Bri Norberg started Women of Sacramento in 2016 because every networking event she walked into felt stuffy, cliquey, and transactional. So she created what she was craving. Her first brunch had 80 women. Three years later, 400, and that’s the night she launched her membership. In this episode, Bri gets real about a decade of in-person community: why her events never made money (until this year), why she’s never raised prices on existing members, and how she kept showing up through the hardest season of her life. Plus, what she found when she dug into her feedback forms to figure out why members were canceling, and how that answer became Powered by Women’s new app. 167 people signed up in the room the day she launched it.

In this episode

• Why Bri started with a big brunch instead of small monthly meetups
• Going from 80 women to 400, and launching her membership in that room
• What her feedback forms revealed about why members cancel (they only felt the value when they walked in the door)
• Building a “floor of value” so members feel it between events: referral circles, an ask board, and eventually an app
• Why she asks “is this a wise community decision?” before a business one
• How her community gave her an unfair advantage when she launched her coaching business ($100K in seven months, all local clients)
• What she learned from going nonprofit, leading a board, and converting back
• Pitching from stage for the first time

Links:

Website: https://poweredbywomen.com/

To download the app: https://poweredbywomen.com/app

Powered by Women IG: https://www.instagram.com/poweredbywomenco/

Bri's IG: https://www.instagram.com/itsmebrinorberg/

Website: www.inbalclaudio.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/inbalclaudio
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/inbalclaudio

Magic of Hosting Workshop: https://calendly.com/inbalclaudio/events-workshop

The IRL Effect Course: https://xoxoinbi.circle.so/checkout/the-irl-effect - Use code MAGIC10

If you're hosting events, you need contracts that actually protect you. Venue agreements, vendor terms, speaker agreements, attendee waivers. Contractista has a whole collection built for events, written by a lawyer, ready to use.

40% off the event collection with code MAGIC
contractista.com/collections/events

A man once asked an event host to go get him a fork. She was in a full ball
gown, holding a microphone, about to walk out and run the whole thing. That's
one of eight stories in this episode.

Inbal and Haley Westfall asked the internet for event host horror stories and
got an indoor tornado inside a convention center, an influencer who locked
herself in a bedroom for an entire paid trip, a giveaway winner who dislocated
her kneecap mid-celebration, and a retreat attendee who came out of an ice
plunge with no memory of getting in.

Recorded in bed, in another country, mildly unhinged. Underneath the chaos: why
your liability waivers matter more than your aesthetic, how to hold a room
together while it's falling apart, and why you need other hosts in your corner.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Takeaways

• Why liability waivers matter more at a breathwork-and-ice-plunge retreat than almost anywhere else
• How to run a room and manage a crisis at the same time, when you’re the only one who can do both
• The vague phrase on your registration page that causes most attendee disappointment
• Why “I don’t have a co-founder, but I have my quad pod” is a business strategy, not a consolation prize
• What to do when a vendor confirms and then backs out two weeks before
• What attendees never see when they look at your ticket price and do the math
• The one ask you should never make of a host who’s about to take the stage

Website: www.inbalclaudio.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/inbalclaudio
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/inbalclaudio

Magic of Hosting Workshop: https://calendly.com/inbalclaudio/events-workshop

The IRL Effect Course: https://xoxoinbi.circle.so/checkout/the-irl-effect - Use code MAGIC10

Thinking about hosting a dinner for founders in your community? Alisha Kumar, founder of Good Time Media and The Founder's Table, shares exactly how she hosts curated mastermind dinners for women founders in cities across North America. We get into how she structures the night, why every table is capped at 20 women, how she went from $125 to $475 tickets, and what one dinner really costs to host (hint: way more than you think). She also shares why she stopped partnering, how she decides when to cancel a city, and where The Founder's Table is headed in 2027: money talk, exits, and building wealth together.

In this episode

• How Alisha filled her very first event with a line out the door, through influencers
• The structure of a Founder's Table dinner, from arrival to hot seats to dessert
• Why your ticket price decides who shows up
• The minimum number of seats she needs before a dinner makes sense
• How she seats guests so friends don't sit together
• Why she greets every single guest by name at the door
• What to do after the dinner so the connections keep going

About the guest

Alisha Kumar is the founder of Good Time Media, a marketing agency helping brands scale through paid acquisition, retention strategy, and full-funnel marketing infrastructure. She also created The Founder's Table, a curated mastermind dinner experience and network for women founders building serious companies and long-term wealth through trusted relationships.

Connect with Alisha

• Alisha's Instagram
• Good Time Media
• The Founder's Table

Website: www.inbalclaudio.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/inbalclaudio
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/inbalclaudio

Magic of Hosting Workshop: https://calendly.com/inbalclaudio/events-workshop

The IRL Effect Course: https://xoxoinbi.circle.so/checkout/the-irl-effect - Use code MAGIC10