7 Ways to Bootstrap Your Community

Five years ago I was working as product manager and head of partnerships at Eventbrite. Quickly, I became aware of a big gap in the market. Customers were continually asking for integrations with membership management. Outdated and expensive all-in-one monolithic solutions were falling short in delivering key things like email marketing and event management integrations. So despite my lack of formal training in coding, I saw an opportunity to create a better, more cost effective and modern solution that integrates with existing service platforms.

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For a year, I spent my free time at night teaching myself how to code — building the idea that would become Join It and dreaming of being my own boss.  In September 2016, I left Eventbrite to move to Spain and bootstrap Join It. In the four years since our launch, we’ve successfully grown an international community of clients without ever accepting outside funding. But jst like building a company, building a community requires patience, dedication —and most importantly, a sustainable approach. Here are seven lessons from my bootstrapping journey that can be applied to building your community.