How to build a founder community, even if you never join ours

In our connection call this week one of our members said something that has stuck with me: “It’s lonely when you’re in charge of something.”

Why leading feels lonely

It's true, you can be surrounded by people all day and still be unable to say how it’s really going. If you’re a sole trader working in the spare room, you’re physically isolated. If you’re running a team of twenty, there are plenty of people around, but they can’t be the ones to help you as they are looking to you for answers. Your family love you, but they don’t speak ‘business’ and your clients, well, they need you to know the way, not be asking for directions.

What talking it through actually does

What helps is having a place where you can say the scrappy, unfinished version of an idea out loud, without fear of failure or reproach. Access to a community of people who feel the same way as you means you can process thoughts, worries or ideas and create a plan to move forward (ideally before the worries start to reappear at 3am looking bigger than they did in the daylight).

As well as talking, at Fresh Air Collective we’ve found that movement outside in nature improves these conversations enormously. Walking in nature fosters faster connections, boosts creative thinking and relaxes your nervous system.

In our experience the act of moving together side by side means you can be more honest as there is less direct eye contact, and you are working together on an activity with a joint sense of achievement.

What a small group does that a big one can't

There are lots of communities out there designed for founders, but our opinion is that a small, offline group is best. A place where everybody knows your name, life goals and struggles beats a huge Slack crowd of strangers every time.

Humans are tribal by nature; it's clear we are social beings that thrive when we are part of something bigger than ourselves as it gives us a sense of purpose. Importantly though, research on hunter-gatherer societies suggests that for most of our history we lived in small bands of a few dozen people who relied on cooperation and trust. Belonging to a group like that gave us security and shared resources, and it helped us survive. 

But what happens when the tribe gets too big? It makes sense that different local groups would interact and sometimes work together, but the advent of social media etc has made the tribe potentially global. We believe in modern terms this global tribe means your thoughts are diluted, you begin to feel unsure whether you should speak, you start to wear a persona rather than being your true self and ultimately, you don’t feel safe.

This is why the Fresh Air Collective netwalking events we run are for a maximum of thirty women and the membership community we have created is always capped at twenty-five. Our caps sit close to the average size of the small bands humans lived in for most of our history.

We want real relationships, people who know and trust each other, and that security breeds a feeling of safety where people can be themselves. We believe real growth comes when you are raw, messy and honest about the ups and downs of life and business and that's easier to do in a smaller group.

Invariably, when you share your thoughts out loud, others feel the same as you do and that connects you. This circles us back to the statement we heard in the connection call about loneliness - we can all agree that being in charge of something feels solitary, but when you find other people who feel the same as you do, you feel less alone.

How to build one where you are

If you love the concept of Fresh Air Collective but live miles away here is how I would encourage you to start your own community built on friendship, trust and time spent in the fresh air.

• Start with two or three other founders, keep it small and easy
• Meet at a regular time and location, we are all so busy and overwhelmed, simple means it’s most likely to happen
• Meet in person when you can, connection grows faster in person
• Keep your group honest, encourage the messy bits, not the polished performance we see on social media

Start this week

All you need to take is one small action, something so simple it’s almost laughable, text a founder you trust and put a walk in the diary.

No agenda necessary. No recording. No screens. Just space to speak, share and move outside together.

If you are on the East Coast of Scotland though, you’re in luck, you can come and join us on one of our Netwalking events hosted in Fife!

See you outside.