What I'm reading this week #010

🧵/ What I'm reading this week #010. Every week, I scour the web and curate 10 articles at the intersection of Web3, NFTs, macro, community & growth. Time flies — it's already been 10 weeks! 🥹

For the occasion, I'll start doing themed deep dives. This edition is dedicated to community, inspired by my frens @latecheckoutplz #CommunityCollege. ❤️ In this edition 👇

• Why Community-First? • Start Small — You Can • Find Your Niche • Principles for Community Building • Community Narrative • Minimum Viable Expectation • Community Identity • Community Incentives • Rewards & Reputation • Community Management Plus a little BONUS 🤫

Why Community-First? Why community-based products? Because they have high retention & engagement, and form personal network effects — among the simplest yet strongest types of NFXs. By @beller @NFX. https://www.nfx.com/post/community-first-company-building

Start Small — You Can. Communities don't have to be huge — they can start with free audiences, and then convert as few as 100 true fans as members. Just find a niche, start by building a free audience, and then a community. By @ljin18. https://li-jin.co/2020/02/19/100-true-fans/

Find Your Niche on @Reddit. Scour @Reddit and find a niche that is big enough, growing, trending, and that you're interested in. Join it, add value, and get to know the members, until you can create a closer space with some of them. By @gregisenberg. https://latecheckout.substack.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-unbundling

Principles for Community Building. Once you're ready to launch your community, don't forget to: • Make it fun • From URL to IRL • Set ambitious goals • Bring in partners early • DON'T financialize it • Exclusive, not exclusionary By @CDTEliot. https://coinvise.substack.com/p/6-principles-for-building-a-successful

Community Narrative. The most important piece of your community strategy is your narrative — WHO you're building for, WHAT problem you're solving, and HOW you're solving it. Use storytelling arches to bring this to life in a litepaper. By @CDTEliot. https://coinvise.substack.com/p/shape-a-narrative-that-wins-people

Minimum Viable Expectation. In your narrative, be explicit about what members are expected to do — whether that's holding an asset (financial), spending time in the community (time-based), or providing a service (impact-based). By @CDTEliot. https://coinvise.substack.com/p/shaping-a-community-members-cant

Community Identity. To make your members feel like they belong, offer them aesthetic catalysts (eg. NFTs, merch, badging, etc.) right off the bat, to help them form their community identity and showcase it to the world. By @divine_economy. https://davidphelps.substack.com/p/the-currency-of-community

Community Incentives. To engage with your community, design rituals, quests, and homework that encourage autonomous action/contribution (agency) and reward mutuality (align the interest of the whole community aka grow the pie). By DocTom. https://blog.cryptostars.is/web3-designing-sustainable-incentives-for-mutuality-agency-ac44919b0008

Rewards & Reputation. Reward members based on contribution to drive social capital (eg. badges, NFTs) vs. just financial — keep a leaderboard to encourage the formation of role models and leaders of sub-communities. By @Jad_AE @skominers https://future.com/reputation-based-systems/

Community Management. Define roles and MVEs so members know where they're at, can get more out of the community if they want to, and can choose when to advance to the next level. Design identity, incentives, and rewards fluidly. By @pforti. https://medium.com/together-institute/why-i-stopped-trying-to-engage-passive-community-members-the-3-circles-model-a5144ec8be5b

BONUS: Get tactical. Based on your strategy, grow your community — consider a social motivation and closed gate to start with to ensure member quality, long-term participation, and progressive value accumulation. By @moon_lfb @jericho_gg. https://letsfuckingbuild.co/p/the-gate-gain-community-framework

BONUS case study: @duolingo. How @duolingo scaled to 90 courses and 300M users via community building. By @LauraNestler.

BONUS case study: @reddit mining. How to mine community opportunities out of the r/manga sub@reddit. By @gregisenberg. https://www.slideshare.net/gregisenberg/unbundling-reddit-scrum-r-manga

Here's the entire @notion swipe file where you can find these and more contents I bookmark every week. 🗃 https://www.notion.so/titta/a7df8af80eba45278edadca6d96c98e6?v=36307bd6c58d4ce699998a97516e8fde

Also, subscribe to my free @SubstackInc below to get the next issues straight in your inbox. I've just uploaded all the previous issues, so grab a coffee and buckle up if you have time. ☕️

Upcoming writings include: • Community-building frameworks • Collection of irrational human biases • Web2 vs. Web3 analytics https://titta.substack.com/

Frens, help me take this content out for a tour of the Internet ❤️ @gregisenberg @mizmaclean @_archatlas @scauseneffect @JPerla @ramzps @j_b_pauly @gregthegreek @JeanMichelLeGal @therealprady @ailex @heytayhar @david_diam @ZackTheBruce @FutureofWomen @JoshiPaurav @T_thevatic

@adbean1 @laytara_ @williamjakfar @congxing @RoastedKeyboard @hayleycaddes @debrup @jasonhino @Skelt @DnlKlr @GabLesperance @anthonyzaccaria @willdbst @Kevintrouble1 @matthewcarsol @MarioMoscat @fabritravels @pinverrr @leoubbiali @wholenewwworld @linda_adami_xyz @hunterleesoik