I'm thinking about acquiring an online community and incorporating it into my startup. Who has done this successfully?

How exciting! I’ve been on both sides of a few edtech startup acquisitions.
My advice is make sure you have a clear definition of success, as it relates to both your customer experience and your company.
Focus on the value the union would create. Do your customers and the community both gain significant value from the combination of services, like more than the sum of its pats?
Second, ensure there’s value to the organization, if you’re merging teams. Make sure the ways of working and the values align. And try to envision ways the potential new teammates might enhance your org.

A very short plain texr email.

The "community acquisition" part really intrigued me, which resources would you suggest to learn how the "community market" works? (Like how do you buy/sell a community etc)

there are some examples of this currently happening in the industry, but even large scale acquisitions have to do the same thing...

like discord and microsoft... if that comes to pass.

i mean, hit up the founder and just let htem know what you think about it. good luck!

You are a badass - Personally, I would just call and talk with them. Maybe you can offer them some future "upside" if it is successful. I dont agree that you need to be an active part of the community - My recommendation is to just call (if possible) or email to schedule a call and then to speak honestly, and try to be empathetic to understand their reasons for building the community, in the first place. You will need them to be supportive, in order to successfully inherit their community.

I would make sure you and your team are active members of the community before reaching out to the founder.

Thanks for all the comments! I already had an initial call with the founder of the community.
I decided to ask if he'd like to do a YouTube video/interview with me in order to promote my school and he agreed (He has a YouTube channel with 7k subscribers). We had a pretty good 45-minute conversation and talked about a few different ideas on how we could cooperate. If we acquire the community I'd like to have him as part of the team and have hime continue lead the community and also become a co-founder/employee with my company.
Currently not sure what the deal would look like but it would be something along the lines of cash+equity.
This first conversation + YouTube video/interview will provide some insight into how good we cooperate and work together. My company is still very small and I generally just want to recruit people who I feel I can get along with and like working with.
Good sign so far was that I felt very energized after the conversation and we managed to agree on concrete next steps. And the conversation generally had a good vibe.

I'll keep posting on this thread to keep you updated.