How To Build An Effective Community For Your Startup

Arfah Farooq: 0:00Being like a connector and being like connecting the dots. It's almost like the results are never instant when it comes to community building. It it's it pays dividends over time, but ultimately it's like building all of that.

‍Amardeep Parmar: 0:14

How to build an effective community for your startup. We look at why it's important to build a community, what the common mistakes people make are, the five c's of community building, how to navigate where we should be paid or unpaid, and then, finally, the hacks that you can use to grow your community more effectively. To help us navigate this topic, we have our expert today, Arfah Farooq, Farooq, who's the founder of Muslimic Makers, muslim Tech Fest, muslims in VC, and so so much more. She's built many different communities, both herself and for other organizations such as Big Society Capital, and she shares so many amazing nuggets today. I'm Amar from the BAE HQ, and this podcast is powered by HSBC Innovation Banking. Arfah, great to have you today and you're doing such incredible work. If we start off with community building right, so why should startups, founders, investors even though we're thinking about this why should people care about building a community?

Arfah Farooq: 1:14

Yes, I feel like community is like the biggest life hack, especially when it comes in terms of building your network and building trust with your customers. It depends on how you see it right. If you're a founder, if you're building a community for them. A community isn't an audience. A community is when they interact with each other so they get to benefit of each other. Um, an example of that is if I talk about it from a product perspective. There was a time when I was freelancing for this like it was like a parent app for them to give away flight goods in the hacking area, was it was launching in the hacking area. That's really beneficial, right, because you're, and the way we did that was very hands-on. We literally went to london fields. We literally like speaking to parents, then we brought them in together so that they can start speaking to each other, and then it's like, oh, there's now an app and actually that building. Then that real life community then translates to like app community. But then on the flip side, there's like, obviously, like the types of community building I do is very specific to like I guess the professional workplace, so, um, muslimic makers is the Muslim in tech community.

Arfah Farooq: 2:17

The reason why I say it's the biggest networking hat. I set this up eight years ago. I am known like people know who I am, people know what I do because ultimately I built this platform where people get to connect and people think I'm extroverted but I'm not like I am the awkward turtle in a, in a network, in a networking situation.

Arfah Farooq: 2:35

But I find it really hard to actually go people and introduce myself.

Arfah Farooq: 2:38

But because people already know me or because I'm the one introducing the panel, people will come up to me.

Arfah Farooq: 2:43

So it's great like I don't have to do that hard bit because actually people already know who I am and I think like there's just so much like goodness in like just building like that platform, because being like a connector and being like connecting the dots it's almost like the results are never instant when it comes to community building. It pays dividends over time but ultimately it's like building all of that. It builds trust. I think trust is probably I would say is number one reason of like building community. Is you build that trust within, like your group, let that be your customers, let that be kind of your professional workplace, wherever it is that you're actually like building that community is that people like actually start to trust you and people start to trust other community members and then, off the back of that you actually like, build it together.

Amardeep Parmar: And I think what's interesting as well is that many people like the idea of a community, but a lot of these people have actually done it successfully and well right.

Amardeep Parmar: 3:40

So what are some of the things that you think that when people are new to community building, they often get wrong and you think that maybe you can help adjust their mindset there?

Arfah Farooq: 3:49

Yeah, specifically. So I normally talk about this from like the five c's um, which, the way I see it, it's almost like create, like. Actually, if you're looking to create, like, why are you looking to create it and what kind of community are you going to create? Because people don't realize that communities come in different types. So there's things like communities of practice, which are very specifically around kind of skill swapping, etc. So, for example, when I worked in government it was product manager. I used to run a product manager and delivery manager. That's a community of practice. It's around a profession.

Arfah Farooq: 4:16

Then you might have communities of action, which might be protests or a community of consumers. So it really you got really first of all specify what type of community you're doing, because that type of activity you're going to do is going to like differ. Then, when you're thinking about connecting, it's all about, okay, it's user personas. Is you literally got to think about your, your community member, as a user persona, like who are they, what problem are they facing, what do you need to do? And then you kind of like take it from that and then I would say, like, with collaboration, again, you've just got to again think about who you're going to collaborate with. But but the two things that I would say is like it's really important to care about your community.

Arfah Farooq: 4:57

I remember when, um, all the web3 NFT hypes came right and all of a sudden people were creating all these communities. As somebody who's a community builder, I was like looking in and being like people are just doing this to make money. People were just creating all these NFTs then creating this discord community, and I asked recently in an NFT group I'm part of, like what's happened to these communities and it was interesting because it was a learning thing as being that some NFT communities are actually doing quite well, like Manchester United for example, who created NFT for like fair, they're kind of fans but then those people that like did it for just like money and hype.

Arfah Farooq: 5:32

That like created random like monkey pictures and then whatever it was you know art things.

Amardeep Parmar: They do pivot to ai, right.

Arfah Farooq: Yeah, it is that thing like so care, I think is very important, because if you don't care about your community, you're're not going to be consistent, which is, I guess, the last C. So you really have to really care about your problem and like care about what you're solving for right and care about that community. And I think, like the biggest thing I would say is like be data driven is the last thing I would say, because I know I was never data driven. Um, so, for context, I set up Muslimic makers a Muslim in tech community eight years ago, 2016, very early London tech scene. No, not many people were doing it back then. The platforms we used to have, uh, was slack. Not everybody knew what slack was back then, so even that was a hurdle. Trying to get our members onto slack, because people just weren't even using it, apart from maybe the ones who actually were in tech rather than the ones looking to break into tech there. But we never collected data on them at that point in time. All we had was their email address, so I didn't know who they were, etc. Etc. Two, three years later, I tried to do a retrospect exercise, send them all a membership form, try and get as much information I do, but having that information is a game changer. And now to join the community you've got to fill the membership form and yes, the membership form is a bit long, but generally that's it. Like the. I wouldn't say the bar to my community is low, it's more, it's uh, it's more open, like compared to other communities I have. Like the Muslimic makers community has always been very grassroots. So, generally speaking, if you put a bit of effort in your application and you know you've filled it in, most likely you're going to be let in, because it's not just for tech people, it's for people who are looking to break into tech.

Arfah Farooq: 7:09

But a recent community I set up which is a Muslims in VC community with that one it's also a paid for community. But again, I'm not accepting everybody because you've got to work within and around the VC world, the finance world, uh, mainly more around the VC intersection of things for me to kind of accept people and you can imagine, when I set up the Muslims in VC I had loads of founders applying and of course they want access to to all these Muslims in VC. But I, it's my job now to protect that community because I've got to shield them from the founders. At some point I need to bring, bring those two worlds together, but at this point in time that's not the time for me to do that. And even if that's through a form on the website and deal for I know you guys do something similar etc, that's a better way to do it than all of a sudden. If I let the founders into the community, then my community is failed from day one. And there's this really um, there's this really um, so um. There's this kind of community kind of uh thought leader called David Spinks and he he has this quote where he basically talks about um.

Arfah Farooq: 8:10

Community ultimately starts from exclusion. So actually, if you think about actually the, you create a community because, generally speaking, you're. It's like exclusion in the sense of you might be excluded from society or or whatever, etc. It is, but that that's what allows you to create that barrier. So, in the case of my Muslims in VC community, I'm excluding the founders, because that's what I need to do to make the Muslims in VC community super strong. But the founders can go into Muslimic makers.

Arfah Farooq: 8:38

So there's a space for everybody, right, and there's so, even though if, like my community might not be right for you, even with the muslim makers community, right, it kind of excludes on on faith base, if you think about it. Right, but even within that there's layers, because slack community is muslim only but events is open to everybody and, uh, newsletter is open to everybody, right. So even within that you have to think about these layers. But you only think about this stuff if you care. And if you're going to create a community just because, oh, like you know, I know I could probably make money off this community and these people probably need a community, you're not gonna, it's not gonna go anywhere, it's not gonna thrive, to really think about the problem that you're trying to solve for and if you care enough for it, because community building it's, it's a very emotionally draining in the sense that people ask a lot from you, you know.

Amardeep Parmar: So I think you've got a few interesting points there and one of them is about exclusion.

Amardeep Parmar: 9:27

Right, and I think when people are first trying to set up the community, that initial layer of like how exclusive do I make it is really tough to decide because you see so many people trying. So, for example, there's people trying to be general founder communities, right, and, yes, founders is a sub-segment. But do those people have nothing in common with each other to have that tight bond? And if they don't, then are they going to stick around? Are they going to have that loyalty? So, let's say somebody's trying to set up a community which is related to their company. So let's say you get a lot of people. For example, they've got a fintech, they're trying to put fintech community. How wide do you go with that? Like, how would you go about starting this? First steps for a new community? How do you think about who to exclude and who to include?

Arfah Farooq: 10:14

Yeah.

Arfah Farooq: 10:15

So I'd say really, so really it's. Again it comes down to there's got to be alignment, right. So again, like, if you're creating, like I don don't know, a fintech founders community, that in itself is great because you're already nailing in, right, it's very specific to the fact of you're a founder, but you're in the fintech space, great. Okay, now is it general? Is it anyone from any stage? Could you be MVP? Could you be pre-idea to, could you be Series A? Or actually do you need to nail in further and be like this is a fintech founders community for people who are kind of very early stage, great, early stage, boom. Okay, now it's even more specific because actually all those people are on a very similar journey. So actually they're more likely now to bounce off each other, right?

Arfah Farooq: 10:59

Um, that's not to say that those people can't learn from series a people and, like I said, those people can be brought into the community at specific times. Let that be an event, let that be, etc. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're the. They're the people that need to be inside the community in terms of the chat or whatever it is, etc. And again, those people are probably too busy anyways for the community, right? So again, you've got to be very kind of specific. So it's like okay, cool, now you've kind of not kind of kind of really specifically nailed down that on that. Okay, is there another subset, or maybe it's a shariah compliant fintech community or something like that? Great, okay, now it's another layer in the in the sense of okay, actually, are you, are you working the fintech space and you're trying to make your product shariah compliant? Great, that's another layer, right. So it's again, it's just really kind of really nailing in and I always say right, start.

Arfah Farooq: 11:49

So, even though what I'm saying I'm going to now contradict myself, I say start a community selfishly, because what's the benefit to you? Because if the benefit, if you, if you're going to benefit from it, you're more likely to stick at it. So, yes, community work is selfless, but actually it has to start selfishly, and if it starts selfishly, you're more likely to stick at it. So, yes, community work is selfless, but actually it has to start selfishly, and if it starts selfishly, you're more likely to stick at it, which then leads to the selflessness, if that makes sense. Um, so that's kind of how I often, often see anyone yeah, like. So when people come to me, it's like. But why like? Why? Why should this thing exist and why should you be the person to do it and why do you want to do it? And if it's a simple answer of yeah, I just think I can monetize this thing and I can do it. It's just it's not gonna work. It's not good.

Amardeep Parmar: 12:36

People are gonna see through that, like people are gonna see through that. We hope you're enjoying the episode so far. We just want to give a quick shout out to our headline partners, HSBC Innovation Banking. One of the biggest challenges for so many startups is finding the right bank to support them, because you might start off and try to use a traditional bank, but they don't understand what you're doing. You're just talking to an AI assistant or you're talking to somebody who doesn't really understand what it is you've been trying to do. HSBC have got the team they've built out over years to make sure they understand what you're doing. They've got a deep sector expertise and they can help connect you with the right people to make your dreams come true. So if you want to learn more, check out hsbcinnovationbanking. com. And how does the sustainability of this differ when looking at paid versus free model as well?

Arfah Farooq: 13:19

When I looked to start the Muslims in VC community, which I only started out it was probably like towards the end of last year and that came out of a lot of the stuff that was happening in Palestine I had a lot of people uh working reaching out to me because I was quite outspoken on my LinkedIn. I was working in the VC sector. I had a lot of other Muslims working VC reaching out to me saying, first of all, thank you, etc. etc. I can't speak out because xyz reason and that made me realize, oh, wait a minute, why can't I bring all these people together and actually like connect them to dot now? I could have done that for free, but I learned my lesson through muslamic makers because I was a bit like, okay, wait a minute. No, I, I know like how hard it is then to go from a free community. Then try and like like to make it sustainable. So I need to build this sustainably from the start and I literally set up like a air table one page website and literally built it over the weekend, launched it and basically said I need like 10 or 10, 10 or 15 people to pay me 30 pounds, just 30 pounds. I was like set up my stripe link. I'm like uh, you know, obviously I vetted them first before I sent them my stripe link. Within, like after one day, I did one post. I've only done two posts and I think I had about 100 applications, so I haven't even done much from it. From that I obviously found the vetted people and now I've got a community of these 50 people who, in a sense, believed in me. Now I can actually double down on that community because now I'm like right, these are 50 people. They've paid me an initial fee. Obviously, now it's going to turn into a monthly subscription, it's going to go slightly higher, whatever, etc. It is.

Arfah Farooq: 14:50

But this proved to me one, that there was a space for it. Two, there was a need people cared enough to actually pay me for it. And when I was initially approached by other people who said, oh, but we have a whatsapp group for other Muslims in VC and that's not paid, I was like well, you're paying me for my expertise. And then that was the moment they're like okay, yeah, fair enough. Like you know what you're doing with community building, just because I happen to work in the industry again, like our community building is, again I say I would say it's often undervalued skill set as well, like there's so much to it and because I think my experience is I've been on the intersection of a lot of like a lot of different types of community builds. Like I said, I've done it in government, I did it in the NHS, I did it in the VC space, I've done it myself. I can almost bring all of that stuff together, um, which kind of makes me quite the unique person to run a Muslims in VC community, because I've been a scout for VC fund and angel and all that type of stuff. So all of a sudden I am the best, best for it, because I have this domain knowledge, maybe not as deep as an investor, but good enough right to then run the community. Um, and I think all of those things kind of combined is kind of like why you got to do it and you've just also got to balance it out like, is it a free community if they're not free?

Arfah Farooq: 16:02

Community mosaic makers was free from day one. A lot of our events always have been free. Um, that was always the premise of it. We have this like hospitality rule of always providing food, because muslim hospitality but that means my events are like I've always got a count for pizza which is like 200 300 pounds, then I'm like, okay, but if I'm not charging my people for it, how do I do that? Then I'm like trying to find a sponsor. Literally yesterday we launched a supporters club, again not trying to create a two-tier community within Muslamic makers, but actually recognizing the fact that we've been running for eight years and within those eight years there's probably a subset who can actually support us for five pounds a month. And if from that, only 200 people converted, that will cover an admin person or that will cover my subscription cost or whatever it is. And actually being okay with that, you know, because community is also expensive, um, and you've got to just get that balance of like a free community where it's a paid community. And again, your reasonings behind it. And why? Because the Muslims in VC community.

Arfah Farooq: 16:59

I purposely made that decision, because I know what I'm like. I throw myself into things, but I needed that motivation to almost like, be like, actually make me do it, rather than like I start this thing and then I'm like, yeah, but I just did it for free and it just thingy. Now I feel like I owe it. They're my customers at the end of the day, right, I owe it to them and you know, they know I've been busy over the last three months and I recently set a survey to them and I said, great guys, I'm freelance now. Like wait, and you know, I've had nice messages. I had this guy in Australia message me and be like, oh, thank you so much. I've like met all these amazing people and I'm like I haven't even gotten started. Like wait till I get started. Like literally all I've done right now is just create a space for you guys and we've had maybe one or two calls. I haven't done anything. You know, and you're already benefiting from this community. Like wait until I actually start putting a roadmap in place or events or these very purposeful things. That's when it's going to get really exciting and that's the stuff that, like really lights me up. But yeah, I think that's just kind of one of the things you've just got to really consider is your why and, like I said, the care side of things. And then, if you are making that decision of making it either paid community or free community. Again like figuring out, how you're going to run it, the logistics of it, how you're going to fund it, all those things do element it. That shouldn't be the reason. By the way, like not to start, because community starts with two.

Arfah Farooq: 18:17

Muslamic maker started with me and my original co-founder. He stepped away after two years but he approached me on twitter saying, hey, I've got this idea. Funny enough, I had the same idea. I thought it would be five people in the coffee shop and that's communities, you know gone on to be like three thousand or so strong on slack and more on our newsletter and whatnot, 10 000 across our social media and whatnot. So it's kind of one of those things where, if me and him just you know, you just got to do it. Sometimes you also just got to test the idea. Right, we did it. 50 people came to our event, great, we were onto something from that. We built our first initial team and we've had different cycles of volunteers and all sorts of things, but you just just got to do it, like as well. So it's a real balancing act of like just doing it but considering all the other implications of it, figuring out your why and then how all of that kind of comes together.

Amardeep Parmar: 19:03

You mentioned a few different interesting things there and one point I want to drill into a bit more is you mentioned about you being the right person to build the Muslims in VC community, and people listening right now are thinking how do I know I'm the right person to build the Muslims in VC community? And people listening right now might be thinking how do I know the right, I'm the right person to build the community that they're trying to build. So what are the key skills that a good community builder needs?

Arfah Farooq: 19:20

So the first thing I would say is, like build the community for you.

Arfah Farooq: 19:24

Like if, if that community for you doesn't exist, what's the community that you need, right? So if you are I don't know a ethnic minority product manager and there's no ethnic minority product manager, communities, build the community for you is number one, right? That doesn't necessarily mean you've got to be an expert in community building, because I do think it's a skill you can learn, but I think you've got to get comfortable with it. So I think the other skill sets are, generally speaking, it's kind of being brave enough to kind of reach out to you know venues or people, um, and, as I say, community starts with two. So build the community for you, yes, but find somebody to bounce off um which which I think is really important or at least validate it right, with at least five people. Or, like I validated the Muslims in VC community by having 30 people that you know said yeah, cool, we'll do this, I'll pay you um. So validate. I think validating it's really important. Even if you're like a single founder building a community, that's okay, but at some point you need to build out a community committee, which is something I'm doing now with Muslims in VC, where I'm going to take, you know, five, six of my members as people I can bounce off as somebody who's running the community, but I still need people to bounce off, so that's a thing as well.

Arfah Farooq: 20:37

Like, finding good people is another skill set. I would say is is really, really important. Um, getting out there, being brave, um, like you know, speaking to people, um, and then all the other stuff, things like events facilitation, panel hosts it just comes with practice. I would never let that be the reason why you don't start a community, because it's just stuff you just learned. Right, you know, your first time might, if you're not comfortable public speaking, your first time might be a bit ums and ahs and stuff, but you'll get comfortable with time.

Arfah Farooq: 21:08

That should never be the reason. But what I would just say is build the community for you, and if you build that community for you, and if you build that community for you, then you are the right person to do it. If that community isn't for you, um, then unless, of course, like you're building it as a job, which I've done as well, which doesn't necessarily mean those communities I was building was technically for me, but if you're like building it as for yourself and not as a job, then, yeah, it has to be for you.

Amardeep Parmar:

And then, before we get to quick fire questions, what are some of the things that you just think are really key drivers in what's made your community so successful that maybe people should be thinking about trying to replicate themselves?

Arfah Farooq: 21:42

Yeah, sure, so um I. One of the things I've kind of recently realized um is um be process driven. I'm not the best process driven person I live in my head a lot, but it's something that I'm definitely working on. Um. So we have chapters for Muslamic makers, which means we have community members all around the world in America, Canada, Dubai, around the UK that literally run their own Muslamic makers meetups. I've given them rough guidance. I know I can do better so actually one of the things I'm working on is a playbook um for them, but also a generic playbook for community that I feel like actually a lot of people could probably benefit from my knowledge in terms of standardization.

Arfah Farooq: 22:18

Think about processes, like I said, membership forms. You know, automation, those kind of boring things actually will make a massive difference and if you build them, they will be key. I remember when I started my last job um, the day I started was the day that community went public and there was some things that like um, you know, there wasn't data validation on countries, and then I had to go retrospect and like do all of that stuff so that actually we can build that data in. But if you just like do those basic little things. It would just make it so much more easier. So I would say those are definitely the things I would just think about.

Arfah Farooq: 22:57

Definitely think about processes, think about the data and build that stuff right from the start, Standardization, whatever it is and just build a good team. A team is very, very important in this and if you have good people around you or there's initial people that you know, the first bunch of people that come to your event are probably you're going to find your team members from that first event, because they're the people who really believe in this community that turned up and from there you can start building your initial team and whatnot awesome.

Amardeep Parmar: 23:25

So we're gonna have to jump to quick five questions now. So first one and this might be hard for you is who are three British Asians you think are doing incredible work and you love to shout them out?

Arfah Farooq: 23:35

Yes. So I would say, um, there's Salma Hussain. Uh, she's a consultant at Deloitte. Um, and again you might be like, what's a consultant at Deloitte got to do with this? Right? Actually, these people like she's one of our top volunteers, she helps out with Muslamic makers, tech first, etc. And she's just like so on it. And I feel like often these type of people often get undervalued because they might not have like the founder title. So, like massive shout out to Salma, like I lean on her for like so much and just really really appreciate the way she does. And it's not just for us. She does a lot of work for other muslim networks, um, in kind of different organizations, in her own organizations, other organizations, other networks, other communities. She's just like one of those like top volunteers and so she's pretty incredible, um.

Arfah Farooq: 24:19

The second one I would say is Zahid Mahmood, who is my business partner and co-founder for Muslim Tech Fest, which is the Muslim Tech Fest. So we're putting on together again. We balance each other really well. He's very, um, business savvy. I'm very community. He's very business savvy, asks all the hard questions, and that's why we make like a really good partnership. Um, and also he was one of the people that actually led the balsamic makers London chapter when I was off having a baby and stuff like that, and just really kind of carried it forward. Um, so shout out to Zahid. And he also has a startup called Co-helm which is in the health tech ai space.

Arfah Farooq: 24:52

Um, and the third one I would say is Hena hussein. Um, again, this is a 'OG' muslamic makers community member. Um, she runs her own kind of PR saas um company. Um, and, again, just one of those people that you can just kind of lean on. Um, again, recently asked her for some help on a press release and she's just happily just do it. Um, and I just feel like, yeah, all these people just do such incredible work in their own ways. Um, so, yeah, massive shout out to all three of them awesome.

Amardeep Parmar: 25:21

And then is there any way? How can people get in touch with you, find out more about muslimic makers? Where should they go to?

Arfah Farooq: 25:27

So, um, you can easily find me on Linkedin as Arfah farooq. Um, if you're interested in Muslamic makers, muslamic makers. com or Muslamic makers across social media and then muslim tech fest is muslimtechfest. com, or again, muslim tech fest on social media. Muslim tech fest is on the 1st of june. So if anyone is interested in coming um, your agenda and tickets and stuff are live on that and, generally speaking, if anyone's interested in like community building and consultancy or advisory around that, then again you could just find me Arfah Farooq. Anyway, I have great google seo, which is one of the reasons I didn't change my surname after marriage.


Amardeep Parmar:

And then, is there any way that people can help you, that you need help at the moment?

Arfah Farooq: 26:04

I think for me, um, yeah, if anybody's ever so, I've just literally took the leap and gone freelance, um, which is a big step to do, considering I've been doing all of this stuff side side of desk for ages, um, as I navigate that world. If anyone is after um kind of a speaker, somebody to run workshops or anything like that in my areas of expertise, which is around community building, diversity, faith, inclusion work, etc. Then please do reach out to me about that. I'll be really interested in exploring those kind of opportunities or even just anything related to like event building and advisory work around that.

Amardeep Parmar: 26:36

Awesome, so thank you so much for coming on today. Have you got any final words?

Arfah Farooq: 26:41

Yeah, I would just say well, the last words I would really say is just, if you think you're building a community and you really care for it, and you think it exists and you think it'll benefit, you just do it.

Amardeep Parmar: 26:52

Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time.

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