Come for the Value Prop, Stay for the Community

Everywhere I go, I always have to find specific types of communities. When I can't find one, I create it myself.

Some examples of my love language at play:

As a self-proclaimed community connoisseur, I get excited when organizations or prominent creators prioritized community as a business strategy, signaling there is monetary value in a superpower I gravitate towards.

Community doubles as a retention strategy (keeping users more invested) and acquisition strategy (via strong word of mouth). The flywheel builds a competitive moat that makes an offering better, for building products and building an audience for creators.

The community flywheel builds better products.

The community flywheel builds a stickier audience.

I experienced this firsthand at Kumu, a livestreaming app where I was <10th employee and first PM. Members of our "kumu-nities" were significant shapers of our product, and we co-created alongside their feedback. Because of its success and because we found such strong advocators of our product through adhoc groups, "Kumunities" evolved into one of the core features of our product.

Because of the voice of our kumu-nity, we figured out the "AHA" moment to focus on livestreaming. It's where we hear the voices of our users and continue to use it to drive flywheels of innovation.

One argument against community is that creating several communities as a business doesn't scale, insofar that the community is the value prop for the business. Quality, love and resources poured into each new community created comes at the cost of quantity.

Well, what do we need to believe for community at scale to be a billion dollar opportunity?

Here's a very simplistic formula: $1,000,000,000 = A members per group x B $ per member x C num of groups per yr

A is an easy problem that the company controls. If a community has proven product-market fit, the company can charge high premiums for B. C is the factor that determines scale and will be the onus of the organization to manufacture.

While C is a determining factor for scale, my simplistic model assumes the company charges high enough for B. Quick examples: OnDeck is ~$1500-2000 per cohort, The Wing is $250/month. With scale comes exclusivity.

In the onset of COVID, community is as important as ever, and I'm glad more companies are prioritizing ways we can feel genuinely connected. Community presents strong promise as a strategy, with interested challenges for scale. I'm excited for the future of Community.

Special thanks to Sherry Yuan + 'writers' group + Nick Cruz for feedback.

Mika, the community power user, works in product at LinkedIn, is an advisor at Kumu has built & started communities for Southeast Asian founders, Filipinos & Women in Tech. Follow her adventures in this blog or her weekly newsletter.