White label community platform - let's do it together?
I'm an experienced developer who's built CrazyEngineers - a large community platform for engineers.
For almost every project that I've worked on; I've needed a community; and I ended up creating a custom community every time.
I'm now thinking of compiling all my learnings and experience into building a community platform that anyone can use; and I want to do it with your help. I think we can build it in open, with all of you.
I'm aware of existing platforms like Circle and Tribe; but wondering if there's anything we could do differently. Right now, I've an overall idea of features it'd have:-
- Custom Domain
- Awesome UI; customizable
- Basic features (to start with. let's brainstorm?)
You can trust my rapid-development abilities. I'll be joined by @Ankita who'll take care of UI/UX. We'll proceed only if there's sufficient interest in this project.
But first things first: -
What are the problems that bother you with existing custom community platforms?
Looking forward to your responses.
It’s always good to have someone initiate new concept. Appreciate your insights.
I wonder why you think Circle and Tribe cannot hit the 3 points you mentioned?
Not sure if there is a 10x value add in the 3 points proposed.
One painpoint to be solved is keeping the feed/ general channel personalized as the community grows, not sure if this is a 10x though.
Hey, are you still working on this?
Yes. Recently began working on this with fresh ideas and a solid code-base. DM me on Twitter if you wish to discuss.
# Update:
After spending several days in reviewing existing software for community building - we've figured that we could do a much better job; and have built an MVP.
Here's what we discovered while developing it:-
Every community needs basic interaction features - ability to discuss on topics of interest.
Our MVP is super basic - no kick-ass features yet. Our next goal is to gather ~20 people interested in this product who are willing to brainstorm with us on the ideas we have; so that we solve some real problems for community owners.
Please ping me if you want early access. Don't expect anything pretty; but we're getting there - and FAST!
I'll get back to you with special invite link so that you can see what we've built and how we can progress.
👋 my side project is a community platform, I wrote about it here:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/the-beginning-of-a-car-community-platform-4d5e95799c
When I started it, I was pretty much set on building something custom because I like building stuff. I did spend time looking at other platforms and I was looking for one with a few specifics.
I wanted an easy to develop on top of platform with a native experience. I only looked half hearted because I like building stuff - you know the feeling 😂
Features/pain points:
-Self hosted. Install a digital ocean droplet and configure some stuff for the backend.
-I really just want the sdk to throw in another app with other features.
-Think Mapbox for community. Individual tools to build something cool into another product.
-Painfully simple to use and develop on top of yet have moderation tools.
-Will be around next year and five years from now.
-Let me choose the database.
I think Forem by dev.to is probably the one I'd go with if I were choosing one out of the box, I haven't actually used circle or tribe yet. Maybe I have and don't know it.
At it's core, a community app doesn't have to be complicated especially with a limited number of people using it.
I've seen what happened with phpBB forums that still have people asking questions because it's been around for a few decades so people still post. The experience is painful, there's "no way" for the forum founder to update it and keep years worth of content.
There are about 2500 different social platforms to choose from making it less likely one I pick on a Saturday because it's cheap enough to compete in the market will have support on a random Saturday ten years from now.
For some communities an archive isn't as important as other communities, I've heard community leaders say a lack of an archive helps encourage future engagement. For me it really is a key feature to have an archive with good searching.
Circle or Tribe might offer all these features and I just don't know it 🤷🏼♂️ I think discourse probably lets you migrate from phpBB but they were just my example of what can happen.
It seems like a challenging market to try to join with a product but then all markets are.
Community leaders seem to agree the tools or platform don't matter, to me that says make the tools easy to integrate with other products.
Great post, @joshkw. Communities is definitely a challenging market. Building a community is even harder. I however think that communities need to evolve beyond forums.
In our own community, we found that having simple features like Quizzes, Polls, AMA, Competitions readily boost the engagement. Maybe we could experiment with these features.
I'm not thinking about targeting devs. But non-tech people who can establish a community platform with few clicks.
Integration will be key.
The coding has not yet started; because I'm still finding out pain points. Can get the MVP out in a week if we find pain points worth addressing - that people will want to pay for (less than what they pay currently).
Sounds like you have your work cut out for you! Best of luck.
Really appreciate all the comments.
@felix12777 & @CarlZiade : The points I proposed won't be the USP of the platform. I mentioned them just as a starters for the direction in which the platform will go. Sorry for the confusion.
The goal of this discussion is to find the pain points that we can solve with our new platform.
For example; I'm not happy with the pricing of these platforms. I'm not willing to put $50/month if I'm just starting out and my community concept is not proven. I think $5/month would be a good start for basic features.
@1979 - Totally agreed. Circle does a good job already; but I think there's still some scope to improve. My intention is to understand what are the main pain points with existing platforms. I think we can discuss the commenting system. That could be a big differentiator. Could you tell me what problem are you trying to solve by embedding commenting system? It'd be an awesome start!
@Sam_M - Yes, I agree. Starting price has to be low!
@anyakern - april22.co looks good.
SEO : It'll definitely be one of the top focus for open communities. I've ~10 years of experience as SEO and can ensure the platform will have top-notch SEO inbuilt.
widgets: not sure. What is the pain point that widgets will address?
live chat: Maybe. How do you think live-chat will be useful to your community?
PS: It's easy to say yes to features. But we're going to go with a super-basic product, meant to get started.
Question: What problem will having your own community solve for your business / project ?
For me community = good SEO = growing audience = more sales.
Also I am hoping to merge community with blog, customer support, and business to customer communication on my marketplace.
Both widget and live chat for me are helping with the problem: will the customers even engage with the community? So the live chat creates the urgency to engage, and widget creates a low key feeling, same as if you chat with customer support. I hope it makes sense!
Valid points. Noted. Will get back to you on this.
I use Circle and they solve majority of my needs. If there is one thing I would want is integrating the comment system. I have tried both embedding Discourse and Circle but weren't satisfied with both of them. Essentially, I think majority of these platforms are user and comment managements...
Also, I agree with some of other opinions here. It is so darn hard to build a community. It would be great if the pricing starts at certain level—but then again... we all need to make some money. It's always a hard balance.
Biggest problem with existing options for me is cost on the low end. It takes time to build a community, and $50/mo off the bat is a lot. Would definitely be interested to see the end product!
I am on the market for a community platform for my marketplace april22.co. Most likely I will land on Circle. Here are some features/qualities that would sell me as your potential customer:
Fun project! Best of luck! I'll be happy chat if you need to bounce ideas around.