I’ve help build internet communities that have generated hundreds of millions of members
The most often question I get asked is:
But Greg - how do I build a community from scratch?!
Here's what I usually say:
I've built online communities since I was 14, and have interviewed 100's of successful community builders and founders.
Here's what I've learned about building great communities:
🧵
Scattered thoughts on communities:
- what they are
- why they matter for people & businesses
- how to start them
- how to scale them
- stages of a community
- elements of successful communities
Thread👇
To build community:
* find your people
* study your people
* take notes
* talk to your people
* take notes
* repeat quite a few times
The how then becomes much easier to answer.
#Community Building is something that I’ve been doing for the past 18 years. I wasn’t able to gauge it’s true potential initially, but my journey led to a series of invaluable learnings.
Happy to share them on this #thread with an inspiration drawn frm @DavidSpinks. Dive in!👇
🥳 Community-driven founders: surprise! I have a 200+ Community-Driven Founder Resources Guide for you. This is to help you succeed on your startup journey. The guide is created by and for the community.
You can get it here: notion.so/lolitataub/200…
I joined @csallen on the @IndieHackers podcast to talk about community-building, the AngelList acquisition, and some of the things we’re building at @ProductHunt: indiehackers.com/podcast/067-ry…
Community reaches across your entire business. Community isn't marketing.
Community isn't support.
Community isn't sales.
Community is community.
Community is EVERYTHING.
We had the best chat with @eriktorenberg & @TheAnnaGat about learning communities - a topic close to my heart.
We talked about:
• Co-created communities
• Community architects
• How to *really* learn together
• Scaling communities
• ... and more!
spreaker.com/user/10197011/…
As I'm preparing to join @ProductHunt, I studied many community builders and founders. Here are some tactics and lessons I learned 👇
A thread 🧵
If you start a community, be prepared to amplify other people’s voices over yours.
The future of business is:
- remote first
- 4 day work weeks
- radically transparent
- community owned and driven
- diverse, equitable, and inclusive
You don't build community by getting people to care about you or your product.
You build community by caring about them.
Had a fun convo with @jason and @danielgross about…
- getting 1M people to start $1M startups
- custom community vs off-the-shelf?
- startups that are inspiring us right now
Ofc I threw some indie hacker names into the mix, cc @lynnetye and @jdnoc 🙌
youtube.com/watch?v=LuWkNQ…
🤔 Founders building community-driven cos: what platform does your community live in? Geneva, Circle, Slack, WhatsApp, Facebook, or ...
FYI: All of our fave community-building resources are stashed in here for anyone to access.
(Add to it!)
docs.google.com/document/d/1qY…
📚Underestimated founders + investors: what do you think about community-driven cos?
In this thread I explore:
🤔 What makes for a community-driven co
🥳 The benefits of community-driven cos
✅ Community must-haves
🧰 Tactics to build community
🙌🏽 Community-driven cos
/1
Airbnb reports that ✨building a community✨ is their primary differentiating factor from its competitors and lists it as their top two core strengths (host and guest communities).
The word community appears 166 times in the IPO prospectus.
cnbc.com/2020/11/16/air…
No startup has immunity from community.
Without it, you're just lines of code.
To build community, do things that don't scale, for quite a long time. 😅
IH's very own community manager, @rosiesherry, once built her own community from scratch… and grew it to $1.2MM/year… and made it so great that 9 members got tattoos… and did it all while raising and homeschooling 5 kids. 😲
So I interviewed her! 👉 indiehackers.com/podcast/097-ro…
1/ A bit of @mightynetworks news this morning. We’ve raised $50M. Here’s how we did it — and, much more importantly, why we did it.
mightynetworks.com/notes/weve-rai…
Do you consult on community building, or know rad folks who do?
Holler at me!
We are compiling a list of folks to point clients towards.
What's the difference between building an audience and building a community?
Building an audience = helping people.
Building a community = helping people help each other.
👋🏽 I just published Community-Driven Companies: What They Are and Why We’re Investing in Them
link.medium.com/avgqhIzflbb
Your community platform doesn’t matter nearly as much as your community strategy.
Some examples of great companies that do community right:
@linear
@public
@Venafi
@teal_hq
@aspireIQ
@Atlassian
@Commsor
@teachable
@beondeck
@WyzeCam
@LatticeHQ
@onepeloton
@digitalocean
@figmadesign
@earnestcapital
What other companies are doing community really well?
The evolution of the business plan:
1) Business plan
2) Deck
3) Prototype
4) Community
Companies that don’t invest in community, are already paying for it
One year ago, @mkobach tweeted that he "wanted to take what he knew about community building and apply it to his personal Twitter."
Well, it worked. Today hes become a "lighthouse" for 100k people on Twitter.
I asked him what that cmty building model was. Here's what he said...
Five kinds of community posts that work every time:
1. Creative challenge (“Caption this photo”)
2. Debates (“Slack vs Facebook”)
3. Nostalgia (“Who’s your fav emo band?”)
4. Hot takes (“Whats your unpopular opinion?”)
5. Vulnerability (“Anyone else struggling today?”)
Who are the best community builders in their field who are also practitioners in their field?
For example, who's the best community builder for designers who's also a designer?
Same w/ product, sales, VCs—across any position/sector
I want to work w/ these ppl over the next yr.
Today is a huge day for us.
After 3 years of research and writing, "Get Together: How to build a community with your people" is officially out in the world!
amzn.to/2KG3Eh1
To celebrate, we made a short video with the community leaders we admire most ⚡ Tune in & RT!
Software is eating the world, and community is eating software.
In no particular order, a few predictions for community in the 2020s. A thread 🧵
In blog form if you prefer that to a thread 👉 macredd.in/2020-community…
See my new @Forbes article in which @hitRECordJoe shares with me the story of how he and his brother, Dan, built @HITRECORD, a community that brings over 790,000 artists together to create art, movies, and more. A powerful example of community in action. forbes.com/sites/jonobaco…
People often conflate community with audience. A key distinction:
Audiences are one-to-many
Communities are many-to-many
Most people mistake an "audience" for a "community"
There's a big difference
The value of:
█
█
█
█ █
community audience
"The most successful fitness apps offer community"
The data doesn't lie
Community-first apps are the future
How to generate great startup ideas:
1. Start a community
2. Grow the community
3. Let the community inspire you with ideas
4. Notice the ideas
My point: communities are the "secret weapon" to startup ideas that people want
How to Scale a Community:
1. Create an experience that people love
2. Write the playbook for how to run that experience
3. Give the playbook to your community members
My thoughts on "How do i make my community more than a forum?" on @ProductHunt producthunt.com/makers/1-maker…
I like this framework for measuring the relationship strength of a community:
1. Frequency
2. Intensity & Commitment
3. Values Alignment
shiyankoh.com/blog/2020/12/8… by @shiyankoh
Who are the best community/movement builders on Twitter for different categories & niches more broadly?
e.g.
- @sarthakgh for fintech
- @soonaorlater for crypto
- @thisiskp_ for no-code
- @csallen for makers
- @juliey4 for equities
- @TurnerNovak for startup investing memes :)
Product Hunt is more than just a website. It's a milestone for many startup teams
We all remember the special day we launch on @ProductHunt
To celebrate this, @mariodgabriele and I wrote a free deep dive on the history and the future of Product Hunt
latecheckout.substack.com/p/product-hunt…
New Substack Post:
The Ultimate Guide to Unbundling Reddit
A framework & guide for how you can make millions off Reddit niches
latecheckout.substack.com/p/the-ultimate…
Start small to go big
PUSH < PULL when building community.
PUSH: Launch a community and then promote it to as many people as possible, hoping to convert a % into engaged members.
PULL: Build a small core of highly curated and engaged members. That core, like a center of gravity, will draw others in.
Prediction: startup success rates go through the roof as founders build audiences and find community before starting a company / building a product to serve them.
After years of dreaming of this moment, I finally get to announce the launch of 🥁🥁🥁
*-._ The Masters of Community Podcast _.-*
Every episode is a deep dive with an incredible community expert.
Listen to the first 3 episodes now!
pod.cmxhub.com
Community-led companies are the new "lean startup"
Lean startup: build software, then find community
Community-led: build community, then build software
The next wave of big consumer companies will be community-led
I hate the term "community building."
It used to mean something, before it was popular. Now it's just a buzzword.
It's also poorly defined.
So here's a framework that takes the mystery out of it. I call it the "pyramid of priority" (PoP).
It works like this...🧵
Communities and networks are not the same.
In a community, everyone sees everything. This means every newcomer has a chance of being noticed.
In a network, users and algorithms determine what gets seen. Which means that large voices are amplified while newcomers are quietened.
One of the best way to check the health of an online community:
Check the introductions channel or thread.
If current members are not welcoming new members, that's a bad sign. 👎
People are willing to pay for connection and belonging. We are tired of being the product on big platforms.
But building an experience people want to pay for is hard.
After spending the last year helping launch a bunch of community businesses, here is some of what I learned👇
For all y'all @MiroHQ users out there, the Get Together community building framework by @people_and_co is now in the #Miroverse. miro.com/miroverse/comm…
I focused on building new, deep and unexpected relationships this past year.
I joined a few communities of varying sizes from 20 to 2,000+.
Within those communities, I found my tribe.
Read more 👇👇
How do you build a brand in an age when individuals are capturing all the attention?
You enlist your employees for help.
junglegym.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-…