#3 Unlocking the Power of Community

How to build high signal communities in the world of noise?

Apr 19, 2020

Community is the lastest leverage startups have found to build a strong business. It has the potential to bring flywheel effects, network effects for your product growth. First Round state of startups 2019 mentioned community the new moat for startups.

Community is not just for startups. It’s also for Creators, Makers, Leaders, Non-Profits, SMB’s, Freelancer and more . We all can build or be part of micro-communities in today’s world.
If you are thinking about how you can build a community- this article can help you understand how to go about it.

The most common mistakes I see people do are

Excited about starting a community than the community in itself.
Assuming your slack, whatsapp or telegram group is the community.
Using a full-blown software without a matured community.
Optimizing to make the community bigger and not better each day.
Trying to borrow ideas from different communities and directly applying to yours.
Assuming building an audience is same as building a community
Building a community for signaling.

Remember these points before we move ahead.

Every community is unique.

Every creator, maker, athlete, influencer is different from each other. Their needs, purpose are very different and hence you need to understand how to build your community by yourself — Kevin William David

You cannot have a one size fit all solution for running your community.
You have to work very very hard moderating it.
Be kicked about the community and its members and not about starting one.

Communities that don’t have a strong purpose — end up this way.

Answer these questions once you understand the needs.

Where does your community fall into this hierarchy?

How we choose communities at each level of the hierarchy

People choose to be part of a community primarily because

They want to learn together
Working together for a cause or a purpose or an objective
Giving back to society in the best way together
Connections with people I love to meet

Why should people join your community is a very important question in the early days.

Knowing the why helps you communicate & build the community nicely.

The key point to remember for you is

As a community builder, what functions are you optimizing for the first 6 months?

Making people know each other & connect personally.
Sharing good stories, updates, humor (family, friends, colony, etc)
High signal conversations between members
Build a knowledge base together
Work & execute a certain task together (For Ex: Fighting COVID-19)
Provide perks, offers, services for all of them.
Solving each other questions about a certain topic
Enable outcomes for community members

Don’t try to do all the above at once. It will not work. It will not work. Just do one-two things out of all the above for 6–12 months.

For ex: Hacker News served only one purpose — solve each other questions about a certain tech-based topic when in need.

Paul Graham moderated this for 7 years. 7 Long years.

He didn’t solve for anything else until now. It's one of the most successful communities in the world that run completely on its own.

Once you decide, then do things that don’t scale until it becomes repeatable.

How to decide which tools or platforms to use?

Software should become a catalyst to grow your community and not a friction element. If the software becomes a cognitive load for members than they stop using it.

Here are some cues for you to decide

Find the one use-case your community members will need to become true fans.
The frequency of that use-case should be highest initially.
Least friction for people to use it. It should mostly be part of their daily flow of habits.
If you are trying to make connections by breaking the ice and build relationships — Whatsapp is not the right tool. Ice Breaker is the right tool
If you are trying to host micro meetups at scale —Bevy is useful
If you want to make people just chat and build conversations for some time — Whatsapp/Telegram is best
If you all are solving a task or a project together — Whatsapp is best. Don’t try complex tools.
Want to solve Q&A’s for people in your community to find it useful — Q&A, Forum Tools, Quora spaces.
Want your community to get Jobs — Build an online Job Board. Not whatsapp group.

What is the right time to start using a product? — Step 3

Building a Community is like building a Product. But here you will need a strong Purpose — Member Fit to make it successful.

If you found this useful, please ❤️ on substack and share it in your social circles.

If you are planning to start of a community and you think will need help — feel free to DM here https://twitter.com/siddharth_ram

Resources to read further and learn more about the community. here are the links

Masters in Web3 (MPC) - Marketing, Product & Community

Discussion about this post