The Key Elements In Community Building with Claudia Cafeo

Claudia Cafeo from No Code Ops has built and grown two communities to more than 1,000 people. In this episode, she shares:

- her strategies for building and nurturing communities
- empowering community members and creating opportunities for them to take initiatives
- building one-on-one connections with community members to foster a sense of belonging

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Previous guests include: Arvid Kahl of FeedbackPanda, Andrei Zinkevich of FullFunnel, Scott Van den Berg of Influencer Capital, Buster Franken of Fruitpunch AI, Valentin Radu of Omniconvert, Evelina Necula of Kinderpedia, Ionut Vlad of Tokinomo, Diana Florescu of MediaforGrowth, Irina Obushtarova of Recursive, Monika Paule of Caszyme, Yannick Veys of Hypefury, Laura Erdem of Dreamdata, and Pija Indriunaite of CityBee.

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Transcript

Eric M. (00:02.695)
Yeah. So anyway, good to see you again. I had a great time as you know, when I was in London last time, and I'll definitely let you know when I go back. Are you going to go back to Italy this summer for vacation at all or no?

Claudia (00:14.99)
Yeah, so I'm hoping to get there by the end of July, like I usually do every, you know, every year, because it's around my mom's birthday. So it's great occasion for me to fly back and enjoy a bit of proper summer, you know, which is something that we do in Europe, and not so much our friends in the US.

Eric M. (00:33.895)
No, no, not at all. Not at all. Okay, here we go. All right, Claudio, welcome to Innovators Can Laugh. How are you doing today?

Claudia (00:42.19)
Yeah, very, very well. Super excited. Happy to be here. So thank you for inviting me, Eric.

Eric M. (00:47.335)
Yeah, my pleasure. We got the opportunity to meet in person a couple of months ago, look for Jack the Ripper in London. We didn't catch him, but we learned a lot about him though, right?

Claudia (00:56.814)
That was such a cool activity. I actually had no idea you could do such quests and games in London. So thank you for showing me that we had a great time. But yeah, we didn't catch him, unfortunately, but we did learn a ton.

Eric M. (01:06.567)
Yeah.

Well today we're going to learn a lot about community building, but before we talk about that, I have a few questions for you. The first one, Claudia, what is something that most people do not know about you? And they're not going to see this on your LinkedIn profile.

Claudia (01:26.606)
Interesting, because I feel like I overshare on my LinkedIn profile. Probably that I'm a pianist. I haven't shared that on LinkedIn. So I did study classical music as a child and classical piano. So I love playing the piano as well as a couple more instruments, guitar, ukulele. Yeah, anything that basically creates a sound, I pick it up and I explore.

Eric M. (01:56.839)
Yeah, was it your parents' influence that got you into music or did you just find it yourself?

Claudia (02:01.774)
Yeah, so I started when I was five, so definitely my parents but it worked out well because I loved it. Whereas you know, they tried with my sister, they tried violin and she did not like it as much as I did. So I kept on playing, she didn't but definitely you know, sometimes I feel like parents have to suggest you know, a couple activities for you and then you pick up the one that fits the most like for example,

Eric M. (02:16.359)
Hehehehe

Claudia (02:29.838)
They also tried to enroll me into ballet. That didn't work. That didn't work out really, really well. And so as an alternative, I was like, Hey mom, how about karate, martial arts? Cause that's more of my vibe. And so I started, you know, doing martial arts when I was seven. Yeah, I loved it. I, so, story of my life, I always get to just about,

Eric M. (02:33.479)
Yeah.

Eric M. (02:50.471)
Okay, you like it?

Claudia (02:59.662)
the end of everything. So piano, I never really graduated, I can play, I can satisfy my soul, which is why I play. But I never got, you know, the certification, like run off from the exam. And then same with karate, I go up to the brown belt, which is, you know, the one just before the black one, and then you get, you know, that you're established karate woman, I don't know, karate kids.

But then I got to the brown belt and that's it. I stopped there. So I'm always like one step before reaching the end line.

Eric M. (03:31.687)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, with martial arts, I feel like it doesn't matter what belt you have. What matters is if you're out one night and somebody attacks you or your partner, are you able to defend yourself? Has that ever happened in a situation like that?

Claudia (03:47.182)
Luckily not, luckily not. But I do fantasize in my head, you know, sometimes when I'm outside, or what would I do right now in a situation like that? Yeah, it's good to know. It's good to know. And actually here in London is great that for example, around Women's Day, there's a lot of institutions that promote like free classes on that day, like personal defense, and it's really good. It's, it's

Eric M. (03:56.743)
Yeah. Yeah, because.

Claudia (04:14.67)
a skill that every woman should know, unfortunately, but yeah, it's very useful.

Eric M. (04:19.239)
Yeah. Yeah. I took my wife to a Krav Maga class years ago and I think she went to one or two and she said it really wasn't for her, but I was glad that she went because at least it was a good lesson, I think.

Claudia (04:24.43)
That's the one. Yeah.

Claudia (04:35.022)
Yeah, it's good to know. It's just like, you know, your first day training is good to know. You never know what might happen.

Eric M. (04:40.615)
Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Other question for you. What is the craziest thing you ever did to either save money or make money?

Claudia (04:50.19)
my god, to save money. So I guess it's not very crazy because I'm always quite moderate as a person. I'm not that crazy. I don't think, but I started counting on the cappuccinos that I was having every day. You know, like coffees in London, they're expensive, right? And so I was like, okay, I need to cut it down. You know, three cappuccinos a day is not sustainable here.

Eric M. (05:12.295)
Yes?

Eric M. (05:17.895)
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Claudia (05:19.47)
And so I realized that by cutting it down to one, I would have saved something like 12 ,000 pounds a year.

Eric M. (05:30.227)
my god! 12 ,000 pounds? I believe you. I was there a few months ago as you know and I was surprised that one cafe latte was like five pounds. One.

Claudia (05:39.758)
Yeah. So if you have three per day, you know, first off, yeah, which I thought about it, but, you know, maybe when I retired, that would be a lovely thing to do.

Eric M. (05:44.839)
You might as well open your own coffee store.

Eric M. (05:54.215)
Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. All right. Next question. Fill in the blank. I grew up in blank and my favorite thing about that city is blank.

Claudia (06:05.87)
Right. So I grew up in Sicily, which is an island. And so the little town is called Milato. And so what I love the most about Milato is the beautiful sea and one of the most amazing sunsets I've ever seen. So yeah, it's very close to my heart, that place. I try to go back every year.

Eric M. (06:29.031)
Okay, nice. Last rapid fire. Beautiful sunsets are a wonderful thing. I'm going to go to Greece next week and I'm hoping to catch some good sunsets over there.

Claudia (06:30.318)
and catch the sunset.

Claudia (06:39.726)
I'm sure you will. It's the same kind of Mediterranean sea, so...

Eric M. (06:42.375)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Last rapid fire. What is the best advice your mom or dad ever gave you?

Claudia (06:52.558)
Hmm, lots of parenting questions here. Let me see. Because I left home actually when I was 18, so I need to really, really go back in time. But I guess...

Eric M. (06:56.295)
Heheheheh!

Claudia (07:07.886)
They, they always focus on health. So sometimes, you know, they hear me stressing, you know, because of work or just like life in general, and they're always helping me focus on my actual health. And they're like, Claudia, you're a healthy person. And right now that's not for granted. So, don't worry about anything else as long as your health is in a good state, your mental health is in a good state. You're fine compared to the majority of people out there.

Eric M. (07:34.919)
Yeah. Yeah.

Claudia (07:37.262)
So, okay, yeah, that's actually really, really true.

Eric M. (07:40.071)
Totally agree. Totally agree. Okay. All right. So let's dive into community building. Can you tell us some strategies that you found very effective when it comes to building and nurturing communities? And you can talk a little bit about how you created your community and what you're doing right now.

Claudia (07:57.838)
Absolutely. And I, as you know, I love community. Even though I didn't start my career as a community manager, I actually used to be a primary school teaching assistant for eight years. And so I feel like I've transferred lots of those skills from education into community building. And if I were to, I like to say, you know, like the three C's of community, which are like collaboration, consistency.

and Claudia, because I'm community, no, I'm joking, and, and care. And so I'm, I'm always trying to implement those three, three C's. And so in terms of collaboration, I love to see my community members interact and collaborate. And for me, that's also a way to empower them. And one of the, you know, most effective strategies is when you're empowering your community members, they feel that sense, the beautiful sense of belonging into a community, but also they feel

Eric M. (08:30.247)
You

Claudia (08:57.23)
encouraged to take their own initiatives. And that's when I, when I see a community actually growing, because it's growing with the members. And it's not just me constantly trying to come up with new ideas. For me, building a community is like building an environment, a house, you know, and so I'm inviting my guests that would eventually come and live with me and they help me decorate the house, you know, in terms of consistency, you have to constantly show up like,

there is a misconception that building community is easy. And so what I've noticed as well is that people just think that they'll open a platform, pick a platform and people will magically populate that platform and show up every day. No, you have to be there. You have to show that care, which is my third point and consistency, even though it might just be you at the very beginning, if you're hosting a hangout, a live stream, however you manage your community.

You have to be there for your community members. You have to fill the room. You have to see what's missing, what's not missing. How are they feeling? Constantly evaluate the experience of your community members and care about them, get to know them. I make a point of connecting one -to -one with all the community members that I approve into my communities. And just for reference, I...

I'm the founder of Floxies community, which is a community for women in UX, UI design and web flow. But I also work full time as a community manager for NoCodeOps, which is a professional community for people working in ops operations and leveraging NoCode and automation. So all those people that join my communities, I try to connect with them and, you know, I look at their profile, try to get to know them as much as I can.

because I don't care too much about the numbers that we have. I care about the quality and the people. And if you ask me about the success of a community for me is to really see that journey of somebody joining. And then if I get to know you and your skills, and then for example, you're looking for a job or to create some connections, you're going to be top of mind whenever I get approached.

Claudia (11:11.342)
by recruiters on LinkedIn or whoever asked me like, Claudia, do you have anyone available? I can almost always think of somebody from my community and I usually work as a bridge between the two.

Eric M. (11:24.295)
Yeah. Yeah. No, I love, I love that. So I've got a community as you know, B2B broadcasters. We're not very big. I think there's only 25, 25 of us. And for the first time recently, I, I asked them to give me feedback. what things I can do to make the community better. What do they feel that's missing? And some of the feedback, was having more special guests that could speak at our monthly meetups.

And I thought that was very, very, you know, very powerful because I didn't really think that was a big thing, but looking at, you know, a lot of what, what a lot of members were saying, that was a, that was a pretty big deal. So for you, I know you, when you do your onboarding, you have this one -to -one, but are you also doing something for current community members and trying to solicit feedback? And if so, like how often.

Claudia (11:50.254)
Mm -hmm.

Claudia (12:11.918)
Yes. So I like that you were saying that you asked for feedback for the first time. How did you feel? Because whenever I do my community surveys, I always feel like an open heart operation. Like, my God, what are they going to say? They're going to say they hate it. I'm going to feel really bad. So I try to do it at least, you know, minimum once a year. So ideally, you might want to do it maybe once a quarter, but you don't want to overwhelm people as well.

Eric M. (12:27.303)
Yeah. Yeah.

Claudia (12:42.03)
kind of do it when it when it feels right. If you're at the very beginning, you will talk to them every day, you don't have to formalize it in in the form of a form like what's missing was not missing because you're adding an extra sort of barrier to their engagements like, okay, I just joined the community. And after a week, I have to fit in another form, thinking about what's missing. You know, I don't know, because I haven't been there for so long. So

I guess just do it when it makes sense to you when you feel like it's necessary. But after definitely do it after, you know, six months maybe of being active and once a year will be great. I try not to overwhelm my community members because there's so much we're getting, you know, our inboxes are flooded every day with newsletters and all sorts of things. So.

Eric M. (13:32.583)
Yeah. Yeah. How often are you in the community and like, what is it? Is it a discord? Is it a Slack group? And are you in there like every day, like posting different content? Can you tell us about that?

Claudia (13:43.822)
Every day, every single day, I'm slightly obsessed. I have it on my phone. So yes, my communities are built on Discord. And I build them from scratch. So, you know, I build a server, I take a lot of pride on how well structured the server looks and I am in it every day, sometimes at night and it's not healthy. Don't do that. I just love it. It's like an addiction. It's just another, almost like a social media, but I really...

I like hanging out with my community members and I just want to know if they're doing well, how they're doing, checking on their careers or whatever it is. So yeah, consistency, but do it in a healthy way, maybe. Balance is the key.

Eric M. (14:29.831)
Okay.

Yeah. And this check in, are you actually going in there and like tagging people and just asking like, Hey, how's it going? Different questions like that. Like tell us.

Claudia (14:39.918)
Yes, so I have a few community rituals. So every Monday, I run a community, community weekly check in. So I tag everyone and I send them a template with three, four different questions every week. Like, how are you today? How was your weekends? And then I always go into like, tell me one project that you're working on this week. How can the community help you or?

And then I always like to end on a completely different question like pizza, like pineapple and pizza. Yes or no, you know, something like that. It's just a hot take or I share some sort of positive quote for them, an affirmation quote, you know, I like to end on a different, completely different notes. And then every...

Tuesday at NoCodeOps, I host community hangouts in our Discord. And so it's just an hour of networking, troubleshooting, and just an opportunity to connect with our community members. At Fluxys, I host live streams on a Wednesday. NoCodeOps live stream on a Thursday. So consistency again is key. And I have to, I show up every week and I, I host all these events every week.

On a Friday, we also have a partnership with an automation agency called Pretty Simple. They're from South Africa and they host an automation brew event on a Friday as well as an office hour. So plenty of events. And I show up because if you don't show up, why should your members do that?

Eric M. (16:18.471)
I love this idea of tagging people, asking what are they working on? Is there something that somebody can help with in the community? Because we all know different people. We all have different skillsets and different talents. And the problem or obstacle that somebody's facing, more than likely somebody else has either been through that or has an idea for a solution. So I'm definitely going to steal that one.

And I realized after just listening to you that I need to be more consistent and be in there more, more active and not just be waiting for somebody to pop in and ask a question. So I may do like maybe even an inspiration quote, or maybe just funny, different questions like you asked, but anything that can just get more engagement in terms of hosting the events. So as I mentioned, one of the things on the feedback was having special guests. You guys have this partnership where you guys invited like an automation expert.

Claudia (16:49.678)
Mm -hmm.

Eric M. (17:09.575)
Were there any other events that you hosted where you had special guests that really resonated with the members of the community?

Claudia (17:16.302)
Yeah, always. So something that I try to do, I try to identify the topics that are most relevant to the community. And so, for example, for us, we, and then what I do after I identify that topic, I host a series of events. So say, for example, documentation was a big topic in our community. And so I started looking for speakers that would be experts.

at that particular topic, and then I would host a mini series. So it wouldn't just be one event, it would be maybe two or three events showing that particular topic under different perspectives. Same thing with no code and AI, which was obviously a huge topic at the beginning of the year. And so I started looking for speakers that could kind of help me create this little playlist of four events.

Eric M. (17:53.447)
Got it.

Claudia (18:08.91)
that all have to do with null codes and an AI use case. And so I try to not just get one speaker, but think of, OK, if somebody wants to master this topic, how many events would that require? How many speakers? And then I start looking on LinkedIn and find them.

Eric M. (18:28.743)
What does that pitch look like when you're asking these speakers if they want to come and talk to the community? How does that wording look like? I'm just curious. Cause I want to steal it.

Claudia (18:38.254)
I just introduce myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just be just be yourself. Like what I usually do, I introduce myself, I tell them about the community that I've built and what we're aiming to do. And, and then I tell them about this idea of having this mini series. And I say to them, you know, something about the work that they've been doing. So obviously, I look into their profile first to see if they're in good fit. And then I usually tell them something that I that I liked about what I saw.

And so, you know, I just tell them, Hey, I really loved your piece on design systems. And I think that would be really relevant to our community. We were hosting a series about that particular topic. Would you be interested, interested into being one of our guests? And usually I've had only positive responses. and even if people are, you know, people are busy, obviously, so you have to kind of approach them a few months in advance, like.

If you want to host a series in May, you have to start outreaching for those speakers maybe in March. Yeah, so that you have a safe net. And when you don't have a speaker, what I love to do, which is the fact that I don't have a speaker doesn't mean that what I'm about to say is less important because I actually think it's more important. But what I like to do,

Eric M. (19:48.839)
Awesome, awesome.

Claudia (20:02.094)
is to invite actual members of the community to be my speakers. And so empower them and like have them tell, you know, their stories or their journey, showcase a project that they've worked on. Because everyone's got something to teach. I believe in collective growth, which is something that I always say, I think, you know, if I got to where I am today is because I was always open to listening and learning from other people and

It helped me gain all the skills that I use today. And so I didn't do anything special. If not, just listen and learn from other people. And so I really believe that everyone can do that. Right.

Eric M. (20:44.039)
Yep. Yep. I love this. I'm going to be reaching out to my podcasters because a lot of them have different, like different stories, but different projects, things that they're working on too. So this is, this is fantastic. A couple of other questions for you. Have you ever thought about gamifying your community? Like one idea that I had is if a podcaster has done a certain number of campaigns or sponsorships from working with me.

then they get maybe to a different level and they just kind of get that recognition. And it's, it's, you know, I don't know if they did three campaigns, maybe I would send them like a free coffee or something, something like that. Yeah. But I, as gamification, is that something that's popped in your head for your community or you don't really need it.

Claudia (21:21.454)
Yeah, nice.

Claudia (21:27.086)
Yeah, I was, I was thinking about it yesterday, actually, because, you know, and it's something that I'm still debating on whether we need it or not. Cause you know, I've had my communities for about over three years now, and we do have a layer of gamification at floxies. We use a metaverse where we build our virtual office. And so we get together with our little avatars, like 2D avatars. I don't know if you ever played, I don't know.

Pokemon or something on Game Boy, it looks really, you know, 2D pixelated art and we've created our office there. And so it's really nice to hang out and work with people from all over the world. So that's our, I guess, our gamification aspect of it and everyone's got access. But if you're thinking more about leveling and recognition, it's something that I was debating on because I don't know whether we need it or not. What I like to do, I...

host like challenges, or we have mentorships and ambassadors in the community. And so that's my way of kind of rewarding people that are active and that they're bringing value in the community. I reach out to them, and I offer them a spot into the, you know, ambassador to becoming an ambassador, or I say to them, Hey, I love the value that you're bringing into the community. Have you thought about applying to the mentorship? Like you can become a mentor and mentor other people.

And then obviously I post about that on social media. I help them grow a little bit, you know, give them a little bit of visibility. You can invite them as your guests for your live streams if you have one. But I use that more of a sort of system that shows me how many messages they sent or something like that, which you can do. But just like for me, I haven't quite felt the needs, but I do think about it from time to time.

Eric M. (23:19.719)
Okay. Okay. What kinds of ways are you measuring the success of the community? I mean, obviously you have this engagement, if there's a lot of collaboration that's going on, a lot of people attending meetings, but is there like a, is there like a metric or something that you look at to help gauge whether or not something is working, maybe a specific initiative?

Claudia (23:42.638)
Yeah, absolutely. So as I was mentioning earlier, like to see my community members grow and move into that path of joining the community, finding their crowd, getting the skills that they need. And eventually if they are looking for a new role, they also get hired. And I've had about 10 people I helped, you know, via the community, I counted at least 10 people that have landed a new role.

thanks to either a connection that I've made or somebody in the community that saw what they were doing and hired them. And so also just like just last week at NoCloops, I received like three messages from three different members that told me, Claudia, I just wanted to let you know I got a new role thanks to that message you sent or thanks to this, thanks to that. And so to me, that really feels my heart. And to me, that's like job done when I can help other people and...

the community has a real impact in their lives. That's success. Obviously, you can look into insights and metrics and numbers of you know, how many people visit your community every week and all that. But I also think that we're humans. And so people have different circumstances in their lives. And so you can't really compare somebody who works from home, who can be active in the community every day.

with somebody who's got maybe three kids, has to go to the office, nine to five, comes back home, you know, all that life is not going to be a member that's going to be in your community every single day. And so for me, it's really tricky to use that data, like to say, I've had 30 people actively engaged this week, but you know, you really need to, it's hard to tell because again,

We all have different lives and you can't really beat yourself if 20 people are not in your community every single day because they might have, you know, different things to do. And, you know, rightfully so. Some people just use communities to get to what they need. You know, if they're struggling with something, they need help. That's when they join the community. I mean, or that's when they use it, when they open it. And some other people under different circumstances, like me, I work from home and by myself in this

Claudia (26:04.526)
woman cave every day. I love to be in my community every day because that's, you know, my way of interacting with other people. So different, different lives.

Eric M. (26:10.663)
Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I love this. And, I, there's so many good nuggets here. I mean, things that I'm going to implement, when you, when I think about a special guest, I should think about the topic and not just have one guest, but a series of different guests that could talk about that. Also inviting members of my own community that can talk about a specific project that they're maybe working on. I love that. And then also just being a little bit more active.

Anything that I'm missing here, I know you're you've got mentorships and ambassadors. I don't think I'm at that level yet. Like I've only got 25 members, but I feel like maybe once I get to closer to a hundred members, that's probably something I should be thinking about. What do you think?

Claudia (26:59.47)
Yeah, or even a little bit higher because your 100 members are still helping you build the structure to scale. So I think I launched the ambassador initiative when we got to the thousand. And that was just like to celebrate, you know, obviously reaching a thousand members, but also now that we're a thousand people, how can we scale even more? How can we?

reinforce the structure, the foundation of this community. And so that's when I was happy and very excited to choose these 12 people to help me. And so I think like, wait a little bit, use, really foster that collaboration with your first hundreds, with your first cohort of people that you have, because they're going to help you build the foundation again to what will come next. Yeah, yeah, I think so.

Eric M. (27:56.679)
And is it a paid community, Claudia, or no?

Claudia (27:59.502)
No, both of them are free. I'm really bad at business.

Eric M. (28:01.767)
All right. And for flox, and for floxies is the majority based in the UK. Most of the members are they all over.

Claudia (28:09.326)
All over is global. So I would say we have a majority for sure, between UK and US. But, you know, it's both of them are global communities. I guess for me, when I try to outreach, I try to find people around me first so that I can also meet them in real life for, you know, hangouts and meetups, because they're really, effectful as well. They have an impact. And as much as we love hanging out online and virtually nothing beats, you know, a good.

coffee with a friend. And so I was lucky to meet a few members, both of Fluxys and NockleDocs community in person. And it just creates an even stronger bond when you do that. And so, yeah, I do have lots of people here in London, because I'm here, I'm based in London. And then a few people in the US because my company is based in Atlanta, Georgia. So whenever I travel, I'm like, hey, I'm here, who's around? So I get to see them too.

Eric M. (29:09.319)
Awesome. Claudia, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Claudia (29:13.006)
my pleasure, my pleasure. Have we come to an end?

Eric M. (29:16.071)
Yeah. Yeah. For everybody listening, I'm going to put links to Claudia's community as well as her LinkedIn profile in the show notes. And if you enjoy this, tell others about it, hit that subscribe button. And that's really one of the only ways that we can grow the show until then. This is Eric signing off and I'll be back next week.

Claudia (29:35.15)
Thank you so much, Eric. This was really fun.

Eric M. (29:37.671)
for me too. Cheers.

Claudia (29:39.598)
Bye! Cheers!