Building a startup all by yourself comes with challenges you can overcome by meeting and talking with others. Joining a community of investors and founders gives access to different resources for learning and growing your company, finding the type of partners you need, and even interacting with potential clients or mentors.

In this article, we handpicked a few recommendations for online communities with thousands of investors and founders that you can join quickly.

On top of that, you will also find a few details about SeedBlink Circle, our community platform dedicated to startup founders and investors, and a list of tips & tricks to start your community.

The importance of having a solid community

As social and human beings, our destiny is to live with people through different social connections. In the world of startups and venture capital, being part of a dedicated community keeps you connected to local experts and gives you various opportunities.

• Network support — When you are part of a community, you get access to a network of people from whom you can seek advice, discuss various ideas, and get inspired.
• Professional growth — Community members often help each other grow through their knowledge. It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or an expert; some people might know nothing about your domain of expertise.
• A sense of purpose — When you have a common goal with a larger group of people, you feel your work has a more significant contribution to the industry you are working on.
• Higher motivation and confidence — When your ideas and work are validated, you have the confidence to continue building your startup no matter how hard it is.

4 Tips & Tricks to Build A Community

Building a business is challenging, especially when you are an angel investor and a single founder. A community where you can join other like-minded people gives you access to resources and unique advice to learn from. On top of this, when you are a community member, you are more motivated to continue your journey and build something that matters.

However, building a community for a specific group of investors and founders that doesn’t exist yet is challenging. It is why we wanted to help you lay the groundwork and have a few tips & tricks to get things started.

Find your niche.

When building out your community of founders or investors, the most important thing is to identify a common problem you can solve.

It’s a similar process to building a product or a startup, especially when laying the foundations of your community. Your community will attract the correct type of audience if it addresses a specific need they have.

Have a clear goal in mind.

Communities can take many forms and structures, depending on how you build them.

When building a community for fellow founders or investors, consider their needs and why they want to join your network.

Iterate and adapt on the go.

You’ll learn more about your audience as more members join your community.

Understand how many of their needs are common challenges other investors and founders face, and see how you can adapt your services or products to respond to them.

Create a space for transparency and engaging talks.

A strong community is active when people engage, share their thoughts, and help each other. So, encourage people to collaborate, share their ideas, and be part of joint activities.

Have you found the right community for you?

Join SeedBlink Circle, the group of like-minded startup founders and investors that will help you grow your company and attract the next round of investment you are targeting. We have almost 1,000 active members ready to guide you to the next steps.

Let us know your feedback and what other community recommendations you have to keep the list above up to date.

SeedBlink Circle - a community of investors and founders

SeedBlink Circle is an engagement tool explicitly created for investors to share their expertise and experience to impact the growth of their portfolios and companies and for founders to engage and stay closely connected with a robust network of partners who believe in their ideas.

This tool, integrated into the platform, is only available to portfolio companies and active investors - you can access it through SeedBlink’s platform. The online community fosters synergies for our community of investors and founders. On this platform, our mission is to:

Create interactions between members: We know how valuable our members are and what a great diversity we have in terms of profiles, expertise and we want our members to get to know each other:

• Through live online events in which we discover our members;
• By offline networking events exclusively for the SeedBlink Circle members.

Offer education tools about startup investment: Startup investment is our community's core interest, and we aim to provide knowledge to our members that will increase their results. The community enables investors and founders to:

• Share curated resources;
• Cultivate knowledge on various topics;
• Access dedicated courses developed exclusively for SeedBlink Circle members.

Offer first-hand updates and information regarding SeedBlink products, features, and plans through:

• Informative posts;
• Live discussions with the SeedBlink team, exclusively for our SeedBlink Circle members.

5 Examples of Communities For Founders

Below, we handpicked a list of communities that might be helpful to you as a founder. However, there are more communities all around the globe ready to embrace you with open arms.

Indie Hackers

Indie Hackers is a founder-oriented community where entrepreneurs and individual indie-hackers share their stories to help each other. It’s a highly active community and a wonderful place to get inspired.

The community has already gathered +45K active members, and you can join it for free through a simple sign-up process.

Check out Indie Hackers.

No-code Founders

No-code Founders is a community for entrepreneurs and no-code founders building products and businesses without code. You can get inspired, find fellow entrepreneurs to partner with, and find other resources to help you make your startup.

The community gathered +12K active members, and it’s free to join anytime.

Check out No-code Founders.

Mind the Product

Mind the Product is a community for product people around the world. The Slack channel has already gathered +60K passionate people discussing everything related to building and growing a successful product.

Check out Mind the Product

LaaS Community

Lolita Taub started LaaS, a global community for founders and funders who want to support each other in raising capital. The community has gathered 1900+ like-minded people and provides different resources and tools for early-stage startups.

As a community member and without additional fees, you get access to events, job boards, startup-investor intros, GP-LP intros, and the opportunity to ask your most burning questions. LaaS community also offers a few courses and access to guides with prices ranging from $10 to $100+.

Check out LaaS Community

WP Growth

The first community for WordPress product builders is opening its doors soon and aims to connect founders and WordPress entrepreneurs worldwide.

Besides getting new opportunities to connect to others, Francisco, the founder of WP Growth, promises to bring different types of resources to learn from, such as online training, workshops, and other tools or resources to support your growth.

LAUNCH

The launch is a Romanian community aiming to democratize access to startup resources, such as feedback from founders, investors, and community experts, access to capital, and pilot projects.

You can join the community free of charge, but the process includes getting accepted into one of the new cohorts of startups that open every few weeks. So far, the community is addressed solely to Romanian founders.

Check out the Launch community.

6 Examples of Communities For Investors

Confluence. VC

Confluence.VC is building the operating playbook for venture and growth equity investors. All members gain access to their resource library with 400+ resources. Premium members access the community directory, Slack group, 1-on-1 intros, and other features.

Confluence.VC is a Slack Group for VCs with roughly 2K members.

Check out Confluence. VC

4WARD.VC

4WARD.VC is a platform that created a meeting point for investors and founders passionate about ClimateTech. It has a community hub with resources and two Slack Channel communities, The Climate VC Crew and ClimateTechies.

Check out ClimateTechies | Check out The Climate VC Crew

EVCA - Emerging Venture Capitalists Association

EVCA is the primary community for emerging (pre-partner & junior partner) venture capital investors. Founded in 2017, our 1300+ investors come from diverse backgrounds to share insights on industry verticals, co-investment opportunities, career planning, community service, and personal interests.

EVCA is a Slack Group for VCs with roughly 850 members.

Check out EVCA

VC FAMILIA

VCFamilia is a Slack Group for VCs with roughly 224 members dedicated to the Latin community. This community provides current investors with continued education, community, & mentorship to ensure success and growth in the industry.

Check out VC FAMILIA

F6S

F6S is an online community for Founders, VCs, and Cofounder Seekers with roughly 4.6M members. It uses a forum format for communication.

Check out F6S

Kernal

Kernal is a growing community of qualified founders, builders, and investors focused on validating pre-seed startup ideas. Kernal members are Founders, Indie Hackers, VCs, Ideation Businesses, and Micro Startups with roughly 11K members. It has both a forum and a live chat communication style.

Check out Kernal