I've been in enough "community building" workshops to know the script. Someone mentions Harley-Davidson owners getting tattoos of the logo, everyone nods sagely, and then we're supposed to replicate that with our B2B SaaS product. Sure, let me just convince accountants to tattoo our invoice management software on their biceps.
But here's the thing: community building isn't about manufacturing cult-like devotion. It's about creating spaces where people actually want to show up.
The brands getting this right in 2025 aren't the ones with the biggest budgets or the flashiest Discord servers. They're the ones who figured out something crucial: communities form around shared problems and interests, not around your product. Your product might be the excuse that brings people together, but it's rarely the reason they stay.
Why Most Community Efforts Fizzle Out
Let's start with what doesn't work, because I'm guessing you've already tried some of this.
Launching a Slack workspace or Discord server and expecting people to just... show up and engage. I've watched companies spend months building the perfect community platform, complete with custom emojis and carefully organized channels, only to have it sit there like a digital ghost town. Three people posting "hello" on launch day, then crickets.
The problem isn't the platform. It's that you built the infrastructure before you built the reason for people to care.
Notion tried something different with their community approach. Instead of creating one official space and demanding everyone migrate there, they let communities form organically wherever users already were—Reddit, Facebook groups, Twitter. Then they showed up in those spaces, listened, and occasionally participated. Revolutionary? Not really. Effective? Absolutely.
Here's what I've noticed: the best communities aren't built, they're cultivated. There's a difference. Building implies you're constructing something from scratch. Cultivating means you're nurturing something that's already trying to grow.
The Unglamorous Truth About Early Community Growth
Starting a community feels a lot like hosting a party where nobody shows up. You've got the snacks, the music, the perfectly curated conversation starters. And then you're standing there alone, refreshing the page to see if anyone's joined yet.
This phase is brutal, and nobody talks about it enough.
Peloton's community didn't start with millions of people high-fiving each other through screens. It started with a handful of early adopters who found each other in the comments section and on Facebook. The company noticed where these micro-communities were forming and amplified them, rather than trying to force everyone into a branded platform immediately.
Your first 10 community members matter more than your next 1,000. Not because of their numbers, but because they set the tone. They're the ones who'll answer newbie questions when you're not around. They're the ones who'll call out behavior that doesn't match community values. They're the ones who make it feel like an actual community instead of a customer support forum with delusions of grandeur.
So how do you find these people? You probably already know who they are. They're the ones emailing you detailed feedback. Tagging you on social media. Showing up to every webinar. Creating content about your product without you asking. Start there.
The Content Trap (And How to Avoid It)
Here's where most community strategies go sideways: they become content marketing in disguise.
You've seen this. The "community" that's really just a distribution channel for blog posts and product updates. The "engaged members" who are really just subscribers to another newsletter. The "conversations" that are really just comments on your promotional content.
That's not a community. That's an audience with extra steps.
The difference? In an audience, communication flows one way. In a community, members talk to each other more than they talk to you. If you're the center of every conversation, you haven't built a community—you've built a fan club. (Which might be fine, but let's call it what it is.)
GitHub's community works because developers are there to solve problems and share code with other developers. GitHub's role is mostly to stay out of the way and occasionally facilitate. The company isn't trying to be the star of every interaction.
When you're creating content for your community, ask yourself: does this spark conversation between members, or does it just prompt them to respond to you? If it's the latter, rethink it.
Platform Selection: Does It Actually Matter?
Everyone wants to know which platform to use. Discord or Slack? Circle or Mighty Networks? A private forum or just a Facebook group?
Honest answer? It matters less than you think.
I've seen thriving communities on ancient forum software that looks like it hasn't been updated since 2008. I've seen beautifully designed custom platforms that nobody uses. The platform is important, but it's not the thing that makes or breaks community success.
What matters more: where are your people already spending time?
If you're targeting Gen Z, they're probably not excited about joining another Slack workspace. They're on Discord, or increasingly, they're in group chats and smaller, more private spaces. If you're targeting busy professionals, asking them to check another platform is a tough sell—maybe you meet them in LinkedIn groups or even email.
Beehiiv's community strategy is interesting here. They didn't build a separate community platform at all. They built community features directly into their product—allowing newsletter creators to connect with each other through the tool they're already using daily. Less friction, more actual engagement.
Pick a platform based on these criteria: Where do your people already hang out? What's the barrier to entry? Can people easily find and join? Is it sustainable for you to moderate and maintain?
And here's the part nobody mentions: you can always move later. Starting on a simple platform and migrating to something more robust when you've proven the concept is smarter than building the perfect infrastructure for a community that doesn't exist yet.
Moderation: The Unsexy Thing That Makes or Breaks Everything
Let's talk about the least glamorous part of community building: moderation.
You need clear rules. You need to enforce them consistently. You need to remove people who violate them, even when it's uncomfortable.
I've watched communities deteriorate because founders were too worried about growth to enforce standards. They let toxic members stick around because "at least they're engaged." They ignored problematic behavior because addressing it felt confrontational.
This is how you end up with a community that your best members quietly leave.
Reddit's individual subreddits work because moderators actually moderate. The good ones, anyway. They remove off-topic posts. They ban people who harass others. They maintain the culture that made the community valuable in the first place. It's thankless work, and it's absolutely essential.
Your moderation approach should be: clear guidelines, consistent enforcement, and public about both. When you remove something or ban someone, other members should understand why. This isn't about public shaming—it's about reinforcing what the community stands for.
And here's something I learned the hard way: you can't moderate effectively alone once you hit a certain size. You need community moderators—trusted members who can help maintain standards. This means giving up some control, which is scary. Do it anyway.
Creating Value That Isn't Just Access to You
The founder-led community can work in the early days. People join because they want access to you, they want to pick your brain, they want to feel close to the company.
This doesn't scale, and it shouldn't be your long-term strategy.
Eventually, the value needs to come from the community itself. From the connections members make with each other. From the knowledge they share. From the opportunities that emerge when you put the right people in the same space.
Y Combinator figured this out early. The value of YC isn't just the funding or the advice from partners—it's the network of founders who've been through the program. They help each other, hire from each other, invest in each other. The community creates more value than the program itself.
So what does this look like practically? Create structures for peer-to-peer interaction. Introduce members who should know each other. Facilitate skill-sharing and collaboration. Celebrate member wins that have nothing to do with your product.
The goal: members should be able to articulate the value they get from the community without mentioning you or your company.
Measuring What Actually Matters
Metrics for community are tricky because the valuable stuff is hard to measure.
You can track member count, sure. Monthly active users. Posts per day. Engagement rate. These numbers tell you something, but they don't tell you if you've built something meaningful.
Better questions: Are members helping each other without prompting? Are they creating content or resources for other members? Do they invite others to join? Are they forming relationships that extend beyond the platform? Do they stick around even when you're not actively engaged?
Duolingo's community metrics probably include standard engagement numbers, but the real indicator of health is how many learners are creating and sharing content with other learners—the memes, the study groups, the accountability partnerships. That's community health you can feel, even if it's harder to quantify.
I track what I call "unprompted value creation"—things members do that add value without me asking. Someone writes a guide for newcomers. Someone organizes a meetup. Someone creates a resource library. These signal that people feel ownership over the space.
Also worth tracking: retention. Are people sticking around? Coming back regularly? A community of 500 active, engaged members beats 5,000 lurkers every time.
The Monetization Question
At some point, someone's going to ask: how do we monetize this community?
Tread carefully here.
The fastest way to kill a community is to make people feel like they're the product. Or that the community exists primarily to extract value from them rather than provide it.
That said, sustainable communities often need resources. Paid memberships can work if—and this is crucial—the paid tier offers genuine additional value without making free members feel like second-class citizens.
Patreon's entire business model is built on this. Creators offer free content and community access, with premium tiers for people who want more. It works because the free tier is genuinely valuable, and the paid tier feels like a voluntary upgrade, not a hostage situation.
Other monetization approaches that can work: premium events or workshops, job boards, partner sponsorships (carefully vetted), advanced tools or resources. What doesn't work: making people feel like they're being sold to constantly, or that every interaction is designed to push them toward a purchase.
Here's my rule: the community should provide value even if someone never buys anything beyond membership. If it only makes sense as a sales funnel, you're building the wrong thing.
What's Actually Working in 2025
A few patterns I'm seeing from communities that are thriving right now:
Smaller, more intimate spaces. The mega-community approach is giving way to smaller, more focused groups. People want to be known, not just be a username in a crowd of thousands.
Integration with existing workflows. Communities that live inside tools people already use daily (like Figma's community features within the product) see better engagement than those requiring a separate login.
Async-first design. Not everyone can show up for live events or real-time chat. The best communities are designed for people to participate on their own schedule.
Real-world connections. Virtual communities are increasingly facilitating in-person meetups and events. The online space becomes the organizing layer for offline relationships.
Clear specialization. Broad communities struggle. Specific ones thrive. Instead of "marketing professionals," try "B2B SaaS content marketers at Series A startups." Narrow works.
The brands getting community right aren't trying to be everything to everyone. They're creating focused spaces where specific people can solve specific problems together. Everything else is secondary.
Starting From Where You Are
If you're reading this thinking "great, but I'm starting from zero," here's what I'd do:
Week 1: Identify 10 people who are already engaged with your brand or content. Email them personally. Ask if they'd be interested in a small group where you share early ideas and they can connect with others in similar situations.
Week 2-4: Create a simple space (even just a group chat) and facilitate introductions. Your job is to make connections between members and prompt discussions. Share something valuable weekly.
Month 2: Let members start driving conversations. Step back slightly. Introduce peer-to-peer interaction structures. Ask what would make the space more valuable.
Month 3: Evaluate what's working. Double down on that. Invite a few more people, but slowly. Establish clearer guidelines as culture emerges.
You don't need a strategy deck and a custom platform. You need a reason for people to show up and a commitment to making it worth their time.
The best community you can build is the one you actually start. Not the perfect one you plan for six months and never launch because it's not quite ready. Start small, stay consistent, and let it evolve.
Because at the end of the day, community building is less about tactics and platforms than it is about giving a damn. About the people who show up. About the value they get. About the connections they make. Everything else is just logistics.
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