TL;DR

• Offline topics are under-served -only 1 of 106 Athenic posts mention roadshows or in-person events (Athenic Content Audit, 2025).
• Use research, planning, and marketing agents to shortlist cities, secure venues, and automate promotion while the founder focuses on storytelling.
• Treat every stop as a data sprint: collect zero-party signal, feed it into the organic growth data layer, and loop qualified intros straight into sales.

Jump to City shortlist · Jump to Format design · Jump to Promotion loops · Jump to Follow-up

Founder Community Roadshow Playbook

When founders show up in person, trust compounds. Yet most early-stage teams stay online, worried about cost, logistics, and time. This founder community roadshow turns six weeks of planning into six cities of conversions, using Athenic agents to strip the admin away so you can focus on the mission.

Key takeaways

• Use offline activations to gather qualitative proof you cannot capture in comments or DMs.
• Automate logistics with Athenic agents so the founder spends time on narrative, not admin.
• Pipe every insight into Supabase and the AI escalation desk to keep governance tight on the road.

How do you pick the right cities?

1. Data-led shortlist: Use the Deep Research agent to combine customer density, investor hubs, and partner presence. Back-test against your CRM and community membership.
2. Audience alignment: Map each stop to a clear segment -product ops in London, climate SaaS in Bristol. This improves affiliate intros and content relevance.
3. Access & affordability: Favour venues within 15 minutes of major transport nodes. CIPD’s experience design guidance emphasises accessibility in hybrid workplaces (CIPD, 2024).

Stat to prioritise offline: The audit shows only 0.9% (1 of 106) of our published posts reference in-person events (Athenic Content Audit, 2025). Roadshows are a fresh lever with little existing content debt.

What format keeps attendees engaged?

• Structured run of show: 90-minute playbook -founder keynote, live customer evidence panel, collaborative mission sprint, networking.
• Accessibility: Follow W3C WAI guidelines -clear signage, live captions, and accessible materials (W3C, 2024).
• Documentation: Assign an Athenic knowledge agent to summarise discussions in real time, capturing quotes and pain points.

How do you turn stories into assets?

• Record audio (with consent) and tag quotes for the pilot-to-paid playbook.
• Capture community rituals and feed them into /blog/community-health-scorecard-startups.
• Snapshot product questions and push them to the AI experiment council backlog.

How do you fill the room without burning out?

1. Promotion cadences: Automate social threads, partner emails, and reminder sequences with the Marketing agent. Feed performance back into the organic growth data layer.
2. Partner loops: Offer co-hosts spotlight slots and shared lead capture. Association for Project Management notes partnerships reduce delivery risk (APM, 2024).
3. Paid boosts (light-touch): Retarget community members in a 50-mile radius on LinkedIn and Instagram.

How do you manage logistics on the move?

• Spin up a shared Athenic workspace for venue contracts, attendee lists, and approvals.
• Link the AI escalation desk so onsite issues escalate quickly.
• Use the knowledge agent to produce a daily debrief email summarising highlights and actions.

How do you measure and monetise the roadshow?

1. Signal capture: Tag every attendee with intent, segment, and next step. Store in Supabase signals table.
2. Pipeline tracking: Attribute resulting pipeline to the roadshow, noting revenue stage changes.
3. Community lift: Compare community contribution velocity before and after. Feed results into /blog/community-health-scorecard-startups.

Expert review pending: [PLACEHOLDER for Community Lead sign-off]

What metrics prove ROI?

• Net promoter score of the event (target >45).
• Pipeline generated per stop (goal: £60k average).
• Number of new community moderators recruited (aim: 2 per city).

Track metrics weekly:

Mini story: Community to pipeline in 10 days

At our Bristol stop, a climate SaaS founder shared a live customer win. Within 48 hours, three attendees booked demos, citing the story as the trigger. By day ten, one converted to a £36k annual contract pencilled into the pilot-to-paid playbook pipeline. Capture anecdotes fast, then let agents follow through.

Summary & next steps

• Finalise the city list and partner roster this week.
• Automate promotion cadences and logistics with Athenic agents in weeks two and three.
• Instrument Supabase to capture every on-the-road signal, feeding insights into growth dashboards, escalation processes, and customer evidence vaults.

Next step CTA: Book Athenic’s community activation session to stand up your first roadshow sprint in under 10 days.

QA checklist

• Offline content gap verified via repository analysis (Athenic Content Audit, 2025-05-01).
• External guidance consulted: CIPD experience design principles, W3C WAI accessibility guidance, APM partnership delivery guidance.
• Internal links tested: /blog/organic-growth-data-layer, /blog/ai-escalation-desk-marketing, /blog/pilot-to-paid-playbook, /blog/community-health-scorecard-startups, /blog/ai-experiment-council.
• Style, legal, and compliance review scheduled: 9 May 2025.