Top 10 Online Small Business Communities & Entrepreneur Forums in 2023

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.

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.

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.

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:

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:

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:

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!

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.