Have you tried building a community around your product?

Hello, IH!

I would like to hear experiences and advice from people who have successfully or unsuccessfully started a community around their product.

I'm mostly interested in the initial phases - do you remember if you had a sudden spike in members count or was it a steady growth?

Also, what platform did you use?

How did you promote your community? Did you send out invites on an individual basis?

I have many more questions, but to keep it short - please share any useful advice you have regarding this topic!

Currently, I'm trying to see if this kind of approach would work for gathering people around BotMeNot, my latest project, and I'm mostly concerned with beta users/early adopters.