How to build community-focused products

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1/ How to build a #community-focused business ft. @Kevin_Kelly_II @gregisenberg. Only on @RealVision. A summary thread with some more thoughts on community design, #NFX, #decentralization, and of course #NFTs. realvision.com/shows/cryptoverse/videos/how-to-build-a-community-focused-business-QpEw

2/ What's covered: • What are community-first products and why building them • The importance of starting small (Crawl, Walk, Run) • The difference b/w community design & management • The role of rituals/IRL/NFTs in community design/mgmt Leggo!

3/ Why build community-first products? In product growth lingo, community equals retention & engagement — the building blocks of network effects. reforge.com/blog/growth-metric-acquisition-monetization-virality

4/ Network effects ultimately lead to mass adoption. The retention at the core of community might be the secret behind the fastest network effects formation in history — crypto. twitter.com/raoulgmi/status/1392939136689053699?lang=en

5/ What does this mean for community builders? • Retention: The need for coming back to a product because it feels like home (for a specific use case). • Engagement: The recurring rituals designed to use it (which lead to building a habit with it). reforge.com/blog/retention-engagement-growth-silent-killer

6/ So, what's a community-based product? It's a product where either: • The community (network) is the product (eg. @Clubhouse @WhatsApp @telegram) • The community enhances the product (eg. the fact @PostMalone is part of @BoredApeYC enhances the community/product itself)

7/ Community products are synonyms with network products — but they don't have to be software-only or scaled. You build a much stronger connection with your local, family-owned coffee shop, and get a homey feeling you'll never get at a more transactional, fabricated @starbucks.

8/ We crave the local coffee-shop vibe, even if the coffee is worse than @starbucks. Because we want to: • Support local causes that are close to our values • Know our places and our people's names • Crave humanness, proximity, belonging, and familiarity

9/ And this is because networks are formed on: • Frequency — how often you bump into each other • Proximity — how close you are to each other • Density — how much you know one another • Identity/Friction — how easy/hard is to form a shared identity youtube.com/watch?v=HdnXuKi_2Zw&t=437s&ab_channel=NFX

10/ Social enabled us to interact with huge, digital networks in the order of thousands. But at the core, we're designed to keep up with small networks: • A total of 150 'familiars' connections • 35 acquaintances • 15 friends • 5 family members en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number#:~:text=Dunbar's%20number%20is%20a%20suggested,relates%20to%20every%20other%20person

11/ This is why we prefer small communities — they're easier to form, maintain, contribute to, and get value from. We enjoy the utility of scaled networks — physical and digital — but true retention and engagement are given by the long-tail of communities on a human scale.

12/ Beyond that specific threshold, communities could: • Lose that genuine and warm feeling of home • Automate the rituals and ignite the community @starbucks-ization Does this mean communities need to stay small to be genuine? Not exactly/necessarily.

13/ What community builders need to embrace is: 1) The difference b/w community design & community management 2) The Crawl, Walk, Run strategy: a phased approach to both

14/ Community design is product work that designs the rituals that get people to come back: • Use case (frequency, reason why, differentiation) • Incentives (mastery, social, financial) • UX (effort/reward balance)

15/ How to design great rituals? Think of your: • Core networks: family, high school, college, first job, partners, where you live • Culture: traditions, religions, formalisms, rules, symbols, & how they manifest (words, actions, objects, performances) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual

16/ Community management is about marketing these rituals for nurturing and growth: • Maintain health (rules of engagement, moderation, admin roles) • Grow engagement (challenges, quests, giveaways, badging) • Feedback loop (new features, etc.) twitter.com/matteo_titta/status/1507075966933377024

17/ The Crawl/Walk/Run strategy is best explained with the @ProductHunt ex: • Crawl: started as a brunch series in SF • Walk: evolved to newsletter of the best products in the Bay Area • Run: scaled to web platform, events, then local events (eg. PH Toronto, PH Lisbon, etc.)

18/ This phased strategy helps: • Building confidence with early members • Designing richer community/incentives and programming • Managing scale progressively • Driving localization/decentralization post-scale

19/ The best communities then: • Start small, building an atomic network in a specific geo/niche • Hand-hold this genuineness/authenticity all the way down to scale • Decentralize to continue scaling on a local level lennysnewsletter.com/p/atomic-network?s=r

20/ Note: #IRL events are among the greatest competitive advantages community-based products can have — because they drive proximity, density, and identity formation — especially in our post-pandemic world. See a great example by @doodles. twitter.com/gregisenberg/status/1503076232115675144

21/ Community decentralization/localization can be an effective design to make it feel: • Exclusive (eg. "I feel inner circle") but also • Inclusive (eg. "I can go to this event because it's close to me)

22/ Without feeling *exclusionary* (eg. "I can't go to this event because it's too far", OR "I can't be part of @BoredApeYC because I don't have $250k).

23/ In this context, #NFTs could be a great vehicle to: • Bootstrap community identity, culture, and capital • Commemorate specific moments with rituals (eg. foundation, milestones, wins, etc.) • Redeem products, services, and experiences twitter.com/gregisenberg/status/1503076231142645763

24/ Specifically, free-to-mint NFTs could help community builders streamline the community bootstrapping process, especially in the scale phase of a community, when you're targeting more early majority/mainstream members. twitter.com/gregisenberg/status/1503076225971068932

25/ A specific type of NFT — @poapxyz — Proof of Attendance Protocol might be even more effective to: • Bookmark specific community events/moments • Accumulate proof of engagement/loyalty in a community • Accrue them to redeem products and experiences cryptobriefing.com/what-are-poaps-and-why-should-you-collect-them/

26/ In this context: • PFPs can bootstrap identity and culture in early-stages • POAPZ are the new community moment bookmarks • Which will become loyalty cards corollary of the PFPs • Building a z-axis for ecommerce, travel, and experiences verticals

END/ To recap: • Community = Network = retention + engagement • Retention = deep/warm/humane connection • Engagement = sticky rituals/incentives • Strong connection = fx (proximity, density, identity, frequency) • Start small first to build a strong atomic community

• Focus on designing great rituals and experiences, then • Scale/re-decentralize to keep networks on a human scale • IRL is a great competitive advantage in community design • NFTs help bootstrap NFX in the early-stages • But also become reward platforms to give back

Creds for the materials quoted: @gregisenberg @Kevin_Kelly_II @realvision @raoulpal @JamesCurrier @beller @NFX @lennysan @TimInCrypto @Burr_ust @GenesisWolfNFT

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