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I tried to mix entrepreneurs and non entrepreneurs in my community. Here what happened.

Did you know the story of the frog with the big mouth ? Let me try to sum up the fable for you :

"She asked to others forest animals what they eat. She learned so many things as other answered her. Each time she get an answer she openend-up a large open mouth with a big big smile saying “thank you a loooot”. Because she was a frog with a biiiig mouth.

One day she met a bear. She asked the question of what he eats and he answered that he enjoys eating froggies with big mouthes.

At this point of the story she tells him with the smallest mouth she did not know any of those. 👀"

When building a community don’t try to mix people with different life objectives if you do want to bring them some value and monetize something.

It could be ok until a certain point but all of a sudden everything could collapse under you feet.

It seems a great idea at the beginning as you will get volume and more members.

Let just say I mixed recently “on job people” with “entrepreneurs people” around a common subject they gather them.

Everything was awesome and the “slack” was so full of great interactions.

Then :

  • come to the table a great “hacking” tips from a founder.

  • then the “on job” guy began to publicly warn and lectured the founder in the slack as it was so risky, illegal, etc

  • then the founder erase every single word of the tip he just gave on slack then completely mute his self.

End Game.

Don’t matchmake bears and frogs.

First begin to build a safe place.

Either you do it one for the frog or a separate one for the bear as frog used to get them sick.

Segment you people by common life challenges not by common topics.

  1. 6

    “thank you a loooot”

  2. 2

    It is a wonderful learning thank you for sharing it.

    I've seen this happen time and time again, not only between community member interactions but even with the communication from the company/startup to its end users.

    Building a safe space, clear communication etc is very important and even if you have different audiences, most tools nowadays allow you to segment them.

    Example: Mailchimp for newsletters, with correct audiences you'll have better engagement, less unsubscribes, etc

    Cheers!

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