How to building a community before building a SaaS product when you have nothing to say?
I've noticed a trend of founders trying to build a community/following around telling founders to build communities and other "meta" founder advice. This does seem to gain them followers who are also interested startups but I'm unconvinced these followers result in attracting customers later.
Where are examples of people building communities relevant to an un-built SaaS product?
It will surprise you the lengths people will go when they believe and invest in a vision. Our startup started with just a Twitter account and a Medium article but the followers who trust our vision actually built the product for us. We got so many people dm us and asked to be moderators, investors, collabrators, or just wanted to show support, it's truly incredible! You just have to tell a good story, about your customers and what you can do for them, not about your startup.
I agree it's impossible to scale a community without 1 topic that unites people in it (I failed twice).
Write down your top 3 interests or problems you care about. Imagine you'll never gat paid for running a community on this 1 topic, what would it be? Cycling community? AI startups? What do you enthusiastically read about for years and would love sharing with others?
The other way to approach it is to select a real problem you experienced (or a problem you frequently see other people have) and create a product that solves it. You'll easily embed a community once you pass 150 customers (with a single email you may get 20+ active members).