Build IRL Newsletter #24
Build IRL Newsletter #24
A convening of clubs, Relationality, Tinned fish - The Future is Culture?, Join or Die on Netflix and more!
Howdy, B.IRL Gang! 👋
What a week! We’re buzzing with inspiration! ✨
We met 40 social club leaders nationwide, chatted with strategy guru Roger Martin, and were blown away by David Jay’s take on relational work—seriously, get his book! 📚
But first, have you seen Join or Die yet? 🎥 Our fav documentary is on Netflix now. Huge shoutout to Pete and Rebecca Davis for telling the story of this crucial crisis. 🙌
This week’s edition:
🌟A Convening of Clubs by One More Hour (Hinge)
🌐Relationality by David Jay - A fresh take on tackling disconnection
🐟 Tinned Fish (the future is culture?) w/ Roger Martin & Red Associates
🎥 Join or Die on Netflix!
🔮 What’s next: 2 weeks to go until our next big announcement, including dates for the next accelerator and more! 🚀
🥳 A Convening of Clubs: One More Hour (by Hinge)
Y’all know we love club builders! 🙌 Last week, we gathered with 40 amazing club leaders nationwide, supported by Hinge’s One More Hour initiative!
We’re talking true culture builders: from fly game nights to artist collectives, silent reading parties, and dance-offs groups.
Here’s what we learned together:
What are builders feeling: Overwhelmed! 😩
They’re ‘excited & inspired’ yet ‘tired & stressed.’ We gotta change that! This work needs to be 10x easier and way more rewarding! 🌟
Top challenges? Funding & Managing Minutiae.💰
The (invisible) work of running clubs without sustainable funding is CRAZY.
And here’s the magic: In just minutes, the group shared 80 specific ways they can help each other! We were blown away!
As we say - building together is more magic. 🚀✨
Hot take: All IRL hours are equal, but some are more equal than others.
The current obsession with flashy high production one-off large events is so misleading! 🚫✨ Bigger isn’t always better—just because 10 people show up doesn’t mean it’s a fail. Quite the opposite.
Relationships grow exponentially! The first 10 passionate members, bring in 10 passionate members each. The group grows into 100 who truly care and meet weekly. Meanwhile, big events often fizzle out.
Clubs are MUCH more than events; they’re curated containers for lasting relationships. That requires work: curating who shows up, creating afterspaces for connections, setting boundaries, welcomes & farewells, designing belonging and commitment.
We need to redefine how we value and measure success for IRL.
🌐The relational world.
We recently read Relationality by David Jay, and absolutely love his fresh take on tackling the disconnection crisis!
🤯 Redefining loneliness as lack of relational agency
Jay says disconnection is really about not having relational agency—the power to shape relationships. Even with the right skills, without abundance of the relational spaces (relational containers), we still feel disconnected. 🛠✨ It’s the infrastructure, not you!
💡 Relationality is the ability of an environment to create relationships. Relationality drives more resilience & evolution. This applies to everything, from humans to molecular biology and particle physics.
💸 Why relational containers are defunded by free markets and top-down philanthropy?
Current economic systems prioritize certainty over co-creation, and transactions over relationships, leading to a decline in relational spaces. How can we change that?
🚀 What can a new economic system to revive relational containers look like?
The value of relational containers is clear to those who are part of them. That’s why funding should start with the group’s own members. If the group can manage or crowdfund new projects from people who already understand the community, it becomes easier for external funding to match (and amplify) it!
🐟 Tinned Fish - The Future is Culture?
Just had an epic convo with Roger Martin & ReD Associates about the next wave of innovation— it’s not just about individual “users” anymore, it’ll be about building new worlds and new cultures 🌍.
We always wondered what’s up with the 2024 tinned fish craze? (Even our club builders are hooked 🐠). Maybe Fishwife knew they were shaping a culture, not just selling a snack.
Is the era of culture builders here? 👀
🎥Join or Die is on Netflix!
🚨 Public Service Announcement: Watch our fave documentary on Netflix —it's a must-watch! 🎥✨ You’re gonna love it! 😍 Trust us, thank us later! 🙌💖
🎉 What’s cooking at Build IRL?
Just 2 weeks until our next BIG announcement! 🚀✨
Get ready for our next big leap, next accelerator dates and so much more!
That’s all for this week folks!
Keep building 🛠️
-Saum & Colt
I feel so seen in that graph with "managing minutiae" - thank you!! Can I get any help with sending all these individually crafted emails ya'll?? And NO, pass on the AI.
This was a fabulous read. As someone who has been hosting lots of small but (IMO) high quality gatherings, this was encouraging. I think so often we pursue big headcounts for the sake of big headcounts, but the impact can be just as great with a quality > quantity approach. Keep up the amazing work! :)