How to build a community? 🧑‍🤝‍🧑💪

Ooooh this is an interesting question. Looking forward to seeing people's thoughts!

Love the responses we have gotten on this thread so far. ❤️ This post is now in the weekly trending charts, which shows many of us are looking for answers here. 💪 I asked the same question on some of the other discussion forums like HackerNews & IndieHackers. Sharing some of the top responses with the PH family here 😇: 🌟 Rosie Sherry (Founder & Community builder at RosieLand) 🌟 says: "Communities don't look like communities when they start, they look like research, conversations, relationships, email lists, seeking belonging and having empathy. Most people aren't cut out for the community, it becomes a full-time job within itself. Doing research and having conversations will benefit you regardless, so I'd start with that." 🌟 Chris (a Marketing Guru)🌟 says: "If I may say, it's not really a community that you need per se but attention from your target audience. You need to get potential customers to pay attention to your business and your product. If that attention turns into a community then great! But if it doesn't, it's not the end of the world. The question is then, how do you get attention for your startup? Particularly given that the vast majority of your target audience isn't going to be looking to buy your product right now and therefore any attempt to sell them your product will be ignored. The solution that has been tried for a long time is freemium - give people a taste of your product for free and they'll not only pay attention to it (cos its free) but also try it out and share it. But it's super hard to get right. There's an alternative however that is a spin on the freemium model that is much easier to pull off. Wrote an article about it here the other day. Rather than repeat the article, I'll share it: https://www.indiehackers.com/pos..." 🌟 Upen (Founder of Micro SaaS Ideas)🌟 says "I have been building one of the biggest communities for Indie Hackers at Micro SaaS HQ where we talk about Micro SaaS, Info products, Newsletters, Productized services, Marketplace models, latest trends in SaaS etc. Here are a few pointers on your questions about communities. Building communities isn't easy. In most cases, they take years of effort and communities are usually born out of an Info product, Newsletter, Blog, product or a group of people. In our case, this Micro SaaS HQ community is born naturally out of a Newsletter. Don't assume that the community grows by itself. No, they don't. You need to spend an enormous amount of time and energy and wait for a couple of years. The easiest way to validate this would be to find places where you can talk about this and see if people are interested. A message as simple as - 'Hey, I am ABC and I am planning to build a small community of people doing XYZ. If you are interested, please signup here' Then get on a call with these people and see why they are interested. Validating an idea is also about validating your reach too to find those audiences." 🌟 Post by an Anonymous founder🌟 "I think one strong way to start building your community is by involving people (that are passionate about the mission) in a behind-the-scenes way. I use Discord to communicate and make announcements, and I am constantly interacting directly. Let them know they are valued from the jump. Transparency & consistency in your presence is key!" 😈 😈 😈 With so many good ideas & suggestions, I couldn't resist acting on them. So I created a Public group yesterday night to start a community for us. In no time we got a decent number of people who joined our small community. Sharing the link here too: https://t.me/+UQ7bDtzlyaphNGRl

Thanks a lot, Manas for the useful thread.

To build a community you need two things: people and a platform where people can communicate. The platform is easy, you can choose between Twitter, forums, slack channels, Facebook groups etc. Finding people is more complicated. If you are talking about SaaS specifically you can always have a free layer of service and you will attract a bunch of people can join your community.

We started out building our platform by working with entrepreneurs who were passionate abt building their brand, so slowly we expanded and made a community of them who could guide us through out our journey.

Thanks for PH alternatives, didn't know for all of them

I've read a couple of the posts on your website so far, and I really like the way you write. io games

This is what i'm thinking in a few months. Thanks for your information. Can we connect/follow and share more? maybe start from a community for ppl who want to build a community lol

Awesome love to read butt can we made community where people buy and sell houses ill create a website last month please check and review https://buildy.pk/

Even before doing anything, you should ask yourself "Why am I building this community?" I think that it all starts with establishing an identity around it and choosing the right set of people, the ones that share common goals and interests. I would also have a thought about where should the community be established and which type of content would the community members mostly engage with.

Building a community for your SaaS (Software as a Service) product can be a great way to engage with your customers and provide them with additional value. Here are a few steps you can take to build a successful community for your SaaS product: 1. Identify the purpose of your community and the specific goals you want to achieve. This will help you determine the best approach for building and managing your community. 2. Choose a platform for your community and set it up with the necessary features and tools to support your goals. This could be a forum, a messaging app, or another type of platform. 3. Invite your customers to join the community and provide them with information and resources to help them get started. 4. Engage with your community members regularly and encourage them to participate in discussions and share their experiences and feedback. This will help foster a sense of connection and build a stronger community. 5. Provide value to your community members by sharing helpful resources and information, and by responding to their questions and concerns in a timely manner. 6. Regularly check in with your community members to see how they are doing and ask for feedback on how the community can be improved. This will help ensure that the community remains relevant and valuable to your customers. Overall, building a successful community for your SaaS product requires regular engagement and support from community leaders and members. By providing value and fostering a sense of connection, you can build a strong and engaged community that can help drive success for your business.

I don't think theirs a answer to that, it can be by approaching the right people on linkedIn or offline meeting people at events or finding mails on the desk of organizations

Thanks for the useful information

There are a bunch of platforms out there. I would suggest focus on one platform to build your community, by investing more of your time and human resources on it. So to get started, choose the right platform that best fits your product positioning.

Great thread and made me think... Question for folks here - How important is it to you that your community (if it's not a community for your brand) can eventually be monetized?

Which platforms do you think are top priority generally?

Publishing use cases are a great option to marketing your product online. They help marketers understand the tool better and also decide on a paid subscription according to their business requirements.

In my opinion, we should get to know more people who have the exponential of making visual products in order to understand their way of thinking.

This is exactly the question I came here for!

I’m a marketer and a founder building a community around my brand, and I believe that grassroots is the route to awareness and a strong network. Founders who pound the pavement themselves are going to have the most solid relationships with peers and the public.