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Top 10 Online Small Business Communities & Entrepreneur Forums in 2023

Summary: What is an Entrepreneur Forum?

Entrepreneur forums are online communities of new & seasoned entrepreneurs. These forums serve as a platform to exchange ideas about how to set up a new business, grow, and exit. It’s a great way to generate new business ideas, share marketing practices, find a mentor, seek out potential clients, and find friends with whom to share your unique journey.

What is an Entrepreneur Forum? What is an Online Small Business Community?

Entrepreneur forums are online communities of new & seasoned entrepreneurs. These forums serve as a platform to exchange ideas about how to set up a new business, grow, and exit. It’s a great way to generate new business ideas, share marketing practices, find a mentor, seek out potential clients, and find friends with whom to share your unique journey. We’ve done posts on small business podcasts, best books for entrepreneurship, and the best small business software and apps to help equip you with the tools and the knowledge you need for success. Now it’s time to engage with like-minded entrepreneurs, and maybe even find a mentor to help guide you.

As a small business owner, networking with other professionals and entrepreneurs in your field can be incredibly valuable, not just for creating new business relationships, but for educating yourself and keeping informed about the latest industry trends and changes. But as an entrepreneur yourself, you probably have enough on your plate already, without having the luxury of time to go seek out the best networking opportunities, let alone to build new relationships with your peers.

To help overcome this challenge, we here at LinkedPhone put together this list of the best online small business and entrepreneur forums that you can easily join and participate in at any time, without even having to leave your desk (or couch). We’ve included our top favorite broadly-focused business forums, as well as a few niche industry forums you can take a look at, and some other great resources like e-commerce and freelancer platforms.

Why Should You Join Entrepreneur Forums?

While building LinkedPhone to empower entrepreneurs and small business owners with a modern business phone service that works for them, we learned a great deal about the challenges that business owners face. Starting a business can be challenging, exciting, and inspiring, but can also be downright scary, especially if you are a first-time entrepreneur. But thanks to online entrepreneur forums, it’s not something you have to go through alone.

Many of the people you encounter in online forums will be new entrepreneurs just getting their feet wet in the business world. Some will be veteran experts who have been running their businesses for years, or serial entrepreneurs who have started and sold (or closed) multiple companies.

By engaging with a variety of different business forums and their diverse participants, you can share stories, ask for advice, read case studies, and identify the resources you need to succeed. These can help you fill knowledge gaps, find out about the direction your industry is moving in, and learn about other interesting trends that can help you better reach and serve your customers.

How to Choose the Right Forum for Your Business Needs

With so many different entrepreneur forums online, you will meet with a variety of attitudes, experience levels, perspectives, opinions, data, even misleading information or some that is just plain wrong. We recommend starting with some of the most popular forums to see what people are talking about, then narrow your focus to the specific sites, threads, and discussions that are most relevant to you.

If a particular piece of information or advice seems especially important, make sure you verify its authenticity through online searches, and reading other forums & websites to make sure you’re on the right path. Doing this, you may also find important caveats which can make or break a decision for you. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, and always check multiple sources before you take any action on information you find online.

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Top 10 Best Online Entrepreneur Forums

1. Small-Business-Forum.net

Small-Business-Forum.net is a classic, no-frills forum where users post questions and answers, with posts moderated by a team of administrators. There are a wide variety of sub-topic forums, from starting, financing and growing your business, to social media marketing, running a website, accounting, taxes, technology, and how take care of and thank your customers.

 

2. Small Business Forum

Not to be confused with Smallbusinessforum.net, Small Business Forum is a magazine-style blog operated by Medium.com which publishes articles by entrepreneurs small and large. They also feature articles from contributors in the business community, though interaction by the public is limited to the comments section.

3. BizWarriors

BizWarriors takes a more aggressive stance towards doing business. Even the tagline on their logo is “Create. Collaborate. Conquer.” But don’t let that turn you off, since Matthew and Adam Toren, two serial entrepreneurs, publish a wide variety of articles and run a business forum where users engage about diverse business topics, including esoteric topics like cold calling to build your small business. If that resonates with you, definitely check them out.

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5. Quickbooks Online Community

Accounting, payroll and taxes are the least glamorous parts of doing business, but every entrepreneur needs to have a complete, up-to-date picture of their financial situation at all times. The Quickbooks Online Community is one of the best resources for discussing financial topics relevant to small business owners, like starting a business during or after a pandemic.

6. Warrior Forum

If you’re familiar with Reddit-style message boards, then the Warrior Forum should be a no-brainer. Forums are divided by topic, and posts are up-voted or down-voted by the community, so the most popular posts always appear near the top of the list. You can still sort and search within forums to find discussions that you’re interested in.

7. Business Advice Forum

Another great classic-style forum, you can jump right into important subjects like growing and managing a business, social media & internet marketing, advertising, even a marketplace for hiring or buying & selling of websites and whole businesses. You can share creative ideas with other small business owners on how to grow your customer base. They also have a section dedicated to helping entrepreneurs get access to commercial capital outside of traditional banks.

8. Startup Nation

StartupNation is dedicated to entrepreneurship and starting new businesses, and they offer a huge number of resources to help you do just that. From articles around starting, growing, and managing a business, to their entrepreneurship podcast, to their community forum where you can participate with like-minded members of the business community, StartupNation has it all.

9. The Fastlane Forum

If you’ve read the best-selling business books “The Millionaire Fastlane” or “Unscripted” by M.J. DeMarco, you’re already familiar with his trademark style and no-nonsense approach to starting and running a successful business. The Fastlane Forum provides additional resources for aficionados of DeMarco’s “C.E.N.T.S. Framework”, along with many other business topics.

10. Startups.com

Last but not least, Startups.com is one of the most important hubs for information and resources relevant to entrepreneurs on the whole internet. It’s actually an entire network of platforms, including Clarity.fm for mentorship, Fundable to explore how to fund a business, along with other educational resources and professional services on building the essential skills to launch a successful business venture.

 

Small Business Forums – Runners-Up

Bank of America Small Business Online Community (now Small Business Resources)

Big banks like Bank of America are crucial to helping small business owners finance and capitalize their entrepreneurial ventures, and BofA has gone the extra step to create an online forum where experts and entrepreneurs can help each other get the answers they need. They also host a regular small business podcast!

 

Alignable

Alignable is not strictly a small business forum, but a peer-to-peer network of business owners and entrepreneurs for exchanging referrals, finding expert advice, and building relationships with business partners and local leaders. You can sign up for free and get access to connections within your industry, join discussions, and connect with your local community.

Niche Categories and Industry-Specific Entrepreneur Forums

As much as we’d like to give you a complete encyclopedia of industry-specific forums and sites that cover niche business categories, it’s important to do your own research and find communities which speak to you. Here are a few examples of great targeted platforms that cover specific aspects of the business world:

Best Social Media Resources for Entrepreneurs

LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn is the premier social network for businesses, employers, employees, and job-seekers. Here you can connect and share resources with business people from around the world doing just about everything under the sun, as well as screen and hire employees, and even market your services to other businesses.

Reddit (Entrepreneur, Small Business, and Startup threads)

Within the vast array of “subreddits” (or topical forums) on Reddit.com there are several which stand out as invaluable to business owners and entrepreneurs. We recommend that you follow r/entrepreneur, r/small-business, and r/startup to begin with, but do a few targeted searches and see if there are other local or industry-specific subreddits that interest you, including how to run your business from home.

Quora

Quora is a site you may be familiar with, which lets users ask questions on any topic and have them answered by the community. There are many business-specific questions and subjects you can browse, and answers to questions always have the “best answer” voted on. Quora is great for getting expert answers to questions, finding out about relevant current topics, expanding your networking opportunities, and finding inspiration from other entrepreneurs.

Incubators and Accelerators Help Start, Fund, and Grow Your Business

Incubators and accelerators are priceless for helping new businesses get started, guiding their development, and assisting entrepreneurs to create a business plan and get the funding they need.

These are typically started by a company or local community organization, and function off grants and funds allocated to help new entrepreneurs and small business get started. Here are a few you might want to check out:

• • Y Combinator – provides seed money to selected new startups every year; Stripe, Airbnb and Doordash are just a few which started there.
  • EO Network – a membership-only peer-to-peer network for connecting entrepreneurs with each other and with experts for business development support.
  • Side Hustle Nation – helping entrepreneurs develop and expand their “side hustle” into a full-time job.
  • StartupWind – calls itself an “innovation platform,” they work with universities, small & medium businesses, and large enterprises to come up with new ideas and build businesses around them.

Seller Platforms to Market Your Products & Services

These days, e-commerce is more important than ever, and selling online opens up new possibilities for marketing your business to customers all over the world. Also growing in popularity and importance are platforms for freelancers to market their services to clients. Here are a few of the current top e-commerce platforms, many of which provide community forums and additional resources for small business owners:

E-commerce Platforms

• • Amazon – the not-so-gentle giant we all know and use, even if we don’t quite love it
  • eBay – often overlooked in 2021, but still a powerhouse for small and medium sellers
  • Etsy – a unique direct-to-consumer site for artisan craftspeople and independent sellers
  • Shopify – powerful ecommerce tools to help you start, manage and grow an online store
  • Square – known for democratizing point-of-sale (POS) solutions, also features lots of great resources for small business owners, including commercial capital
  • Pinterest – not known for ecommerce, but similar to Instagram, sellers are discovering ways to promote your products and direct customers to your own website

Freelancer Platforms

Entrepreneur Forums That Serve Your Local Community

Don’t forget to search your local area for websites, blogs, forums, even Meetup groups or community events which cater to entrepreneurs and business owners. While we can’t give you a definitive list (it would be way too long!), try searching “entrepreneur forum + your neighborhood, city, or region” and see what’s out there. You might be surprised by what you find!

Find the Right Online Resources for Your Business

One article isn’t enough to list all the great entrepreneur forums and business resources out there, but we hope this summary has given you a foundation to start finding information, asking questions, and getting answers to help you start and run your business.

Deciding to become an entrepreneur is a big decision and, even if it’s not your first rodeo, we applaud everyone who takes that leap of faith. Even the likes of Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google had to start from somewhere. By learning and growing with each other, small business owners can create thriving communities.

Small Business Resources

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Learn the Parts of a Phone Number

Inspirational Small Business Quotes

Mastering the Art of the Cold Call

A special high five to Miles Burke for his outstanding research and contributions to this article. We love working with and supporting like-minded entrepreneurs. Thank you Miles! ❤️

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