Journey of Brand Community Builder till 2021
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5% of Indian Community Builders describe their role as Community Consultant… as mentioned in State of Indian Community Management Report 2021 & I am one of them.
Community Management, Community Building & Community Strategy occurred by chance, and never looked back professionally since then.
13+ yrs of professional experience of working with multiple companies in various industries and since the last 6+ yrs been a part of the start-up ecosystem as a Community Builder.
When you are hopping from one role to another almost every 6 months to 2 yrs, there is a skepticism in the minds of the interviewer that why should we give this person a chance and the path to proving your worth even before starting the job is a herculean task. It eases out a bit if the founder reaches out to you.
In April 2015, Varun Chawla, then co-founder of 91springboard reached out to me stating they need a person with strong operations background to join the team & would I be interested. My interview started for a very different role, and ultimately it ended up landing the job of community manager responsible to set up operations for 91springboard in Hyderabad. First role as a community professional.
Post this job, it was handling Partnerships & Community at MTW Labs, a software services company where I got a free hand to do whatever I want to do to figure things out and set up their Mumbai operations.
2015–2020, 5 years of Community Building with a specific organization & then ventured out on my own as a Community Strategist and Growth Consultant, helping companies scale through Community building.
How did I get into Community Strategy Consulting?
Backstory
By October 2019, we figured out that MTW Labs was under deep financial stress and the whole idea was to close operations by March 2020.
We were a team of around 40–45 people, and we made sure that everyone who was not a part of any projects had interviews lined up outside the organization, so…
