IAM1213 – CEO Builds a Community Platform that makes Socialising more Authentic

Melanie Aronson is the founder and CEO of Panion, a people-first community management platform helping organizations build more privacy, empathy, and meaningful connections into online and offline communities. She has a bachelor's in anthropology from Columbia University and a master's in documentary filmmaking from the School of Visuals Arts in NYC. She is also a Fulbright recipient. Melanie worked in sales for Apple for almost 3 years and for more than 10 years as a freelance filmmaker, photographer, and designer. Melanie has lived an international life, residing in NYC, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and now in Portugal.

• CEO Story: Panion started as a consumer product based on helping people who move to new places and find people who share their interests, values, goals, and experiences. Shifting society from the digitalized way of socializing to something more authentic.
• Business Service: Building a product that helps people meet in person and build meaningful connections through a community platform.
• Secret Sauce: Genuinely care about connecting people, building a product that makes people good, and having a sense of belongingness.
• CEO Hack:
  • I realize that I'm better at leading & building if I really take care of myself by feeling good, relaxing and enjoying life, and taking breaks on the weekend.
  • To be there for the team, think clearly, and be a good example.
  • Learn every role in your company.
• CEO Nugget: Find the right investors who are genuinely interested in your company because they love what you’re doing. It is important not to lose yourself in trying to be something that you’re not.
• CEO Defined: To look at yourself, be listening, be learning constantly improving yourself, and improve the way you approach things. Overseeing everything.

Website: https://panion.com

Twitter: @melaniearonson and @panionapp
Instagram: @panion.app
Linkedin: melaniearonson

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Transcription

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00:15 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:42 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Melanie Sorenson of Panion. Melanie, it's great to have you on the show.

00:50 – Melanie Aronson

Thanks for having me.

00:51 – Gresham Harkless

Super excited to have you on. Before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Melanie so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Melanie is the founder and CEO of Pannion, a people-first community management platform that helps organizations build more privacy, empathy, and meaningful connections in online and offline communities. She has a bachelor's in anthropology from Columbia University and a master's in documentary filmmaking from the School of Visual Arts and NYC. She is a Fulbright recipient and Melanie worked in sales for Apple for almost three years and for more than ten years as a freelance filmmaker, photographer, and designer. Melanie has lived an international life, residing in NYC, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and now in Portugal. Melanie, super excited to have you on the show and hear about all the awesome things you're doing. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:37 – Melanie Aronson

Yeah, definitely.

01:39 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's do it then. So, to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here, a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:46 – Melanie Aronson

It happened by accident, actually. I had a completely different career. I had, as you said, finished my master's in documentary filmmaking. I was working as a cinematographer and photographer and started my own film production company in Sweden. I moved to Sweden on a Fulbright grant. I was doing research for a documentary there on integration at the height of the migration influx into Europe in 2014. Then I realized that there was this recurring problem I was noticing in my research for that film, which was people were having trouble making new friends in a new place, in a new culture. Panion actually started as more of a consumer product based on helping people who moved to new places find people who shared their interests, values, goals, and experiences. It's over time evolved into more of a community management platform, especially influenced by the pandemic and the shift that our whole society has taken into a more digitized way of socializing, but also wanting to move away from social media and wanting something more authentic.

02:50 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I appreciate you sharing that. I love kind of hearing how it sounds like it organically kind of came about. As far as you being able to kind of come up with the idea and to see that there was kind of a, I don't know if it's an opportunity, if that's the right word, but just something that was missing and you decided to kind of create that in true entrepreneurial form. Totally awesome.

03:07 – Melanie Aronson

Thank you.

03:08 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. So I want to drill down a little bit more and hear a little bit more about panic and how it works. I know you touched on it a little bit, but I wanted to hear a little bit more about how you serve the clients you work with.

03:17 – Melanie Aronson

Sure. So essentially, we do have quite a few platforms out there helping communities kind of transition away from, I would say, Facebook groups and these more social media-type faces. But I think that they're, there still really isn't, isn't a platform that is focusing primarily on people and building new pathways to people. And, you know, the influence of building a product that helps people meet in person and build meaningful connections, that we took that and put that into a community platform that is now a b, two b solution that helps community managers organizations build communities primarily from existing, existing communities they might have in other forms. So newsletters, email lists, maybe it's employees, organizations that have maybe a lot of different stakeholders, whether it's volunteers and investors and people working in that organization, reaching out to people that they serve. So our approach is really everything is people first.

It's about helping people use tech to meet new people, connect with people, learn from each other, and attend events together. So instead of creating a platform that is yet another space for just kind of sharing content and posting things, we do accommodate that. But the way that we've designed the platform is really to facilitate people to get to know each other and connect in a new way. So part of that is also through mentorship. So we're really passionate about helping people who have something to offer and helping other people who are looking to grow to connect with each other. So, using tech, machine learning, using algorithms to connect those people within the community.

I think one thing we learned from the B two C product was that it's not enough to say, okay, we both like tennis, we're going to be friends. It's a very wide net. But if you have a community where you're all either on the same journey towards some common goal, or you're all passionate about a certain value or belief, then you look for people with shared interests within that. You don't have such a wide net, and you're already starting from a place where you have something that you share and that actually can lead to some really meaningful interactions with people. So our product is really focused on connecting people, and obviously, sharing knowledge and content is part of that, but it is so much more. We feel that there really aren't any products that understand that and design for that.

05:51 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. I think the first time we connected, I loved how you kind of talked about that. People first, you know, and that connection piece, I say so often that we forget about, I guess, the human aspect of definitely a business, but of life, even as, as well, too. I love that word that you said, journey because I think a lot of times, you know, sometimes great, you know, aspects of the journey, sometimes the less than great action aspects of that journey are actually a lot of times what binds us. So I love that you've, you know, delved into and created something that, like you said, is, at a time, I think, when people are desiring more and more connection.

06:23 – Melanie Aronson

Yeah, I definitely think that. Also, the pandemic made us realize that there is value in online connections, but there are good online connections and there are less beneficial online connections. You can build meaningful online connections. They can. People online can be incredibly supportive, especially in times of need as we've seen in the last few years. But we're also seeing a shift in the fact that communities are more digitized, but they also value being offline. We all miss those in-person connections, but now we're in this phase of having this hybrid between online and offline. You know, we're going back to offline events, but we're still going to always have these webinars and be influenced by all of the online experiences we had during the pandemic.

You need to have a product that accommodates that, that can allow you to do both, that can build a community that straddles the online and the offline, that straddles the globalized community and the local aspect of that community. So you can meet people in your area within a community, but you can also connect with people across the world who are in that same community. The technology facilitates that in a way where you're not bombarded with so much information and so many irrelevant things that it understands what you need and that we can use this kind of algorithm.

This is, you know, we're really scared of, you know, Amazon, like, knowing what we're interested in buying. But if you use it within the context of community and you're not using it to sell things and to manipulate people, you're using it to curate experiences so that you save people time and help them get connected to a person faster and you have good intentions behind it. I think there's a lot of power that technology can bring to building connections. We need to use technology responsibly, and we need to build technology responsibly.

08:10 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I love that you use that word responsibility because that's exactly what I was thinking of, being kind of stewards, you know, to be able to make sure that we are, you know, creating, like, those good experiences, especially, you know, from a social standpoint in terms of the connections of the people that we're doing, not taking away from people or feeling, making them feel less or, you know, all of those things that a lot of time, you know, you have, we've heard about, you know, social media and even, you know, the documentary the social dilemma alluded to a lot of that as well, too. So truly appreciate that. So I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce, and you might have already touched on this, but this could be for your business, it could be for yourself personally, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

08:49 – Melanie Aronson

I mean, I would say that our approach to everything we do is, is about, you know, we're really mission-driven. We really genuinely care about connecting people and building a product that makes people feel good and makes people feel included. I think the people that work on a product, on a company, need to reflect what you're trying to build and the values that you believe in, throughout everything.

09:14 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. You could definitely hear that and everything that you've been able to build. I love that aspect about being very mission-driven because like you said, I think when you have that strong mission, you have those strong values, those morals, those things on how you want to build that company. I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

09:38 – Melanie Aronson

I think you have to take care of yourself. I think at the beginning I was trying to do so many things and feeling really stressed, and then I realized that I'm better at leading and building and creating if I also, you know, really take care of myself and give myself self space and time to feel good. I do, you know, yoga every morning. I try to meditate as much as possible, try to really relax and do things, and enjoy life on the weekends, like really taking breaks. I think this is important, to be able to be there and for your team and to be able to, like, think clearly when you are working. That separation is. I've learned a lot, especially living in Europe, about that separation, the work-life balance, and also making being a good example for everyone else on the team so that they don't feel stressed and letting them know, you know, you can, you know if you have something personal that, you know, definitely need to. To be prioritized. I also think the other thing starting off, like, really early on is that I learned basically how to do everything except code. So I learned every role in my company because I wanted to be able to hire people who were better than I was at it.

10:52 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Yeah, I absolutely love that hack. Being able to, as you said at first, to be able to kind of understand and make sure your cup is full. Cause you can't pull, you can't pour from an empty cup. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So would you consider that to be like that, that CEO nugget, which is a little bit more of a word of wisdom? I usually say it might be something if you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self. Is it that you would definitely tell yourself that? Maybe you know, or tell anybody, I guess you could say, too, to learn all the aspects of the business so that you can make, you know, really good hiring decisions?

11:23 – Melanie Aronson

I think that's one thing. I think there are a lot of things I would tell myself looking back. I think I'd say another is that this is more for people that are fundraising, I guess is that you know, when you're looking for investors, they also have to be the right fit for you. I think at the beginning, you're so, like, hungry to get some money in and to be able to survive that you want to please everybody. Then you start to get to know the scene and get, and talk to more investors and understand that it's a partnership, it's a marriage. You need to like them back, and actually, you need to also make them feel like that you want, that you know, that they have to deserve you as much as you deserve them, or I don't know what the right explanation is, but that you have standards and that you have criteria and that you feel a connection, like a connection with them, that they understand your mission, that, you know, you should be selective.

I didn't. I learned that on my own. I wish I had learned that earlier. At the beginning, I was so nervous. The first, I was, like, trying to perfect the pitch and realizing that everyone's different and the people that really get to you and that aren't just trying to poke holes in your, in your solution and in your pitch, but they're really genuinely interested because they love what you're doing that'll shine through. Those are the people that you want as investors. If you feel uncomfortable with someone, it's not the right person. If you feel like you have to impress them and kind of answer a thousand questions because they're interrogating you, it's probably not the right person. I wish I had known that because it did cause a lot of stress at the beginning. Now I feel like I'm on more equal ground when I talk to investors. I feel like that confidence also makes them more interested in getting to know me and our company.

13:08 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that's absolutely huge. I appreciate you so much and sharing that. Sometimes we forget about that, especially when we have investors or people that are fundraising or people that we want to kind of bring in that resource and a lot of resources even beyond that as well, too. We forget about that connection piece, like everything that you've been able to build. Melanie, I truly appreciate that. I wanted to ask you what I like to call my absolute favorite question is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEO's on the show. So, Melanie, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:35 – Melanie Aronson

I think being a CEO is very hard to define. I think there's a lot of elements to it. But I think what's really important is being able to really look at yourself and be listening, be learning constantly, be improving yourself, and improve the way that you approach things. It's overseeing everything and trying to put all the pieces together, but it's also overseeing yourself and trying, to negotiate all of the external things you're trying to do with the internal growth and reflection. So I think it's a very complex role that keeps you very busy, of course. But I think it's really valuable. The type of self-growth that you encounter when you have all of these responsibilities and you are working with all these different types of people, and you have to bridge together all the aspects of your business, from customers to your team to your stakeholders, investors. It's very multifaceted and it really helps you, you know, learn a lot of new things about yourself, about business, and, and really kind of being that guiding vision forward that everybody that, that North Star that people can, can follow and realign to when they feel like they're not quite sure what to be doing or what direction to go in. So I think it's a very valuable role that's very hard to define.

15:02 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. No, I love that definition. That perspective is what I wanted to do: pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best they can get a hold of you. Find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

15:14 – Melanie Aronson

You can find us on our website, panion.com, and on our social media. We're on pretty much the major platforms, I think, in Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, appreciating the journey and appreciating what you learn along the way. For me, I look back and I've already won in a sense, because I've learned so much about business, about myself, about leadership, and about people. I think if you have that mindset that you can see all of these positive moments, even though it's really difficult and you can see the challenges as something that makes you grow, you can enjoy the journey no matter whether you feel like you, you succeeded at the end or not, still a success because you, you know, you developed and you learned and you know, you take all of that when you try again the next time.

16:10 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Absolutely. I truly appreciate that. Melanie. We will definitely have the links and information in the show notes, I appreciate your time even more and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:19 – Melanie Aronson

Thank you.

16:20 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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