Before we dive in, quick reminder that membership is OPEN, would love to get to know you!
When the October 7th tragedy hit Israel we offered to donate the Maxwell space for fundraisers. Several friends hit us up and within a few days a 300 person shabbat dinner, complete with singing, speakers, and a cameo from Mayor Adams was thrown together.
But the most inspiring thing was how it all came about — I walked in the afternoon of the event and there were 20 or so volunteers setting up, cutting Challah, planning the run of show, facilitating the delivery of donated food. And these weren’t people with time to spare — most of them had their own VC funds or startups or were otherwise busy people.
By the end of it I walked away with 5-6 new friends. And none of them were the people who just attended the event, every one of them was someone who showed up early to contribute.
The saying “you get out what you put in” is so overused it has become cliche, but our Israel fundraiser experience was just one of the many examples we observed over our first 6 months of operations where the members that contributed the most got the most out of Maxwell, and even before then we had already come to the conclusion that we should do something radical — make contribution mandatory.
Like many things we’re doing at Maxwell it’s both novel and derivative at the same time — while there are no expectations you should do anything at Zero Bond, Casa Cipriani or Soho House, if you look at any TRUE community they all require buy-in with more than just your finances — you teach Sunday school, cook Shabbat dinners and lead bible study at your Churches, Synagogues and Mosques, members of fraternal orgs or ethnic societies like Rotarians, Kiwanis, Elks, Romanian Men’s Associations and Italian American Clubs are expected to volunteer to put on their events and serve on committees, any college campus life worth engaging in is built on student participation in sports teams, fraternities & sororities, co-ops, dorms, clubs and more, and even posh private schools force parent participation in the form of volunteer committees and bake sales.
But we seem to have lost this understanding that the key to any good community is contribution. Community isn’t purchasable, despite the common criticism of joining a fraternity or sorority in college you actually can’t buy friends, you have to invest in them.
Any real relationship or friendship requires your time — coffees to discuss their boy problems, late night dinners fretting over career choices, date nights to keep the spark going, bachelor parties, bridal showers, weddings and more.
Real relationships require showing up and what is community if not a web of relationships.
It’s The Friends You Make Along The Way
The other day someone asked my cofounder what was Maxwell for — she was confused, was it for dating? Or was it for professional connections? Or was it for friendship.
It was a question appropriate for a world where you can download Hinge or Tinder for the dating and join YPO, Hampton, Round, Chief for the professional connections.
But communities used to supply all of the above — when you joined a church you weren’t joining because you were hoping to find a mate. You didn’t walk into Synagogue looking for a cofounder. You joined because you wanted to be part of that community, these were your people, and yes, perhaps you’d one day find a spouse or a business partner, but you were ok if those things came later, or not at all because the community in and of itself provided value, a sense of camaraderie, purpose, belonging and friendship that you found valuable outside of any specific goal.
But there is a tendency to transactionalize everything on a VERY short time horizon in our society right now — we no longer have the attention span to invest in communities and organizations that might take years to pay off — in a data driven world we want to know that our $10 a month Hinge premium subscription is going to result in true love, NOW, and are infuriated when it doesn’t and you, god forbid, have a bad date.
This short term transactional mindset has colored what we mean by “contribution.”
We don’t want people who think that by becoming a Maxwell member they can slip in a corporate event that maybe members would also want to attend and save the room rental fee. We don’t want people who plan events solely because they want to get laid, or purchase a membership because it’s a cheap way to get access to an insane kitchen to have your private dinner parties you’d really prefer no one else is invited to.
When there is such a transactional, I contribute, I get a payoff mindset it isn’t so much a contribution as a barter arrangement — you’re payoff isn’t community, it’s just something you would have otherwise paid for.
We want people who give for the joy of giving — they really love to cook, they are the social chair of their group of friends and so plan trips and parties all the time anyway, they love to DJ — and if something more concrete happens later, if they meet a spouse or business partner, then great. If not, it was still fun and they’d do it all over again.
We want people who believe the real treasure is the friends you make along the way.
Since we’ve made this more and more explicit it’s broken through to a whole new set of potential members — amid the surge in private clubs it can be confusing how we’re not just another Casa Cipriani with a chef’s kitchen and liquor lockers. People are understandably skeptical of the word “community” as it has been bandied around by the likes of everything from Slack groups to co-working spaces, and so many “memberships” are really just subscriptions.
But if any of this speaks to you, we’d love to hear from you.
David, Kyle, Joelle