A few random thoughts on building communities
kylewritescode.com
A few random thoughts on building communities
1–10 of 16 posts
Re: A few random thoughts on building communities
#2I have two, possibly three questions:
How many users are there in that "community" right now and how much time do you exactly, roughly, spend on the "community"?
How does the time you spend now compare to the time you spent right at the beginning?
The third optional question is, how did you actually build the community? Did you use those techniques, like, posting through different accounts and starting discussions with your own self and other techniques?
Re: A few random thoughts on building communities
#3I have two, possibly three questions: How many users are there in that "community" right now and how much time do you exactly, roughly, spend on the "community"? How does the time you spend now compare to the time you spent right at the beginning? The third optional question is, how did you actually build the community? Did you use those techniques, like, posting through different accounts and starting discussions wi…
> How many users are there in that "community" right now and how much time do you exactly, roughly, spend on the "community"?
roughly 12,000, with ~5,000 active in the last 30 days (this only counts users whose accounts are more than 30 days old). still very young but seeing very healthy growth.
> How does the time you spend now compare to the time you spent right at the beginning?
I'd say I actually spend more time on it now (~6 days a week) than I did at the beginning; the site is almost profitable now and is my full time job, vs. the first few months where it was only a side project.
> The third optional question is, how did you actually build the community? Did you use those techniques, like, posting through different accounts and starting discussions with your own self and other techniques?
I got friends and colleagues to join up and pestered the heck out of most of them until the site became sticky enough that they came back (to my delight) on their own volition. I only have ever had one account :)
Re: A few random thoughts on building communities
#4I have two, possibly three questions: How many users are there in that "community" right now and how much time do you exactly, roughly, spend on the "community"? How does the time you spend now compare to the time you spent right at the beginning? The third optional question is, how did you actually build the community? Did you use those techniques, like, posting through different accounts and starting discussions wi…
> How many users are there in that "community" right now and how much time do you exactly, roughly, spend on the "community"? roughly 12,000, with ~5,000 active in the last 30 days (this only counts users whose accounts are more than 30 days old). still very young but seeing very healthy growth. > How does the time you spend now compare to the time you spent right at the beginning? I'd say I actually spend more time…
I got friends and colleagues to join up and pestered the heck out of most of them until the site became sticky enough that they came back (to my delight) on their own volition. I only have ever had one account :)
This sounds like the bowling pin technique (or whatever it's called) that was described on HN a few weeks ago. Where you start with a very small community that will talk to each other anyway and then grow at a trickle to keep the overall velocity up. In this way, your invite only tactic seems to have paid dividends vs having 10,000 people hit on day one and finding nothing going on.
Update: Thanks for find it where that "bowling pin" thing was, a clicky link: http://cdixon.org/2010/08/21/the-bowling-pin-strategy/
Re: A few random thoughts on building communities
#5Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How many users are there in that "community" right now and how much time do you exactly, roughly, spend on the "community"? roughly 12,000, with ~5,000 active in the last 30 days (this only counts users whose accounts are more than 30 days old). still very young but seeing very healthy growth. > How does the time you spend now compare to the time you spent right at the beginning? I'd say I actually spend more time…
I got friends and colleagues to join up and pestered the heck out of most of them until the site became sticky enough that they came back (to my delight) on their own volition. I only have ever had one account :) This sounds like the bowling pin technique (or whatever it's called) that was described on HN a few weeks ago. Where you start with a very small community that will talk to each other anyway and then grow at…
Haven't heard of that one, I'll check it out though. Catchy name, too. And yes -- I think you're spot on here. It's gotten a lot of flak for being invite only but I really believe in the model (as long as you can stay on the right side of the elitism line).
[edit] Just checked it out; was a post from Chris Dixon. totally spot on. Thank you sir.
Re: A few random thoughts on building communities
#6"Be ready to follow the community; that is, the community might end up in a slightly/vastly different place than you intended. That’s okay; embrace it."
Spot on with this one. If you fail to embrace where the community is pulling you, you might miss out on a bigger business opportunity than the one you originally envisioned.
Re: A few random thoughts on building communities
#7"Be ready to follow the community; that is, the community might end up in a slightly/vastly different place than you intended. That’s okay; embrace it." Spot on with this one. If you fail to embrace where the community is pulling you, you might miss out on a bigger business opportunity than the one you originally envisioned.
Thanks so much. If I had to pick one "top" point, it'd probably be this one.
Re: A few random thoughts on building communities
#8I have two, possibly three questions: How many users are there in that "community" right now and how much time do you exactly, roughly, spend on the "community"? How does the time you spend now compare to the time you spent right at the beginning? The third optional question is, how did you actually build the community? Did you use those techniques, like, posting through different accounts and starting discussions wi…
> How many users are there in that "community" right now and how much time do you exactly, roughly, spend on the "community"? roughly 12,000, with ~5,000 active in the last 30 days (this only counts users whose accounts are more than 30 days old). still very young but seeing very healthy growth. > How does the time you spend now compare to the time you spent right at the beginning? I'd say I actually spend more time…
What is the source of revenue on the site? Just ads? (I know this has nothing to do with community. Just curious since you mentioned that you are almost profitable.)
Re: A few random thoughts on building communities
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
> How many users are there in that "community" right now and how much time do you exactly, roughly, spend on the "community"? roughly 12,000, with ~5,000 active in the last 30 days (this only counts users whose accounts are more than 30 days old). still very young but seeing very healthy growth. > How does the time you spend now compare to the time you spent right at the beginning? I'd say I actually spend more time…
What is the source of revenue on the site? Just ads? (I know this has nothing to do with community. Just curious since you mentioned that you are almost profitable.)
Primarily ads, but have two other things in the works for the next month or so.
Re: A few random thoughts on building communities
#10One thing for sure is that the first people on forrst steered the creation of the posting guidelines tremendously. There was a time when we enthusiastically had posts showing off users workspaces but it started to get old and show that was not the type of content people were coming to see. Very organic growth with the community being in charge of content but you still need someone like Kyle to put his foot down here and there.