How Member.buzz is making team coordination easier

This inspiring story is of a rising startup called Member.buzz started by William Yeack. Member.buzz is disrupting the industry norms of collaboration by providing a consolidated platform that any organization can use to coordinate with their Members. Here is the story of Member.Buzz in William’s own words.

Instead of a static site focused on displaying content, we have reimagined how users interact with and want to use technology. Member.buzz Spaces grow and develop with their organizations, allowing them to focus on their missions, productivity, and identity instead of the technology hassles.

Introduce us to your idea of Member.buzz

Member.buzz is a new social media and productivity platform that allows groups to create a customizable Space to coordinate and inspire their Members. Small and large groups utilize Member.buzz to design their website, promote events, sell tickets, collect membership dues, collect custom forms, send invoices, and much more – all from a single workspace. Member.buzz enables groups and individuals to focus on their mission by easing the burden of technology and administrative hassles.

We have created a unified, collaborative platform that gives users access to every tool they need to manage an online presence in a single workspace, a solution that was previously missing from the market. Transitioning a group or organization to a virtual setting is usually a task that requires a great knowledge of technology, IT teams, and various payments and passwords. As president of my alumni club, I saw firsthand how frustrating single-purpose tools could be for the functionality and organizational structure of a membership-based group.

The custom solution I had originally built for my own group became a project focused on community connecting and building, and I realized the potential it would have on various groups besides my own. There are now more than 30,000 users organizing on the Member.buzz platform, connecting, creating, and producing more efficiently than ever before.

What’s your strategy story? What led you to start Member.buzz?

Member.buzz can find its beginnings back in 2010 when I started a chapter of my university’s alumni club. To get the word out about our club, I created accounts on a variety of platforms including Facebook, Eventbrite, MailChimp, PayPal, Square, and more. It was a revolving door of tools. As the club grew, the already unwieldy web of platforms became too difficult and time consuming to keep aligned and functioning as required. Unsatisfied, and after a fruitless search for a true solution, I began to create a custom solution for the alumni club.

After creating the initial platform (just for the use of the alumni club), I realized that it would be a useful tool for lots of different types of organizations. Clubs, nonprofits, and other membership-based groups should be able to focus on their missions without the hassle of technology standing in their way.

I am dedicated to this because of how rewarding it is to see people being brought together by Member.buzz. Seeing people I have never met organize with our platform is a really tangible outcome and it is amazing to see.

What marketing, operation strategies are you adopting at Member.buzz?

Member.buzz is currently marketing through Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn where potential customers can browse through our company updates, new features, and product information.

Potential customers are anyone attempting to make payments-focused content, including events, auctions, and memberships, or any business with a need to send invoices or sell merchandise.

We have a great YouTube channel and webinars which guide our potential customers through the various features of our platform. Our content allows us to showcase how awesome Member.buzz is and garner interest in using it, and using these social media platforms is creative, cost-conscious, and effective.

From there, we have a dedicated onboarding team to guide new users through designing their first workspace and showing them how to use the platform. Our operation is very customer-oriented, and we have found this approach to be the most cost-effective because our customer feedback drives our success.

Any strategy mistakes you have made and what did you learn? 

I have found that putting too much faith into other people can be a mistake. The truth is, finding good people is really hard. A big point of success or failure is building a team that truly understands the product they are trying to build.

If you are starting a tech company and the team does not know how to create the actual technology and you plan to just outsource it, it will invariably fail. You need people on the founding team who know what they are doing and have real skin in the game to advocate for the company.

I have learned the hard way that spending money on developers who do not really get your vision puts you in a position where you will not be satisfied with the results. Find people whose experience aligns with your vision, and keep them close.

Finally what advice do you have for your fellow entrepreneur readers?

Know your product and know the technology. If you do not know how to do it yourself there is no way you can manage other people doing it.

Disclaimer: The information in the above story is provided by the startup and The Strategy Story takes no responsibility for the authenticity of the product and services offered by the startup. Reader’s discretion is advised.

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