After running a digital agency for ten years, Laurence and his co-founder have devoted themselves to realizing their vision for The Happy Startup School, creating experiences, programs, and an accidental community of like-minded people.
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Laurence shares that his experience when starting the Happy Startup School is about asking, What if we could put purpose before profit? He believes that money is at the heart of the work, but he’s working to push the boundaries of the work and how it develops around purpose.
7:42
Challenges with coaching and working as a consultant when clients are only sometimes welcoming to exploration around development. The approach he and Carlos shifted to was more focused on validation. Laurence mentioned that it constantly iterated work with creatives and entrepreneurs.
12:50
The “community strategy” of the Happy Startup School wasn’t how Laurence describes launching the community; it’s more of a “faith” as he shares that he’s gotten more feedback and the depth of response to this project was more than he’d gotten from any other projects he’d done in the past.
16:36
The Happy Startup School started with in-person Meetups and led to members asking how they could keep in touch between gatherings.
20:01
The first summer camp they held in 2013 was just a day to connect in a park in London, and then it grew to a Facebook group with 500 members who were past camp attendees. The following year, after a 3-day, in-person event, the Happy Startup School went full swing. They have built a successful medium blog that they’ve been able to make an audience for online.
23:23
Making an email list was one of the fundamental elements we used to increase from a few hundred to a few thousand. The blog had more than 120K followers and was active with responses at one point, but since changes in the algorithm, we’ve not been able to reach as many people, Laurence says.
25:02
Choosing a platform in the online world is challenging, and they found that Mighty Networks brought everything together online and in person. Laurence says building the community online was difficult as they didn’t know about the community platforms, and not as many options were available when they launched a few years ago. The challenge is that the tech doesn’t always speak to each other.
35:50
The Summer Camp in 2022 was held last month, and Laurence said that the experience of connecting again in person was refreshing. He says that he capped the event to limit it to 150 people because growing more significant than that creates challenges to connecting and offering a sense of community. He said that the talks during the camp were community members, some of whom joined in the very beginning, and it’s fantastic to see the members’ transformations.
Chris Fitz is the Founder and Artistic Director of River Crossing Playback Theatre in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. With experience in improvisational arts since 2003, Chris and his ensemble use Playback Theatre to build community by dramatically portraying real-life stories.
He is also a trained mediator and former Executive Director of the Center for Community Peacemaking, specializing in Restorative Justice—community-based practices that address harm and promote healing in schools, communities, and the legal system.
Chris sees Playback Theatre as a tool for personal and social healing, emphasizing the power of storytelling to foster connection, belonging, and understanding. Through performances like ”Healing York,” his troupe has addressed issues like racial harm, showing how storytelling can help heal communities.
Chris believes in the importance of repeated dialogue and rituals to foster belonging, whether in-person or online, and offers advice to community builders on engaging participants without relying too heavily on presentations.
His focus remains on creating safe spaces for people to connect, share their stories, and address community challenges through both art and conversation.
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The Community Strategy Podcast offers interviews with online community leaders who share their community-building journey. Our podcast covers community concepts, community building, community strategy, community structure, community membership, and community management. Visit our Website Find Calm Here to learn more about working with Deb
