Thread by @DavidSpinks

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:

🧵

There's always an opportunity for community. 

Even if a community for a topic already exists, you can always bring a new angle.

Find that angle by building the community that you wish existed for yourself.

There's only one process that truly works for finding community-market fit:

1. Talk to your members
2. Form a community hypothesis
3. Test the hypothesis

Repeat, repeat, repeat…

…until it "clicks".

All the biggest communities in the world started with a founder who spent countless hours building relationships one at a time.

There's no short cut.

There's a magic you can only create in small groups.

As a community grows, it loses some of that magic.

It's almost always better to start small when building community.

Communities are defined by who doesn't belong.

All communities exclude.

The key is to exclude with intention and an awareness of bias that could cause the wrong people to be excluded.

Always exclude with empathy.

The strongest communities are built around a pain or struggle that people feel shame around.

Identify a pain that people are experiencing, and create a space where they're accepted because of that pain.

Give them a place where they don't have to feel shame.

How to earn people's trust:

- Help them with no expectation of return
- Give them a space to vent without judgment
- Go deep, not shallow
- Make high-quality introductions
- Always be kind
- Admit your mistakes

A good community is like a song.

It has a steady beat of conversations that keeps people engaged over time.

And, once in a while, a huge crescendo event that gets the entire community energized.

Every community has a few members who show up more than anyone else in the community and bring a massive amount of passion and energy.

They are the lifeblood of your community. 

Make their happiness your priority.

All communities will stagnate if they don't keep evolving.

The OG members will be upset by changes and some will leave.

But if you don't innovate, the community will stop growing, and begin its decline.

Don't overindex on long-time members.

If you enjoy this thread, follow me @davidspinks for more threads about community, business, and startups!

I promise to make it worth the follow

A community builders' greatest fear is that no one will show up.

So they stop taking risks to avoid the embarrassment of silence.

You have to overcome the fear of crickets.

You have nothing to lose.

There are three keys to making an event successful:

1. The right people
2. The right space
3. The right content

If you nail all three, your event will become a staple that people will keep coming back to.

A community builder's job is to push out control as far as possible.

If you're still controlling something, figure out how you can distribute those responsibilities to the community.

I learned this from Philippe Beaudette who architected the Wikipedia community program.

Community values aren't fluffy.

They're the key to scaling community.

Because they teach others the formula for recreating your community's magic.

I also write a newsletter about community+business and my upcoming book, The Business of Belonging.

You can subscribe here: davidspinks.substack.com