Cultivating a Thriving Web3 Community with Chris Koronowski: Exploring Web3 Doers' Remarkable Marketing Funnel, Content Repurposing, and the Power of Relationships | S3 Bonus Episode

Chris: 0:00

Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vee, are always saying that you start with the video, the best long- format content, like even the one that we are doing right now the video podcast.

Joeri: 0:12

Hello everyone, my name is Joeri Billast and this is the Web3 CMO Stories podcast, and actually today I'm excited to have Chris on the show because Chris is also the first guest who is coming back. Welcome, Chris, how are you?

Chris: 0:29

Hi Joeri. Super excited to be here for the second time. Thank you so much for the invitation and super happy to have that discussion with you today.

Joeri: 0:38

So now everyone is listening. Yeah, but which Chris is it? Guys, it is Chris Koronowski, and if you don't know him yet, probably you saw his post on LinkedIn. That's actually the way that I met Chris, and Chris was a guest on my podcast, and already some time ago I think it's more than one year and not that moment Do you remember? That was the first season of the podcast, Chris? It was episode 49, and today we are already season 3, episode 24. Guys, Chris Koronowski is the founder of the Web3 Doers. But, Chris, for people that don't know you, Web3 Doers can you explain in a few words what it is about?

Chris: 1:20

Definitely so. Web3 Doers is a community of people who are doing things right in the Web3 space. So that's like I think that is an explanation. So we really attract different Web3 entrepreneurs and it doesn't matter what you are doing in building, because you can be a freelancer, you can be a product builder, you can be a developer, you can be a marketer, right? So we really attract very different people. And, yeah, consults, consult that as well, right? What unites us is the growth aspect of building things, but, at the same time, growing together, utilizing different marketing and growth tactics, and helping each other to grow, right? So that's the main goal for our committee.

Joeri: 2:05

Exactly that's also what I find inspiring people with different backgrounds talking about Web3, about Metaverse, also a bit of AI, and then also talking about LinkedIn and how to build a community like brainstorming. That's always interesting for people to understand. You know, people always talk about building a community, but you have to do it, Chris, and you did it. I know you did a lot of work on it. Can you talk a bit about that, about Web3 Doers, how it started, and how you built the community that you have the community that we have today?

Chris: 2:39

That's a great question. So everything started last year in September I even remember exactly the day, 19 of September, and the Web3 Doers committee, to be frankly honest, started with the launch of a podcast. So I was launching the Web3 Doers podcast and together with this, a kind of you know, being also a community, like Web3, is connected with the committee building, right? So on one side, I really wanted to start with a community. On the other side, some people approached me, you know, and especially in the NAS IO company, that hey, Chris, you are starting with a podcast, why not, would you also start with a committee at the same time? So that was like a really great influence from them that okay, Web3 Doers will be starting together with a podcast at the same time.

Chris: 3:27

So when we've done the launch of the podcasting, we were also launching the community at the same moment. And because the community started growing way faster than the podcast. So then I had to switch the focus from podcasting to committee building, because there we had like the fastest growth, and how also the committee was growing from the day. One was through events. So we've been doing a lot of events through LinkedIn, getting people on board to those events, and then because people wanted to be part of those events that we are organizing and listen to the guests that we are inviting. They will also join in the community. Yeah, so that's like how everything started.

Joeri: 4:06

It seems so easy, but you know how it is. You need to build from zero, but you mentioned it at the podcast and the community but you had already done quite some working, connecting with people, and building your network before you started the community, because I guess that's one of the secrets of your fast growth. Or is there something else, Chris?

Chris: 4:29

That's true. That's true. Definitely, I started from the point where I already have built some credibility in the space. So when I started creating content in Web3, that was around June last year. So I started really creating daily content, being active on LinkedIn, and engaged with other core creators as well, and through those couple of months till September, I've built credibility as someone who people started to trust, right. So definitely the trust part is important and then through that, the continuous growth, as I said, was like inviting interesting guests who had like interesting stories to share and experiences to share, and because I had that trust, it was way easier, you know, for me to invite them, and I believe you can really relate to that, yuri, with your podcast, right. So the trust is really important aspect and you can achieve that mainly through content creation and sharing your journey, right? So that's very important.

Joeri: 5:33

Exactly, you know it's. I think we work a bit of the same way. It's through inbound, so you create content and you organize events and you are present holding thin and you help people, you engage with people and so people start reaching out. So, instead of you know going, inviting a lot of people to join, you know your people come to you in a natural way. And I also see people within the community. They bring other members like them in the community and so this is, of course, a sign of you know, because there are a lot of communities out there.

Joeri: 6:08

You know, in Web3, you talk about Web3, all these discord communities. You know where nothing happens or where it's you don't really know what's going on, but it's so much noise and I feel that in Web2 is you really have the value. You focus on the value and organizing stuff and I mentioned this, of course, discord. Explain us a bit about how you organize Web3 Doers because there are different platforms out there. And yeah, I'm, I'm, of course I know because I'm a member of Web3 Doers Pro, but our listeners won't know it, Chris.

Chris: 6:42

So we kind of decided to do our committee building a little bit different than everyone else. So in the Web3 space usually build committees through demand generation on Twitter. We decided to do demand gen on LinkedIn right, so we are doing all the content and events on LinkedIn kind of on purpose because we want to have professionals in the space who are really building and doing things and that's, you know, those who are trying to scam people. That are usually happening on Twitter. And then we do demand capture right. So we capture that demand to inside the community, mainly through events. But we use for that the NAS IO platform. I mentioned that before right, so it's like a community- based platform is web to solution, but it's a really easy to use and great platform to capture people inside your community and inside that you can create events, resources, courses, you can manage your all the committee members, you can message them through email, connect to that communication platforms. So we started with discord because everyone was showing me okay, web free is about discord, right. But to be frankly honest, like our committee, preferred to hang out on WhatsApp and we learned that kind of the hard way because right now discord for web reviewers general committee is kind of dead. And then we thrive for the web reviewers pro on the WhatsApp right, and then NAS IO can easily connect through WhatsApp and you can build on top of the WhatsApp right. So that's really cool tool that, whenever you will find your best communication platform for your committee, you can build on top of that right. So that's how we also do the committee engagement through the WhatsApp channel. And then for the pro committee, when we speak about that, we have a lot of, you know, advocacy programs that we can do right, because we are attracting people to do things inside the committee. So we have different committee projects. We have different events that are run through the community. So, for example, Katrina is running the founders fiesta, right, one of our committee members and yeah, through that we can really build this community advocacy that what you already said community members are see the value and are starting inviting others to join your community. So, yeah, so there are definitely different levels of the community you know building.

Chris: 8:59

And then we use different tools for that perspective, right. We also use Web3 tools as well, because, for example, for minting, we have pretty worse pro lifetime NFT membership pass right, and for that we use hey Mint platform, right. So, for example, for that it's like like this Web3- specific platform for our data and analysis, we use Cookie3, right. And for even building, we've built something like an NFT collectible. That is like a really nice free deal looking NFT design that people can collect, utilize this in a VR virtual reality worlds or use it as an augmented reality filter and make a picture, and for that we are using Minero IO platform, right. So we also use that Web3 tools on our committee building. But I still feel like major tools that we are still using is in this Web2 realm, which is still great, right, because I mean, like you probably never will gonna get rid of Web2 solutions and they will be merged together with the Web3 solutions that are great to use.

Joeri: 9:59

Yeah, yeah, obviously. So those were the two. If you can have the best of both worlds, of course, that would be ideal. By the way, I just came back from Dubai and you know what, Chris? They were already talking about web 3.5, 3.5, you know, and that would be like when AI comes in the picture and you start to merge AI and Metaverse and so on because AI obviously is also something that we cannot neglect. But what's also interesting for me is when I see the Web3 Doers community. I am also in a few others that in your, in the Web3 Doers community, there are people not only from the US or just from the UK, or it's really from all around the world. You mentioned analytics with cookie-f ree. Can you talk a bit about you know what are the maybe the interesting facts or conclusions that you are able to get from your analytics?

Chris: 10:51

Definitely so. On one side, we have a very global community, right? So, when you look from the perspective of the general committee and how we have like more than almost 1400 people in the general community at this stage, and they are coming from 96 different countries, so it's very global orientation and similar. From the Web3 Doers pro perspective, where we release the NFT, we see that we have people from the Americas, Europe, Asia and even from Australia, right? So that's really challenging sometimes because whenever you are doing events, you need to really find a perfect timing to fit out all the time zones, right? So that's why we do, for example, all the events in the middle of the day in Europe, at 2 pm GMT, so we can feed mornings in America's, but also Late evening or almost a night in Australia, right?

Chris: 11:44

So, definitely, what pre-doers is a global community and we attract people from different places around the world, which is great because, you know, imagine the case where Web3 Doers global brand could be merged with Local environments and we could, for example, we could create the local chapters, right? So that would be, I think, the power of because you've been also you're mentioning a lot of times that the power of Building relationships starts whenever we are meeting in real life, right? So imagine that we can build those local chapters because we have already global reach and give the Frameworks and processes for other members to run those local chapters if they really want, right under the umbrella of the global we pretty doers community. I think that will be the biggest value and the purpose that we can bring to the Web3 Doers whenever we will be giving people possibility to create local environments and Connect people who are interested in the Web3 space on a local level.

Joeri: 12:43

Yeah, that would definitely be another failure.

Joeri: 12:45

I mentioned already a couple of times I think I've also said it in my testimonial that really meeting people at events you know, be together there as a group it adds to the experience already by being connected to the community On what's up on the LinkedIn lives, on the video meetings that we had, like when you have the founders fiesta or something, I'll already so many meetings, it's always hard to keep up to me there.

Joeri: 13:12

But, yeah, it's great that there are so many opportunities and then learning from people, for instance, like there is like this win-win or these synergies, like people from the web to doers, listening to my podcast, connecting with a guest, and then they explain to me what has happened. When I met them when we were at the Mexico that's revision event in Germany so yeah, that's really, really powerful and so, okay, the community is now there, and there we have, like this, pro members and at the moment that we are recording this podcast, you are looking for, you know, I would say, a new number of people to add to the pro members. How do you find those like-minded people, Chris? Because we said it well, we create content, but at some times you want to give it a little push? I would think so.

Chris: 14:01

Yes. So, exactly as we said, we are right now at the stage where we want to build up the pro-valued and open that to more people and create another cohort, right? So we decided on purpose to build that committee on a cohort-based environment because, like what I see at the web pre-space, like how committee building was done wrong, everyone was releasing 10,000 NFTs at once at a higher price, you know, and then everything just went down 95%. What we are doing differently here we are starting with low entry point price and we do that on a cohort-based environment. So we open first cohort, we test, we deliver, we build up a lot of value and then we open the second cohort and we do the same Right. So we add even more value, even build more potential you know solutions for the community and then we one more time, can open another cohort with higher value point or to enter Right. So that's where we are coming from in terms of building the pro community and answering your question in terms of finding the right people. So, like when you look from the marketing funnel perspective, right, it's always like this that you start with the demand gen which starts on LinkedIn content creation.

Chris: 15:16

People are signing up to a general free community and out of that, if they're joining your free events, they see that you are providing a lot of free value. That is already great for them. Then they can make a decision to okay, I would like to invest some of my time and money, because it's always like with the community aspect is not only about money that you're entering the community. The biggest value that you are getting is always also from the your time perspective, right. So so and I also get this question quite often like how much time do I need to really commit to the pro committee to get as much value as possible? So the value that I'm investing in terms of the money will be, will be there, right? So they are definitely investing time and money and they are making the decision based on the free value that they already got through all the events, resources and things that we provided for the general committee, and then they are deciding okay, I would love to be part of the pro, join the other members that are already in the first cohort, and one thing that we already done is that after the first three months, we asked everyone in the first cohort to do a video testimonial for us, and I can already tell that more than 35, almost 40% of the pro members gave us this testimonial, which is a huge conversion.

Chris: 16:34

When you look from the perspective that a video testimonial is someone like a true fan for us, right, that really love what we are doing in the pro and spend time to record the video testimonial. There's a huge conversion right to those true funds that we want to build and those testimonials will also bring more people to the pro experience because they will see, okay, the first cohort is a success. People love the experience. I would love to also join that and be part of the next cohort. So this is how we basically build the, you know, this conversion and the retention, I would say, of the building.

Joeri: 17:09

But also you took the time to prepare all of that, to think about this to. You know, where can you give the best value? And in the beginning, I think people joined because you already gave so much value that it was like, you know, I was like the mindset I just go because I already not that I was every time there, but I saw you know everything that was there and I said, okay, let's just do this. This is a no brain.

Joeri: 17:31

It's also, you know, talking to people that have a like- minded and just by also making the connections. You know, there is a lot of inspiration. There is a lot of discussion going on and, yeah, sometimes you need to balance, but I think it's you have all these different layers in your community, like people that that that are following your LinkedIn, people that are first time entering, they listen to LinkedIn live and then at the end, they become like super fans. And I really like it that you have such a high conversion in these videos that people make it, because that's also a social proof, of course. Yeah, go ahead, Chris.

Chris: 18:05

And also, like you are, really, as a great, great example of the pro member, that is part of very different communities and you are, I would say, a busy person, right, so you spend a lot of time with your client, with your mastermind, but you also find time from time to time to hang out with our community, right, which is great.

Chris: 18:23

And this means also that you know this time involvement is depends on every person, right. So whenever there is a founder who will, you know, be very into building phase right now and they want to deliver, and you know they will spend a lot of time within their company, doesn't mean that they will not find time for the committee at some point of their journey, right, because maybe for them, the committee aspect is just to observe the chat and, from time to time, to engage, right, so they don't need to be like super engaged every single day, but they'll be still getting value out of the discussion and then joining some of the events from time to time, which will also give them value, right, and I think you are a great example of that that you are being super busy, still having time to get value out of what we are building in the pro, right.

Joeri: 19:09

Yeah, actually it's about balancing, of course, also to see, like you know, connecting I have a connector, Chris, I think it's so so. I have these different communities and I try to be there. You know I cannot be there all the time, but I try to be there and organize my time and sometimes, at times, there will be more time. Sometimes there will be a bit less time if I'm, for instance, myself at the conference.

Chris: 19:34

It's just always good, right, because it depends really on people, right.

Joeri: 19:38

Exactly. Yeah, it depends on the place that people are at that moment in time, but I think lots of people can, for different reasons, get value out of the Web3 Doers and you also, Chris, you're doing a lot of stuff. You are also an advisor for UniFire. I know you probably have other things going on. You create also a lot of content. You engage with people. So how do you find the time to combine all of that and maybe to repurpose your content, because I know you are in content creation and repurposing that's also something that you find important. So, yeah, I'm curious.

Chris: 20:14

Yeah, so definitely, repurposing of content is something that I'm repression about, I would say, and it disconnects very well with the UniFire platform that you just mentioned, so that's something like also. I know that you are also very fond of Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vee always says that you start with the video, the best long- format content, like even the one that we are doing right now, the video podcast that could be repurposed very easily, utilizing AI tools, to many different content things that we can create. Right, because we can create long block format content out of the podcast. We can also repurpose video to different video platforms like Instagram Shorts, tiktok, youtube Reels right, so video could be also posted on YouTube. Then you can have a text-based post out of that podcast and you can utilize this, for example, as a LinkedIn post, linkedin articles, even over LinkedIn newsletter, and then you can repurpose even to that, to Twitter ex post or Twitter threads, going forward even to just spread right, like the new platform created by Instagram and Meta. So many things could be possible if you have this long- format content, and we both know that's how you can really create a content engine to repurpose to many different places and save a lot of time through that and be visible in many different places.

Chris: 21:43

Right, because this world that we live in is a world where we need attention right to get to the point where we can build things, build community, build products, get this growth going and then finally sell something right. So we really kind of fight for the attention of people. And because we have so many different platforms, it's hard to get that attention right. So it's better to be everywhere instead of just be focused on one platform. The solution is just always start with the long format content and then repurpose everywhere, and that's how you get attention from many different places and start growing. Yeah, that's actually, it's a great solution. Yeah.

Joeri: 22:23

That's actually what I've been doing with my podcast, because for me, creating the podcast audio- video version it's for me what I like to do. It doesn't take me so much effort, because writing for me it's way harder, but then with the AI tools now I can create content around that. Also I can get help, like infographics are also made based on every podcast episode and actually at this moment it's really fresh. I put on my website a link to an ebook which contains actually infographics of the podcast episodes, because I have infographics but they are not yet published all of them and now I've put them together and so that's also a way of repurposing. And, as you say, some people like to listen to a show or they like to read something, or they like to consult an infographic and then if they have questions or it makes sense, then they can go to the podcast and listen to it or read the article.

Chris: 23:18

Yeah, I just saw recently that the AI will be so good at infographics. It was not good with text, so the text placements were really kind of weird at this point, but it's getting way better. So imagine you can repurpose that as well to different infographics and, wow, this will be crazy. Then the answer really speaking about the answer to content creation will be always long format content, because you will be able to do everything with AI.

Joeri: 23:52

Exactly, yeah, but of course, together with yourself, just selecting the right, the right prompts or the right features or the right configuration, because AI can go wild too. But yeah, the possibilities are. Yeah, we cannot imagine yet what will be possible if you see already these new possibilities with chatGPT and so on. And also, you know, when it comes to NFTs, Metaverse, Web3, also things are evolving. People are less talking about it because AI is there, and so I'm curious, Chris, for Web 3 Doers or for the Web 3 Space in general, what are you now the most excited about of things that you see evolving?

Chris: 24:37

That's a great question.

Chris: 24:38

So, when I see the Web 3 Space, I see this from the perspective of a book called Spatial Web.

Chris: 24:46

That was a book released in 2019, which is super interesting, right, because when you look at how, like that was released, like four years ago, and the author already was mentioning that the special web, or the special computing that Apple right now is using, will be connected of, you know, three layers where we will have, you know, the augmented reality with virtual reality, or what we call the metaverse, as a first layer, then, underneath, artificial intelligence and below that, the blockchain, right, so all those technologies will be connected together.

Chris: 25:24

And when I always, you know, try to explain to other members in the community or even people on LinkedIn or people that I meet within the Web 3 Space, I always say that Web 3 Doers will be focusing on all of those three aspects together, three different emerging technologies together, because I strongly believe that they will be very interconnected. And, yeah, like that's, I think, how the just, you know, the web that we know right now is evolving, right, so I think that's like a natural thing of the technology aspect and all of those things at some point will be interconnected together.

Joeri: 26:01

Great. I think there is a lot of exciting things going on. So now, Chris, if people listening and they are they want to be ahead of their game too and know what is happening. Can you explain a bit how they can connect with you or how they can join Web 3 Doers or get more information?

Chris: 26:19

Definitely so. The best way to connect with me will be on LinkedIn. You can find me as Chris Koronowski on the LinkedIn platform. That's where I create content and I share the most value. And then, if you would like to join the Web 3 Doors General Committee, you will find the link also in my profile. It's on the NAS IO platform. It will be nas. io/web3-doers. And if you are super interested in joining the pro community where Joeri is also in, that will be on the web3doers. com main website, so you can also check it out. This one. Find yourself if that's the right point to join at this stage or maybe later in your journey. And yeah, we are super happy and welcome everyone from wherever you are in the world. Yeah.

Joeri: 27:05

Amazing. Of course, Chris, there will be show notes. There will be, like we discussed, a repurpose blog article related to this show. So, guys, you will find every link out there that Chris mentioned. If you have questions about Web 3 Doers from a perspective of a member, a pro member, then you can also connect with me. If you aren't connected yet, send me a DM. And for now, Chris, thank you so much for being again at my show.

Chris: 27:32

Thank you so much. Joeri, Take care everyone. Thank you so much.

Joeri: 27:35

Guys, again an amazing episode. So if you are not yet connected to Chris, you find, like I said, his link in the show notes. If you're not yet subscribed to this podcast, I would say this is a good moment to do this. Also, be sure to share this episode with friends of you, with colleagues, with other entrepreneurs that you think can benefit from it and, of course, I would like to see you back next time. Take care Bye. Web 3 can take your biz to new heights and you're ready to harness its power, but feeling lost and overwhelmed. Therefore, join my W3X Web 3 Mastermind. Send me a personal message for more info. You can find me everywhere on social media. There's only one person with my name Joeri Billast. Talk soon.