Why Jimi Fagbure is building The Mansa Court without a clubhouse
Jimi Fagbure is the founder of The Mansa Court, a planned private members’ club in New York with no permanent clubhouse and a calendar of 250 annual engagements. With its first season set to begin in January 2027, the conversation looks at how invitation-based membership, personal meetings with applicants and a deliberate approach to growth are shaping the club before it opens.
For The Mansa Court, selectivity comes before scale: decide who the club is not for, meet applicants directly and resist the pressure to grow fast. Fagbure’s advice is that 25 people chosen carefully can build more than 200 who simply paid.
What’s the short story of how your business started, and what makes it genuinely different from the other options your customers have?
I began planning The Mansa Court in September 2025. The occasions I care about had become a matter of who could pay rather than who was worth having in the room. The Court goes the other way: no permanent house, a calendar of 250 engagements a year, and membership that is granted before it is paid for. The difference is the company: the same people across a whole season, chosen rather than assembled.
How did you win your first customers, and where does most of your new business come from today?
We haven’t opened yet. The first season begins in January 2027 with a Founding Dinner in New York. Right now I meet each applicant over coffee before anyone is offered one of the 25 founding places. Most have found us through the Court’s Almanac, a free public guide to the season, and a little advertising here in New York.
What’s one decision that changed the direction of your business, and one mistake that taught you the most?
The decision that shaped everything was not taking a clubhouse. Without a building to fill, the Court can be selective and put its effort into the engagements themselves. The mistake was not starting the club before 2025. I always had the vision and the goal, but waiting until 2025 was the mistake I made.
What has changed in your industry or in what your customers expect over the last couple of years, and how have you adapted?
Members’ clubs have multiplied, and many now sell access by the month. People have noticed that a room anyone can buy their way into isn’t worth much. We’ve gone back to the older way: a calendar set in advance, a code stated plainly, and the same faces season after season.
If you were advising someone starting out in your industry today, what would you tell them to do first, and what would you tell them to ignore?
Decide who your club is not for before you decide who it is for. Ignore the pressure to grow fast: 25 people chosen carefully will build more than 200 who simply paid.
Thank you to Jimi Fagbure and the team at The Mansa Court for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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