Community Spotlight: Angelica Automates
Angelica was a stay-at-home-mom on parental leave when her husband asked her to promote his cybersecurity startup on LinkedIn to help him out.
“I’m a little bit techie, but I’m not a developer. I don’t like cybersecurity. I don’t like LinkedIn. So I thought, ‘Absolutely not’” Angelica said. “But instead, I learned to automate that process for him.”
Once she posted about this automation on TikTok–her life changed. People started asking for tutorials, custom automations, and seeing her as an authority on AI.
“The thing that I was lacking was a way to help my community troubleshoot. I would get five to 10 emails a day with just general questions, and my email inbox was getting kind of out of hand.
So I was on the hunt for a tool that’s going to let me put everybody in one room, do a live session, host my courses, have a live chat so that people have access to me and my team and to the tools that we're building.” - Angelica Grunewald, Founder of the AI Automation Learning Group
Angelica's community approach centers on two core elements: listening to community needs and providing hands-on support.
Now, thanks to Circle, Angelica has built a rich educational community where she hosts tutorials, troubleshooting sessions, and live events. She’s become an incredible example of how TikTok popularity can translate into a wildly successful community of practice.
The community breakdown
📍 Community: Angelica Automates
👋 Founder: Angelica Grunewald
🗓️ Circle Community Launched in: February 2024
🌟 Size: 350+ members
🎯 Purpose: Expand members’ skillsets with the latest in AI automation
💰Pricing model: Paid membership ($99/mo or $949/yr) with 30-day trials for her course customers.
Core community offering
Angelica’s membership grants access to live sessions, tutorials, and office hours, allowing members to deep dive into tech automation and receive personalized support.
Previously, she used to sell the courses as one-offs for several hundred dollars, but decided to consolidate them all behind a membership portal (with Circle!) to better offer more support and troubleshooting to her students.
Now, after joining, they gain access to numerous courses that guide them in topics ranging from social media automation to complex software solutions.
Beyond the digital courses, Angelica's community boasts an active schedule designed to maintain member engagement and foster collaboration. Members participate in:
- Weekly live sessions and office hours: These provide direct access to Angelica and her team, offering opportunities to resolve individual queries and work on ongoing projects.
- Live TikTok sessions: These sessions are an essential funnel for new members, offering a preview of the value within the community.
- Live replays with timestamps: Members can revisit recorded sessions at their convenience via organized topics for easy navigation.
Angelica continuously adapts her offerings to meet emerging needs, driven by ongoing member feedback and the current buzz in the world of automation tools.
"Learning what my community needs has been my biggest guide in creating valuable content and resources for them," Angelica shares.
How it’s organized
In her Circle community, Angelica has crafted a detailed and visually engaging layout that guides members through:
- A 'Start Here' segment, providing user-friendly navigation instructions.
- Specialized spaces for different learning modules and tutorial access, like:
- AI Automations
- Social media posting automations
- Etsy automations
- Custom ChatGPTs
- Print on Demand (POD) courses
- A specialty agency owners group
- A collaborative space for community feedback and project screening.
- Frequent tool updates and API automation resources to aid member development.
"We’re constantly iterating based on what our community tells us they need," says Angelica, "which keeps our platform vibrant and evolving."
How it's monetized
Angelica started this journey by posting a lot of “automation show-and-tells” on TikTok, and then creating courses around popular topics, like social posting automations or Etsy automations.
In order to get her community started, she emailed the 150+ people who had bought her courses to give them a 90-day free trial of the AI Automation Learning Group community. And through offering such value-packed community-based supports such as the lives and consults, she proved the value very quickly–and then expanded where her customer base asked.
“I don't do any paid advertising. I go live on TikTok maybe two or three times a week, and I just show and tell what I'm building, what I've discovered, and how I'm using different tools,” says Angelica.
“It's one of the dials that I feel like I can kind of turn on whenever I want to grow the community more and bring in more traffic.”
The community team
Angelica manages her business alongside her partner (who’s a developer) and a dedicated community member volunteer. This lean yet effective team structure allows for personalized engagement and operational flexibility.
By integrating Circle’s built-in automation tools, Angelica reduces manual administrative tasks, and creates sustainable community involvement that doesn’t end with her burnout.
Angelica’s top community building tips & tricks
💡 Embrace automation: Let tools handle repetitive tasks, allowing you to focus more on community engagement.
For example, Angelica uses Circle's workflow feature to send personalized welcome messages to new members, creating a warm first impression. These automated messages are crafted to look like personal communications, setting the tone for an inviting atmosphere from the start.
💡 Listen to your people (and create feedback loops): Community feedback is invaluable. Use it to refine your offerings and provide exactly what your members need.
To create feedback loops, you can automate check-in messages, sent monthly or targeted to members who haven't engaged recently. These messages help maintain connections with members and offer assistance if needed. This proactive approach shows members that their participation is valued and encourages ongoing engagement.
“The old model was: have an idea, build a tool, promote it. For us, it was: the community said ‘We need this tool.’ Then, we built the tool. We had a community already in place ready to test it and to purchase it once it was ready.” - Angelica Grunewald
💡 Use organic channels to grow your audience (and monetize with a membership): Angelica uses TikTok as a main source of traffic for her community. By going live on TikTok a few times a week to showcase her work and offer trial memberships, she attracts new members organically without relying on paid advertising.
“On Instagram, Facebook, TikTok: you're bombarded by all this other noise.
When people come to my community, they come with the intention to focus. Like I'm coming in to learn something. I'm coming in to connect with someone who's doing this.” - Angelica Grunewald
Angelica’s journey exemplifies how the marriage of passion, technology, and community can lead to substantial success. For those wishing to dive deeper into the world of automation, Angelica’s community offers a gateway to innovative possibilities.
