The Art, Science & Business of Community
Mallory Contois
Community architect, founder, GTM leader & 6x high-growth startup operator.
Build and scale impactful, human-led communities that cut through the AI noise.
In a world increasingly saturated with AI-generated noise and surface-level interactions, brands and individuals who create real belonging and opportunities for identity signaling will win.
People aren’t just looking for products or content - they’re craving connection, trust, and spaces that reflect their values and self-perceived identities.
Community is no longer a “nice to have." It’s a competitive moat, a loyalty engine, and the most powerful driver of word-of-mouth growth. It's also really, really fun, and more important than ever.
In this course you'll get:
Lifetime access:
20+ self-paced lessons, each with tactical exercises to guide you through best practices and new ways of thinking about community as a product, a growth tactic, or a passion project
Exclusive tools created by Mallory to fast-track your progress and spark new ideas
Membership to a virtual community of values-aligned community builders
Continued option attend to live discussion sessions
During the 4 week course:
2 optional live group sessions each week, focused on concept discussion, problem solving, and brainstorms, paced to match the lesson progression.
Async 1:1 access to Mallory for specific, personalized Q&A
What you’ll learn
You’ll learn the psychology of why people gather, and get tactical playbooks for ideation, design, member engagement, and creating impact.
Learn frameworks to define your community’s purpose and positioning.
Build a roadmap that translates vision into tactical next steps.
Craft welcoming rituals that set the tone for member participation.
Design systems that turn new members into active contributors quickly.
Create experiences that deepen emotional connection over time.
Use psychology-driven tactics to inspire long-term loyalty and love.
Discover authentic ways to scale without sacrificing intimacy.
Leverage community champions to amplify your reach organically.
Learn how to weave surprise, sticky habits, and thoughtful design into experiences.
Create something members will choose over countless other options.
Who this course is for
Growth Marketers & Operators
Design community-driven growth engines that turn users into advocates.Founders & Brand Builders
Differentiate your brand with a loyal, high value, identity-aligned competitors can’t copy.
Aspiring Community Leaders
Transform your passion into a thriving IRL or virtual community.
What's included
Live sessions
Learn directly from Mallory Contois in a real-time, interactive format.
Lifetime access to 20+ self-paced lessons with tactical exercises
Absorb core concepts on a schedule that works for you. Walk into live sessions ready to dive deeper, apply lessons, share progress, and workshop challenges.
Lifetime membership to a community of ambitious builders
Stay accountable, share insights with like-minded community builders throughout the course and beyond in a community led by Mallory on Slack.
Office hours focused on concept discussion, problem solving, and brainstorms
Spend high-ROI live time with Mallory and your peers, discussing critical concepts and theories + live problem solving.
Direct 1:1 async access to Mallory for Q&A
Throughout the 4 week course, message Mallory anytime with questions specific to your own problem sets and goals.
Access to exclusive community-building tools created by Mallory
Use these tools to fast-track your progress and expand your thinking, aligned with the core concepts and POVs taught in this course.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills and signal that you've committed to being the best in your craft.
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.
Syllabus
9 live sessions • 26 lessons
Week 1
Feb
4
Hello and welcome!
Lessons: The philosophy, psychology and magic of community building
Feb
6
Live session: The art of community
Week 2
Lessons: Ideating, designing and scoping a community that works
Feb
9
Live session: The business of community [option 1]
Feb
13
Live session: The business of community [option 2]
Featured lesson
Community-led growth 101
What is community-led growth?
Learn what the buzz term means, and how it might relate to your role, business, or brand.
CLG blueprints
Learn three blueprints you can test to unlock new growth loops.
Assessing community as a growth lever
CLG isn't right for every company, brand, or initiative - learn how to evaluate the opportunity and approach testing.
Schedule
Live sessions
1-2 hrs / week
Discussion-based sessions, focused on diving deeper into large concepts and sharing examples and in progress work for feedback. These also include breakout time to work alongside your peers in the community space.
Wed, Feb 4
5:00 PM—6:00 PM (UTC)
Fri, Feb 6
4:00 PM—5:30 PM (UTC)
Mon, Feb 9
8:00 PM—9:00 PM (UTC)
Async content
1-3 hrs / week
Video content from Mallory exclusive to this course, available for you to navigate at your own pace.
Projects
1-2 hrs / week
Each week you'll be given tools and projects to work through on your own to ensure you're applying what you're learning to your actual real life problem sets.
Success stories
- 1000/10 recommend if you're wanting to grow something people will genuinely love to be part of. Mallory is a wonderful instructor (and so much fun to learn from), and the course was the perfect mix of theory, real-life examples, and a project to apply all you learned to whatever you're working on.
Margarida Penedos
Operations at Focusmate - Whether you're new to the world of community-led growth or a seasoned community builder, Mallory's course gives you a solid foundation to implement community as a strategy across your business. Mallory is an expert in both the concepts and practice of community, and an absolute joy to learn with.
Kt McBratney
Head of Community @ Renew VC - This course gave me the language, practical tools, and permission to claim the kind of community work I’m already doing. Mallory lays out the foundational elements of community-led growth in a way that’s clear, actionable, and spacious, leaving room for creative thinking and your own perspective.
Kel Rakowski
Founder @ Work Unseen - As someone who is a "beginner" in Community-Led Growth, this course gave me the peer support AND knowledge to launch growth experiments in a smarter way. I'm grateful for the community that Mallory has built!
Sondra Yu
Growth @ Forward - Mallory is such a great instructor with so much CLG experience. This course really helped to put some structure and frameworks to the community activities we were already thinking about. The 1:1 sessions were also gold and I was able to meet other community/marketing folks working on similar projects.
Kim Lu
Growth & Community @ Voiceflow