5 Keys To Building a Thriving Community-First Business from the Founder of Ethel's Club
Ethel's Club offers a masterclass in creating a community-first business. Here are 5 key takeaways.
Naj Austin is the founder and CEO of Ethel’s Club, the New York-based social and wellness club designed expressly for people of color. The way Naj and her team are building Ethel's Club, and its digital counterpart, Care for Your Homies (which they launched exactly one day after the club's coronavirus-related closure in March), offers a ton of takeaways for anyone trying to build a community of any kind. That in mind, here are five.
Want to go deeper? Check out our full 52-minute conversation here.
1. Others may be playing in your space, but if you offer something differentiated, you'll probably find an audience
“For me as a black woman, identity is so much of my life—it's almost everything," said Naj. While companies like Peloton and SoulCycle marketed themselves as movements that give people a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves, "neither of these businesses prioritized identity." Naj saw this as a major omission—and an opportunity to create a business that did. Now, she and her team think about identity “every single moment we do anything.”
2. Test the waters before you launch to determine whether there's a potential community that genuinely needs what you're offering
Before there was an IRL Ethel’s Club, Naj created an @ethelsclub Instagram account, which vaguely referenced a social and wellness club "designed with people of color in mind." Naj figured people would love it or hate it, and if they hated it, she could "just delete it.” But when 600 people signed up in one week to learn more, it was immediately clear she was onto something. When the clubhouse opened seven months later, approximately 75 percent of the first set of paying members came from that first batch of sign-ups.
3. Focus, focus, focus on your target audience
Being laser-focused on speaking to a specific audience enables you to focus in other areas, too, which can come in really handy if you have to pivot and adapt in a crisis. On March 12, when Naj was forced to shutter the New York clubhouse indefinitely due to Covid-19, she and her team knew immediately what key elements had to be preserved in the club's virtual version: daily structure and opportunities to connect with the community. To that end, the digital version of the club, built on Mighty Networks, offers members three types of programming daily, as well as several vehicles through which to connect with other members, both structured (book clubs, TV discussion groups, therapy groups) and non-structured (direct messaging). Initially, existing members could join for free, which allowed the team to solicit their feedback before opening up the online membership to all. Soon, people started joining from places as far afield as Oakland, Seattle and Portland—a turn of events Naj said never would have happened so quickly had she and her team not been forced to reinvent the club online.
4. Create channels that allow you to listen to your community, then keep listening
From the start, what most excited the Ethel's Club community was that it would be "built with their needs in mind," said Naj—a fact she has not lost sight of, even when it has meant pushing back on pressure from her investors, who include a mix of VC funds and angel investors like Roxane Gay. “We’re building a product for [our community], so they are the people we listen to,” she said. “I consider them more important than our investors.”
5. Consistently communicate your larger vision (even if you’re not necessarily there yet)
For Naj, the physical clubhouse is just one manifestation of her vision. She wants people of color to feel centered and celebrated throughout their daily lives, from the moment they wake up in the morning to the moment they go to sleep, so she and her team are constantly imagining products, services and events to build that vision. She considers Disney her North Star in terms of the brand’s limitless possibilities.
Once again, here's the link to our conversation if you want to check it out. (Note that due to an unfortunate Zoom snafu, the recording of the episode did not capture Naj's video, so you'll see a headshot of where her video should be. Apologies: I am not a Zoom master--yet!)