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💬 Building a community has been a fairly talked about topic recently in the world of SaaS, tech, VC and startups - and there are numerous reasons why.
For me personally, having a thriving community can serve as an important 'MOAT' and can be a flywheel for many brands to help across acquisition and referral - it can serve as a big growth engine when done right.
Other reasons why building community can help with growth:
There are even more positives as to why, but these are some of the core to remember.
Below I will share some of the key strategic initiatives and tactics I've seen work well.
💬 In this first section, these are some of the areas to focus on (in my view) for those starting out or in the early stages.
My first key recommendation, regardless of whether you have a current community right now, or you're looking to build one, it's worth doing your own "audit" - learning from the lessons from competitors and from what top startups have done.
I recommend creating a sheet (or Airtable) - scour the internet and save links of top communities you come across, regardless of the channel/platform they may be using.
Throughout this checklist, I share quite a few factors/elements you should look out for, but to summarise, you need to be looking out for:
Other factors to look for exist, but these are the primary ones in my view to really think about.
To save some time for research, these are some of my favourite communities I've seen from top SaaS players.
Example 1 - Notion
One of the top communities within the world of SaaS has to go to Notion in my view.
It’s been one of their main growth levers and initiatives to help them get to millions and millions of users (in fact, they announced 100 million user milestone recently).
Here's just some of the breakdown of what they do from their main hub page.
They have A LOT of core components that make up their community, including:
Additionally - what Notion has done here also is cater for local levels, based on locations (for meetups/events especially) - this is a key strategic factor to consider.
Now I won’t break down all of this right now (certainly something on my list to breakdown/analyse).
Main takeaway here is that there are many components that go into managing and growing communities for a product/brand, but if there’s anyone to learn from (and who is the gold standard in my view), it has to be Notion.
Example 2 - Airtable
Another great community from a tool I love is Airtable, who have more a ‘forum-focused’ approach to how they build their community.
In many ways, they’ve combined their “help centre” (to a degree) with Q&A style related to their product, which is helpful for existing users/members - but also helpful for new visitors/users.
Some things I like include:
Note: the “Airtable Universe” is another major component of the success of their community strategy (which helps with acquisition, referral, activation and even retention).
Similar to what Notion has done with their community!
Example 3 - Webflow
My favourite CMS and no-code platform Webflow has done an amazing job with the community-building over the years, and has no doubt been a key lever for scaling their brand and driving new users/adoption.
They have a pretty comprehensive strategy and quite a few components to their community like Notion, including initiatives like:
Recommendation: like the two above, certainly a lot of great learnings to check out for Webflow’s strategy.
Example 4 - Zapier
Zapier has also done a great job with their community strategy.
They have a similar approach to Airtable, with the use of “pathways” for key areas of the community, alongside helpful resources, announcement(s), and then a forum embedded at the bottom.
They actually use a platform called Gainsight, which is a community platform solution for SaaS brands.
Example 5 - Product Hunt
And of course, how could I not mention one of my favourite maker/product communities for discovering new exciting things? Yep, Product Hunt has done an incredible job with building a loyal community and following within the tech industry over many years.
Few things to learn from their story (especially the early-stages) - they’ve done a great job with their product in terms of keeping users engaged, including the likes of notifications, email digests, leaderboard (with active users called “streaks”), and even the likes of badges.
This is more relevant to those who are starting, but can be used as an "audit" strategy point for those looking for more growth.
As part of the exploratory/research process, you need to brainstorm/decide on what 'community' actually means in your context - here are some of the key factors and areas you need to think about:
These are just some key factors to think about - and you've still go to think about:
Related to both checklist points above, you need to sign up and get involved to see how these types of communities operate.
Once you're in, you want to get as many learnings as you can - and naturally there are lots you can learn from each of them (as they would each have their unique strengths) - things to look out for and take note of are:
In general, have you seen anything new that other communities you're apart of don't do?
Make sure to utilise some sheet/Airtable to make note of key characteristics and learnings.
This is quite a big area to think about - and it's applicable whether you're starting out/early-stages, or even for those who have exisiting communities.
Whilst you're never locked into a platform, it is a lot of work transitioning platforms.
The classic platform for many communities (that's free) are of course Facebook Groups - and whilst it certainly has its pros, there are limitations too.
So, is there one platform that can solve for various communities/goals? The short answer is there's no 'perfect' choice or path, but just comes down to process of which features you care about and can build a thriving community that can scale.
I have created a resource of some of my favourite community platforms, which you can check out below.
However before diving in, which features should you then look out for and assess?
These are some of the factors/areas you should be looking out for:
There are a few other considerations too, and depending on your context and research (and even looking at the examples I've shared), you'll come across other areas that you need to factor.
Free resource: To help you with researching, I put together and shared some key features of top community-building tools I like (many I have tried and used as a member as part of a community).
I put this down as a strategy consideration - I totally think from an opportunity cost of time/resources navigating what the right path is based on some of the checklist points I've spoken about, it's worth considering engaging with a community growth specialist - that's if you want to get to a point faster.
This is an area where communities who are launching/early-stages of their journey can run into roadblocks - you have to ensure there's clear guidelines and "paths" around content.
You want to set precedence on content quality and the types of content that you want users/members to focus on sharing and interacting with.
Whilst most have some sort of "general" channel, you usually don't want to just channel all content types - or at the very least, not have some sort of 'tagging/category' system for users/members to search and find content they care about.
For example, some of the more popular SaaS community channels/categories I've seen include the likes of:
- Announcements
- Introductions
- Product updates and news
- Jobs/hiring
- Customer stories
- Feature requests
- Resources/content sharing
- Networking
- Feedback (product and community)
And depending on the size (or where you want to scale it), you may need to factor in considerations such as:
- Locations (having geo-focused channels)
- Departments (role-based, titles, etc)
- Industry
- And other potential attributes
Recommendation: Look further into Slack and Discord on how they manage large forums and channel/categories management.
Note - this checklist is a strategic consideration to think about. Airtable's community is a great example of using badges and 'gamification' to recognise contributors.
When it comes to tiers for communities, there's numerous ways you can do it - here are some factors to think about with gamification:
Tiered badges or achievements
Users/members can receive points/level-up when they make key actions.
- Break down by levels (such as Level 1 - beginner, to level 4 - champion)
- Reward people for different social actions within - responding to comments, sharing posts, etc
- They then have a badge/icon next to their profile (like Airtable example)
Points systems
Users/members can earn points for tasks, and then level up based on the points level ranges - and they can receive rewards and recognition based on which tier they're on
- Bronze (0 - 100), Silver (100 - 250), Gold (250 - 500), Platinum (500+)
Note - I made these point buckets up, but you get the tiered approach.
Milestone-based rewards/participants
Use badges/rewards for those achieving certain milestones.
- First 100 Days
- 1 year
- 50 posts made
- 25 comments
Product Hunt does a good job at this approach to keep members coming back (including me).
Leaderboards (based on activity)
You can use leaderboards to help with any of the above - and then recognise/reward members and contributors based on parameters like:
- Weekly/monthly leaderboards
- Seasonal competitions
Recommendation: Look into platforms like Discourse which have capabilities for doing gamification - see examples of communities using Discourse.
💬 Now for those who are reading that have an established community in place, or past the "early-stages" and looking to scale, here are some strategy and tactical thoughts/initiatives to consider.
To help with goals/OKR settings related to your community growth, these are some of the metrics you should be focusing on:
To help with goals/OKR settings related to your community growth, there are a few metrics to track and measure against. I'm going to break this down by: early stage and growth/scaling stage - however, many of these do overlap, and growth/scaling phase should account all the 'early-stage' metrics too! These are some of the metrics you should be focusing on:
Early-stage
- New member signup rates
- Onboarding completion rate
- Active users (how you define it)
- Time to first engagement (how long it takes new members to post/do something)
- Content contribution (for new members and existing who recently joined)
Growth/scaling stage
Then as mentioned, track all the above in early-stage, and then more specific growth metrics such as:
- Community growth rate
- Member retention rate
- Content quality
- Churned users and active vs inactive
- Engagement depth and rates
- NPS/survey feedback (both quantitative and qualitative approaches should be done)
There are other metrics too to think about/consider, but these are the main ones in my view that you should be tracking.
Note: always happy to chat on community and/or content specific metrics - just say hey! :)
There's lots that you can test - the biggest takeaway here I recommend is to use more of the "first-party" platform features (i.e. polls and questions, or the likes of threads).
My recommendation is to avoid sharing "too much" content which takes users/members off the platform, like a landing page/website/article).
Of course, do share external links to resources/guides - it just all comes down to testing.
When it comes to testing and measuring results, I suggest setting up a Google sheet with key metrics around content performance, and test various options based on "winners" you've seen.
In terms of what specific content metrics to track, I'd be noting down/measuring:
- Engagement metrics of content, topics and discussions (likes, comments, reactions, etc)
- Content contribution metrics (new content being shared - like discussions, etc - can break down by content formats/types)
- Existing vs new users sharing content
- Topic popularity/types
- Key categories/channels with most engagement/activity
- Member feedback on content
Other metrics you can measure as well in relation to content performance, but these are the main ones in my view.
When it comes down to time investment, you want to dedicate resources to those who are most engaged in the community.
It's a strategy that I've seen adopted by many communities to help with key areas like moderation, content quality control, and help spur engagement (replying to comments, sharing content, etc).
How you work with them is up to you - my recommendation is to build 1-to-1 relationships to explore ways on how you can help them create a better member environment (win-win for all involved).
Now when it comes to scaling and acquiring new members/users, you have to focus on distribution.
Explore ways to angle/test to acquire new people to get involved in the community across the funnel/CX journey.
Including the likes of acquiring people even at the TOF stage - it's a great way to nurture new prospective audiences to learn more from others/peers.
A big distribution tactical play to acquire more members and users to sign up and participate is through working with creators/thought-leaders.
They can share content via their organic channels, such as video reviews, testimonials/reviews, and even the likes of LinkedIn carousels.
Working with the likes of thought-leaders means they already have a trusted audience, so you're building trust with your brand and community through trusted voices.
A great way to excite audiences from TOF to MOF stage to entice them to sign up is through showing snippets and "behind closed doors" content, to show some of the flavour of what's happening (and what they're potentially missing out on).
It's a good 'FOMO-based' tactic.
If you work with complementary brands that have an existing community, or perhaps you've identified a separate brand that has one (that you haven't worked with yet), why not work out ways to work together?
As long as there's no competing offer and audiences are similar, it's worth considering - "go fast alone or go far together", right?
Then in terms of initiatives to help with audience growth, you can do things like competitions, events/conferences - lots of things.
If growing your community audience is a key objective, you need to make sure to promote/highlight across your marketing channels and collateral. Something to also consider experimenting with, is using Meta ads to nurture audiences. In many ways, use your community as a secondary CTA to get visitors/audiences into a 'funnel' experience.
Some of the best community groups I'm apart of do an awesome job when it comes to doing roundups - they're really helpful, especially when there are really active groups.
This is an area I recommend exploring - all you need to do is setup a consistent template (whether broadcast message and/or the likes of an email newsletter) that you can "plug and play" content into.
Like you would with NPS surveys and seeking product feedback, you want to do the same when it comes to understanding what your members think.
You don't need to get separate data collection tools for surveys (although of course it's worth doing this from time to time too) - sometimes, it's even the likes of the occasional poll and open Q&A feedback within the community itself which can help facilitate discussion and conversation from members.
Plus, it's a good tactic to get more visibility and eyeballs within the group (and less friction than an external survey).
