Why did nobody show up?

🎙️ The Platform Hunger Games, Community Edition: If choosing a community platform were a reality show, it'd have four contestants, zero alliances, and at least one person yelling about API integrations. I joined Bri Leever's Dear Bri panel alongside builders from Skool, Mighty Networks, and Heartbeat — and we did not hold back. → Find out which one survived the arena.

🧭 A Compass for Community Builders Who Wing It: Tom Ross showed up to the first Community Creators Series session I hosted and laid out his Community Compass Framework — strategy, engagement, growth, all in one system. Hundreds of creators have used it. → Watch the replay before your next launch.

🎧 My Retrenchment Was the Best Strategy I Never Planned: There's a moment in every founder origin story that sounds like a movie — except it's just you, crying in the car, wondering what happened to "stable." I went on Simone Snedorf's Booking and Bottles podcast and told that story. Five years later, the brand I built from that wreckage is the one thing nobody can fire me from. → Listen to the episode that hits "right in the heart."

🤖 I Built an AI That Writes Like Me: Every word in this newsletter went through a Notion AI agent trained on my brand voice. Community builders: imagine an assistant that knows your tone, your offers, and your calendar — and doesn't ghost at important moments. That's Notion AI. → Worth a look.

I used to send one event reminder and wonder why nobody showed up.

I'd spend hours planning the session — the content, the structure, the breakout questions. I'd set up the registration page. I'd write one email to my list: "Hey, we've got an event next Thursday. Here's the link."

And then I'd wait.

A handful of people would register. More than half of them wouldn't show. I'd tell myself the content wasn't right, or the timing was off, or people were just busy. It never occurred to me that the problem wasn't the event. It was everything I wasn't doing before it.

Here's the thing nobody tells you when you start running community events: one email is not a communication strategy. It's a Hail Mary.

I know why we do it. We're scared of being annoying. We think that if we send more than one email, people will unsubscribe, or roll their eyes, or quietly decide we're that person — the one who won't stop filling their inbox.

So we send one email and cross our fingers. And when the event is half-empty, we blame the content instead of the communication.

The fear of annoying people is real. But here's what I've learned: people who signed up for your list want to hear from you. And people who are interested in your event want to be reminded about it — not once, but at the right moments, in the right ways.

Pre-event emails aren't annoying. They're informative. They build anticipation. They turn a registration into a commitment.

When I finally mapped out everything I was sending before my best-attended events, the pattern was obvious. It wasn't one email. It was a full communication system — registration pages, social posts, emails, feedback forms — all segmented by when they should go out.

I've been running events for years. And I got tired of rebuilding these emails from scratch every single time — rewriting the same launch announcement, the same reminder, the same feedback form.

So I built a template. Every email, every social post, every feedback form, segmented by timing. And I built an AI agent into it that rewrites the copy in your brand voice, so you're not stuck with my words — you're using yours.

The whole point is to spend less time on logistics and more time on the work that actually matters: designing a session people walk away from feeling like it was worth their time.

Because nobody remembers a well-timed email. But they definitely remember an event that felt like it was made for them. And the communication before it? That's what sets the tone.

I built the Event RSVP System so community founders can stop guessing and start communicating — with a 3-week system that does the heavy lifting for you.

→ Get the Event RSVP System and stop sending one email and hoping for the best.

P.S. If you're currently in the "one email and a prayer" camp — I've been there. No judgement. But there's a better way, and it starts three weeks before your event, not the night before.

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