🎙️ In this episode, I sit down with Yurii Lazaruk, community builder, ecosystem connector, and creator of the Community ROI Podcast, for a candid conversation about stumbling into community work, proving its business value, and staying human in an AI driven world.

Yurii didn't set out to become a community builder. He fell into it by accident, running an online forum, then rebuilding his career internationally, and has since built communities across freelancing, sales, tech, and education. His work today centers on one idea: technology can save you time on the busywork, but community only works when it's built on real human relationships.

At its core, this conversation is about what happens when you stop treating community as a nice to have and start connecting it directly to real business outcomes, without losing the humanity that makes it work in the first place.

We explore: 🎯 How Yurii fell into community building by accident, through an SEO forum and a wartime career pivot 🤖 Why AI and automation are tools for outsourcing busywork, not replacements for human connection 🤝 The two things high performing communities always get right: leadership buy-in and a clear tie to business goals 📊 Why message counts and engagement numbers are vanity metrics, and what to track instead 🧭 How to build a business case for community when leadership is skeptical 💬 Keeping community guidelines simple: ”be a good human” and let authenticity do the rest

Follow and explore more of Yurii's work: 📲 LinkedIn: Yurii Lazaruk 🎙️ Podcast: Community ROI 💻 Website: Yurii.Community 📰 Newsletter: Community ROI on Substack ☕ Event: Between Two Watercoolers

If there's one takeaway from this conversation, it's this: you don't need a plan to start building community, you just need to show up for people, and the business value follows.

🎧 Podcast produced by Riti Suresh.