Let me tell you how I accidentally built my first real community — long before Slack channels or business cards.
When I first moved to New York, I had no visa, no credit history, and not a single person to call.
What I did have was a bike.
At 5 a.m. in Central Park, I found a crew of diehards who showed up rain or shine. Olympic athletes. Wall Street tycoons. And the “men of the park” — guys who weren’t chasing titles, just logging miles with religious devotion.
We weren’t trading business cards. We were sweating side by side.
It was the original LinkedIn — only with helmets and rain gear.
That cycling crew became my first real community in the city.
We logged miles in the dark, celebrated wins, grieved losses, and yes — occasionally dragged abandoned furniture up six flights of stairs for each other.
It was raw, informal, and completely priceless. No one paid dues. No one needed a Slack channel or an app. What bonded us wasn’t money. It was contribution.
And that’s what most people miss when they talk about “community.”
A subscription isn’t community. A fancy club membership isn’t community.
Community is built through showing up and giving something of yourself.
Playbook Moves
- Membership ≠ Belonging
- Just because someone pays doesn’t mean they’ll show up.
- Ask instead: what forces people to actually lean in?
- Bake in contribution
- The stickiest communities don’t hand out access — they hand out roles. Even small ones.
- (Think: cooking the dinner vs. being served.)
- Design for sweat equity
- The bonds worth keeping are forged in doing, not schmoozing.
- That’s why a rainy ride at 5 a.m. creates more loyalty than a thousand cocktail hours.
(In this week’s video, I break down how brands are engineering this right now)
The Unspoken Layer
Money opens doors. But it won’t drag a couch up six flights with you in the rain.
So the next time you think about “building community,” don’t add a price tag. Add a way for people to show up for each other.
That’s where the magic happens.
PS — Still amazed how shakily showing up on a bike at 5am in the rain became the most important network I ever joined.
Adds warmth. Adds depth. Adds you.
See you next week,
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