How will you turn a community into a product?

I run my community in a similar way. If you can continue to create meaningful content, a paid newsletter approach is the fastest way to go, and if you feel that participants are getting something out of joining the group, you can design a simple BM by requiring them to sign up for a membership, such as a flat monthly fee. Later, you can create a community site or feature product.

Given the type of community you could arrange in-person events like networking or investor introduction events.

Do you have a link to the community? An invitation? What kind of stuff is discussed there? That could be your starting point.

Shouldn’t the community itself be able to answer this question given your description of it? Maybe work on the elevator pitch too.

And get off of Telegram if you care about privacy. They recently started requiring premium subscriptions to enable some of the privacy settings, a move I’d expect to see from a D-list social networking website in the mid 2000s, not a modern messaging app. It’s also a haven for grifters who will likely find their way into your community.

I would say start a Twitch stream :)

twitch.tv

Ask the community. They might have an opinion about being turned into a product.

What's the value prop for founders and for investors? Is it strategy, funding, sales, something else?

Check out other similar networks. I was part of Founders Network for a while. See what their business model looks like to get a sense of what the market will bear (I think it's hundreds a year, plus more for events). And consider taking a very different approach, since the world is a very different place than when they launched over a decade ago.