Community Founders Circle

A peer community for founders building community-first businesses

person in red sweater holding babys hand

The challenge you're facing

When community is your business, you face decisions that generic startup advice can't solve:

Monetization timing

Moving from free to paid feels like breaking a promise, but staying free isn't sustainable.

Growth vs. intimacy

Scale can destroy the very thing that makes your community valuable.

Platform selection

With 130+ community platforms available, how do you choose what actually serves your model?

Engagement depth

More activity doesn't always mean more value—sometimes it means more noise.

Founder accountability

You carry strategic decisions that community managers don't—every choice about culture, pricing, and growth lives with you.

Who is this for

Community Founders Circle is designed for founders who are:

Building community-led businesses where community is central to your model—whether it's a membership platform, professional network, or community product

At any stage—from exploring your first launch to refining a community that isn't performing as expected

Looking for peer wisdom from people doing similar work, not guru proclamations from consultants selling courses

Committed to building sustainably—willing to experiment, share what you're learning, and refine based on real feedback

What you get

Monthly facilitated sessions — Small group conversations (limited to 25 founding members) focused on real challenges you're facing. Structured discussions on platform selection, monetization strategy, engagement design, and hiring decisions.

Private Slack workspace — A focused space to ask questions and get feedback between sessions. Quality over volume—not a high-traffic channel where messages disappear.

Frameworks and resources — Access to Todd's research library including community platform evaluations, 270+ documented engagement tactics, community charter guides, and decision-making rubrics.

Direct access to experienced guides — Todd brings community strategy expertise across sectors. Karina brings founder experience from building and running a successful community business. Both are active in sessions and available for feedback.

Your Guides

Together they combine strategic depth with lived founder experience—frameworks plus reality.

Todd Nilson is a community strategist and founder of Clocktower Advisors. He's helped dozens of organizations design sustainable online communities, researched 130+ platforms, and developed frameworks for community engagement and governance.

Karina Mikhli is the founder of Fractionals United, a thriving community-led business she's built over three years. She's lived the founder journey—monetization decisions, scaling culture, and building a sustainable business where community is the core product.

How it works

  1. This is an ongoing peer community, not a time-bound course.
  2. Each month, we gather for facilitated sessions on topics that matter to your current stage: monetization approaches, platform choices, engagement strategies, scaling decisions, hiring timing, and the messy trade-offs of community growth.
  3. Between sessions, you'll connect with other founders working through similar challenges—asking specific questions, sharing experiments, and getting practical feedback.
  4. The focus is on making progress on real decisions, not accumulating theoretical knowledge.

Investment

$50/month includes:

  • All monthly facilitated sessions
  • Access to the private Slack community
  • Complete resource library and frameworks
  • Ongoing support from Todd and Karina

We're keeping the founding cohort small (limited to 25 members) to ensure meaningful relationships and substantive conversations.

Join the Founding Circle

We're starting with our first cohort of 25 founders and will grow thoughtfully from there.

If you're building a community-first business and want a peer group that understands your unique challenges, this is for you!

Join the Waiting List (limited to 25 founding members)

Questions? Email us at [contact email].

Community Founders Circle exists because we know how valuable the right peer group is when you're building something most founders don't understand. We're creating the space we wished existed when we were asking these hard questions ourselves.