Once you have an idea for a Coterie, the next question is usually who to invite. This decision matters more than almost anything else you will make as a host because a Coterie is unusual in one important respect: the members aren't simply users of what you create. They are part of what makes it valuable.

That makes building your first member list very different from growing an email list, filling a webinar or attracting followers. More isn't automatically better, and the most impressive name isn't automatically the most valuable person to have inside. You are curating a room, and every person you invite changes what it feels like to be there.

Ten is not a magic number, nor does every Coterie need exactly ten members. Think of it as a useful starting point for a different way of choosing people. Rather than asking who has the most followers or who might give everyone the greatest reach, think about the different qualities a healthy circle needs. You want people who create, people who respond, people who connect ideas and, above all, people who can be relied upon to participate.

Start with a few people you already notice online. They don't necessarily need to be friends, but there should be some reason you would genuinely want to see what they create. Perhaps they regularly make you think differently about your industry. Maybe they are building something interesting. Perhaps they are at a similar stage to you and you have quietly followed each other's progress for a while. That existing interest is valuable because it means the relationship isn't beginning with an agreement to exchange engagement. It begins with curiosity.

Then look for people who are actually active. Someone can be brilliant at what they do and still be the wrong member for a Coterie if they publish once every six months and rarely interact with anyone else. There is nothing wrong with that, but the rhythm needs to make sense. A Coterie built around weekly sessions needs people who can realistically participate often enough for the circle to develop momentum.

Consistency doesn't mean somebody needs to publish every day. In fact, forcing that kind of output can quickly turn something useful into another obligation. What matters is whether they are trying to establish a rhythm and whether the Coterie can help them maintain it. Someone who wants to move from occasionally posting to sharing something thoughtful every week could be an excellent member because the accountability itself is part of the value.

It is also worth looking for people who respond well to others. You can often see this before inviting them. Read the conversations underneath their posts. Look at how they respond when someone disagrees, asks a question or adds another perspective. Notice whether they only appear in conversations happening underneath their own content or whether they take an interest in other people's work too.

This is a much better signal than follower count. A person who knows how to have a conversation can improve the experience for everyone in the Coterie. They don't need to write an essay underneath every post. They simply need to have enough interest in other people to contribute something of their own.

That is particularly important because Coterie is deliberately built around humans showing up for humans. There is an increasingly large ecosystem of tools promising to manufacture the appearance of this behaviour. Automated engagement tools can generate comments, trigger likes and coordinate activity without the person supposedly engaging having much involvement at all. LinkedIn's User Agreement expressly prohibits bots and other unauthorised automated methods used to create, comment on, like, share or re-share posts, and its Professional Community Policies prohibit artificially increasing engagement.

LinkedIn has become even more explicit about this distinction. In March 2026, the company said it was limiting the reach of inauthentic engagement, taking action against automated comments and working to make engagement pods ineffective when they are used to artificially boost virality. It also said it may remove groups exhibiting this behaviour and warn members whose activity indicates participation.

That is not the behaviour you want to import into your Coterie. If somebody's idea of participation is connecting an automation tool and letting software leave generic comments under other people's names, they are missing the point. The value of a small circle comes from knowing that the person on the other side actually turned up.

This gives you a useful standard when choosing members. Ask yourself whether you would still want this person's contribution if nobody outside the Coterie could see it. If the answer is yes because they are thoughtful, encouraging, knowledgeable or simply good company, they probably add something real to the circle.

You also want a few people who create momentum. Every group has them. They are the people who don't need to be chased to participate and tend to make participation easier for everyone else. When somebody shares something, they respond. When a new member arrives, they make them feel welcome. When the room gets quiet, they give it a little energy without needing to dominate it.

These people are particularly valuable at the beginning. The first few members establish what normal looks like. If your founding members are generous with their attention, new people are likely to understand that this is a place where people contribute. If your first members mostly arrive to share their own links and then disappear, that can become the culture just as quickly.

Not everyone needs to play that role. A good Coterie should have different personalities in it. Some people will be naturally conversational while others might participate less frequently but bring considerable expertise when they do. Someone might be excellent at asking questions. Another person may be good at spotting an idea in somebody else's post and extending it. Someone else may have a knack for introducing people who should know each other.

This is where diversity within the niche becomes useful. If you're building a Coterie for people in professional services, for example, filling every place with someone who has exactly the same role and perspective may make the conversations less interesting. An accountant, lawyer, consultant, adviser and agency owner can still understand each other's world while bringing very different experiences to it.

The same is true of audience size. There can be value in having people at different stages of building their presence. An established creator may understand what it takes to develop an audience over several years, while somebody earlier in the journey may be experimenting more freely and bringing fresh ideas. The established person doesn't need to become the mentor and the newer person doesn't need to become the student. They are simply different members of the same circle.

Be cautious, however, about creating large imbalances that change the reason people join. If nine members are there primarily because the tenth has 500,000 followers, you haven't really created a peer circle. You have created an audience around one person. That might still be a viable product, but it is a different one.

The healthiest Coteries tend to have enough parity that people feel comfortable participating. That doesn't mean identical follower counts, incomes, job titles or experience. It means nobody is treated as though their attention is inherently worth more than everyone else's. The moment people start calculating whose comment is most valuable based purely on reach, the circle starts drifting toward the mechanics that made traditional engagement pods feel so transactional in the first place.

You should also think carefully about direct competitors. There is no universal rule saying they should be excluded. In some industries, peers who technically compete can be extremely supportive because they understand each other's work better than anyone else. In others, commercial sensitivities can make people reluctant to share openly.

The right question is whether competition changes how people behave. If members are comfortable supporting each other's public work while protecting whatever genuinely needs to remain confidential, some overlap can make the Coterie stronger. If everyone is quietly watching each other and withholding anything useful, it probably won't.

Geography can be another surprisingly useful filter. A Coterie of Auckland founders, London designers or New York consultants has something beyond content connecting its members. People may encounter each other at events, know the same organisations or eventually meet offline. The Coterie can strengthen relationships that have somewhere else to go.

You don't need to restrict membership geographically, but it demonstrates a broader principle: look for more than one reason for people to care about each other. The strongest circles often sit at the intersection of several things. Similar industry, similar ambition, overlapping audience, shared location or comparable stage of business can reinforce one another.

When you have a shortlist, resist the urge to send everyone the same generic invitation. A Coterie should feel curated from the first interaction. Tell the person why you thought of them and who else you are bringing together. Explain the idea plainly, including the fact that participation involves supporting other members as well as receiving support yourself.

That last part is worth being explicit about. You don't want someone joining because they think they have discovered another distribution channel for their posts. The exchange is part of the proposition. Members bring their attention as well as their content.

There is nothing inherently wrong with reciprocity. Humans have built professional networks, referral groups, clubs and associations around mutual support for a very long time. The problem begins when reciprocity becomes detached from the people involved and reduced to a mechanical exchange. A comment is valuable because somebody chose to read what you said and respond, not simply because another comment makes a number underneath a post increase by one.

This is one of the clearest differences between the kind of circle worth building and the worst version of an engagement pod. In the latter, members can become interchangeable. The goal is often volume, speed and signals to an algorithm. That creates an obvious incentive for huge groups, generic comments and software that can simulate participation at scale.

A Coterie should move in the opposite direction. Smaller groups make people more recognisable. Curation makes the content more relevant. Scheduled sessions make participation manageable. Accountability gives members a reason to keep creating. Most importantly, the person engaging remains responsible for what they actually say and do.

That distinction also gives you permission to say no to people.

This can feel uncomfortable when you're trying to get something new started. An extra member can look like progress, particularly if you plan to charge for access. But accepting someone who clearly doesn't fit can cost more than the additional seat is worth. They affect the experience of everyone else.

You might decide someone isn't right because their work has little relevance to the rest of the group. They might want exposure without being interested in contributing. Perhaps their approach to online engagement relies heavily on automation. Maybe their communication style simply isn't compatible with the kind of room you're trying to create.

None of those decisions need to be personal. Curation only works if some people are a better fit than others. An invitation to a Coterie should mean something precisely because membership isn't automatic.

This is also why you shouldn't worry if your first Coterie begins with five or six people rather than twenty. A small founding circle gives you time to learn what kinds of members make it better. You can observe who participates naturally, what kind of content creates the best conversations and which personalities complement one another.

Those early members can then help you find the next ones. A good question to ask each person is who they would personally want in the circle. Their answers are often more useful than searching through hundreds of profiles because they already understand what makes somebody relevant.

There is another benefit to growing this way. People arrive with connections to the existing circle rather than as anonymous additions. A Coterie can expand through trust, with one good member leading to another, while still remaining intentionally small.

Over time, you may find that one circle naturally wants to become two. Perhaps there are enough consultants to create a more specialised Coterie. Maybe several members are launching companies and would benefit from a temporary circle focused specifically on that. Perhaps your original Coterie contains people at very different stages and a second one would give newer members a better peer group.

That is a healthier way to grow than continually adding people to the same room. The goal isn't to build the world's largest Coterie. It is to keep creating circles where the people inside have a reason to know one another.

So when you think about the ten people you want, don't imagine ten perfect profiles. Think about ten people whose presence improves the experience for everybody else. Some will bring expertise. Some will bring consistency. Some will ask excellent questions. Some will connect people. Some will simply be the person who always shows up when they say they will.

What they should share is a willingness to participate as themselves. No bot standing in for them, no generic comment generated because an engagement queue told them it was their turn, and no expectation that everybody else exists simply to amplify their next post.

The best member is ultimately quite simple to recognise. When their name appears in your Coterie, the other people in the circle should be pleased they're there.

If you can find ten people like that, you don't need one hundred.