Episode Details

#320 | Matt Carnevale, Head of Community at Exit Five, joins Dave for a discussion about community building. They dive into a bunch of the lessons learned from building the Exit Five community over the last few years, including specific plays like onboarding, matchmaking, and moderation. If you’re thinking about community building in 2026, this is a good primer; plus the guys give their opinion on what “community” actually means and whether you should build a private community like Exit Five or focus more broadly on community building.

Timestamps

• (00:02) - – Matt’s path from BDR to Head of Community at Exit Five
• (06:45) - – What “community” actually means (and what it definitely isn’t)
• (11:30) - – Why most B2B communities fail before they ever get traction
• (16:10) - – Community vs. content: what gets people in vs. what makes them stay
• (20:45) - – Why Slack groups aren’t a strategy
• (25:30) - – Treating community like a product, not a marketing channel
• (31:40) - – The role of trust, curation, and saying no to the wrong people
• (37:15) - – What community managers actually do behind the scenes
• (44:10) - – How in-person events changed the Exit Five community
• (50:20) - – The biggest lessons Matt’s learned after two years building Exit Five

Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter

Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:

Optimizely - A no-code AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Join the next cohort of Opal U, a live 5-day course designed for senior marketing leaders who are ready to ship more with AI, at optimizely.com/exitfive. 

Vector - A contact-level ads platform that lets you build audiences from actual people on your site, clicking your ads, and checking out your competitors. Learn more at vector.co, and get their new MCP server by clicking here. 

Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.

Join us in Stowe, Vermont for Drive 2026 - three days away from your desk to learn what's working in B2B marketing from the people who are actually doing it. Grab your ticket at exitfive.com/drive.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

• 
  They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
• Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

Visit hatch.fm to learn more