Why did community building get so big all of a sudden?

Pretty much every SaaS business today is incredibly competitive. The hardest thing to build today is not software, it's audience. Communities are an increasingly effective way of building an engaged audience around your product/brand. It's the first step in any ecosystem play, which is an effective way of building a moat longterm when someone inevitably builds a cheaper/better/faster version of your product.

Possible factors:

1. the rise of remote work
2. the rise of freelance/gig work (how to network and improve freelance pipeline? get advice? etc.? get involved in online communities.)
3. the rise in harassment on large social networks
4. the rise of anti-Facebook sentiment in a growing section of the population
5. the rise in activism since November 2016

Anecdotally, I know that in my personal world my friends and colleagues are becoming much more focused on cultivating and participating in communities because their employment situation is so fluid. Employers come and go. But good communities endure and can make the difference when it comes to surviving a layoff or toxic workplace.

According to the World Health Organization, around 300 million people worldwide are depressive.

Community has always been a huge part of people's lives, but it was previously segmented mainly by geography. The internet came and the sense of community sort of faded away.

Now, with increasing numbers in mental health issues and alleged loneliness, people are seeking community once more, but this time it is segmented by interest (such as IH).

It only seems like the most natural human path. It's great that it is happening.

Markets tend to go through phases of bundling and unbundling. I think we're just sliding from bundled -> unbunled.

IMO a combination of…

• the unbundling of massive social networks like FB and Twitter, which are too big to focus on community around small niche interests or connections
• increasing adoption of the web, as many billions of people are still joining the Internet, older generations being replaced by younger ones, tools and tech are becoming more approachable, and COVID-19 has erased in-person gatherings
• more education and awareness of the value of community as a business advantage, e.g. increasing your moat via network effects, decreasing churn via people's reluctance to abandon personal connections they've formed, increasing revenue by acting as a value-add that allows you to charge higher prices
• flywheel effect: more people joining communities --> more incentive to start communities --> more incentive for others to create tools for community builders --> easier for people to build better communities --> repeat

So lots of reasons. I probably missed quite a few.

It's the next step on the easy entrepreneur's/wantrepreneurs handbook. First was "Make a landing page and send traffic to it, only build if people respond well". Now it's "make a community and become and expert in it then find a product to sell to them".

In 2007 when I started writing about communities (my blog is still called Best Engaging Communities), the big push was to move away from the Well and Internet Relay Chat and other "large" communities to specialized ones. There were 20+ community vendors (https://bestengagingcommunities.com/2007/02/04/software-vendors-that-provide-community-software/)

Most were sold or folded.

I think the reasons others have give below are right, but I also think the "Why now"? question is answered with 3 potential things to research:

1. More people going online (Covid) and finding support, help, and guidance. This has accelerated over the last 6 months. Will it rise more in the next 3 years?

2. There are sufficiently large social networks that are "catch all" to allow niche communities to thrive. Are there niches to help fill the gaps that the large networks have left?

3. Are community capabilities a good way to differentiate for software providers ? (e.g. Everyone has a slack community now as a way to have customers help each other)

I think that the overwhelm caused by social media and heated political debates are becoming problematic for people.

So, they are resorting to "safe spaces" and other such initiatives which support this model.

I mean, there is a strong cultural aspect to this too, in addition to all the business-related reasons that people have already covered.

Because all big sites / apps that usually had all the people now censors everything that they don't like, forcing people to build new communities and cutting ties to the old.

That is my main reason why I've joined new communities anyway.

Some points in no particular order:

1. When COVID hit there was a sudden shock in the world as you weren't able to meet your colleagues, friends even if you wanted to. The normal human behavior or day to day routine was disturbed. This gave everyone a chance to start something where they can recreate the normal effect of meeting friends and colleagues online.
2. The growth of private communities accelerated because of COVID but pre-covid era we've seen rise of niche communities due to unbundling effect of large social networks.
3. Meeting virtually became a thing and VCs were interested in tools like Bevy to host virtual events and conferences.
4. Social Media is changed. People want to be in niche groups where they feel safe.
5. Among Tribe, Circle and Playgroup - Tribe is the oldest one started in 2018 I believe.

I really think it has a lot to do with being part of something and covid.
But that might just also be the tech industry, we are very online pressenced.

Covid :)?

People wish to stay connected in different forms. The society is started to theme how we interact, speak, collaborate and capture values.

Started to see more and more people rely on virtual community tools to take off their communities too @TH1999

I find this topic so interesting. I´m wondering what the future looks like for Facebook groups and Google groups. Will people remain engaged in these platforms, or will they preffer to join communities outside of them? Say for example a community about classic cars. I´m a member of multiple of these communities and I do enjoy seeing related posts from time time. Now is very convenient as all the post are joined together into a single stream. Maybe a new form of RSS for communities could help with this.

I haven't seen it blow up in any way other than some mainstream VCs made it part of their investment thesis. Several projects in https://apache.org were funded on the basis that they had pre-existing communities. The same can be said for dozens of github projects.

Perhaps, the phrasing of it changed. Folks used to say distribution or fans. There was an article written in 2008 about the need for 1000 true fans (https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/). More recently, Andresson said something about 100 true fans (https://a16z.com/2020/02/06/100-true-fans/). Distribution and measuring demand were always prerequisites for companies and startups.

Another thing that may have changed is who gets to build companies. 15 years ago you could email en bulk to measure demand. These days, there aren't a lot of channels that give you clear signal, unless you have an audience or lead a community (or know someone that does).

You relate to a niche more than the whole.

Its the failure of Facebook & LinkedIn

I was wondering the same thing! But, to be honest, if you're on IH (or probably any forum) long enough, you'll see some weird trends come and go.

But I do think there's a good reason for it:

We all know that most new businesses fail, and many of us have had time to release an app and heard crickets after the release.

So we're all looking at higher level business tools that will help us build better products and release to a receptive audience.

Community building is one possible answer to that. Building a community of people who care about a topic, interact, and having a direct relationship with them to find great ideas, get feedback early, and launch to them seems like a great option.

I don't know that it's "The One" as far as ways to create a business, but it's an interesting option!

Whether it's over-hyped, or people are reading too much into how much it helps (or even how hard it is to do successfully), remains to be seen. Business is hard, and we're all struggling to systematize it and improve our chances of success :)