What Matters Most?

I'm constantly amazed at how many start-ups ignore the community.

Do you win if you develop the best platform? 

You win if you develop the best community.

Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, Craigslist weren't the best platforms (they've gotten much better). They were the best communities. They've grown and expanded based upon the strength of their community (and become platforms for communities). 

Great platforms don't attract great communities. Good community building attracts great communities.

If you get the right people, have them do the right things, and foster a sense of community, you will succeed. 

That means you need to target the right people to begin with. You need to know what you want them to do and their motives for doing it. You need to incorporate sense of community elements into your start-up activity. 

My bet is if more money was spent on community development, more start-ups would be thriving. 

Comments

[SoyJimmy]

You're so right! I see the problem lying within the core startup team. They're usually technical or sales oriented, and in both cases, community is regarded to as "market".

Market as such is somewhat controllable, it can be measured and quantified. These metrics can then lead to actionable plans for the tech team and business team. But, community is a word that entails emotion and emotion is unpredictable and difficult to measure.

I'm always railing on about YouTube and how important it can be for a startup to build community and rapport.

It's crazy that startups still don't think of community as the core business, after all, if they don't build it they have no one to sell too.

Again, great insight Rich! Thanks from a Californian in Spain.