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“Mario, I F-cking Hate You.” How To Build Community. - The Davy Rothbart Interview

It started when Davy found a note that someone mistakenly put on his car. The note said, “Mario, I f-cking hate you. You said you had to work. Then why’s your car HERE at HER place?? You’re a f-cking LIAR. I hate you I fucking hate you. –Amber PS page me later.” (See the note.)

Since then, Davy’s been combining what he and his community find into FOUND Magazine, a community art project. Since the project couldn’t exist without the community, I knew Davy could teach me how to build an online community.

Here are a few things Davy taught me. (Listen to the interview to hear more.)

Get out of your house - I tend to think of building communities as something that happens remotely. But Davy built his community by touring–and meeting people in person. Organizing a tour was one of the first things he did when he started. At first, only 4 to 12 people might show up for a reading, but now his audiences are in the hundreds.

The cycle of life - Communities thrive on a giving cycle. At FOUND Magazine, the community sends Davy what it finds. Then he posts what they send him. And that encourages others to send him more finds.

Email is still important - Davy keeps building up his email list. He says that his friends’ bands are often reluctant to ask people to join their mailing list, but he actively asks people to join because he knows how powerful a good list can be.

Ask - Davy is about to go on a European tour with FOUND Magazine. He can plan it remotely because he asks for and gets support from his community.

Where’s the profit - While he says he doesn’t want to profit from his community, Davy gets other benefits because of his community. Because of the growing “FOUND Magazine family” this book of his stories got published. He also got to be a guest on Letterman, travel the world and other benefits.

What can you teach us about building a community?

Right click & download this interview!

September 15, 2008 | Filed Under Interview, podcast 

comments

3 Responses to ““Mario, I F-cking Hate You.” How To Build Community. - The Davy Rothbart Interview”

  1. Wallen's on September 15th, 2008

    Thanks Andrew! Very interesting blog concept that I just discovered.

  2. Jamie Hiyama on September 17th, 2008

    i LOVE found magazine!! i was excited to see you post this!

  3. Andrew Warner on September 17th, 2008

    Thanks Wallen & Jamie. I never heard of FOUND until Frank Warren of PostSecret told me about it when I interviewed him. Since I interviewed Davy, I’ve become a fan and I’m discovering that many of my friends have known about him for years.

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