If You Don’t Have a Community, You Don’t Have Leverage

Let’s stop pretending.

If you’re an entrepreneur and you don’t have a community around your brand, you don’t have leverage—you have content and hope.

Followers aren’t community.

Subscribers aren’t community.

Impressions definitely aren’t community.

A community is a place where people gather, speak, return, and participate. Most entrepreneurs don’t have that—not because they don’t need it, but because they never learned how to build one.

So they avoid it.

What Real Community Economics Look Like

I’m currently inside an AI filmmaking community on Skool that operates at real scale.

At the lowest level alone, it has 9,000+ members paying a monthly fee. That didn’t happen because the content is magical. It happened because the structure works.

Inside that community:

• You learn how to create AI films

• You learn how to turn those films into ads

• You learn how to run ads that convert new members back into the

Students aren’t just consumers. They’re part of the growth engine.

When someone runs ads that convert:

• They earn 50% of the $5/month entry tier

• They earn 50% of the $97/month premium tier

• Learn → Create → Advertise → Convert → Earn.

To be clear: this is not my community.

I’m inside it to learn how systems actually scale.

The Part I Got Wrong

I also have an AI filmmaking community on X.

It exists.

It has about 50 members.

And it’s dead.

Not because the idea was wrong—but because I didn’t show up consistently and hold the room.

A space doesn’t become a community because you created it.

It becomes one because you host it.

Why Audio Exposes You (And That’s Why It Works)

Audio is still the fastest way to build trust.

You can’t hide.

People hear your confidence—or your insecurity.

Your experience—or your theory.

Your truth—or your performance.

That’s why audio spaces convert faster than posts. That’s why Zoom closes deals faster than email. That’s why real communities form in conversation, not comment sections.

The Avoidance Pattern

Most entrepreneurs hide behind content because content doesn’t talk back.

Communities do.

Communities require presence. Consistency. Leadership.

Audiences consume.

Communities compound.

What I’m Doing About It

This year, my focus is non-negotiable:

• Athletic Entrepreneur Newsletter
  Owned attention. Monetized attention. Built in public.

• My own Skool community
  New. Empty. Not monetized. Starting from zero—on purpose.

I’m applying everything I’m learning to something I own.

Read This Carefully

If you’re an entrepreneur without a community, the problem isn’t the platform.

It’s not the algorithm.

It’s not your niche.

It’s that you haven’t stepped into the role of host.

Communities don’t appear.

They’re built—room by room, conversation by conversation.

Until then, you’re renting attention instead of owning leverage.

Your move.

CTA

If this hit and you know you need to build a community around your brand:

• Replies are open.

• DMs are open.

• If you want help, perspective, or a starting point—contact me.

No pitch. No funnel.

Just conversation.