to along the way was
Shai Goldman. I don't evenremember how I found Shai, but I
remember reading something abouthim having gone to Brazil, and I

(18:14):
was like, oh, yeah. I need tofollow this guy. So I ended up
following him. For those of youwho don't know Shai Goldman, by
the way, he's one of the dopestpeople I've ever met in my life,
and he is one of the oldestcommunity builders in the
Fintech finance space that isactually really good at what he
does.
So fast forward, Shai put out acall on social media and was

(18:35):
like, hey. I'm coming to Miami.I'm looking for help with this.
So what I did being the superconnector in Miami was I just
tagged a girlfriend who Ithought would be a great job for
the role. Boom.
That was done. I DM DM'd him. Isaid, hey. This woman is at the
Beacon Council. She's amazing.
She's she knows everybody. Like,consider her. So he's like,
great. Thanks. Blah blah blah.
So then from there, Shy then,maybe 2 weeks later and at the

(18:58):
time, I'm still building find. 2weeks later, post the role for
XIR. And I was like, XIR. I waslike, what the hell is it XIR?
Like, what is that?
And so previously, as I wasbuilding, I was like, you know,
you know, when you do your whystatement as a founder, you're
like, okay. What is it that Ireally want to accomplish in
life? And I had laid out 3specific things. I wanted to

(19:21):
create content. I wanted tobuild community, and I wanted to
become a super connector so thatI could help more founders get
funded.
And the first three things thatI saw on the role, the XIR role,
when I clicked was, are you anex founder? Are you a community
builder? Do you like creatingcontent? Do you wanna
potentially invest? And I waslike, oh my gosh.
I just for the first time, Ifelt seen. I felt heard. And

(19:44):
then, of course, I kept reading,and it was just, like, the
coolest opportunity ever. And sohow I then got the opportunity,
because I applied randomly, andthen how I got the opportunity
was Shy had seen my content, andhe saw the way that I was
connecting with people andbuilding genuine community and
how people actually trusted me.Like, it wasn't about likes with

(20:06):
me.
It was about how can I empowerfounders with these resources to
help them grow? I was alwaysfocused on the problem. And then
the thing that kind of teed himup was that I started this
segment called VC word of theday where we make VC shit fun.
And so, again, they were theideal videos that I foresaw
happening, and this was, like, 3years ago. And it was the TikTok

(20:28):
content, like, making VCtranslating VC terms in a way
that founders could understand.
And so, you know, a month later,I had the role, and it
completely changed my life froman investing standpoint, from a
network standpoint, and justfrom an ecosystem standpoint.
And it's just like something Iwould never trade anything for

(20:48):
that experience ever.

Incredible. When you're talking to a friend or a
colleague, how did you describeyour job

Oh my gosh.

At at Brex?

So we actually had the funny thing is I actually
had so I told you as throughCOVID, I was going through a
divorce, and so I actually had,brunch. My parents and I had
brunch with my ex parents in lawbecause they were in town. And
so he asked me, my exfather-in-law, he was like,
alright, sweetheart. Well, tellme what you're working on right
now because every time youexplain it to me, I still don't
get it. It's so it's like, I trythe way that I say it is I build

(21:22):
relationships, and I helpbusinesses make a a a ton of
money by helping to connectpeople to resources and people
to people.
And I hope that that's a waythat they can understand, and
then they're like, yeah. But Isee you doing these videos, and
I'm like, yeah. That's my way ofbuilding relationships with
people, oh, excuse me, andattracting them to me. So that's
how I try to explain it.

A term that comes up a lot, in sort of
entrepreneur in residence atleast is, this kind of role of
translating. So it's it's it'ssort of it sounds like your
superpower and, you know, if Ihad to kind of looking at your
background and chatting with youfor a little while is, kind of
communication, connecting,really thinking about how these
connections actually createvalue, you know, kind of greater

(22:06):
than the sum of their post partsa little bit. And I think that
there's a lot of, kind of, valuein in making that relevant for
folks with other backgrounds.Right? With with whether it's a
technical background or financebackground, folks look at the
world in a different way.
And so I I found kind of the andTerrance and I have talked a lot
about on on this topic as kindof that translation role, and

(22:29):
making things relevant. Youknow? And I when I when I was
when we're kinda getting readyfor this episode, I kinda
noticed the linguisticstranslation background. And, you
know, there's probably someinteresting transfer from there
as well. But that's that's onething I found, kinda, useful and
helpful when trying to explain,you know, why am I in residence
and why is that useful to theresidents.

(22:51):
Right? As opposed to why am Inot in the wild. You know, why
why would I choose this? And soit's kind of a that that's a
that's a topic we've Terranceand I have dug into on a couple
episodes now.

It's incredibly like that part that you just
said about making informationrelevant, that's where I feel a
lot of people either, 1, don'tfully understand how a
linguistics background couldeven be applicable to the b to b
space, and 2, where a lot ofsales teams and just b to b

(23:20):
companies get it wrong ingeneral. Like, nobody cares if
you build the fastest UI in theindustry because we offer, like,
features and like, nobody cares.How are you gonna make my life
easier? How are you gonna saveme time, energy, money? And to
be able to translate that in away that is relevant and
culturally relevant because wehave a million means and gifts

(23:44):
and all these culturallyrelevant things going on at the
same time.
Like, that's what matters themost. And to be able to
translate that, especially as anEIR or an XIR so that you can
actually do the things that youneed to do as it relates to the
company and the market. It's oneof the most important skills
that you can have. Like,simplification is an under, I

(24:05):
would say, underappreciatedskill. Truly, it is.
It is.

Now this is very interesting because if if you
were I wanna ask you a questionthat's a little bit different
from what we usually ask, whichis if you were building the XIR,
EIR role over at Brex, you know,what would it look like? Would
it look very similar to what youwere doing? How would you take
Shai's sort of brainchild andtake it to 2 dot o, right, to

(24:32):
and I'm I'm just curious. Like,given all you know today, how
would you how how would you havetransformed that that
opportunity?

Oh my gosh. That's a phenomenal question. How I
think is okay. I'll go throughwhat Shai did right, and I'll go
through the opportunities 2years later of what I saw and
part of the reason why I leftBrex. So what Shai did right was
at 1, he hired people who hadexisting communities.
So it you didn't need to be thisbig power influencer. You just

(25:00):
needed to have true influence.People who actually trust you,
believe you, people who you havea real connection with because
that goes way farther than,like, I'm Kylie Jenner posting
this, and I hope that everyonebuys because now we're seeing
the business part of it is justnot sustainable. Another thing
that he did amazing that I wouldalso tap into is hiring people

(25:21):
who are just individuallythemselves. So looking for
people who have a very uniquemakeup who may not be the
traditional 10 years in financeroles for a fintech, and then
also hiring people whounderstand how to create content
in a way that is most authenticto them.
So off rip, those are the thingsthat I would keep. To take it to

(25:44):
the next level where we reallyleverage was, like, events as a
go to market strategy, I woulddouble down on the content piece
and the URL, like, the onlinecommunity building piece because
what that did is it empowered methrough my content to build up a
credible brand to then be ableto be recognized worldwide so

(26:06):
that when I go to Brazil and I'mhosting our first international
event, I can leverage my trackrecord that's already displayed
to be able to get into doorsthat I may not have gotten into,
which again increases adistribution channel and just
widens a growth channel for theindividual themselves. So that's

(26:27):
where I would kind of do the 2point o is, like, we focused a
lot on IRL, which is importantbecause that was part of our
strategy at the time because itwas kind of post COVID. People
were still getting comfortable.But where I would now take it a
step further is focusing onthese subject matter experts and
putting out value forwardcontent, not just like clickbait

(26:48):
stuff, like true value forwardcontent and doubling down on
that piece, which is part of thereason why I left Brex because I
was like, I wanna focus all myenergy into understanding how to
leverage content as a legitimategrowth channel.

I'm sort of a convert to this conversation in
some ways because I I really asI, you know, kinda was
transitioning from the firstchapter of my career in academia
to sort of being an entrepreneurin the wild, Through those
entrepreneurial experiences, Ibuilt a really deep kind of
first person appreciation for alot of the things you're talking
about. And then, also, in thekind of the tail end of my kind

(27:24):
of PhD studies, there's a lot offocus on communicating kind of
deep and complex scientificstuff, just the general public
and and explaining why it'srelevant and connected. And and
I don't know if I had, like, a aa an awakening, you know, a
moment of, clarity or somethinglike that. But I but I was yeah.
Yeah.
It wasn't it definitely wasn'tanything like that. You know? I

(27:45):
wake up, and I could see. Itwasn't like that. But what was
interesting was that kindalooking back, there's a lot of
things I was pretty, kindanegative or, you know, would
filter out about because I'mlike, that doesn't matter.
Right? And and and then thinkingabout how do you help other
folks make it relevant to themwith, like, a tech or a science

(28:05):
background or things like thatis something that, you know, I
always think about. And so I'mI'm curious if you've seen any,
you know, sort of, levers tohelp folks, you know, kind of
realize that for themselves.Because I think that's that's
ultimately the the real unlockis helping folks understand how
it's relevant and really kind ofwalk on their own journey.

1000%. And that that is a conversation I I can't
remember exactly who it was, butit was with an academic who
understood, like, you and I howto write, like, academic papers
with all this crazy jargon whichgoes back to why I created VC
word of the day. And so where Ithink as I was learning, you

(28:47):
know, for the last 8 monthsbecause I I went on the content
side and I did some discovery,where I think that the
opportunity lies is for thesesubject matter experts who think
about the world differently tobreak down these technical
ideologies in the Fintech space,in the legal space, like the
typical boring industries, theopportunity is just so clear to

(29:11):
me. It's like you can do so muchand reach so many people by just
breaking things down in a funny,entertaining, yet edutainment
based way. And I'm helping ahuge fintech right now, like,
break into the US, and that'spart of my strategy.
And the the marketing the CMO,he's, like, already sees the

(29:33):
vision, and he gets it. But atthe same time, when you're
working with brand teams who areused to doing things a certain
way, it also creates somefriction. And so my way, which
I'll kind of wrap up the thoughtnow, but my way of being able to
help b to b teams see the valueis by 1, building in public,

(29:53):
which I'll be doing as I'm,like, talking about community
while I'm building a communityand showing people how to do it.
And then the second thing isjust literally just talking
about it in a way that peoplecan understand so that they can
then not follow what I do, butmore so I can empower them with
the information to teach themhow to think about it. Which

(30:15):
again, it it's just like anuntapped opportunity because you
have influencers and then youhave, like, subject matter
experts.
And if the 2 could just merge,which they are, but if there's a
perfect fusion, b to b companieswould go crazy. But it's, again,
it's it's a you have to convincethem. You have to convince them.

I really like this discussion around, like,
empowering people withinformation, and it it and it
speaks to impact. And and forme, you know, impact speaks to
hustling for your your last nameand not your first. Right?
Because it's all because it'sall about legacy building. And
and when and when we wanted youon the show, right, we knew the
value was there.

(30:56):
We wanted to bring some value todo, but it's mostly because you
were impacting people'sjourneys. Right? And for me,
that's legacy. Right? Right.
Empowering people withinformation. And, you know,
thinking about legacy, thinkingabout the businesses you've
built and communities you'vebuilt around the globe, not just
in the US market, so I can beclear. You know? Tell us how

(31:17):
being your your authentic self,you know, has led to, you know,
telling the right strategicstories and helping founders
build community led businesses.

Wow. Now this is a really intentional question. So
I used to have when we startedthe doyen, my business partner
and I were a good match becausewe both were just, like, wild
and crazy, crazy energy. So muchso to the point where when we

(31:48):
first got started and this is,like, again, 2016, 2017, more so
2017, 2018 when LinkedIn wasstill really buttoned up. And so
we would always kinda post thesejust like crazy, not over the
top, but just showing who wewere on LinkedIn.
And I would get messages frompeople, from friends who were,

(32:12):
like, concerned saying like,hey. That's really
unprofessional on LinkedIn.Like, hey. That's really this,
or you should reconsider this.And for a while, I second
guessed it.
But then my membership basegrew, and I was like, Okay.
Something there. And then Istarted seeing it more and more.

(32:33):
And the catalyst through all ofthis was when through COVID, it
was I'll never forget this. Itwas September 1st.
I had it's August 31st. I hadcome back from the building
again going through the divorce,so I was just in a crazy mind
space. My hair got, tangled upin my braids, and I had to

(32:54):
basically cut off all my hairthat night. And the next day, I
decided I was like, okay, Jay.Like, we have an opportunity
here.
I went into work. I went intothe building and but the we were
still shut down because it wasit was August, September. I went
into the building and I waslike, okay. We have a choice
here. We can either hide in thecap that we brought or we can

(33:16):
put on this yellow dress thatyou brought and tell your story
in front of the world.
And so that's what I did. And itwas a 10 minute story that I
just recorded. I told everybodywhat had been happening, then
that I had to cut my hair andthat I was going through the
divorce and all these crazythings. And from that moment, I
fully understood what it meantto be vulnerable, and that's

(33:38):
when everything shifted for me.Business, personal life,
opportunities just startedpouring in because people
understood who I was, and theyunderstood, like, a deeper side
of me and the fact that I wasjust human.
So I give you that very longstory to show you why I show up
the way that I do because interms of legacy, it truly isn't

(34:02):
just about me. And it's hard tosee sometimes because of, like,
oh, yeah. I want the success andI want the recognition and I
want this and I want that. Butshowing up as my true self even
when I I got my face punched inmultiple times, helped other
people in my community existbetter, and that's the joy that
I got from being in thosespaces. That's why I do it.

(34:26):
So that was a very long windedway of sharing about legacy and
why showing up as my authenticself and not just, like, be your
authentic self, like, but as mytrue real self is just so
incredibly important to me. Soso important.

This is kinda crazy. I've never really thought
about this, until I kinda hearyou talking about vulnerability.
But in another kind ofdiscussion, and and generally,
one of the best pieces of advicefor myself that I I try to pull
forward is always lean into thethings that make you most
anxious. Right? And so this issort of, like, the other face of
that, a little bit.

(35:01):
And and I think, actually, whenwhen when you get, like, a
entrepreneur in residence, andand they have sort of that
experience that they're bringingto try to translate into the
organization, this is the thingthat's actually hardest to
translate is the, hey, I havefirst person muscle memory from
the time that whatever that'srelevant to this situation

(35:24):
happened. And when I say this isthe hardest thing I had to do,
you know, it sounds like, yeah.That's pretty hard. Alright.
Well, you know, it's 5 o'clock.
I'm gonna go home now. You know,it's just not the same. It
doesn't build the same musclememory. And and sort of the the
the third thing that occurs alittle bit to complement all
this is, you know, they alwaystalk about in kind of extreme

(35:45):
situations, there's growth.Right?
And sort of I it seems like thatvulnerability, you know, plus
that adversity and and leaninginto that adversity, plus sort
of learning your capacity andand really getting a first
person experience is kinda maybemultiple facets of related

(36:07):
things. And so as I kinda heardyou talking about, I'm curious
to your kinda your reactionthere.

Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes. And that's why as you were
talking, I was like, wow.
Like, that adversity and thenthat firsthand experience is why
I built resilient capital andwhy I created the thesis, I
invest in dangerously resilientfounders, building in community
productivity and connectivity.And it was because of that idea

(36:34):
that, like, some of the bestpeople that I know have had
their faces and throats kickedin and who have been able to,
like, bounce back from it. Andeven if they don't know what to
do next, the fact that they gotup is game changing, especially
as a founder. They're a bitlike, look at the founder of
Slack. He wasn't intending tobuild a two way communication

(36:57):
platform for the fastest growingb to b teams.
No. He was building a gamingplatform, but he kept going. And
so that idea of resilience,especially as an XIR, as an EIR,
and being able to even translatewhat that translates to in terms
of skills is is game changingbecause it's like, alright.

(37:17):
Cool. We need to pivot ourapproach.
No no problem. I've done thatliterally in my sleep millions
of times. So I I completelyagree with you there.

My goodness. This is, I'm having, like,
flashbacks, you know, as as Ihear you 2 sort of, like, have
this dialogue because, you know,when my friends people
oftentimes come to me, you know,hey, Terrance. Tell me I'm
trying to make a decision on x,y, and z. Can you help me sort
of thing. Right?
And I go to people who help me,right, make make decisions. And
how I usually make decisions onif I'm afraid of it, I go to it.

(37:49):
You know? That's how I know. Ifif if I'm too comfortable, if
it's like, oh, go you know,you're gonna go do this thing
next.
Seems cool, but, you know, I'mnot like afraid of it. But when
somebody presents something tome, like, oh, I don't know if
I'm ready for that yet. Youknow? So the thing is like, oh,
that's the thing. That's what Ineed to go and do.
Right? Because in those moments,you find growth. Right? I mean,
outsized growth, right, that youjust couldn't get anywhere else

(38:13):
because you you took the plunge,you took the leap. Right?
And now you realize that, oh,I'm actually pretty good at
this. You know? And I'm not eventrying. Right? Like, I'm not
even trying, and I'm justnaturally good at it, right?
And I think thinking about howpeople can be vulnerable and run
towards the things that they areafraid of, you know, I think is
super important. I got thislesson when I worked for

(38:35):
Techstars. Shout out to Neil andand Brad at Techstars Chicago
who took a shout on me, right,and taught me really, truly what
give first really meant, right,taught me truly what
storytelling can do for yourlife and communities, right, and
those things and howvulnerability is a skill of
leaders. Right? Right?
And how you translate that tofuture, the future things you're

(38:56):
gonna do is really the thingthat defines you. Right? And for
me, I'm forever grateful forthat lesson. It sounds like
we're all forever grateful forthe lessons that we've had, you
know, along that along thatjourney. But I wanna ask you
another question now.
So for founders looking to buildcommunity led businesses, give
us a little blueprint. Okay?What are some key advice and

(39:19):
ingredients that you would givethem that they should start to
think about if you had to givethem a little framework or
something around building in acommunity a community led
business and doing it right fromthe foundation and not having to
go back and try to buildcommunity into the thing that
you've already built?

Facts. Oh, there are 3 things that I would say.
The first is understand, like,what exactly you're doing in
terms of community and how youwant to first approach
community, period. There are 2things that I I think about. Is
it are you building a communityas a growth tool or a community

(39:57):
as a product?
And a community as a growth toolis very similar to what we were
doing at Brex where there yourproduct exists as its own and
you're and oftentimes, like, youdon't have to monetize a
community because your wholegoal is to get the community to
help build pipeline for theproduct, and you just build
brand affinity along that. Thinkof it like a Brex, a Notion, a

(40:19):
Beehive, and then you havecommunity as a product where
it's more like a Hampton or likea SoHo House to where you have
to monetize your community, andthen you have to your your core
value prop is them existingwithin the community. So if you
don't provide the value prop offrip, it's likely that they're

(40:40):
gonna leave. So that's number 1.You have to understand what it
is that you're doing.
Number 2, I would even say,maybe even before number 1, it's
like understand the intention ofwhy you want to build community.
Sometimes people just can throwout community like, oh, let's
build a community and youprobably will fail because it's

(41:01):
just you're doing it with notrue intention and there's
nothing to really keep yourooted and grounded as to why
you wanna do it. Understandingthat why sounds cliche, I
promise you. But understandingthe why will help you do what I
just mentioned is determine,okay, is this a growth tool or
an actual product? And it willalso help you keep pushing even

(41:22):
when you don't wanna do thisthing anymore.
And then the last thing I wouldsay is build with intention and
build with authenticity. Right?So it's like you want to show up
in a way that people actuallywant to engage with you. You
don't whether, again, whetherit's as a growth tool or as a
product, but you have to attractpeople to you. And so you need

(41:44):
to show up as someone who isauthentic, as someone who
actually cares about the peoplethat you're serving because
people can smell BS right away.
So to kind of bring all thethoughts together, and I'll go
backwards, the first one is beauthentic. You really need to
understand, like, why yourpeople are gonna build, like,
what it is that you're doing forthem, how you wanna actually

(42:06):
help them add value. Number 2 isbuild with intention and be very
intentional with how you'reapproaching in terms of
remembering your why.Ultimately, what is it that
you're trying to accomplish withthis community? And then number
3, decide whether you want togrow with or become a community
as a growth tool or as a productbecause that then determines,
like, all your ops, businessmodel, all the business stuff is

(42:28):
determined by that those twoquestions.

Love it.

Yeah. We could also talk more on Zayo with you
now. That was the that was thebridge version.

Don't don't don't worry because there's a little
bit more. So tell me a littlebit more about you start you
named a few companies just nowaround, you know, companies that
are doing it well and sort of,you know, the examples between
sort of community as a productversus community, as another
layer. In the last sort of 2 or3 years, tell us a a a few
examples of companies that youthink, like, they're really

(43:00):
doing this right, and andcompanies that you admire who's
doing community the right way atthis point.

Yeah. I will give all my praise, and you can even
make this a clip. I will giveall my praise, glory, props,
hustle, all the accolades toBeehive. For those of you who
don't know, Beehive used to be aconsumer platform that helped,
you know, newsletters grow, butthey have now kind of bridged

(43:31):
into the b to b space, andthey're powering some of the
world's largest newsletters, andthey're helping really great
writers and really greatbuilders get acquired. They're
phenomenal, and I'll I'll breakit down like this.
It start for with them, it'smore horizontal, but it also
starts from the top. So TylerDenk, who's a friend, is one of

(43:51):
the most amazing humans thatI've ever met because he's so
disciplined and he's so focusedon growing Beehive to be a
multibillion dollar company.What he's done is he's leveraged
his own personal brand as agrowth channel and has started
to build brand affinity throughhimself individually that has

(44:12):
now extended to his all hisemployees are now posting
content that's value add, andthey're leveraging this, like,
employee led growth model whilesimultaneously building out this
community that is focused onproviding the utmost value to
their customers. When you have acompany who can basically say

(44:33):
one thing and a 100 people postabout the company without even
being prompted, that's when youknow that you've built true
community, and they have done aremarkable job. And I'm just so
to watch that because Tyler andI met maybe a year and a half, 2
years ago for a Brex event, theway that we met was quite
hilarious.
But to watch it all happen andthen to become an investor who

(44:56):
they opened up a community roundto, like, that brand affinity,
getting your people to literallyinvest in you and invest in your
success along with you, they'vejust done it right. You know,
and I'm not saying that they didit right perfectly or everything
was super easy or whatever, butthe way that they think about it
with intention covered all theboxes that that I mentioned

(45:18):
earlier.

You know, it's fun to sort of think about, I've
traditionally used the wordcommunity and ecosystem kind of
somewhat interchangeably, maybein in a bit of a flippant way.
But every sort of interactionI've had with an ecosystem
normally kinda comes back. Andand initially, you know, kind of
my thought thinking about kindof what is an ecosystem? How is

(45:41):
it evolving? These things werenot transactional, but sort of
snapshots.
Right? I I didn't have sort ofthe benefit of time and, a
little bit of experience to sortof think about how these things
involve, come back. You know,one example is I was in kind of
biofuel and, some of the earlydecarb stuff in, like, the late
2000. And I didn't even knowthat was, like, an ecosystem of,

(46:02):
like, stakeholders. And beforeit was commercial, there's a lot
of academic, national lab.
And I'm, you know, squarely backinto it and touched it in some
some of my entrepreneurialthings as well. And it's just
interesting thinking about kindof what's the snapshot type
engagement and then what's thesort of community to ecosystem.
For this probably longerconversation, but it's just

(46:24):
like, you know, maybe I need tobe tighter with my terms around
community ecosystem. Because oneof the things I've done is,
spent a lot of time thinkingabout for climate tech, what is
the ecosystem? Why do peopleshow up?
You know, especially as you getto, like, deep tech technology.
You know, one of the things thatkinda brings me closer to Miami,
we've been supporting a littlebit of the climate ready tech

(46:45):
hub stuff that's going on inMiami. So that's been kind of an
awesome play for SouthernFlorida. But but it's just
really thinking about, you know,how that works and then
explaining it to my peers,colleagues, you know, other
folks that are very clearlyconnected. I'm just not thinking
about it that way.
And so I think, kinda listeningto you talk has encouraged me to

(47:06):
get tighter on my terms andmaybe think a little bit about,
you know, when I say community,what I mean, and then how does
that community or kinda my viewof that community connect to
sort of that ecosystem context?So I appreciate you being sort
of tight and putting a littlebit more, definition on some of
the terms here.

I'm gonna add on to that, Ilya, because I I
struggle with this a lot whenpeople ask me the difference
between, ecosystem and acommunity. Right? And I've sort
of come to terms to put my ownlittle definition in place.
Right? You know, I thinkcommunities can be vertical or
horizontal.
Right? But I look at anecosystem as a collection of
communities and support. And andfor me, that's for me, that is a

(47:45):
little different, similar, butbut adjacent. You know, Jeanine
would tell me, yeah, maybe.Right?
You know?

That's right.

That's that's how I'm sort of so I'm sort of
thinking, like, about you know,I think about the ecosystem as
like a collection literally ofof communities and support.
Whereas, I don't I don't know. Ithink I guess a community could
be defined that same way, Iguess, but, like, it's a
collection of people, right, andand and things. So

What's the expert saying? That's the great
question. Honestly, Ilya, as youwere talking, I was like, I've
sometimes used theminterchangeably too. It just
depends on the context in whichthey're being used because
different people, back to ourunderstanding, our shared
understanding of, like, languageand bilingualism, different
people have differentunderstandings of what the terms

(48:33):
mean. And to me, I use theminterchangeably.
Like, if I'm talking to aneconomic development
corporation, I'll use communityand ecosystem interchangeably.
But when I'm talking to b to bfolks, it's very rare that I'll
use the word ecosystem becauseI'm not thinking about ecosystem
in that frames in that frameworkor that that mindset. I'm

(48:56):
thinking about the communityaround the product or the
community that's gonna thenpower, like, whatever we're
gonna build that then leads as apipeline to the product. So to
be honest, this is one of thoseones where I'm like, I honestly
didn't think there was anythingwrong with what you were saying
because I've I've done the samething at the same time. But I

(49:16):
think what where I really doubledown on is, like, the b to b
sector's understanding of, like,community as this general woo
hoo, like, kumbaya term when I'mlike, no, dude.
This is like an actuallegitimate growth channel, and I
need for you to understand that.And that's where I start to get

(49:38):
a little saucy, a little spicybecause I feel like I have to
defend. I'm like, I literallybuilt, you know, an 8 figure
pipeline at a high growthcompany, and you're telling me
that this is just feel goodstuff? No. It's not.
And so that's where I I get alittle a little nuck if you

(49:59):
buck, like, because it is adifferent understanding. But at
the same time, those of us whohave been kind of in the
industry understand thatdifference. And so
linguistically, now we have tokind of touch on the nuances
because if we don't, then we canbe misunderstood and and people
just don't fully understand,like, what we're talking about.

It's very interesting as I hear you go. I
I cannot I can talk to Jeaninefor, like, a like, a whole 2
hours or something, but, like,I'm trying to keep it I'm trying
to I'm trying to keep ittogether. So I I think, you
know, as you guys are havingthis conversation, I'm sort of
thinking about, you know, allthe things that you've talked
about today, on the show, andand I'm thinking about how life
is a collection of these thesevulnerable moments, and and

(50:43):
these things can create thisfull circle for you and how
things are going. And the thethread that I'm I'm I'm thinking
about, and I can pull onmultiple threads here, but I'm
just gonna pull on the thread ofthe the find app, you know,
being early, right, markettiming, and how solutions like
that is this like that today,TikTok for business, LinkedIn

(51:04):
for x, y, and z, and how now oh,it's funny how life works. You
have your own LinkedIn talk showcalled About Community.
So, you know, talk to me about,you know, you just recently
launched this this LinkedIn talkshow called About Community. And

(51:25):
what really inspired this,right, this this initiative? And
what do you hope the audience isgonna take away from it?

Oh my gosh. So I launched About Community
because, again, it's one of thefirst spokes in building an
effective community and thenleveraging that community either
as a product or as a growthchannel. It's distribution. It's
visibility. It's buildingauthority.
And so I have a goal of beingthe number one resource for b to

(51:53):
b content, specifically aroundcommunity on the Internet. And
when people Google things aboutcommunity, I was like, bet, I
wanna be the first thing thatshows up, and that takes time.
But, that's why I launched it.The and it was also just like a
fun way to get some of theamazing insights of friends,
colleagues that are building inthese high growth companies and

(52:16):
who can leverage their ownvoices and the platform that I
have to inspire and empowerother b to b community builders
or other people who are thinkingabout, you know, launching a b
to b community and how to do itwell. And so that's why I
launched it, and it's just beenso much fun to start to just jam

(52:36):
with people who get it.
But then, again, to just likeyou guys have been doing, prompt
them with questions that kind ofbreak down the topic so that
other b to b companies who arestill on the fence about
community can understand how tothink about it differently.

Fair enough. Fair enough.

It's so much fun.

I know. I can tell. You know, you you I think,
you know, the true definitionof, like, finding that thing
that you love to do is, like,you do it for free, but you just
happen to get paid to do it. Youknow? And because we gotta pay
the bills.
You know?

Yes. And likes don't pay the bills. Trust and
brand authority do becausethat's how you that's how you
establish yourself in themarket. It's so true. Chad, it
is so true.

Just a follow-up question to that, and I'm gonna
let Yo Yo jump in here, is that,you know, how do you see
platforms like LinkedIn, right,evolving, right, and fostering
sort of a mean meaningfulcommunity?

That's a great question, and I kinda have a
different take on it than youmay think I have.

Okay.

LinkedIn is trying too hard to be something that
it's not, and it's focusing toomuch on engagement and not
enough on, like, building outthese genuine connections. And
that's a super blanket statementand it's a generalization. But

(54:04):
what I'm seeing now are a lot ofquote unquote b to b influencers
who are taking advantage of thealgorithm and they're just
posting content that they thinkis gonna sell versus, like,
actually developing theserelationships. And I've gotten
this feedback from multiplepeople who have had horrible
experiences with people thatthey think are actually gonna

(54:25):
help them, and they haven't.Then some of them have even
taken money from people, which,again, it can happen anywhere.
I will give this like a littlesandwich, positive, you know,
negative, positive. I startedout with the negative piece. I
do love the fact that LinkedInis actually starting to
prioritize video and that it'sgoing back to that find vision

(54:46):
of, like, how can I actuallycreate meaningful content in a
short bite sized piece so thatpeople can understand and learn
different skills? I love thefact that they're doing that.
But I do see some things.
I'm seeing more, like,engagement farming, AI content
on LinkedIn, and it's not it'steaching people, but I feel

(55:07):
like, again, it's engagementfarming. It's not really
building out these authenticcommunities. So I still love
LinkedIn. LinkedIn changed mylife. So I have I'm not gonna
complain because they may wannasponsor about community one day.
I don't know. LinkedIn love you.But at the same time, like,
there are certain things whereI'm seeing that I don't
necessarily love, but I guessthat comes down with any product

(55:28):
that you've been a a long timeuser of.

I kinda love it. This is sort of come completely
first circle twice, and then,you know, we're now now making a
sphere. You know, like, one ofthe questions that we ask always
is, you know, what can the EIRlive community, kind of the
community we're trying to build,do for kinda what you're working
on and to support? But what'scool is I think we're gonna ask

(55:51):
I wanna ask it in a little bitof a different way because
you're you're part of thiscommunity. You know, this
conversation, I think, isilluminating a lot of really
important topics to, you know,other folks that are bringing
kinda unique perspective inresidence.
So so maybe instead of just kindof thinking about this one way,
you know, what can the EIR Livecommunity do? Although, I I want

(56:13):
that to be kind of in theresponse. It's how do you think
about what we should be thinkingabout for kind of the EIR Live
community and and what that canbecome. So 2 part question,
handle it any way you want, butI just, you know, it occurred to
me that this is a question weask, but we've never asked it
like this. So I'm gonna shut upand listen now.

That is a phenomenal question. 1, I'll
answer it. I'll answer thequestion of how should you be
thinking about it. You guys havealready done that. I so I texted
I sent Tia a voice message, andI was like, this in and of
itself is one of the bestpresents to help your people
kinda create and and develop andstrengthen their own platform.

(56:55):
I have never gotten the gift, athoughtful, intentional gift
like this. And this made me andI and as I recorded, made me
want to create an unboxing videoto show my people how to think
with intention for their owncommunities. This type of thing
inspires customer love, and thisturns people into into super

(57:17):
fans for you guys. So I wouldsay that you're already doing it
and you're thinking withintention for, like, how the the
main kind of question that Ialways think about is, how can I
add the most value to whichevercommunity that I'm serving? And
that's what you guys that's whatyou did it without even
realizing that you did it.

(57:37):
And now I have a professionalmicrophone for about community
because I was just either toolazy to buy 1 or I didn't think
it was that important. Right? SoI would say that you guys are
already doing it, and I just Iabsolutely loved. And I was
raving in the voice note that Isent to you. So, like, he can,
you know, play it for you, Ilya,if it was saved, but I just
thought that that was one of themost thoughtful, thoughtful,

(58:00):
intentional gifts that I've,like, ever received.
And then I'll actually pausethere because I wanna just take
a moment to, like, give y'allyour props because it was just
such a great idea. It was such agreat idea.

Oh, thank you. Really appreciate that. I mean,
coming from the, like, the OG ofcommunity building and and and
and building, you know,community and super fans, like,
I'll take that and I'll takethat endorsement. Everybody
heard that.

Take it.

We're we're we're doing we're doing things with
intentionality.

Like my version of writing when I was just getting
started in Miami. I used towrite everybody handwritten
cards, and I used to mail it tothem. And it was just and I I
stopped doing it, and I don'tknow why. And I feel like you
inspired me to to start that upagain for, like, people who I
really appreciate. So y'all mayget a handwritten card from me.

Okay. Hey, don't hey, Anna. I'll be looking
checking the mailbox.

Okay? Send me the addresses, and I will do it
because it's a it's thisreciprocal value. And to, Ilya,
to your second question of,like, how can the EIR community
help me? It's it's all aboutthinking about this community
thing differently. Like, if youcan take one thing away from
that from this conversation,it's that.

(59:14):
It's like think differentlyabout how we've been doing this
thing this whole time. Take itback to the basics. Think about
reciprocal value. It'sliterally, how can I help you
and how can you help me? And youcan literally, in the b to b to
b space, use that and leveragethat as a legitimate channel for
growth built and based onauthentic relationships, genuine

(59:37):
connection, and that lastslonger than any type of hockey
stick growth that you mayexperience from, like, a p to p
click campaign.
Yeah. I have my qualms aboutthat, but it's it's thinking
differently about it is howpeople can genuinely help me
right now because then thathelps me it helps make

(59:57):
conversations easier when I'mhaving convos with potential
clients.

Ilya Tabakh (01:00:02):
So take it from tactic to ethos is maybe the way
that I would say it. You know,it it's one thing for it to be
sort of a transactional tactic.It's another thing for it to be
sort of a key strategy. It'sanother thing to be kind of the
the the the the thing that youare. And so that's, maybe that's
how I would, editorialize, whatI heard you saying.

Jeanine Suah (01:00:22):
I love that.

Terrance Orr (01:00:24):
I'm really gonna pull on this thread a little bit
more just because I I I justhave to. I'm I'm I'm itching to,
like, pull on it a little bitmore, and it's and it's
something that, you know, I Ireally want you you to really
go, you know, as deep as youwant to, Jeanine and, and, and
the next question, because youstarted to talk about just now,
as you were responding to Ilya'squestion, which was, which was a

(01:00:47):
great question around sort of,you know, thinking differently,
if you will, and approaching thesort of the foundation, the
building blocks of of whatyou're doing. Recently, you you
read a book that that you said,you know, changed your life.
Right? Can you tell our audiencewhat that book was and and how

(01:01:13):
it changed your life?

Oh my gosh. The book is The Courage to be
Disliked, and it absolutelyopened my mind to the fact that
I do not need to be liked byeverybody. But the core ethos of
what that meant for me gave methe freedom to care less because

(01:01:37):
I can walk in my purpose more,and I can literally do what I
need to do without thinking howthis is gonna affect someone
more so in a negative waybecause I'm an overthinker and I
have ADHD. So I, like, obsessover these things and, like, go
down these rabbit holes. It'slike it's wild.
Thank God I've been working onit more as I, you know, work

(01:01:58):
through the ADHD. But that book,legitimately, it just taught me
that not everybody has to likeyou. So you should just have the
freedom to move on your ownterms because it's essentially
your life. And if you constantlythink about, oh, if I did this
and this relationship and andthe way that I said this and

(01:02:19):
that, like, some things justaren't your task in life. And if
somebody is, like, super incontrol all the time, you have
to learn to relinquish thatcontrol and just let it go.
And those few anecdotes just itopened my mind up, and it just
allowed me to have more peacebecause I'm not as focused on

(01:02:40):
what they're doing. I'm focusedon what is best for me and read
it y'all. You need to noteverybody's gonna like it. The
last thing I'll say.

That's okay.

And and exactly. And that's okay. Exactly. But it
does talk about trauma from lessof a causation perspective and
more of like, okay, that's cool.It happened and that or maybe
that's not cool and thathappened, but how are you gonna
decide to react to it?
And it was just it's an amazingbook. It's amazing.

Thank you. Really appreciate you asking that
question. Delia?

Yeah. No. Just it's funny. So, you know, I've I've
talked a lot on this episodeabout coming from the technical
perspective and having my eyesopen to other places. One of
the, pieces that I spent quite abit of time on is actually human
emotion and reaction becausethat was my first kind of
startup company, is is how tocapture that.
But one of the things I reallykind of dove into is that, the

(01:03:39):
opposite of happy isn't angry orsad. Right? It's no emotion. And
so, normally, when when peopleare emoting, right, that that
you elicit an emotionalreaction, it means that they
care about the thing that you'retalking about. And so, I
definitely, you know, hear whatyou're saying about the you
don't have to make everybodyhappy.
But remember, when you're makingfolks react and emote in any

(01:04:01):
way, that means that they'reengaged to the things that
you're saying. And so, you know,in in both the how do people
react to content and things likethat is if they don't emote.
Right? If they don't if there'sno emotional reaction, then it
doesn't matter. And not to beintentionally, you know, causing
kind of reactions or somethinglike that.

(01:04:21):
But but just remember that, youknow, bad reactions, good
reactions, a reaction is areaction. Right? People people
are reacting because you've hita nerve. They care. They're
engaged.
And so that's maybe the theother thing I would I would add
there. But yeah. I mean, I I'veI've loved, like, every facet of
of this conversation where, youknow, probably 15 minutes over
where we should be, but I thinkwe've got 45 minutes of value

(01:04:45):
out of it. And so Right. Youknow, in in the tradition of
packing and a a a really goodset of insights and conversation
and, honestly, just like the theback end this is not the
conversation I thought we weregonna have, and and and in the
best way.
Right? And and so whenever thathappens and we're, like, sort of
pulling things, weaving things,you know, Next thing you know,

(01:05:08):
we got a tapestry by accident,you know. I I I think that's a
good conversation. So

100%.

I loved it, and I appreciated sort of the the
engagement and and really kindof entertaining some of our
questions and and probably someof the, left and right turns
that that weren't part of theplan. But, you know That's
right. Reality and the plan aredifferent, and you gotta follow
the reality. So I'm glad thatwe're

really looking at the is all about. Going with the
flow when you gotta go.

We're at time. We wanna be respectful of your
time, but I mentioned for you toquickly answer this last
question. Okay? What is yourdream EIR, XIR role? If Jeanine
could wave a magic wand anddecide where she wanted to be in
XIR, what would thatorganization

be? I'm gonna answer this with, my dream XIR
role is to build an XIR programat the next company that I go
to. That's that's all I'mfocused on. Okay. So yep.
Love it. Showing them it worksand then building out more XIRs
because more divergent thinkerslike us who don't have the
traditional background deservean opportunity to play in a

(01:06:14):
space and and make their mark.And that's what I'm really laser
focused on with this platformabout community is just, like,
open up the door for morepeople.

Such a privilege today.

Love y'all.

Jeanine Suah, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright. So we're we're keeping with our change in
format to kinda doing thesereflections and outros. And,
man, what what happened there?Right? We started with a
conversation around, being inresidence and kind of this
entrepreneur in residencebringing communities and and and

(01:06:53):
those topics.
Next thing you know, we'retalking about linguistics, the,
you know, sort of intersectionof personality traits as as it
kind of pertains to someimportant topics. I loved it. I
mean, conversations like thatare really, energizing to me,
and what what was cool is thatwe were able to take, you know,
some very, very different butcomplementary perspectives from

(01:07:15):
all of our experiences and andsort of weave a tapestry and and
create, you know, this this,conversation that that that
really I don't think anybodyexpected. And so I I I loved
everything about it. There's alot of, like, little detail
things I can jump into, but, I'mI'm just hoping that, the
audience and and folks that arelistening will get as much out

(01:07:38):
of the conversation as I did.
What'd you think, Terrance?

Man, I'm still on a high from the episode. I mean,
it was it was such a really gooddialogue, and it was natural as
a dialogue as, you know, withwith other things that we've
done. But this the energy thatthat Jeanine brings to the show,
she has such a rich backgroundaround community. And really
thinking about sort of communityas currency, right, I think is

(01:08:03):
very a very powerful thing.Thinking about, you know, how
vulnerability, right, equals atrue leadership trait, you know,
and a bit an ability to move andinfluence people through that
vulnerability.
No better person than the OGJeanine to talk about that topic
and subject. And I really feltlike, you know, we we had these

(01:08:25):
sort of moments, throughout, thepodcast and these full circle
moments, right, that will justmake you reflect on how we think
about intention, how we thinkabout being our authentic
selves, and building communitiesand businesses around those
things. And, just, I'm just, I'mpumped for this episode to come
out, and I think that theaudience is gonna get a lot of

(01:08:47):
value out of a lot of the thingsthat she said. And this is
somebody who's walked the pathand did it this way. And it
doesn't mean that's going to beeverybody's path, but, man, just
the authentic dialogue that wehad a chance to engage in, I'm
still on the high from.
What do you think about, youknow, sort of how do we sort of,
like, take that take ourcommunity and our ecosystem and

(01:09:09):
our platform to the next level?What do you think about some of
the things that you said?

This is sort of this this interplay between
community ecosystem. You know,I'm still kinda reflecting and
digesting, how to tighten up thelanguage and and and what do I
mean when I say some of thesethings. But I think I'm gonna be
a lot more careful, andintentional about how I I kinda
use some of these words. I mean,I think I think what's what's

(01:09:33):
interesting is we're also in aplace in the podcast where we
can really do sort of theLinkedIn live and the EIR live
part of the podcast. You know,we we the first couple episodes
have been out there for a littlewhile.
We've got good engagements andcalm comments, you know, we're
changing the format. But I thinkthat kind of the EIR live and
really bringing in the wideraudience to be able to interact

(01:09:56):
with, some of the knowledgethat's there and ultimately
connect is pretty excited about.I think the continuation of
happy hours and events andthings like that and, you know,
we're gonna roll into sort of,Halloween and and the the
Thanksgiving holiday in the USand and generally the the winter

(01:10:18):
which, maybe will make it alittle harder, but really
thinking about where else we canhave, EIR happy hours and and
ultimately kinda connect andactivate the the community. You
know, the Atlanta event wasreally awesome. We were able to
have, like, a pretty goodconnected group and, be able to
cover a pretty wide set oftopics for, you know, a pretty

(01:10:41):
short period of time.
So I'm excited in thinkingabout, you know, which other
communities and and as we reachout to folks, to be able to
support and connect for thoseconversations, I think that's
another opportunity to sort ofstrengthen and grow the
community. And then, ultimately,like, there's, you know in sort
of using this interplay betweencommunities and ecosystems, I

(01:11:03):
think the EIR community isreally widely connected into a
lot of ecosystems. And sothinking about where do these
folks get together and can weput the idea in this concept of
bringing in a translator,somebody that can be in
residence to stretch thecapabilities, of a of a industry

(01:11:24):
of a company. I'm excited aboutpicking that apart a little bit
as well. So so many differentways we can we can move.

Plus 1, massive plus 1. I I can't add anything
to that because I'm thinking allof the same things. And and
we've seen the value of, youknow, people coming together
from different residences andwanting to share successes,
wanting to share war stories,wanting to talk about the next
thing that they're looking atwith a group of people who've

(01:11:52):
been also in residence at otherorganizations and have different
things and tips and tricks toshare. And we're we're
incredibly excited aboutactivating that network, and
we're looking for for you all,the guests and our audience, to
also, you know, send us somerecommendations of things that
you're you're thinking about,ways that we can continue to
build that community, inaddition to the ways that, Ilya

(01:12:12):
just talked about.

Yeah. And there's a lot of easy ways to do that. Get
signed up for the email list onthe website, eir.live. Join and
follow the page, eir live onLinkedIn. Or if you go to the
the website or podcast.eir.live,there's a lot of different other
places to kinda connect with us.
So let's do it. Let's getconnected. And, together, you

(01:12:34):
know, kinda growing and evolvingthis thing is gonna be awesome.

Thanks for joining us on EIR Live. We hope today's
episode offer you valuableinsights into the
entrepreneurial journey.Remember to subscribe so you
don't miss out on futureepisodes, and check out the
description for more details. Doyou have questions or
suggestions? Please reach out tous.
Connect with us on social media.We really value your input.
Catch us next time for moreinspiring stories and

(01:13:00):
strategies. Keep pushingboundaries and making your mark
on the world. I'm Tiran Sohrwith my goals, Ilya Sabacc,
signing off.
Let's keep building.

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Episode 04 - Community as Currency: Building Genuine B2B Growth with Jeanine Suah

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 04 - Community as Currency: Building Genuine B2B Growth with Jeanine Suah