Kristen started her Awesome Ladies Project years ago by inviting a few people off of Instagram to be creative together on a Zoom call.

“I wanted to build like a an alt feed where people could feel comfortable sharing the art that they’re making. And that’s been the underlying bridge of everything that I’ve done is I want to have this place on the internet where people feel safe telling the stories that I’m asking them to tell because I ask people to do kind of vulnerable things sometimes and I want to make sure that they have a space where they feel like I’m not, you know, throwing them out to the wolves.” Kristen Tweedale

The internet is a big, wide open world. Building your own community is the opposite of that, where your work and the things you share exist in a smaller space, with the right group of people who can enjoy it in peace.

“When you have a membership, when you want to create a community, dialogue is essential, not just between you and your the people in your community, but between the community members themselves. And I think that that is a something that we don’t talk about enough is that the thing that really makes a community is when those peer-to-peer relationships start to form.” Kristen Tweedale

Leading is sometimes getting out of the way and letting magic happen on its own. Set someone up to share about something they love, help nurture the dialogue, the openness, all in service of letting people find their people within your community.

“You need to trust your members enough to know they can decide what’s best for themselves. You’re not a mommy or a daddy—you’re an adult community leader. So act like it. You’ll be a better leader when you give your members agency. The more trust you give, the more you get back. When you treat people like the adults they are, they usually show up as the adults you want them to be.” Kristen Tweedale

Leadership has many different looks, and the people that you bring in expect this from you. Again, leadership has many different looks, as we see every day in the media! It’s okay to not use those as examples, and find a leadership path that suits you better.

“It’s got to be fun. If you’re not having fun, that’s going to show through immediately and people are not going to want to hang out. So, make sure to keep things fun, because “sustainable” is not just what can I get done? But what can I do? What can I get done in the way that I would like to show up?” Kristen Tweedale

Resit the urge to over-Patreon-ize your offering. You don’t need need several tiers, you need to be yourself. What you’re doing right now is probably enough, so you probably don’t need to think up of several add-ons or “levels” to get people to compensate you for your work. Start small, don’t over think.

Check out what Kristen is doing here: https://theawesomeladiesproject.com/