Chicago Gents Who Stroll
In the age of ‘social’ media, IRL connections are more difficult to come by than ever. The US Surgeon General calls loneliness a “public health crisis”. It’s estimated that 1 in 4 adults feel socially isolated.
GWS fights the loneliness epidemic by providing accessible, low-stress socializing opportunities for men in Chicago. Through our biweekly walks, social rock climbing days & cross-group collaborations, GWS is part of a greater force in the emerging socializing market.
Goal: Combat social isolation
Strategy: There are numerous social groups in Chicago, however, in this emerging market there are many blind spots. Mainly, a lack of men’s groups. From firsthand experience, this was due to men being more difficult to mobilize and specialized groups for niche communities. Once these groups get off of the ground, they often turn to ticket events, membership dues & exclusive events to generate revenue, alienating portions of the community in the process.
It was almost a blue ocean opportunity. We understood the role we would fill and sought to make it a reality.
Tactics: The name of the game is accessibility. While niche communities are great, you are still isolated if you don’t fit into that niche. We keep our reach wide by centering around one of the most common activities, going on a nice walk. Through walks & other free events, we reduce the barrier to entrance across the board.
Recently, GWS has partnered with a local startup platform that helps connect social group leaders together, as we are all working toward a shared goal. This allows us to generate revenue through their creator fund by bringing new users to their platform.
We also have started outreach to brands for collab events, providing turnkey opportunities for branding within our event. This not only opens up another revenue stream, but does so without putting additional strain on our community.
Results: With a leadership change in June, we have grown from ~200 IG followers to 1.4k in 6 months. We also average roughly 30 members per walk and have grown a Discord server of over 450.
Through our platform’s creator fund, partnerships, & collabs with local venue and national brands like Masa by Ancient Crunch & TimeOut, we’ve achieved a $1,000 MRR while still keeping over 80% of events completely free.
Analysis: While we are still in our infancy, we are learning that connections are everything and building a network takes time. However, the most crucial elements to running a successful group are social media presence & collaboration. Monthly profile visits exploded over 1100% from our first collab event.
Monetizing a social group without charging the community is difficult but possible. By leverage the community, we will continue to run sponsored events & collabs to generate revenue, honing our branding opportunities and brand integrations.
More to come…