👥 Stop building alone

May 20, 2025

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“Building in isolation is the only way to maintain focus.”

This might be one of the most dangerous half-truths in entrepreneurship. Yes, deep focus is essential, I've talked about this before. But there's a critical difference between productive focus and isolation.

One keeps you locked in. One sees you drift out of relevance.

Today's newsletter is about community. Because hey, entrepreneurship doesn't always have to be lonely. 🤷🏻‍♂️

In this newsletter:

• How getting fired 17 days after childbirth led to a thriving tech company

• The best way to expand your network without sacrificing productivity

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Weekly Insight

Jessie Schofer was laid off 17 days after giving birth. Brutal.

This time around, hearing ‘it’s just business’ wasn’t going to cut it.

“I felt like I'd never get a job again, in such a bad market,” she recalls. So, she didn’t. As she put it, “I needed to control my future and work for myself.”

With a newborn at home and no corporate safety net, Schofer didn't have the luxury of spending months in stealth mode, developing the perfect product. Instead, she went loud.

Schofer took to LinkedIn and began sharing her expertise from 13 years in HR and People Operations. 

Each post revealed various insights on:

• HR tech,

• Talent acquisition and 

• The challenges of balancing entrepreneurship with new motherhood.

But this wasn’t just cathartic, casual posting. She was strategically building a community.

She knew what her venture would be, and knew that her expertise would connect her with prospective users. And connect, she did.

Within months, Schofer had built Stakkd, a platform helping HR professionals navigate the overcrowded tech landscape. But more importantly, she'd gathered over 10,000 HR and talent acquisition professionals into a community, through her content. 

But these followers weren’t there to boost her ego.

They were potential customers, collaborators and champions of her mission. Most importantly, they were people she genuinely believed her expertise could help.

For Schofer, building in public was part market research, part product development and 100% effective.

• Every comment validated her understanding of the problems HR professionals face.

• Every share expanded her reach to potential customers.

• Every DM opened doors to partnerships that would have taken months to secure through traditional networking or paid marketing.

Honestly, a community is nice to have. But it can also be so much more than that. When built strategically, it becomes your market research team, your distribution channel and your support system all in one.

📚 Related Reading

We’ve covered community on Digital Entrepreneur a few times over. Here are some of my favs:

• Building community: the new growth playbook by Simmone Seymour

• Co-design and community engagement with Veronica D’Souza

• The 4Cs of social marketing by Sharon Milone

Intent to Action

While Schofer’s strategy relied on LinkedIn, that doesn’t mean it’s the right option for you.

After all, community building isn't about broadcasting to anyone who'll listen. It's about strategically connecting with the right people, in the right places, with the right value.

So, before you start posting, commenting and connecting, you need to map out your strategy. Here’s how to do it, in a simple 3-step process:

1. Identify your ideal community members

Write down 3–5 characteristics of your ideal community members that go deeper than job titles, industries and other basic demographics.

Just as you did with your ideal customer profile, get specific about who you want in your community:

• What problems do they face, that you can help solve?

• What level of expertise do they have in your field? What about you, in theirs?

• What language do they use to describe their challenges?

• Where are they in their journey right now?

Also, if you want to be successful in this exercise, don’t solely think of these people as target audiences. Focus on the real humans you want to help. 

2. Find where they already gather

Now that you know who you’re looking for, find out where they hang out. All the information matters, here:

• Which platforms do they use professionally? (LinkedIn, X/Twitter, Reddit, TikTok)

• Which subreddits, Facebook groups or Slack communities do they participate in?

• Which influencers or thought leaders do they already trust? What platforms do those folks prioritize?

Chances are, they already have a preference for the digital community they’re in. The goal isn't to pull people away from communities they love, but to become a valuable contributor within these existing spaces.

I previously covered how another entrepreneur, Tony Dinh, learned that he needed to stop solely looking at X* as just a place to plug his product. Don’t waste the same time. Show up to help; not to sell.

_{* To this day, I still hate calling Twitter “X.” Is that just me?}

3. Create a value-first contribution plan

Before asking for anything, establish yourself as someone who adds value:

• Set a goal to answer ten questions in your identified community(/ies) each week

• Share one valuable resource (not your own, unless it’s like, perfect) in each group weekly

• Comment thoughtfully on posts by community members or thought leaders

The key is consistency. Small, regular contributions build more trust than sporadic grand gestures.

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Closing Thought

My first professional marketing gig was community building. In my old startup, clients would pay me to build communities for them. Heck, it was the fact that I was active on LinkedIn (a community platform!) that got me hired after exiting my startup.

Despite all this, I wrote community off as a subpar strategy for a while.

I love community-building. I just didn’t think it was as effective as other channels, like paid ads, SEO, etc.

But, now, the pendulum has swung back to communities. Done correctly, they’re one of the most effective marketing channels. You just have to be singularly focused on building a trusted reputation.

I could go on about the benefits of this approach… but I’m already nearing my self-imposed word count.

So next week, I’ll explore how community relationships naturally evolve into business opportunities. You just have to listen for the right signals.

See you then.