I love to experiment with new things. Some of the experiments work. Many don’t. When they work, I do more of them. When they don’t, I adjust my hypothesis and try a different experiment.
When I published The Startup Community Way: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, I ran an online community with it for a year (2020), which overlapped with COVID, so it was weird on multiple dimensions. The software I used was good, but it evolved into a “monetize your community” type of thing, which wasn’t my goal. I learned a lot from this experience (good and bad).
With the launch of Give First: The Power of Mentorship, I’ve decided to try something new that brings all the books, blog posts, startup advice, and conversations into one place. And, I’m trying two new experiments: 1) using AI in the community and 2) participating less while seeing if the community can evolve on its own, based on the AI, community members, and the content.
The new community has launched on Vinly and is called Brad Feld’s Online Book Club. It’s private and admission only. It’s for people who have read any of my books or my writing over the years and are interested in the ideas around them. It’s intended to be a safe community and will be moderated with a TOS. It’s not a “spend time with Brad” community. Instead, I want to see if AI is effective at engaging a community instead of just a person (e.g., me) since I don’t scale well across all the inputs coming at me anymore for a variety of reasons (nor do I want to as I approach 60).
My AI alter-ego is named Spike Feld. He knows all the content from my books and Feld.com. He’s available 24/7 to answer your questions and guide conversations. I’ll be popping in from time to time. Occasionally, I’ll jump into threads and reply to posts. Maybe I’ll host a video call. Who knows.
Kris and Peggy (the co-founders of Vinly), are new friends but long-time fans. They are helping me run the community. They’re here to keep the experience smooth, the conversations rich, and the connections meaningful. They built Vinly for niche communities around focused spaces like this one, where people can join thoughtful, low-noise conversations, discover others with shared interests, and build long-term relationships.
I’m excited about the idea of doing this around people who have read one or more of my nine books. This is a particularly interesting experiment for me as I’m playing around with some other ideas around books and writing these days.
To join, either click on the link for Brad Feld’s Online Book Club or use the following QR code.
We’ve got onboarding questions, smart pairings of people, warm intros, RSS feeds of my latest content, and more. It’s designed to feel like the community you’ve been wanting, not another distraction. And, of course, feedback is welcome as we try to evolve it quickly.