A motion designer, software developer, and self-described “ex-corporate guy”, Felippe Nardi has been running his cohort-based course community Inside The Show for the past three years now. His course breaks down how to create engaging Zoom virtual experiences that wow audiences, without needing to be super tech-savvy or hire a team.
It wasn’t always smooth sailing. Just like any progress worth making, it took some trial and error and a lot of consistent effort to turn his former side project into a full-time, engaged learning community. Let’s rewind a little to see how Felippe made it happen.
When Felippe was first looking into places to host an online course community, naturally, he considered Facebook Groups and similar mainstream social media platforms. After all, that’s what his audience was familiar with and would pick up the fastest—or so he thought.
Facebook Groups weren’t going to cut it. And neither were other clunky, incomplete solutions: the last thing Felippe wanted was to send his members to one place for his course and to another place for his community, causing confusion and a huge dropoff in engagement.
And that’s where Circle came in.
When Felippe came across Circle, he knew right away that he wanted to place his bets on the platform. Here’s why:
“When I found Circle, it was very simple… and there’s one thing that Circle has, which is still true now even with more features, which is that there is no learning curve to start using it.”
Simple. Flexible. Easy to get the hang of. Circle was the perfect place for Felippe to host his course and community, allowing him to bring together his people, content, and learning experience, all in one place, under his brand.
By hosting his community-powered course on Circle, Felippe can easily:
1. Boost engagement
Right from the start, Felippe has been incredibly intentional about sparking engagement, using very specific prompts, designated spaces, and 1-1 outreach to make sure it happens consistently. “If I don’t tell [my members] what to do, I assume that there’s not going to be engagement.” Felippe elaborates.
2. Reward participation
Felippe incentivizes his members to complete a weekly homework assignment (which involves recording and posting a progress video showing what they’ve learned so far) by entering anyone who participates into a raffle. The winner gets a piece of film equipment worth $80 that they can use in their own live sessions.
3. Repurpose content for marketing
Next up, he repurposes all that handy user-generated video content as marketing material to use on Instagram and other channels. This way, he has a constant stream of material to use to keep the customer acquisition machine going, without needing to generate it all himself from scratch.
Since Felippe started in 2020, he’s managed to launch and maintain a community-powered course with an impressive completion rate of over 70%.
Using Circle alongside his passion for creativity and connection, Felippe has now grown Inside the Show from a side project into a full-time gig with a thriving community of over 200 creatives from 49 countries.
And the community just keeps growing. From speakers, to performers and trainers, Felippe’s students walk away feeling inspired and ready to create their own unique live experiences on Zoom.
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