How to Add Value to the Community

May 2018. One of our entrepreneurs (let’s call her Maria) had been in the builder for 14 months. Her company was doing well: 20 paying customers, $15K monthly revenue, growing steadily. She’d gotten tremendous value from the builder: funding, mentorship, customer introductions, operational support.

Then she did something unexpected.

A new entrepreneur joined the builder: first-time founder, no business background, scared out of his mind. Maria reached out to him unprompted: “I was exactly where you are a year ago. Want to grab coffee and I’ll tell you what I wish I’d known?”

They met for an hour. She shared her customer discovery notes, her pricing spreadsheet, her BRD template. She introduced him to two potential customers in her network. She told him about the mistakes she’d made so he could avoid them.

Two weeks later, I asked her: “Why did you do that? You’re busy building your own company.”

Her answer: “Because three people in this builder did that for me when I started. I’m just paying it forward.”

That conversation crystallized something I’d been observing for months: The entrepreneurs who contribute to the builder community grow faster than the entrepreneurs who just take from it.

Not because karma is real (though maybe it is). Because contributing to the community creates a network effect that accelerates your own success in tangible, measurable ways.

The Community Advantage

Solo entrepreneurs are isolated. They solve every problem alone, learn every lesson the hard way, and rely entirely on their own limited network.

Builder entrepreneurs have a cheat code: a community of people solving similar problems at similar stages who can help each other.

But this only works if people actually help each other.

A community where everyone just takes (attending workshops, using resources, asking for help) but nobody gives back, collapses into a transactional service relationship. “I pay for membership, you provide services.”

A community where people actively help each other (sharing knowledge, making introductions, offering feedback) becomes multiplicative. The value you get out increases exponentially with the value others put in.

Maria understood this instinctively. Many entrepreneurs don’t.

Five Ways to Add Value

Every challenge you’ve solved is a lesson someone else in the community will need.

You figured out how to structure a B2B sales process? Write it down and share it.

You learned the hard way which marketing channels don’t work for your customer type? Save others the wasted spend.

You built a pricing model that actually works? Share the spreadsheet.

One of our founders created a “Sales Playbook” document after closing his first ten customers. He shared it with the community: exact email templates, call scripts, objection handling tactics, negotiation strategies. Four other entrepreneurs used it to close their first deals faster than he did.

That document saved the community collectively hundreds of hours of trial and error. And it cost him maybe two hours to write.

2. Make Introductions

Your network is valuable. Use it to help others.

If you know someone who could be a customer, partner, advisor, or hire for another portfolio company, make the intro. Don’t wait to be asked; proactively connect people.

I’ve seen entrepreneurs make three introductions that led to:

A $50K enterprise deal for another founder
A key technical hire that unlocked a product launch
A strategic partnership that opened a new market

The person who made those intros didn’t get paid. They didn’t get equity. They got something better: reputation capital. When they needed help later, people remembered and reciprocated.

3. Give Honest Feedback

Other founders will pitch ideas, show you prototypes, ask for feedback on positioning or pricing. Be useful.

Not polite. Useful.

“That’s interesting” is polite. It’s worthless.

“I think your pricing is too low because you’re underestimating the value you’re creating. When I priced my product, I thought $20/month was the ceiling, but customers were solving a $500/month problem. I repriced at $80 and close rate actually went up” is useful.

The best feedback is specific and based on your direct experience. You’re not guessing or theorizing: you’re sharing what you actually learned by doing the thing they’re about to do.

One of our founders saved another founder from a disastrous feature decision. The second founder wanted to build a complex onboarding workflow. The first founder said: “We built that. It took three months and customers hated it because it was too complicated. We simplified it to three clicks and onboarding completion tripled. Don’t make our mistake.”

That feedback saved three months and probably saved the company.

4. Be a Customer or Tester

Portfolio companies often need early users to test products, provide feedback, or just be a reference customer.

If another company in the builder has a product you could actually use, use it. Give real feedback. Be a design partner. Write a testimonial if it actually helps you.

Two portfolio companies in our builder became paying customers of each other. One provided design services, the other needed design work. They signed a mutual customer deal (actual money exchanged, not a favor).

Both got value: one got paid, the other got work done. But they also got data (real customer feedback), credibility (mutual testimonials), and relationship depth (they understand each other’s businesses intimately now).

5. Host Learning Sessions

You’ve developed expertise in something. Share it formally.

We encourage portfolio founders to host “lunch and learns”: 30-minute sessions where they teach something specific to other founders.

Recent sessions our founders have led:

“How to set up Google Ads for B2B SaaS” (founder who spent $10K learning this the hard way)
“Writing cold emails that get responses” (founder with 40% open rates)
“Hiring your first employee” (founder who just did it successfully)
“Surviving a product pivot” (founder who pivoted and survived)

Nobody’s an expert at everything, but everyone’s an expert at something. Teaching what you know makes the whole community smarter.

Why Contributing Accelerates Your Success

This isn’t charity. It’s strategy.

Benefit 1: You Learn by Teaching

Explaining something forces you to understand it deeply. When you write a guide or host a session, you clarify your own thinking.

The founder who created the sales playbook told me: “Writing it down made me realize I actually have a system. Before, I was just winging it. Documenting it made me better at sales.”

Benefit 2: You Build Your Network

The people you help remember. When you need something later (a customer intro, a technical answer, a sanity check on a decision), they’re there.

Maria, the founder who mentored the new entrepreneur? Six months later, she needed a developer. The entrepreneur she’d helped introduced her to someone who became her first technical hire.

She didn’t help him expecting a return. But reciprocity is real.

Benefit 3: You Gain Reputation

The builder community talks. When you’re known as someone who helps, who shares, who contributes, you become the person people want to work with.

Reputation compounds. The entrepreneur who’s known as generous and helpful gets better introductions, better partnership opportunities, and better support from the builder management.

Benefit 4: You Stay Connected

Entrepreneurship is lonely. Contributing to the community keeps you connected to people who understand what you’re going through.

Some of our most valuable relationships started as “quick question” Slack messages that turned into regular coffee chats that turned into genuine friendships.

Those relationships matter when you’re struggling and need someone who gets it.

What Not to Do

Don’t keep score. “I helped them twice and they never helped me back” is the wrong mindset. Contribute because it’s the right thing to do and because the community is better when everyone does. The returns are indirect and unpredictable.

Don’t wait until you’re “successful enough” to contribute. You have valuable experience right now. Even if you’ve only been building for three months, you know more than someone on day one. Share that.

Don’t confuse activity with contribution. Attending every event and being “super engaged” isn’t contributing if you’re not actually helping anyone. One meaningful introduction or one useful piece of feedback is worth more than ten hours of networking.

Don’t be transactional. “I’ll help you if you help me” cheapens it. Help because you can, without expectation of immediate reciprocity.

The Community You Build

Here’s what I’ve learned: The strength of a builder isn’t in its resources; it’s in its community culture.

We could double our funding, hire more staff, provide more perks. But if the entrepreneurs don’t help each other, the builder is just a service provider.

When entrepreneurs actively support each other, the builder becomes something more: a collective of people genuinely invested in each other’s success.

That’s rare. That’s valuable. And it only works if you participate in building it.

You’re joining a community, not a program. Communities thrive when members contribute. If everyone takes and nobody gives, the community dies.

But if you show up with a mindset of: “How can I help?” “What do I know that others could use?” “Who can I connect?” You’ll find that the value you get back is multiples of what you put in.

Maria’s company is now at $80K MRR and growing. She still meets with new entrepreneurs, still shares her templates, still makes introductions. When I asked her if it was worth the time, she said:

“Absolutely. The community made my company possible. Contributing to it isn’t a favor I’m doing for others: it’s an investment in the ecosystem that’s investing in me.”

That’s the right mindset. Bring that energy to your builder community, and you’ll be amazed at what comes back to you.