Welcome to the LikeMinds Community Deep Dive series, where we speak to an exciting community marketing leader in each episode and get to know what makes them tick! 

In this episode, we sat down with Jared Robin, CEO and co-founder of RevGenius, the world's largest community of revenue operations professionals. RevGenius is a community of 40k+ GTM professionals who learn, share, and support each other. Jared started RevGenius after a series of layoffs in his 30s, peaking with the COVID times that left him feeling disenfranchised.

Jared resonated strongly with the sales persona, the early-stage leader. He started networking actively on LinkedIn, and his DM group slowly grew. While Jared initially wanted to use the group to look for a job, recruiters eventually told him to do the community work full-time. 

Jared's 15 years of experience as a sales professional shows in his calm and solid demeanor. Even though "work never shuts off," he loves spending time with his girlfriend, family, and dog (Stevie Nicks). He works out regularly at the gym. He enjoys watching movies, especially horror and thriller.

Navigating the Shift: Jared's Path from Sales to Community Founding

We explored Jared's story sequentially - how did he grow from a sales professional and leader to someone running a community that's now a full-blown venture How did his early stints as a sales rep and then in the RevOps space help him as a community builder and a founder?

The answer was as unique as his journey itself - "nothing from work helped me become a better community leader. Everything I did out of work did."

Jared credits everything he pursued outside of work to influencing his leadership. When he worked on launching a magazine, he ended up hosting bustling parties in NYC. He also won fashion film festivals; he was a member of Soho House, engaged in various communities, and connected with creatives. 

These communities gave him refuge from work. He even avoided the awkward office happy hours. In his previous roles, the company culture needed a genuine sense of community. Even when there was camaraderie, it was overshadowed by bureaucratic fears and workplace anxieties. Performance metrics tainted interpersonal dynamics.

Jared wanted a space away from it all. His ventures beyond SaaS gave him a unique perspective, and he uses it to connect with folks sincerely.

Having built that space for himself, Jared had entered his 30s - "I dealt with quite a bit of turmoil and difficulties. I was successful in my 20s. But, in my 30s, I got laid off or fired thrice, I believe. And I became pretty disenfranchised. During COVID, I found myself without a job as well".

While RevGenius began as a way for Jared to get a new job, he found a niche of like-minded sales professionals who wanted a space for genuine growth and connection. He saw how these connections could turn it into a business as the community grew.

Now that it's three years old, Jared is less into the community part than before. His schedule necessarily has a lot more sales in it. He keeps a close eye on maintaining the balance of value generation.‍

Studying How SaaS Did Successful GTMs Through Community

Jared's work makes him uniquely placed to see how community and GTM can work together. But why should anyone opt for community as a part of GTM?

The catalyst for choosing to build any community should be Identifying a profound gap. In Jared's view, communities should only emerge when a palpable challenge needs solving—a void people seek to fill. When he saw that his feelings of disenchantment were widespread during COVID times, there was no space for everybody - sales and marketing RevOps, individual contributors, and senior leaders that weren't charging. 

A newsletter might deliver information, but only community interactions contain the warmth of a virtual hug, support, and camaraderie. Jared recognized another significant challenge within the community space—an absence of inclusivity. He's happy to have helped bridge that gap a little.

Jared's journey is another example of a great community-based GTM strategy in the world of SaaS. We discussed a few case studies to understand the philosophy of community as a go-to-market channel.

Case Studies Of Community as a GTM Channel

Outreach Acquiring Sales Hacker

Outreach always had an organically built community, with in-person meetups and similar engagements. Following the acquisition, however, a movement unfolded, leading to the emergence of the sales engagement category and its evangelists. They and SalesLoft, together, catalyzed a trend that reshaped outbound emailing and cadence.

Dan Cmejla's Platform-Agnosticism

Jared admires Dan Cmejla's journey from Chili Piper to Apollo. His approach to community building sets him apart—he doesn't tether it to a specific platform. Many associate communities with digital spaces like Slack or Discord, but these are just digital residences. 

"They're tools communities use, but they're not communities. Communities are made of

the people. And people could go anywhere. And Dan uses this phrase, and I love quoting that community transcends platform (it should go on a tee)." 

Dan fostered a sense of community, balancing a social-heavy strategy and engaging with his evangelists, ambassadors, and advisors. He has since then rallied the community around Apollo.

Lavender and Beehive

Lavender excels in community building, orchestrating movements through impactful events. Their events generate a lot of buzz. Equally intriguing is the emerging community around Beehive, a newsletter platform. Their approach on Twitter shows a hands-off facilitation that lets the community evolve organically.

Checklist For Building Communities That Last

We asked Jared if he has list of do’s and don’ts for people starting out with community building and here is what he had to say:

What Not To Do

Some community activities that violate trust include premature sales pitches. It's unethical to sell for the sake of selling and try to sell people things before addressing their actual needs. Misusing email lists and similar tactics can sound the death knell for a community.

‍What To Do 

There are a few critical considerations for a company or person starting a community to deliberate even before taking the first steps. The first is to look honestly at why you need a community.

Suppose your answer is to make money or help people; that goes without saying. Therefore, you have to identify what major problem your product is solving since people don't look for brands but solutions. 

Second, once you understand the challenge you're addressing, find the simplest, most effective way to bring people together. To start a community, you don't necessarily need a designated space like Slack. Think "minimum viable community." Assess if there's a need for a distinct platform or if people can assemble on existing social platforms or through tools like Zoom. 

After your community team is in place, having the community leader report to the right stakeholder matters. Ideally, everyone would have a team for growth encompassing the community. When you don't have a growth team, the next option could be marketing or customer success. 

‍"It all depends on your goals and what you need the community to do. I'm a fan of starting with the customers you already have and then going to the new ones and creating growth loops around that."

Trends to Watch out for

Jared intends to set a few trends himself. He anticipates that more creators and influencers will become core elements of a community. Acknowledging their presence in your community is crucial—they're now your consumers, possibly recommending and implementing your products.

Another notable trend is the rise of fractionals — individuals working a fraction of the time with multiple clients, offering flexibility for hiring and collaboration. Embracing them could lead to valuable partnerships, especially considering their potential influence within the community. Jared prefers to call them collaborators rather than creators or influencers.

Third, Jared thinks evangelism and near bounds will grow. Everyone is aware of the importance of partnerships. As more people engage in endeavors beyond their primary jobs, pursuing solopreneurship or side hustles to make more money, they are integral to community ecosystems. 

‍"They want to help rally others to come in. People are looking up to these folks to become like them. It's like the AE today wants to be the creator or side hustler tomorrow to make more money. So understanding that puts you ahead of the curve". 

The next trend involves challenging the notion of communities as irreplaceable. With thousands of MarTech companies boasting communities, you must recognize that members have numerous options. To retain your members, collaboration must align with their personal goals.

 Whether aiding in career progression, securing a new opportunity, supporting a side hustle, or contributing to financial growth, understanding and facilitating members' aspirations leads to collaborative development. This concept is more than a rebrand—it's a shift in perspective. 

Communities aren't just transactional entities. Old-school communities thrived on belonging, a concept difficult to translate into a transactional environment. In the B2B landscape, where individuals have multiple options to belong, it's about how you genuinely help them. This is a key reason why we often drop out of communities that feel like noise with no value.

‍Signing Off with RevGenius

I checked out RevGenius and shared my thoughts on Jared's venture with him. I've been diving into introductions, identifying individuals from my home ground, India, and aligning with my current work focus. He revealed that India is an important market for them. 

What I liked and I believe others can expect upon joining as well is a warm welcome and overall positive responses. RevGenius is truly focused on keeping an eye out for misuse, and its primary goal has been assisting individuals in securing jobs and facilitating learning experiences.

They've helped companies leverage the community for demand generation and, more crucially, trust-building within the community.

We hope to catch up with Jared again and hear more insights and learnings as he grows his ventures and projects.

About LikeMinds

LikeMinds elevates businesses in unlocking the true potential of their users through their in-app community and social network. Using LikeMinds, businesses achieve higher conversion and retention, by building custom community experiences in their existing platform unlocking community-led growth.

With LikeMinds, businesses get an easy-to-implement and highly scalable infrastructure with a fully customizable UI. All of this with a customization time of 3 days and a deployment time of 15 minutes.

Our Chat and Feed infra have pre-built widgets such as image carousels, PDF slides, short videos, polls, quizzes, events, forms, and more for user engagement and retention along with moderation capabilities to ensure frictionless community operations.