How do I start community-led growth?
Kshitij
13 replies
Many of you might have heard about Sales-led or Product-led growth when building early-stage products/startups where people prioritize building a great product or developing an impressive sales engine.
But recently, I have been seeing a massive rise in community-led growth & personal branding of the founders.
The benefits are really obvious when you see examples of Notion, Clay, etc. You get a ton of helpful feedback, massively driving up product adoption, creating an ecosystem around your product early on, etc.
So, I am curious to hear from people who are doing it/have done it -
How did you approach this?
What are some best practices?
How can I start today?
Replies
Hien Nguyen | Sailee@saileeivic
@5harath shared a thought-provoking article on Product Hunt in 2022 titled The Era of Community-Led Growth. If you haven’t read it yet, I think it’s worth checking out: https://www.producthunt.com/stor...
Best practices in community-led growth depend heavily on your product's nature and category—it's a good idea to look at what works in similar spaces. For a B2C2B Martech product like Inrō, SurferSEO, Notion, Figma, Stripe are great examples to start (I am doing a deep dive into these in the Community-led Growth newsletter. If you are interested, let me know and I could send them to you!)
That said, I found the foundation often lies in doing things that don’t scale early on, such as:
(1) Digging into the basics
- Understand your customers, their A-to-B journey, and the core reason they use specific features. Talking to them directly is invaluable.
- Prioritize natural advocates or early adopters who resonate with your brand. Gather feedback, refine your approach, and iterate quickly.
(2) Building an ambassador program
- Start small (e.g., 20 people) to maintain focus. Notion’s early success stemmed from this approach.
- Add value through tailored resources, use-case showcases, and opportunities to connect (webinars, AMAs, or even office hours). A direct line to your team can be a huge motivator for ambassadors.
(3) Platform preferences matter too
What works in one market might not resonate elsewhere. For example, Notion used Slack in the US because it's widely adopted for work, but in other parts of countries, it might be something else.
There’s so much more to this, but I hope it helps! Would love to hear your thoughts and updates on the progress!
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I found that sharing your journey, challenges, and successes transparently can help build a loyal community around your brand.
@steve_joe Absolutely, been loving the buildinpublic movement, helps us go agile and oriented to what our users want.
I suggest incentivizing community participation through rewards, recognition, or exclusive access to new features.
@rebaika_james Interesting, do you recommend starting with them when launching the community or adding them later once there's a few members in the community? Do you have any good recommendations for incentives for asking people to join the community in the first place?
I found that collaborating with influencers or thought leaders in your niche can boost your community growth efforts.
@cole_adam Definitely, especially true for us since our targets are on Instagram + Linkedin
Starting community-led growth is like planting a garden - nurture it with engaging content, interact with your audience, and watch it bloom into a thriving community. So, let's grab our virtual watering cans and start sowing those seeds today!
@kshitij11, what a fantastic topic! 😃 Community-led growth truly seems like a game-changer. I love how you mentioned Notion and Clay – their success stories are certainly inspiring! From what I know, engaging actively with your community, providing value, and fostering genuine relationships are key to starting. Also, personal branding for founders can amplify this by building trust and authenticity. Looking forward to hearing everyone's tips and experiences on this! 😊🔥
@kshitij11 yess.. true!
I think creating valuable content and sharing it consistently can help attract and retain community members.
@brigid_stewart Great tip, thanks. I'll keep this in mind for the nurturing part, for sure. Ideally, we should encourage them to make content to help each other, too, with our product.