How Top Communities Are Built.

So cheers to an interesting episode at Founders Across Borders. We love covering stories of founders who are built differently, who ideate differently, and who want to scale and reach out to a global audience and to share the same spirit of building differently and inspiring a huge amount of audience or people. We have been joined by Reina Pomeroy. It's such a pleasure to have you, Reina. She has been, I would say, firstly, a mom as well. So kudos to being a mom, managing the family, being a community leader, being a certified executive coach. You've been scaling communities for more than a decade now. She's also been a martial fire survivor, which is amazing. And she has been leading her own business for now. And I would love for her to talk more about that, how she's been working alongside. It's been more than a decade in startup space. And I would love to know how you've been shaping your career around community, startup advisory, executive coaching. and managing all of it with bringing the right results for people. How has that been? Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited for this conversation because, you know, global audience and all of that. I think that there are so many different ways to build a business and to be a founder. There's so many different ways of, you know, showing up as a founder as well. So excited for this conversation. Absolutely, yes. And like, what was a time when you realized that you did not want to go into a consulting like big three or like you don't want to put efforts into getting a high paying consulting job, but become or make your own consulting firm? When did that shift happen for you? Yeah. So it's interesting because I, um, started, you know, my community career being an executive coach and building a community around those clients that I had and the community that I wanted to build. And I did that for five, six years, and then I got recruited into tech startup world. And so that has been my focus for a while. And then now I'm starting back in, um, doing emberlyn and which is our my consultancy and doing community consultancy and like i feel like it's interesting to to go from working for yourself to be your own leader and then you know joining a company a couple different companies doing tech and and then coming back to doing what i love to do which is you know building community for different audiences and it's it's different right like you use different skill sets but i think what's really interesting about the tech startup world is that you learn a lot of how to sharpen your toolkit as a founder within the the tech world and so i learned a lot and i'm excited to put more of that into what i'm building now wow so when you talk about the tech startup space i'm assuming this more of like the sas space so it's not actually so one um one platform was for parents um and so it's like a b2c company and another one was for women's health tech infertility and so that's that's been really interesting and i you know since then i've built um financial communities for women and i think what's really interesting is like i love building community for people who are talking about vulnerable topics like people don't like talking about money like how do i make more money in my life or like you know how do i maximize um that or um how do i do parenting because it feels so lonely um or how do i think about my fertility journey alongside my career those types of things like they're vulnerable topics that people don't typically talk about and i like bringing those into a community format oh i absolutely love how you've been touching on these topics is because i figured that out i still remember i've been i was delivering a lecture in i think northeastern and at some points like in different universities even at Howard I figured out that okay when you are talking about this topic you should not talk about religion money and politics openly and I was like okay I'm not gonna talk about it and I was shocked to see that cultural difference as well as because some people are really open talking about it that these are the things that you should be doing to make more money and some people are like even if they make a million dollars they are not even okay talking about making 100k so what's your opinion i mean how did you uh like i mean how did you gain that openness that you know let's talk about different ways that a working woman uh like can optimize or make more money how did that happen for you yeah i think it depends on the client and so the the community that communities across the different topics you have to listen to the the people that are in front of you the people you're building for and it really has nothing to do with me as a community builder it has everything to do with what the brand wants right like whatever the company wants to to be able to do and how that supports their business and then also the the members who are going to partake in that community And so those two things have to jive together to make sure that the strategy is in place. There's like a reason for people to come back and people feel like this is the place I want to hang out because I learned something from it or I feel comfortable here because I'm part of it or, you know, whatever their goals are. And I think that those two things have to really come together to make that happen. Wow. That actually makes a lot of sense because you've tried to club these things together And what do you think, I mean, in the tech space, since it's so much about products, let's say Lyft or Salesforce has a big community, all these products, so these are product-led communities. So how do you bring that human touch to them? I mean, in parenting, I can absolutely say that that might be the case is because so many parents want to feel that, OK, if we are going through the same pain or whatever journey we are on, it feels good to know other people are in the same on the same journey as well. But when it's like a very tech tech product, how do you bring that sense of community into it? Yeah, I think there's a lot. That's a wonderful question. There's so many different ways to do community. I think a lot of people will think like, oh, you have to have like a forum, which is, you know, very valid. There's a lot of forum based communities, but I look at platforms like Strava or Peloton. Those are two both athletic type of communities. But just as an example, right, like keeping motivation going, it might be a goal for the end user. And so how do you build like companionship or accountability or support around that and that can be community and so in peloton if a lot of people have it um like if you're doing a ride giving somebody a high five is a community move that is a community strategy to say like i see you you're doing your thing keep going right and i think that those types of touch points that's not somebody saying like yeah you did it like typing it actually in but it's like one click and it creates that sense like i am not alone in this i'm gonna keep going so those types of product moments um are really wonderful for keeping that connection going it feels like you're part of a bigger um a bigger thing nike run club i think it has a really similar model where you're like participating in a challenge together with a lot of different people it's not a forum you don't meet any of these other people but it gives you an opportunity to feel like you're part of something bigger um so each brand has its own flavor and i hear a lot of founders when i talk to them like oh i don't want a community because i have to maintain it for sure like any other you know product feature you're going to have to develop right or like right either kill or develop or change around and i think that the community is the same way there's a it's a test of experiments you have to figure out like will this work for it for what we need does it you know keep people around whether it's retention or engagement or um top of funnel um and recruiting so i think that there's a lot there and it's it's been fun to develop these things um with founders who are interested in like keeping community features or developing community features in their products wow and when you mentioned you know like being a fractional community leader and working alongside right now the trend that i've been seeing that you would see so many startups yca16 backed by them and they want a lot of people to be in-house like just just work with our product or just help us so how do you maintain being fractional and then maybe like ensure that the service that you're providing or the consulting or the advising it is the best way possible like it's x business and then when you're shifting it to y business it's for the y thing and how do you tackle that challenge when someone says that hey I want you full-time we do not you know like want your energy to be bifurcated for different products how do you work alongside that? Yeah that's a really wonderful question so I think the thing that comes up for me often is that the people that I enjoy really working with and have had the opportunity to work with recently have been relatively new. They have a product or they have an idea for, for a community, but they don't know how to bring the community to life. And so I think what I bring is strategy and developing what that looks like and working with their product team to make some of those things happen. And once I do either, I hire a team, you know, to backfill a community manager role or something like that. And I think that what's cool about that is like, you're creating a sustainable model for an house a person to come and support and you know we built a great thing if nobody continues to support it then it kind of goes to you know um it can kind of break and so you want somebody like a community manager or a higher up like a senior community manager who can maintain what the strategy that we've built in and hopefully down the line if they need to adjust the strategy they they'll bring me in or um i could teach the community manager how to do some of that so that's my hope i i really love to develop something with with the team and then you know know if they no longer need strategy i'll train somebody to be able to do that and i i haven't um i haven't been doing everland long enough to know if that's going to be the case where like somebody will ask me to join their team but i'm really happy having several clients where i get to do really different diverse work and i'm still figuring out the perfect balance of like here's the you know time that i'm spending with client a versus client b but you know there's it's sort of fluid and i hope that both my clients and my my three clients are like happy with the work that we're doing together um and that they never feel like oh you know she's her attention is split it hasn't felt like that for me so hopefully it doesn't feel like that for them too oh i love that you know the energy about it is because in the end it's about the outcomes that you're able to deliver to someone not uh not you know like if you're it's 10 hours of your day or three hours of your day but as long as you're meeting the outcome so maybe even over delivering that it matters so much and i think that's such an appreciated quality with so many people on the look and uh i mean how has your experience i mean this brings me to a very interesting question uh how has your experience been with someone who actually like loves or who likes or not likes won't be right word but who has to trade their time to make money let's say like you have to do a nine to five like even it's it's just eight hours of your time or 40 hours a week what do you think about this yeah I mean I spent the last you know decade in house and so I get the like time for money trade and like I feel like even fractional consulting is similar to that right um but i i think it's it's okay for if that's what's serving you and if it's like exciting to you and like it serves the need that you have i think at the end of the day i'm not somebody who um wants to do things that don't feel exciting which is i mean like i'm not a person to work in sass like i i know that i have friends that do and i'm not that person um the work that i do with my folks really has to be like mission driven um where people feel like they're making a change in the world um and so i don't know to me it's less about the like time for money trade and more values alignment with the work that i'm doing and the time that i get to spend doing the work doing that actually is very thoughtful it's more like uh i like to do the things i like to do and how do you build the right skillset i mean since ai has been there you can automate workflows you can automate the membership onboarding and so many things how has your work been affected because of this and if not how have you been tackling these challenges like do you think yeah is a threat to your business right now or it's an ally i think it's an ally i mean we have i think whoever said this maybe it was harvard or somebody like there's going to be two groups of people that one who's going to use AI and harness it and the group that doesn't right and I think that I am fully on the board of like okay we need to manage how what what privacy and stuff like that um needs to be in place to use AI but like it is a tool and a resource and we need to use it carefully and thoughtfully um but yeah there there are so many things that we can use that for like you said onboarding like the replicable processes and documenting that and implementing those like a human could do that but like it is much faster to do it and like with humans like checkpoints um to make sure that they're they're the right steps um why not why not lean into that so what would be your top three favorite air tools right now oh i mean i think that i'm just learning how to use ai like effectively and And I think that, you know, I started with the, like using chat GPT for like a Google like extension, like not, that's not what we're doing anymore. There's like ways to do things and like really hacking your life. Um, I'm trying to remember what the tool was that it's called, but like, you can build, build wireframes and like, you can speak the language basically. Like there's so like lovable is one of them, right? Like there's so many tools out there that can do things that you are not very good at. And like, if you could get a good MVP out of a tool like that, it could be a really game changing thing. So I think that there's plenty of tools out there, you just have to harness them. And I love spending like business development time, just like brain expansion time to learn how to do these things. it doesn't come naturally to me I'm a human person so like Bruce is like a tech person and I think that it can be a little bit tricky but I I'm not going to be curmudgeon about like people who are going to use AI so it's it's quite intriguing to know this that you have considered that to be an ally and actually putting efforts to learn and implement that as amazingly or smartly as you into your business ecosystem however that also brings me to understand this this aspect that um how do you like when you work alongside uh so many tech startups those who want community to be a part of their business what do you think are the things that a lot of startups do that's wrong i won't say wrong but that's incorrect when we would not bring them the right revenue versus what are the three things that they should be doing to bring in the right set of revenue or making community as a revenue engine that's a really interesting question um i think a lot of startups will focus on the expansion piece right like getting more and more and more customers um into their funnel and i think that that's needed right like you need to grow your business so like getting more people in will help with that but i also see that community can be a huge retention driver right people using a community leveraging community um if you do it right as a business there's a lot of opportunity to plug those holes like the leaky funnel no more right like we want that like uh leaky funnel to be uh like cleaned up a little bit so that you're you're able to keep the people that you acquired already um and built continuing to build community alongside those folks and developing programs or products for the people that you already have so that's like definitely one of them i think that another thing too is community-led growth is huge there's it is hugely untapped potential where community can be the source of your uh your revenue engine like not only are people staying because they're loyal but you bring in more people that are friends of these folks it's like you know a lot of people would prefer to do like influencer marketing over like leveraging the community that they already have so i think that's a myth there's plenty of opportunity to to lean into community-led growth um i don't know what the third thing is i think the biggest thing that i see is like building for the people that are in front of you versus like always continuing to like expand expand expand like if you just listen to the people who are in front of you like whether it's a community advisory board or a group of people who are just like you know your community um your audience will tell you exactly what they are looking for and you can build to that that's actually quite interesting so do you think when a company is launching like i spoke today only i had this meeting to talk about a startup like they are let's say a company that has a lot of apps which are in the longevity space so and they have to like launch once again rebranding themselves so i believe that in such a case community is really important however at the same point in time right now we have no idea that company has no idea that what kind of uh like how many people would be interested and uh it's like longevity is a tricky space you know like everyone wants to stay fit and you have influencers like brian out there talking about this so how do you navigate like do you think having a community in the beginning is the best option or you should only build it on the go like have users run ads and build a community what do you think beautiful question i think that there is a lot of different ways to have community and i think that um one i've seen companies that launch with a community and ones that develop community because their customers are telling them they want it um and so i think it can fall anywhere in that there's no right or wrong it's more about like do you have the right strategy to make either option work and i think the way that i would think about it is if people are telling you that you need a community it means that they want to be loyal to your brand right like i am so excited about being a customer with you that i want to stick around other people who like your company and that's like such a compliment like to your brand congrats like you've built something really cool that people want to hang out with um i think about um glossier when they were starting and they had do you know about them they had like a customer um advisory committee i can't remember what it was called but it's like a crew of people who love their products so much that they developed products for them like what a rad idea right like they said oh i want a lip gloss that's in this color and like this like we want different flavors and so that now they have like these different things that are really pointed to what their needs were and have crushed it crushed it because their customers said that they wanted it and they like really leaned into that um you don't have to necessarily do that but i think there's opportunity for things like that where your brand in the longevity space for example, what are the things that they're talking about? There's probably a silo that somebody is feeling like, I don't feel like I can talk to anybody in my everyday world about the things that I'm curious about or I'm eager to do or am wanting accountability around to pursue my longevity journey. And if this brand can really shape that experience with them or for them, um preferably for them and with them like co-creating is probably the best way to do it but like it could be an app feature um that makes them feel less alone or like an app feature that um creates accountability or a group call that puts them in a mastermind together with other people it could be a lot of different formats but at the end of the day community can have the power to bring people together in a way that will make your product even more sticky wow i genuinely love that you know um and uh what do you think i mean when you want to bring in people together i mean it's even i built this offline community two years back and we scaled it to like 600 members in like four months offline and we were trying to run an online version of it however john has been such a big problem like keeping people engaged and that's when i figured out that clarity messaging like whom are you targeting what are you talking about that is so important like if i have a vague message i would be attracting lots of people but then they would eventually leave us because there would be a time where they would not be able to resonate or they would feel that oh maybe this is not a fit with what i am doing and uh so so yeah i mean to understand this uh let's say uh we both are working on an interesting project and it's uh and we decide to make this uh community around creativity focus and helping founders uh or wannabe founders uh develop uh more creativity amidst the ai age and become more focused yeah if we are working on that what would be the first step for you to build that community like what would you target on i love this question so much it's like let's build this thing together in real time on this podcast um i think the first question i would ask is like what's in it for me like not what's in it for me but like for the end user what right if we can answer that question first then we'll be able to backtrack and figure out what we actually built and so what's in it for me could be like this is like the the value prop essentially right like what are we trying to do with these folks and if it's um you said it was a group of founders and what are they what are they building like a community to connect with one another is that what you said yeah like a meeting right they can connect but uh like we provide them with all the resources and we do these challenges and we keep it engaging so that we help them be more creative and help them have crystal clear focus and not be distracted yeah i love that um so focus is an issue and time is probably an issue and so how do we get people to stay accountable to whatever their goal is maybe it is um people self-declaring what their focus is for this particular sprint and having a small group that holds them accountable like okay you're gonna have these five people in a slack group and you're gonna like connect with them or like maybe it's a bigger much bigger group it's like 200 people who have committed to this and every minute that you participate in it i don't know if that's right increment maybe it's like hour that you participate in this right then you get like everyone gets credit towards it it really just depends on like what the needs are of this founder group that's probably not the right thing actually but you know there is some mechanism for accountability for focus maybe it's a co-working that that you participate in everyone focuses on their task for the hour or two hour block um i've seen it a lot of different ways and it really just just depends on what your community needs are and listening to them. So I would do user research along this path. I would want to hear, maybe it could be a survey if people are busy. So maybe a user research call wouldn't be appropriate, but there's a lot of ways to hear what people are looking for and needing and how that support would show up. And if you build it, sometimes they don't come because you don't build the right solution. And so like making sure that you're using a spirit of experimentation and saying like okay we're gonna try this this month we're gonna do two of these we're gonna go for it and like here's the here's the hypothesis and like maybe it works maybe it doesn't um and then you ask for feedback once it does happen so you know there's a lot of different ways to play i i really think about this as like the experimentation zone is like very much a play zone it's like you don't get it wrong or right it's more just like okay i learned something from this and um that's really because you're you're the play is about humans and like how they're how they're behaving so it's never gonna be a perfect science no i absolutely love this you know like how we've talked about experimentation and so i think so many times we just want to feel that hi i did this and it needs to be perfect and the first time it may not be the case maybe something that you find is like damn that's so bs and uh the other person is like hey that's not that's amazing and you're like okay that's bs for me but that that might be goal for them so if you define one thing that's bs for you you might refine gold for something else but that feedback you would only get it when you put yourself out there and expose yourself to all kinds of criticism like uh even like i wanted to start a podcast or like do this for the past three years of my life i had so many people have so many questions and be like what are you gonna do whom you're gonna talk to um uh do you want to have like an official studio do you have that those kind of investments brand deals this and that and then there was a point in where i was like i won't ask people or i won't tell them what i'm doing i would do something and go to them that this is what i've done if you like it now share your feedback if you don't like it feel free to be the critic and be the devil's advocate but it's been done it's been launched now it is in a space ready to be iterated and it costed me three years of my life to realize this for so many decisions And I was like, okay, it should be like, do it. And then be like, hi, I've done it. Now help me iterate it or make it better. Yeah, I love that. You know, a piece of feedback or advice that I got a long time ago when I was in high school was like, don't ever ask for feedback from somebody whose life you wouldn't want. And it's like, oh, okay. Or like, who hasn't like seen the life the way that you want it? And like, they could have totally different perspectives. But if you don't want their life, or like, if you don't want the outcome that they might be in, then don't take their feedback. It's like, it's totally fine. Like, for example, like, I would never ask my best friend for business advice, only because she doesn't have that context. Right. And so like, like, think about it, like there, she might have different perspectives about like, oh, I like your branding, but like, she might not be my target audience. So I think that there's a lot of opportunity for feedback, but like, you can't like, feedback needs to be weighted. And like, you need to figure out I really appreciate the way that you talked about it, though, because it's like, oh, I already put it into the world. And like now you can give me feedback. I'm happy to like receive that. And maybe I'll make adjustments from here. But, you know, I think I see a lot of entrepreneurs who are like so stuck in the like analysis paralysis. They're like stuck in the I thought about it for three years and I didn't do anything about it versus you. You like recorded, you hit record, you call the people, you talk to them and publish something and you have three years worth of work to show for it. and i think that that's really wonderful um and i really do encourage entrepreneurs to like figure out what the mvp is just hit record go do the thing and like publish it um and hopefully you can like market it or adjust it as needed oh absolutely i i do agree with you and i think that's what i've seen in your journey as well like over the years you've i traded and you've experimented with so many different things like for you to know what you don't like you have to try that out I mean it's like if you say you don't like this kind of vegetable or something like okay I don't like sweets you've got to try that out now I know if my mom's gonna make something like bitter god I'd be like I don't like it it's because I know it's bitter so but you've already tried it I don't know if you have kids but I have three kids and it's like you need to try you have to have the no thank you bite to tell me that you actually tried it versus like looking at it be like I don't like that because there's plenty of things in the world that might not look good but they're they're gonna be good and like it's good for you so i i always tell my kids like you have to take the no thank you bite you know i would love to know this since you've been like a mom of three kids and uh the first time when you were expecting did this thought cross your mind that my life's gonna change my career would pivot i might just be taking care of my family and uh of course i think being a parent i mean i'm not even mad but i know how it is since i my friends are getting mad at my for my parents i'm there so like your life certainly revolves around your kids nurturing them taking care of them so do you think that uh it is a huge career shift or your career growth stabilizes or is not there because you choose to be a mom or how was that experience and what do you think about it that's a great question i think that i i chose to prioritize different things when i became a mom um i was working in a nine-to-five that was not in the tech space um it was in um a university and i think that what was different i was like i was commuting a lot and i didn't want to do that anymore and i wanted to prioritize my family And so I quit that job with no real prospects. I had no idea what I was going to do. And I was like, I'm going to be a stay-at-home mom. I am awful at being a stay-at-home mom. I cannot, I cannot. Like anybody who might've been a stay-at-home mom or is a stay-at-home mom, like props because it is a lot of work and it is a lot of like energy to do that with your kids all day, every day. And you never get a break. And so I started my business in that zone actually. Like I had to figure out a way to build a business while my child was napping. He was about one years old and like, I, I didn't know how to build a business. This was the first time I did it. And, um, I was like, I'm gonna figure this out. And then after I sort of gained a little bit of traction, I was able to put them in part-time daycare and then full-time daycare. And like, it was interesting to be like in that mode of like, okay, I need to prioritize different things and I want to build something for me. like to me that was like the most important thing and values aligned thing like I want to be a mom and I want to work and that was the way that I got to do it so I was like really I it was hard and I'm glad that I did it and I learned so much from that experience so so yeah I think you know like we've also mentioned that you've been a martial fire survivor as well so what was it to actually go through that entire experience and uh like how was it as a person like I would love to know about that and i know it might be a very vulnerable experience but but yeah i'd be glad if you could share that yeah um if anyone's gone through disaster or heartbreak or trauma like it is it is there's a very you know uniting thread there but i lost my home in the marshall fire in december of 2021 and we've now rebuilt and our home but it sucked um i didn't know anything about this world and now I feel like I'm really very much entrenched in it but um I have the the person side of the experience which is like I'm a mom I'm a wife and I built my home and I lost my home and then there's the side of me which was that I'm a community leader and I want everyone in my community to get home and so I was sort of straddling both of those things I built a slack community for um over 2,000 people in our community who were trying to rebuild and recover and making the choices they wanted to make. And yeah, we learned a ton from that experience. I think we were able to hear our community and to advocate for the needs of our community, go to press when we needed to and get people's stories out into the world. We did a ton of work around creating social connections between community members. And all of that was so important while I recovered on on our home front as well and so like rebuilding was all like fine and good but I couldn't have done it without the community um I just imagine people who lose their homes like in a house fire like individual house fire how isolating and scary it must feel to battle insurance to not know what to do next what does rebuilding look like um and you know we had a community to do it with um fortunately or unfortunately so I've been able to you know use these skills to go to maui and support folks in recovery there as well as in los angeles since the los angeles fires and so you know i i'm somebody who loves to be able to take our my learnings and hope hope to support other people in in their experiences so never making other people feel uh alone uh while they go through that experience wow thank you so much for sharing this and i know it must be so difficult just because like um we're so attached to little things in our life and it's it's so difficult to actually see the the place that you built on set on fire due to unforeseen circumstances and then rebuild your life so uh in these areas i think we we feel that you know we need community or we need people to talk to and we we need people in our lives and i've seen sometimes so many people do not want people around them like they're like i'm gonna do this on my own hi i don't need you hi i don't need this that and uh so in that case and so many people also so many gurus like since you were a coach on your own they say that do things alone and things like that what do you think i mean if you want to do something or build something and same you want to share or actually help people or those who have been a survivor of something that's so magnanimous do with with people or do you still feel that uh it's the best to go through everything on your own like it's my thing the wrong person that question if you want to go alone path because i am the always the communal path always and i think that like there's plenty of things where you might not want to share something but i think that there's plenty of experiences um whether it's a natural disaster or you know any other sort of topic that feels isolating and scary um that's why like reddit thrives that's why youtube comments thrive like there's so many things that people need and want to learn about or you don't need to go it alone and um i i just remember this experience where like somebody had done like three days worth of research on like how to build a foundation. I am not interested in learning how to do all of that. But did I take that information? I sure did. Right. Like I am so grateful that Chris built all of that information for our community and decided, I'm not going to keep this in my Google drive. I'm going to share it with y'all. And like, there are tons of us who were like, this is really helpful. Thank you so much for sharing it. And so like, there is a world of like collective wisdom i mean that's why like um our ancestors lived in community and like why have we really like isolated ourselves in in um in this like sort of wi-fi world there's there's so much to be shared with one another and they're also really bad advice but like trust your sources obviously uh vet your sources and once you trust them please use them and be in community with one another oh yeah absolutely and uh thank you i mean i love how you've actually mentioned about this uh because uh it's so much about the mindset like someone who has loved doing things on their own they might feel uncomfortable when they're exposed to so many people or communal opinions however someone who believes that i thrive better when i'm surrounded by people or i thrive better when i have people doing things with me like it feels that i'm on a shared part shared path of growth journey that that changes the entire game all together yeah i i think it's like powerful and you know i live my life that way and i know not everyone does and that's okay um but i think that i i hope that people will find community and find belonging somewhere and you know if that's at your local faith group or you know at a book club or whatever like it doesn't matter what the format is as long as you feel like you have it wow which brings us to an interesting segment it's called seven questions to fame and I'll be shooting seven questions whenever you're ready. Okay, let's go. Okay. So the first question is, what are the three skills that you feel anyone should have to make money? Executive communication. So like communicating with your clients in a way that they understand why they need you. I think marketing and positioning yourself, whether it's like official or not, right? Like you don't have to have a website. I don't have a website right now, but I'm fully booked and i think that that's a really important thing to be able to do um and having confidence that's not a skill but you work on it and um it's something that's really important to be able to show up i always um say to myself crown on like put your crown on and like don't feel like you're you're less than anybody else you have something valuable to offer and make sure you you know that you don't have to like be flashy about it but like know that you you have something very valuable totally a cool answer and all the three points are great to think of and take care of while you're building yourself out there yeah thanks what are the top three books that you would recommend for anyone to read oh my gosh there's so many um i really love this is like fiction or nonfiction? It's your choice. Oh my gosh, there's so many. I read so many ebooks, sorry, not ebooks, like audio books that it's hard to have like such a recency bias. Okay, so the most recent book that I just read was The Lion Women of Tehran. I thought it was so moving and reminded me of like why you fight for the things that you fight for. Definitely a fiction book. I like Atomic Habits, although I don't like swear by it um and I love everything Brene Brown I should have probably said that one first and like that's not one book it's probably like eight or nine books but like it's the like her the way that she thinks about vulnerability the way that she thinks about who you are as a person and like how you show up as a parent a leader you know of an organization all of that is relevant and I really love the way that she thinks about the world wow I love that and uh i would definitely go and read the last one i've read out of my habits so yeah it's a good one cool what has been one life teaching that changed your perspective about how you view life oh man i mean there's so much i think that this is nothing to do with anything we've talked about but I think it has some through line with community is that diversity is good for everybody. I think that when you collect people around you who have diverse perspectives, diverse life experiences, you are a better person for it. And I think that when you're building community or doing life, I think all of that, like building for different experiences and including them is really important. If you had to change one thing in your life, what would that be? What would that be? Oh my goodness. Getting more sleep. I don't know. Like being a mom, I think that I always need more sleep. I don't know. I think I'm always like optimizing for life and like I want more fun in my life, more play in my life. And I think that that makes me a better mom. It makes me a better human. It makes me a better entrepreneur because I'm like able to focus when i need to focus and um yeah i think that there's like probably other life teachings but that one is like very prominent for me because um i think that there's a lot of opportunity to continue to like grow and while you're playing you learn those things so if you could change one thing about your career what would that be i wish i knew earlier on that community was an industry I think that it hasn't been like that prominent until more recently and I wish I had a mentor who knew what the heck I was trying to do um I was a social worker first I worked in political campaigns I did you know the entrepreneurship thing I uh yeah there's so much that I've done I just didn't know that what I was trying to do with community until much much more recently wow who has been the one person to have the maximum impact on you as person oh my gosh my mom um she's my source of truth for so much and i think that you know she has generational wisdom that that i hope to have when i am you know in her life stage um but she never worked and so I think she has a very different perspective about things and I it's really interesting like I don't I don't talk to her too much about business things but all all things life I really do trust her so much um and she's made me who I am and you know I think that that's like it's probably such a cliche answer she's given up so much to um she taught me so much about tenacity um she's Japanese and didn't really speak all that much English and she wasn't fluent but we were expats in the United States and spent all of my formative years in the US. And I think that's like, how the heck do you learn how to pay taxes when you didn't have the internet, like as a as a non American, like, I just think about stuff like that. I'm like, dang, you figured stuff out, you know, like, I really just admire people who have like the grit to be able to figure things out so yeah wow and what would be one advice that you would like to give to your future self don't chase the money although money is important don't chase the money or in like while compromising your values like i think that staying true to who i am and what i value what i think is important is is like the highest most important thing for for my business um and as i continue to grow because i think that there are so many things that can um distract me and say like oh this is a fun project or this is you know something that you could do but like there's plenty of projects out there and things that i i want to do and have an impact in that um won't make me compromise my values wow that's an interesting thing you know and and with this we do end the round however there's so much to think along and i'm glad you mentioned this which which brings me to understand uh each one of us wants to you know be a millionaire and have this million dollar dream out there so um how do you incentivize on like uh what you have right now and like i won't say chasing money but building wealth at least for yourself if even if i do not say generational wealth but like for yourself or maybe your family that that being one and at the same point in time while you're building that wealth so the first part of the question is how would you build that or how would you know that what you know makes you a million dollars and how do you say like did not get into this that i like this i want to do this i like that oh i find belgian chocolate is better than dark chocolate so i'm gonna try that out so how do you stop yourself from like chasing different things and sticking to one thing and building that crazy money I'd say yeah I think for me I always have thought that you can make money while making impact and to me that is there is so much that you can do I think about platforms and like apps like that are doing cool things like um watch duty it's a fire watch app where it's a it's a non-profit organization but they make a lot of money and i think that that's really awesome um i want more companies who are using technology and they're smart to to build wealth and build you know something that's really valuable to the world and also makes money um i think that that's like one of the most important things and i don't know if i answered your question actually but that to me like those two things can go hand in hand wow and that actually brings us to another segment that we do it's called 90 seconds to teach me something so right now if i give you 90 seconds what would you like to teach sure um i would love to talk a little bit about the curb cut effect so the curb cut effect is this phenomenon that I don't know if you have these wherever you live, whoever's listening, right? Like there are curves in on the sidewalk. And if you think about it, they were built for folks who are in a wheelchair. But a lot of different people can actually use them. If you're riding a bike, you can use it. If you have a baby in a stroller, you can use it. If you don't want to step up, it like gives you a little bit of an on ramp. And this the idea of the curb cut effect is that when you do something for a specific community, for example, the disabled community, you actually make the world a better place for a lot of different people. And so there's so many things that you can build. And, you know, ultimately, when you do it for just, what's the word I'm looking for, like a disenfranchised population, you actually can make the world a better place for all other people. And so I encourage us to think curiously about ways in which our products can make the world a better place. And I think about websites that are ADA compliant that are easier for people to see. It doesn't make it easier to see for just this one population. It makes it better for a lot of different people. And so how do we approach the world in that way with curiosity and for creating inclusion and making communities feel welcome in your experience? Thank you for sharing this. it's uh it's a beautiful concept and i didn't know about it however it's the first time now i'm exposed to this concept and i i believe that uh it's it's a beautiful one which which which brings me to understand this one thing you know like since uh you've been a japanese and you've been raised by japanese parents and you've been in states how was it culturally growing up i mean were did you feel completely american exposed to different kinds of american food or you still to eat the japanese traditional food how was it when growing up and uh uh like and when uh working with different cultures as well like since you work with maybe someone who's african someone who's indian malaysian uh vietnamese multiple so how has that that been you know like the mix of cultures all out because you're like we're in the land of uh like culturally diverse land yeah i mean i love working with diverse people people who come from diverse backgrounds because they have such an interesting way of looking at problems um or you they will see something that is completely foreign to you um most of my teens that i have hired have not been of the same culture as me actually very few um and so it's really interesting to learn i i like getting pushback or feedback from somebody that says like hey i didn't appreciate the way that you said this or i i wish you had uh thought about this angle and i'm like oh thank you so much for teaching me that because you didn't have to first of all you didn't have to share that that is the labor of your experience that you're you're you're sharing that with me and two that like they felt vulnerable or like confident enough to share that with me because they trust our the relationship that i have with them and so like i i think the world is full of different types of experiences and i'm not the only person and i'm not the person i'm building for often and so like it's really important to to have that kind of relationship with other folks to be able to to get feedback and see different world views um so i hope that i am a person that people feel comfortable coming to and i hope that people listening like that you can be a person like that too even if you're not the same background or different age or whatever it is so what do you think i mean when let's say we i mean you work with different people and uh like so many of us get a chance to work with people from different parts of the world or different cultures how can you make a long lasting relationship with them instead of just a very transactional professional space if you say that you know like friends from work like more from work let's say if you're visiting my country i get a chance to visit you so it's like oh like welcoming each other we are happy to host each other in our houses as well so how do you build that kind of camaraderie with someone who is not from your culture i think you just have to care about them like maybe that's a really silly answer but to me you have to care about them genuinely as a person And like, really, it's, it's not transactional. Like I'm going to get something out of it and you're going to get something out of it. And then we're done. It's more like, if I care about you as a person, I will follow up with you. I will ask you how you're doing, you know, like, even if it's very, I don't know, sporadic and like, it's not like as frequent as it could be. There's people who, you know, I touch base with in, in like on LinkedIn or just via text where I haven't talked to them in like maybe a year or had like a call with them but I'll check in and say like hey how'd that project go like how how's it going out with this thing that you told me about or like how are your kids doing because we talked about their kids or whatever and I think that's it like you genuinely have to remember and care about people in a way that um that like makes sense for where you are in your life there's this book by um Molly Beck that I really love it's called Reach Out and maybe I should have mentioned that in my book list but um I think it's a really wonderful book about like how to do networking in a way that doesn't feel icky um it's all like constantly making um your your network larger and circling back and connecting with people in a really genuine and authentic way oh yeah i mean that i love how you talked about you know like just caring for the other person i mean it's not so i mean it's great if you tend to know their culture or their cultural nuances but at the same point in time if you can make them feel that you as invested in them then like anything else that that relationship is so beautiful yeah and i hope that it's reciprocal right like it's not just like you caring about them but like they care about you too and they remember things that are important to you um like remembering holidays that are important or like you know something that they told you and like vice versa so i totally love that and uh like if you know like uh back then you were in your 20s um if you had to like think of that 25 or 25 year old reina and you're looking at her what would you like to tell her like when you look her in the eye it's a great question um you already have what it takes and you're going to figure it out I think that I didn't know exactly what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life and I by 25 I didn't have kids and so like I didn't know when would the right time be or like how would it fit into my career and you know I was lucky enough to meet my husband uh around that time and like we figured it out like all of it and you know one step at a time one year at a time and it's been it's been quite the journey for sure thank you for sharing this and it's beautiful so i mean i there's so much to talk about and i always feel that we are short on time with so much to converse and like explore because it's so much of depth that we have however before we wrap this up what is one thing that you'd like to say oh my gosh um thank you for this conversation i really loved it and i i hope that people reach out um connect with me on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear, you know, if there was anything that was resonant for you, let's talk about it. And if you're looking to build a community for yourself, because you're lonely, or if you want to build one, because you are a brand, like, let's talk. I'm always down to talk about community. Wow. Thank you so much. And it was an amazing conversation. And I'm so grateful that we got to share the space and speak about things. Thank you so much for having me.

In this episode, we sit down with Reina Pomeroy , a certified coach, community strategist, and former social worker who has built and scaled some of the most impactful online communities.
With over two decades of experience across tech, AI, and community building, Reina has led the creation of thriving digital ecosystems .Including helping grow a global parenting community from zero to tens of thousands of engaged members. 

We talk about :
Reina's journey to becoming a Founder

What it really takes to build meaningful communities (not just audiences)

Leadership lessons from Reina

The future of community in the AI era

If you're a founder, creator, student, or someone looking to build something meaningful online . This conversation will completely change how you think about growth and connection.


#entrapreneur #startup #community #communities #entrepreneurmindset #ai