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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disputed but https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10535620
Haha here is the link to the original email thread with pg asking me to do this: https://www.prettyfwd.com/t/a_SBCPYeTLGxeP37RRTpmw/ The last time this came up I couldn't share the email thread because PrettyFWD didn't yet exist.
I helped building producthunt.com and overclockers.at (and other less successful ones) Here a few learnings: 1. the community already exists, you just create a communication platform for it 2. make it clear what the community is about [positioning/marketing] 3. make sure the communication/content is interesting [quality] 4. make sure there is enough engagement [perceived critical mass] (encourage people to post, post…
“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.”
"The Culting of Brands" - https://www.amazon.com/Culting-Brands-Turn-Customers-Believe...
Blueprint for Revolution (as mentioned in Adam Grant's Originals) - https://www.amazon.com/Blueprint-Revolution-Nonviolent-Techn...
Tribes by Seth Godin -https://www.amazon.com/Tribes-We-Need-You-Lead/dp/1491514736
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements - https://www.amazon.com/True-Believer-Thoughts-Nature-Movemen...
I've read the first three. The fourth is on my short list. The common theme? Start in a tight niche and establish a core of "fanatics". With a niche and a core your odds of traction and sustainability drop off.
If it helps, use any major religion as a reference point. That is, Christianity wasn't always the dominate (?) force it is today. But it started very small and tight.
A community isn't much different. Perhaps less extreme (?), but the same basic elements remain.
1. Seed with high quality community members. Initially this might just be a small circle of friends or emigres from another online community. 2. Be really hands on with identifying, engaging with, and empowering the best community members. Typically, this would mean giving them some sort of moderation powers and/or giving them access to some sort of "backchannel" (ie, a mods-only chat or forum) in which they can be a…
> Your community cannot represent a Stack Overflow-sized massive knowledge base. Worth noting I think that Stack Overflow started (relatively) small itself, and that it followed your two points. The membership "seeding" was the readers of Jeff and Joel's blogs. Both of them, Jeff and Joel, were very visible and active at least in the meta aspects of the site. Jeff in particular was happy to discuss how the site worke…
They also had a really good podcast going as they were developing it.
And a good 'bad guy' too, the site with a dash (experts-exchange).
You've gotta be hands-on and engage with all the members, listen to them, especially over small things (what's nothing to you is a potential deal breaker for them) You gotta post, keep the discussion going, start the discussion etc.
Reasons I've seen communities die 1, incompetent/not bothered admins and 2, micro management. So many admins become mini-Hitlers when they have a little bit of 'power'.
Most importantly though is community, your users will stick with you through the worst buggy code so long as you show that you care about them.
I've launched and grown/run a few forums over the years and the key for me was to always seed it with as much quality content as possible. Fake it until you make it. I believe reddit did the same.
Welcoming new members from other sites is always a good move.
1. A topic that hasn't been tapped into that much, but which has an existing audience just waiting to get involved. This was the case with Wario Forums, which had no competition whatsoever when it launched, and was started pretty much because myself and a few others in the fandom wanted a forum about the series and were willing to help get one off the ground.
2. An awful lot of dedication to the field from its founder. It's a cliche now, but forums and communities in general are usually not built in a day/week/month. So the founder needs to be super dedicated to the subject area, and willing to put in potentially weeks of unpaid work getting the site off the ground.
3. Unique and interesting content about the topic. Again, this was pretty easy for me on Wario Forums, the people I invited had experience translating games from Japanese, creating remixes of the music, making mods and level editors, etc, and I had a lot of knowledge of the series and what kinds of discussions would be interesting to a fan.
But yeah, this is where the whole 'passion' aspect comes in again. If you're not absolutely fanatical about the subject and don't possess a lot of knowledge about it, you'll struggle to create anything interesting enough to get people to join/take notice.
Seriously though, I'd recommend you check out some of the articles about this topic on sites like The Admin Zone, Feverbee and Managing Communities if you need some more in depth advice on the subject: