The word community has been bandied around liberally since Covid-19 – there’s nothing like social isolation to remind us about the importance of human connection. From businesses to co-working spaces, from private members’ clubs to bars, operators are doubling down on their commitment to “build communities” and foster connections, with the long-term goal of building a loyal pool of customers.
But anyone who’s ever tried to build a community before will know that it’s no small feat: It’s way beyond the scope of a social media intern hired to respond to LinkedIn comments or an HR manager arranging regular Happy Hour drinks.
Just ask Megha Singh – formerly the community manager of Launchpad – who recently acquired the founder community and is now its CEO. “There is a misconception that building a community is easy,” she muses. “In reality, to survive and thrive, communities need to have online, as well as offline ways to ensure that every member feels seen and heard and receives value. They intentionally foster engagement and show up for every member. And this is no easy feat.”
Yet, in recent years, driven by increasing demand, communities have flourished, from running and social saunas to entrepreneurship and women’s clubs. When Chris Edwards first founded Launchpad in 2021, she roped in Singh, who had helped manage and build multiple communities from non-profits to MNCs since 2015.
The vision of Launchpad was to serve emerging entrepreneurs and small businesses and foster founder and business growth, explains Singh.
When Singh joined, the community only had about 20 members in Hong Kong. By the time she left in 2023 to focus on her own coaching and consulting company, it had grown to about 500 across five regions, namely Singapore, Hong Kong, Bali, Kuala Lumpur, and Australia. “Post pandemic, people were hungry for real, authentic connections in person, as well as valuable business advice and mentoring to start and scale their businesses,” explains Singh.
Launchpad was essentially an antithesis to the aggressive startup culture that had been prevalent in the 2010s. “We wanted to move away from the narrative that if you’re a startup, it has to be cutthroat and competitive and it’s a lot of hustle,” says Singh. Just like a rising tide raises all boats, Launchpad is designed to help business owners achieve their goals, but in a way that’s “kind, giving and collaborative”.
“We’re all about founders and business growth,” says Singh. While most entrepreneur communities tend to focus on tech, Launchpad is open to all kinds of enterprises, from wellness and lifestyle to F&B and agencies. “We have near-daily calls and in-person events almost every week in Singapore. We offer coaching, mentoring, networking, and masterclasses on everything from Google Ads and AI to shifting mindsets, like fostering a healthy relationship with money.”
“Our aim,” she adds, “is to support founders in every way, especially in the early stages of their journey.”
“There is a misconception that building a community is easy. In reality, to survive and thrive, communities need to have online, as well as offline ways to ensure that every member feels seen and heard and receives value."
To offer its community of business owners the same opportunities as their counterparts in tech, they launched the Pitch Festival in 2022, where select founders were invited to get on stage and share about their business to an audience of investors and peers. The Pitch Festival has been running every year since then.
For Singh, this work is deeply personal. When she moved to Singapore a decade ago, the laws around trailing spouses made it hard for her to secure a full-time job. “My self-worth was down in the dumps,” she says. “I also went through postpartum depression after my first baby. I had this utopian idea that starting my own business would give me everything I was looking for: Meaningful work, financial independence, and the flexibility to be with my son as needed. And this all came true! What I didn’t expect was the impact, the purpose and the sense of community. I hadn’t realised how lonely I was until I found Crib Society, an amazing network of female founders. Suddenly, I had friends, motivation, and inspiration. That’s what drives me to build communities today.”
Hence, when the chance came to acquire Launchpad at the start of 2025, Singh said yes in a heartbeat. “When Chris decided to let go of the business, she reached out to me first because I was there from the start and we were truly aligned in our vision. It was such an intuitive, heartfelt decision from the gut. I said yes without even knowing where the money would come from, because I felt like this was my baby.”
(Related: Martin Capstick on building a wellness festival for everyone)
The Next Chapter
When Singh took over as CEO, her first order of business was to schedule one-on-ones with the members to understand their needs, their pain points and what support they needed from the community. At that time, there was one recurring question: How could they leverage the community and gain maximum value. “When people spoke to me, they mentioned they were members of Launchpad and other communities, but they didn’t know how to get the most out of them.
And so Singh organised her first event as owner and CEO: She brought together founders of other Singapore-based communities, including Lavania Rosie from Tinted Global Network, Rebecca Downie from the Athena Network, as well as exceptional community builders like Alya Annabi and Elika Tasker to host a discussion so members could understand, first-hand, how to leverage their networks and their memberships. “We actually work with a large number of communities and we have great relationships with them. The way I see it, Launchpad is different because our focus is on learning and development for the founder and for the business.”
She has also been focused on building a tighter foundation for the business, putting new processes in place and weeding out inefficiencies. Now, she’s setting in place strategies for the next phase of growth by building sustainable communities throughout Southeast Asia, and eventually India and the Middle East. She’s currently in talks to bring Launchpad to Manila, Jakarta, as well as revitalise the community in Kuala Lumpur.
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Launchpad has also partnered with B1G1 as its official impact partner, so every membership, event ticket, or programme sponsorship helps support meaningful causes across India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
To continue offering value to the community of business owners, Launchpad also has collaborations and partnerships with leading business service providers like Aspire, Airwallex, Google, and Stripe.
However, she is cautious about growth for growth’s sake. She refers to a private club that recently shut down (and is reopening), calling it a cautionary tale for community founders. “I want to be savvy with my finances,” she says, “There’s a lot of opportunity, but I want to expand without leveraging and taking on unnecessary risk.”
She adds, “In the next five years, I still want to be building this kind, supportive and collaborative community meant for small businesses, in the zero to five years of the entrepreneurial journey, but scale this to multiple regions to magnify the impact that I want to create.”
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