How to Grow a Community with an Event Series

I’ve learned a few things in my journey and wanted to share the formula. Llama Lounge 10 attracted 300 attendees, which comprised of about 200 AI Founders, You can subscribe to the Llama Lounge Event Cal to be notified of future events.

1. Get in Front of a Parade: I could see the GenAI parade coming, so I started an event series exactly a year ago. Many people are so focused on their current roles that they can't see the megatrends coming fast and furious down the street.

2. Events Have Product-Market Fit, watch carefully At my first event, I witnessed founders open laptops and start to demo. So, for future events, I created a submission form, and it's grown. Over 450 companies have applied to demo.

3. Distinctive Name: Choose a memorable, unique name like "Llama Lounge" for its catchy alliteration and memorability. I observed that many events (there’s over 100 AI events per month in SF bay) in this market had similar-sounding names—it was important to stand apart verbally and in written form.

4. Professional Logo Design: Partner with professional design agencies for distinctive logos once your business plan shows promise. For example, I collaborated with Sightbox agency when generic AI-generated logos didn’t suffice.

5. Find Your Perfect Partners: For me, I partner with hosts; in the photo, we were hosted by HanaHaus, owned by SAP, and our gracious host, Collin Sommerhauser, who supports AI enterprise startups.

6. Create a Bandwagon Effect: I publicly list (see event page) which VC firms and corporations that purchase AI tech are attending to attract a broad ecosystem and create a bandwagon effect.

7. Bolster the Network Effects: Ensure a right market mixture of AI founders, investors, enterprise AI leaders, and influencers to create a powerful network effect. This means each new attendee adds more value to the collective.

8. Have an Online Community to Enable Constant Connection: We have a Slack channel, which has 1,500 AI builders and funders learning from each other, and it's rapidly growing.

9. Create a Tradition that no one will forget. To signal that opening remarks are about to start for a busy crowd, I play a conch shell (video) at the start of the event, which is loud, obnoxious, and unforgettable. I have an advantage as a former trombone player—so I transferred that over, hilarious and ridiculous, I know, and I own it.

10. Make Everyone Feel Welcome: Celebrate the diversity of origins and ideas at your events, noting that many tech workers in Silicon Valley are not native to the area, which enriches the community. On the mic, I asked each region to shout out which continent they are from; while North America was dominant, Europe was a close second.

So how does this create a community? Overtime we have hosted repeat attendees, an online discussion on slack, chatter on social networks, and when people see each at other events they have a common starting point. One sign of a healthy community is that the members invite others, resulting in organic growth —which we’ve experienced.

Community isn’t new to me, one of my first roles was a full time community manager at a large tech company as web2 was taking off, I also created the Community Manager Appreciation Day (mentioned in Wikipedia), an annual event recognizing such roles.

Regardless of what role you have now, the savvy leaders understands that community is synonymous with customer and should be a strategic part of your company —not relegated as a support function only.

Additional photos from Llama Lounge 10 below, also read my blog post.

A Cybertruck pulled up, which is in front of the original Apple Store where Steve Jobs launched the iPhone 1, this was a historic moment on a historic intersection.

I kicked off the opening remarks: finding out that many founders are from Europe, Asia, and beyond. Silicon Valley is a place that welcomes all backgrounds and ideas.

Above: Ten AI Founders Demo to hundreds of AI leaders, founders, VCs, and corporate buyers

Collin Sommerhauser head of Hanahaus and SAP leader gives a warm welcome to all attendees.

Demo stations from Ten Enterprise AI Founders

The Ten Founders are Backstage preparing to go on stage to give a 30 second pitch to 300 AI Leaders

I summon the community with the calling of the conch! Yes, a loud, slightly obnoxious, but oh so memorable sound.

Hey thanks for reading this far, btw I wrote all of this by hand, in my voice then used GPT4 to copy edit, retaining my voice.