Feminist Founders Subscriber-Only Podcast

Becky Mollenkamp: Hello, this is Becky. Today, I'm going to be interviewing myself. I'm just going to ramble a bit for my own contribution to this wonderful series that you've been listening to. I hope you're enjoying it. The quality of sound on this piece may be different from the others because I'm using my fancy podcast microphone and not doing this by Voxer. I may have failed to mention that all the other episodes in the series were recorded asynchronously via Voxer, which is just an online program, but the sound quality isn't the greatest. If you've noticed that, my apologies. I did the best I could in cleaning things up, but my goal was to make it really easy for people to participate. Also, I felt like it's okay if it's a little low-tech. It's your chance to listen in on these conversations and feel like a fly on the wall, but this one will sound a little different because I'm using my mic.
Let me first just say who I am in case you don't know. For some reason, you're subscribed to Feminist Founders, which is a publication that I run. My name is Becky Mollenkamp. I'm a coach. I work with business owners who care deeply about equity, social justice, people who prioritize people and the planet over profits but still want to make money because money is important in the world we live in. People who want to say no to all the toxic capitalist norms that so many of us get used to in corporate America and do things differently in their own business in a way that feels really values-aligned.
Today, I'm going to speak not about any of that per se, but about community. This week's theme or focus for all the interviews is around community, and I feel like I can add a little bit to that because community is sort of my jam. This is something that I have a lot of experience in and that I get really lit up by. I have been a member of many communities—too many communities—some good, a lot not so good.
It started, I guess, back in 2013, well, even before that, in real-life communities. I was a member of many organizations and networking groups. I did BNI. If you don't know what that is, you can look it up. It wasn't for me. I was a part of NAWBO, which is the National Association of Women Business Owners, and that was pretty great. I also started some of my own communities or networking groups in person through Twitter. For people who were Twitter users back in the day, I don't mention the name of what that is now because that platform is now awful, but back in the early days of Twitter, it was really awesome. I met a lot of amazing business owners through that, and we did some in-person meetups.
I've also been a member of many online spaces, and really, my foray into that started with Facebook groups in 2012 or 2013 as those were starting to become a thing. They grew and were huge. I don't know if people are still using them as much—maybe they are. I'm not on Facebook anymore, so I don't use them as much, but that was the first place I really got into online communities. From there, I started my own Facebook group and then started my own other kinds of communities. I have spearheaded at this point dozens of peer-led masterminds, which are just, in the case of peer-led, they're free. It wasn't a coach-led or fee-based mastermind, but peer-led—a group of members equally committed to being there, participating, and brainstorming, sharing ideas, helping each other with our businesses.
I've also started a membership once called Own It, Crush It, then Gutsy Boss. That was something that grew pretty big and was wonderful until it just became difficult to manage. I've also had community in the form of social media—I mentioned Twitter, but also now Threads, where I have a sizable-ish following and feel a real sense of community there. Also, the Substack—the thing that you subscribed to that got you access to this private podcast—that is also a place where I have been finding more community in the form of notes and chats, people replying to newsletters, and finding other authors for newsletters. As you've seen, I've had lots of guest authors. So there are a lot of ways that I have fostered community. I'm also someone who helped create a feminist networking community that I'm still a part of, and I run the Feminist Podcasters Collective, which is a community of podcasters who care about equity and social justice, and we support each other in expanding our audiences.
So all of that is sort of my bona fides, as it were, to tell you why I'm talking about community—because it's something that I love and have been an active participant in, but maybe even more importantly, have been very active and proactive in starting communities. So I'm hoping I can share just a little bit of advice around finding community for yourself because I feel like this is such an important issue for people who own businesses. I think it's really important that we all have a community.
We can have communities in our personal lives around, you know, if you're a mom, a parenting group, or if you're couples, you want to have other couples' friends, or whatever your interest might be—if you do yoga, having a yoga community. All of those things are really important, and I think it's equally important to have community as a business owner because what we go through as business owners is so exceptionally different from being traditionally employed. Both are important, but as a business owner, you have an experience that traditionally employed people can't always understand. When you want to try and talk to them about the challenges of entrepreneurship or seek input or advice on how to manage certain things that come up, your traditionally employed friends are not necessarily the best sounding board. If you have a partner and they're traditionally employed, they may try really hard to understand and help, but they can't always do it. So I think it's really valuable for us to seek out or create communities where we can have like-minded folks who get it and who can be there for us so that we don't have to feel so alone and isolated because being self-employed can be very isolating if you don't have community.
So if you're someone who maybe hasn't found a great community as a business owner yet, or who just loves community so much that you want even more of them, I'm going to share a few tips that I hope are helpful, starting with values. That is the thing I always lead with because I think it's most important. If you are a paid subscriber of this newsletter, then I think we probably share values and that you care deeply about your values. I don't think you'd be here if values weren't important to you, most especially in running your business. Finding community with other folks who share those values is really important because if you find community with people who don't share your people-first values, you will end up in a lot of business spaces—what I would say is probably the majority of business spaces—where the priority is not people but money and profits. That is what people are talking about.
If you don't share those values, that can be really challenging because so much of the advice you get runs counter to how you want to show up as a business owner. Because it's what you're hearing all the time, it can leave you starting to doubt yourself: "Oh, maybe I can't run this business this way. Maybe it's not possible to be both profitable and care about the people part of my business"—meaning caring about myself, my team, my clients, and the community in which I live. I'm here to tell you it is possible to care about all of those things and make a profit, but too many online business communities are not prioritizing people. They're not prioritizing the owners' own needs or what's best for the clients—although that's one that they probably focus on most because they see it as directly related to profits. They're certainly not focusing on what's best for the team and how to ethically and humanely go about having a team of people working with you or for you, and rarely do you see much about prioritizing community beyond "how do you get the best tax write-offs for the way you use your money?"
So I think it's really important, if you care deeply about people—and I think you do—to make sure that you know what those values are and how you would communicate them so that you can find communities that share those values. Without that, you will probably end up in communities that feel very misaligned and that may leave you questioning yourself. That's the last thing community should be about. Once you know the values that are most important to you, think about the people who may exist inside of your business sphere already who share those values and ask them for recommendations of communities. This again is where we need to be careful. Don't ask people who don't share your values for recommendations of communities because they will probably steer you towards things that are not values-aligned. You can even express to them what your values are, and they still, if they don't share those values, probably won't get it. They don't understand what people-first values mean if they are really focused on profits and hustle culture and all of that. So make sure you're talking to people who share your values.
If you don't have anyone in your business world already who shares your values, then think about people that you do know—maybe not personally, but parasocially on social media—that share those values and consider reaching out to them. Sending a DM and asking them about the communities they belong to. Look at their websites to see if they have a community or if they mention the communities that they're a part of. Just even asking them in a separate post, like in a reply to some of their comments, "What communities are you part of that share these values?" That is a place where you may be able to start. You can also do some searching to try and find communities that share your values, but I will tell you, I find it to be very challenging. Google thinks "feminine" or "feminist" and "woman" are synonyms, and they are not. So if you search for feminist types of communities or equity-centered communities, it can be very challenging to find things that actually are what you're looking for. You will often end up being pointed towards things that are just woman-focused or some other affinity group-focused, and those places don't necessarily share your values. There are just as many women and other affinity group spaces that are deeply rooted in capitalist norms that are not going to be what you want.
So if you do find something through research, or even if you've been given a recommendation and you're not fully sure about the person who gave it to you or the community, research them. Look at the website. Look for words that make it clear that they do share your values. Ideally, a value statement that aligns with yours. That's something that's always really important to me when I'm hiring someone or looking for a community: do they clearly express their values? Too many places don't, and that tells me if they haven't thought to put their values front and center, then they are probably not exceptionally values-led, and that may not be a good fit for me and maybe not for you either. So do your research, look and see what's already there, and then feel free to ask questions. Too often we just sign up without asking the explicit questions, like, "When you talk about women, does that include transgender women?" "What is your policy on Black Lives Matter?" "Where do you stand on Palestine?" These are questions that you can ask, and they should be willing to give you an answer.
Once you join some communities, show up in integrity. Show up representing your values. Don't change who you are or how you behave to try and fit inside of a community. As soon as you find yourself having to mask or behave differently to feel comfortable inside of a community, that's a great red flag that it is not your community. That is a warning sign. If you can't show up and be yourself, then show up in any new community saying, "I'm going to be me. I'm going to show up inside with my values intact and the way I want to show up." If that is not well received, if you feel discomfort, then that's a really good sign you may not be in the right space. But you may have to join quite a few communities to find ones that work. So you may have to test the waters and try out a bunch of different communities. This is something I've definitely done myself. A couple of years ago, I made finding community a top priority, and I joined so many because I didn't know enough to know. We don't often know even with the recommendation, even with the values on the website, all the things—you can get inside the community and say, "Oh, this is not the right space for me." There could be values alignment, but the folks in the community aren't the right fit for you, as in maybe it's values-aligned, but everyone in that community is at the very same place in business as you, and you're looking for people with more diversity of experience. There could be a host of reasons why it's not a good fit.
So plan to join a bunch. Don't pay for a full year ahead on communities when you're testing the waters. Join month to month, and if they don't allow that, that could be a problem because it may mean that they don't trust that you would stick around. So join month to month, allow yourself a couple of months, really show up to the activities—don't just join, look at the online space, and book it. Show up, go to calls, put them in your calendar, be a part of the community, be active, and again, watch for those warning signs. Look for: Is the space really meeting my values? Is this space really meeting my needs? And if the answer is yes, keep going until it isn't, or until you feel comfortable enough that you're ready to maybe pay for that full year and go all in. If it doesn't, then exit. There is no reason to stick around in a community longer than you need to know that it's not a good fit.
But I will say, even in a wrong fit community, look for right fit people. This is something that worked really well for me. In that year that I was joining lots of communities, they weren't the right fit, but I would find one other person here or one other person there who was. It was very clear like, "Oh, we both don't necessarily love this community, but we're aligned here. We're very similar. We're looking for the same thing, and we're both struggling to find it." So I would find those right fit people inside of the wrong fit communities and put them into my spreadsheet—my handy dandy spreadsheet, or you can use whatever system works for you—of contacts, of people I've met.
The last thing I want to offer is, and this is going to be hard for a lot of people, I know we're not all built this way, and so if you can't make the community, you may have to find one, and that may take longer. But I will say that for those for whom it is something that they like, that they enjoy, or they think they can excel at, you may have to build your right fit community. That has been my experience again and again and again. I have had to proactively build what I wanted to find because I couldn't find it on my own. The Feminist Podcasters Collective is a great example of that. I could not find a free—and that was important to me—diverse—and that was very important to me—space for independent podcasters who wanted to have community and help each other succeed. I couldn't find it, so I built it. And how? Because of all the people I've met along the way, I was able to reach out to so many people I already knew who were values-aligned fits, who also had podcasts and who would be interested in the same thing. Here we are nine months later and thriving, welcoming in new folks. I've done it in other ways with other communities. I've certainly done it with many masterminds. At a smaller level, I've done it where it's just finding four or five people who are values-aligned where we get together regularly to help each other in our businesses. I've done it with memberships where so many of the members inside of a paid membership community that I've run did not come from a sales page or SEO or social media, but from my one-to-one interactions with people. When I built that community and told them about it, they were ready because they knew we were values-aligned, and they knew that they were looking for something similar to what I was offering.
I've also done it though in the free sort of space as well. So there's a variety of ways that you can create community, but if you want to create communities, you need people to be inside them, and so that means a lot of networking, which you can do inside of a wrong fit community. So make sure that even if you end up in the wrong place, you're looking for the right people and keeping tabs on them, and when you're ready, when you're ready to build something, reaching out.
The thing about building your own community is I know it can be scary for a lot of people. It can feel hard, it can feel weird, you can feel like, "Would anyone want this?" But what I can tell you for sure, after having built many communities, is that there are so many other people just like you out there waiting and hoping that someone will build the space that they want because they don't want to do it themselves. They don't believe in themselves that they can, and they're waiting for someone else to invite them. I used to be that person who sat around thinking, "Why is no one inviting me to masterminds? I see all these people in masterminds, I'm not getting the invite." It took me creating the space and extending the invites to make it happen. Sometimes that's what you have to do.
Don't worry about whether people will be interested because if it's a space that you've been looking for that you can't find, I can assure you there are other people out there feeling the exact same way. If you build it—it's not so much "If you build it, they will come," but if you build it and tell them about it—they're going to want to join you, especially if you have been networking and building up a loose-knit community of folks, a community of two—you and one other person—and all of these little relationships. All you then do is become the weaver, the person who connects everyone together, and you have built a bigger and stronger community. You've done something for which people will thank you because they've been looking for it too.
The last thing I wanted to share—it's a networking tip, maybe more than community, but I think it's part of building community—is to develop a connector mindset. As you're meeting people, think about how you can connect other people. Who can you introduce people to? When you meet someone, the last thing to ask them is who they are looking to meet, and think about how you can fill that need for them. When you meet with people, ask them who they know that you should meet. These are the ways that we build up these individual relationships that, again, eventually you thread together to become the community you've been waiting for—the community you've been wanting to find—the community that all those people have been waiting for if you're willing to take that risk and build it yourself.
But again, I hope some of the other tips I've shared will help you even if you are not ready to build your own community, but just want to find one. I hope this was helpful. If you have any thoughts from this episode, I would love to hear about them. Shoot me an email at becky@beckymollenkamp.com, or you can send me a chat on Substack where you found me, and we can talk about it. I would love to chat about community. It is by far my most favorite thing.
So thank you again for listening to this series, for being a paid subscriber. I really appreciate it. We are kicking off week 3 now, and tomorrow we'll be back with Desireé B. Stephens talking about decolonizing communities. I'm talking to you today about how to find or build community, but please listen to the rest of this episode or this week because Desireé is going to talk about decolonizing communities. So, so important, especially if you hold oppressor identities like I do. Then Faith Clarke is going to talk about creating belonging inside of communities. Again, so important to think about how to have a community where people actually feel like they belong, and her advice is amazing. We’ll end the week with Jason Zook, who's part of Wandering Aimfully—that's the business coaching program that I am a member of. I'm going to share the information in the show notes if you want to learn more about it before Friday. It's an incredible community. They're actually in open enrollment right now if you're listening to this series as it comes out. If you're listening to it at some other time in the future, there's still going to be a link in the show notes where you can join the community even if it says doors are closed. I'm an affiliate for them because I love them so much, and my particular link will get you in even if the doors are closed. Jason's going to talk about values. The reason I'm such an advocate for Wandering Aimfully and its community is because he gets it—they get it—him and his wife, Caroline, who run Wandering Aimfully. They really get it when it comes to values and running a community that is values-based, values-led. So he's going to talk about that and how to do that inside of communities that you might build. Also, I think it's a good reminder, even if you're not planning to build a community, listening to that episode to better understand how you find communities that really lead with values, even if you don't join Wandering Aimfully—although I hope you will join me in there if you're a business owner who does services and is looking to create courses and other online products. But even if not, I think you can learn a lot from him and look at their website to see the kinds of things to be looking for if you want to find a community that matches your values.
So, stay tuned for the rest of the week. This is a great one. Thank you for being here, and I will be back tomorrow with Desireé B. Stephens.