Building The #1 Community for B2B Marketers (From a One Person Business a Year Ago)

A year ago, Exit Five was a solo operation.

Just me, running things on my own, a few contractors, trying to create something that B2B marketers would actually find valuable.

Exit Five was going well and had the signals of something more: active members, steady growth, word of mouth driving the business. But I treated it very much like a side project. After 10 years of talking about B2B marketing, I was ready to do something else.

I was ready to give it away. To find someone to manage it day to day, and I would ride off into the sunset and go write poetry in a cabin in the woods. It was a great asset, I wanted to keep it running, but I didn't want to be involved.

So I hired Daniel J. Murphy to takeover and run the business. Or so I thought. After about 2 days of Dan digging into the business, he called me "Dude. You have something incredible here."

It wasn't until getting someone else into the business that I saw how great it was. And it wasn't until having a team working on Exit Five with me that I got excited again. It felt great to be getting ideas from others, pushing each other, sharing success and failures together.

It turns out, what I need to get out of my funk was actually to go all in.

We decide to hire and invest. And spend over $500,000 on the business in 2024.

Burn the boats! We're going for it.

Turns out, that's what I needed. I feel energized. Renewed. Motivated. Excited. I'm now the founder sending 5 AM Slack messages because I wake up EXCITED to work on Exit Five.

Fast forward to today, and we’re five full-time teammates deep, growing 100% year-over-year, and we just hosted our first in-person event with 200 people showing up to Burlington, Vermont (and the NPS was 88!)

If you’re not familiar with Exit Five, here’s what we do:

We’ve built the #1 private community for B2B marketing professionals. Our mission is to help you grow your skills and advance your career in B2B marketing. Unlike LinkedIn, where it’s often about likes and going viral, our members are focused on real answers from a curated group of peers who have been where you are.

With 4,420 members, 38% of whom are active weekly. In the past year alone, there's been 2,669 posts and 15,566 comments. But Exit Five’s strength isn't the activity —it’s about the connections, the answers, and the shared community focused on B2B marketing.

But it's not the stats that lead me to call Exit Five the # 1 community for B2B marketers.

It's not the data.

It's actually (gasp) a feeling.

I've been feeling this online for 2 years, but it was cemented at our first in-person event earlier this month, and the outpouring of comments and love after.

Why join Exit Five and pay for a membership when you can get answers to marketing questions here on LinkedIn or from Google, YouTube, and ChatGPT?

There's just something different about being in a dedicated community for your craft.

? You can go do a bunch of CrossFit movements at your local gym, but it's not the same as joining a CrossFit gym and connecting with the community there. You'll meet people from all around the world doing the same job you are. And they all paid to be there - so there's no self promotion, no one trying to go viral or get likes. It's about helping each other win and do better marketing.

? We have a full-time team of five dedicated to making this the best community for B2B marketers. Two years ago it was just me, and the group was on Facebook. Not the best. But that little signal led us to go all in and build a team here and invest in this product.

? You can be a member for months, but all it takes is one reply, one DM, one comment to help you get unstuck at work and you'll realize the return on this investment is a no brainer. Plus there's two years of content you can search, and I bet you if you have a question, it's been asked and answered inside of Exit Five.

? You get way more information and knowledge than you get here on LinkedIn -people are sharing candid reviews of vendors, software, agencies. They are telling you what these things cost and whether or not they are worth it.

If you're the type that is curious, hungry, and wants to make an investment in growing you career as a B2B marketer, there's no better place to bet that on than Exit Five.

There's also no risk to join. You get FULL access to everything in our community for seven days and then you can decide if you want to stick around and pay.

But it also goes beyond the marketing advice.

One member messaged me over the weekend and said:

"E5 is giving me a sense of community I've been missing in my professional life for years."

That says it all.

I hope to see you inside of Exit Five.

Go hit our website (or join our newsletter via the link in my profile next to that bald head up there) and you can join today.

PS. When you have the wind at your back, you just have to keep going. We are riding some serious momentum with Exit Five.

The 2 weeks after our event have been the two biggest (for new members) ever. We're 27 days into the month and at 105% of our trial goal for the month. We've been getting a flood of sponsorship inquiries, partnership ideas, podcast suggestions.

PLUS:

? Last week we announced our first Virtual Event. One day. October 15. The Ultimate Roast of B2B websites. Breaking down (roasting) all parts of the website with an all-star cast of marketers on call to help you.

? We have ~170 marketing leaders signed up for our first B2B Marketing Leadership Accelerator that will run online October 3 - November 21 covering everything from team management, planning, budgeting, strategy, internal marketing.

? Danielle Messler had to run out to go get a 2TB external hard drive to get all of the content from Drive uploaded into our community; so that's a nice new benefit to all members and to the thousands who didn't come to the event. All of the videos/slides are up now in the community.

? We're doing a meet-up in Austin November 12 - 13 if you're in the area. We'll be in town for our annual off-site, so holler if you want to hang out with the Exit Five team and some Austin-based B2B marketers.

Thanks for reading.

The Exit Five team is Daniel J. Murphy Matthew Carnevale Anna Vermillion Danielle Messler - keep an eye out for some new spots on the team opening up soon.