You already love communities more than you realize.

Maybe not the kind with a Slack channel or a $199/month price tag. The real kind.

The kind that sneaks into your life through a weekend softball league, a standing gym session, or a holiday tradition that gets your neighbor to wave at you for the first time in months.

That’s community. Instant gatherings. High energy. I call them pop up communities, pop for short.

Pop communities are what convinced me that community doesn’t have to be complicated, lifelong, or professionally managed to matter. It just has to be lived.

That’s the shift I want for you. Not more reading about community — but doing it. Testing it. Trying it. Watching it light up in real time. Once you experience the power of a small group of people coming together with purpose, even temporarily, you start to see it everywhere.

A concert where strangers scream the lyrics aloud. A gym full of regulars who never speak but always nod. A weekend retreat that somehow gives you more energy than a month of Zoom calls. These moments are small, but they’re real. And they’re enough to remind you how deeply wired we are for connection.

That’s what this book is about. Not creating a forever space, but building meaningful experiences that give people a reason to show up. Over and over again.

Pop-up communities work because they’re simple. They’re time-bound. And they’re centered around doing something together.

And when you start with doing—not planning, not branding, not obsessing over platforms—you unlock what actually matters: trust, participation, and momentum.

This isn’t a manual for building the perfect community. It’s a field guide for getting started.