UGLY TALK: BUILDING FANDOMS IN 2027
A customer buys once. A fan brings people with them.
Getting there takes months of showing up. Listening. Keeping promises. Giving people a reason to care when you are no longer in their feed.
This Ugly Talk gets into the work behind real fandom. The creator calls that went nowhere. The community plays that looked dead for months. The moment loyal customers pushed back and the brand had to answer.
No follower-count victory laps. Just the decisions, mistakes, and proof behind communities that stick.
🎯 Why you should be in this room.
Learn why Gen Z and Gen Alpha do not move through your funnel and what actually moves them from discovery to advocacy.
Hear why the brands with the most devoted online communities are the ones who showed up offline first.
Hear what brand owners actually use as early signals that loyalty.
Learn what to keep doing when the community goes quiet and every instinct is telling you to pivot
💬 What's on the table.
Building superfans at scale: What makes customers care enough to bring other people in.
Measuring fandom: The numbers that matter after likes and reach stop telling the truth, and how to prove community ROI to finance.
The slow build: What to do when months of work look like nothing is happening. Most brands quit at month three.
Discovery vs. loyalty: Why Gen Z does not move through your funnel and what the brands earning their advocacy are doing instead.
🎤 Featured speakers.
Kirsten (Kiki) Couchman - Co-Founder, Sourmilk
Kiki (Kirsten) Couchman is the co-founder of Sourmilk, a greek yogurt designed specifically for your gut. Together with her best friend Elan, they are on a mission to heal America's gut through real whole foods. Prior to this, Kiki worked in private equity for 4.5 years at Alpine Investors. She received a BA from Stanford University (where she met her co-founder Elan!) in Human Biology.
Chau Mui - Co-Founder, Ciaooo Media
Chau Mui is Co-Founder and Executive Producer of ciaooo! Media, a New York creative culture studio. Through strategy, content, and IRL activations, ciaooo! helps brands turn customers into communities, and communities into superfans. Chau has led that work for Stetson, Zara, and MyFitnessPal, learning what makes community grow on both sides of the equation: measurable returns for the brand and real belonging for the people. Her perspective sits right in the middle, where fandom becomes good business.
Jesse Multani - Founder, BIDLYY
Jesse Multani is the founder of BIDLYY, an AI-powered creator marketplace that helps creators and brands turn audience engagement into monetizable experiences. Previously, he founded Ehtrix Gaming, growing the platform from zero to over 2,000 users and generating $15K+ in microtransaction revenue through product development, paid acquisition, and partnerships with gaming influencers. His work explores how creators and brands can transform audience attention into deeper engagement, exclusive experiences, and new revenue streams.
🤝 Who's hosting it.
Rob Fajardo - Founder, LeaveNormalBehind
Rob Fajardo is an entrepreneur, operator, and cultural architect whose work centers on a simple question: what does winning look like?
Early in his career, Rob helped drive the fidget spinner phenomenon by building and activating an influencer network across Instagram and Facebook, reaching over 150 million people. Since then, he has worked with brands including DoorDash, Lowe’s, FedEx, Converse, Red Bull, and Wyndham Resort Group, and has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc., Thrive Global, and BuzzFeed.
Rob is the founder of Leave Normal Behind, a global network of purpose-driven leaders, creators, and investors built around meaningful connection, personal growth, and human flourishing. Over the past decade, he has brought together people across industries and generations through designed gatherings and strategic collaborations.
He also serves as Head of Operations for the School of Content at The School of Hard Knocks, one of the world’s largest business media platforms with 26M+ followers, where he coaches business owners generating six to nine figures on go-to-market. In addition, he is a Strategic Advisor to The AI Collective, the world’s largest AI community, with 70,000+ members across 25+ global chapters.
🙋 Who's getting in.
Founders of CPG and consumer brands past the first wave of paid growth.
Brand and marketing lifecycle leaders responsible for loyalty and retention.
Community and social leads at brands that already have a fanbase and want to understand it.
Creators building their own audience or working with consumer brands.
Marketers trying to reach Gen Z and Gen Alpha who care about advocacy, repeat purchases, and long-term growth.
⭐ About Ugly Talk
Started in 2019, Ugly Talk has been transforming business setbacks into breakthrough "aha!" moments by hosting unfiltered, no-nonsense events where battle-tested entrepreneurs share their raw lessons and insights.
With a growing presence in cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami, we've built a vibrant community of thousands of founders and industry leaders making a profound impact on the entrepreneurial landscape.
Official Website: UglyTalk.com
📢 Important Notice for Ugly Talk Attendees
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