Investing early in your community is a powerful tool. It may require a long-term investment to pay off but it’s definitely worth it. Startups ever hardly take off instantly, so be patient for yours to grow.
For many established startups such as Airbnb, Github, and Lyft, the community played an important role. Their respective founders, alongside the early teams, had a good grasp of the concept of user empathy, a core community message, and their importance in the design of the product they were offering. They understood that the community and users are important factors in the growth of any business.
The CEO and founder of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, once said that the best advice he’s ever gotten came from the founder of Y Combinator, Paul Graham. Paul had advised Brian to focus on offering products or services that about 100 people love, rather than products or services that about a million people kind of life. This was further proof for Brian that the community should be center of it all for any business to thrive.
Logan Green and John Zimmer, the founders of Lyft, knew this as well. They introduced a unique product that creates prioritized user experience above all else. Boarding a lift in 2012 was an incredible feeling, owed to how welcome you feel. A nice driver who gives you a fist bump with a smiling face. Often times, the driver’s personality matched the car type and the music played. So you know what to expect without being a detective with keen eyes.
Lyft didn’t slow down; they built on this momentum. They established a network on Facebook’s business platform that rivaled the biggest ones at the time. Their team also played their part; hosting events in every city where Lyft had a presence. Lyft also promoted the profiles of many of its top drivers and shared stories of memorable moments that their employees had experienced during a ride. The community was a web of interconnected people who were more friends than colleagues. Today, Lyft IPO-ed being valued at an excess of $20 billion just seven years later.
Github brought a similar experience to the coding world. They developed into a platform that allowed for members of its community to share codes with ease. The company didn’t stop there; they created repositories and forums that became the ideal place for individuals and firms to talk code. Facebook, Microsoft, and Google are only but a few of the companies that used Github. The company exceeded the expectations of many and overtook other companies offering similar services, whilst maintain a beautiful user-friendly interface to keep their community members pleased. Microsoft decided to acquire Github and paid $7.5 billion for the company.
Key Factors in every Community
- Advancement
Trust is key; be true to the promises you make to your users. There are many communities that fade out without becoming ever becoming a movement. Develop your product and services, and as you do that, take your community along. Keep them up-to-date and let them feel like they’re the core of it all; because they are.
- Empowerment
Your business must have more with the customers than transactional interactions alone. Create value in as many aspects of their lives as possible without trading off the core values that have already been established.
- Authenticity
A strong community movement can only be built around a clear business vision that is well defined and one that the business itself revolves around. It’s always best to establish authentic core values to live by.
Lyft’s motto was set to paint a picture of a friend with a vehicle. The community was pleased as it saved them from worry and just reminded them that the driver is just another person who you could be friends with; there didn’t have to be an excessively formal feel in the car.
Airbnb’s motto was aimed at making visiting tourists feel at home. It is set in such a way that they could live in different lands but as locals. It also motivated tourists to be friends with their hosts, and that’s what happened.
Github’s motto was a reminder that every code was more about the code writer rather than the code itself. Placing the community members at the center of it made the company a successful one; and that’s how business works.
This article is based on ideas by Tristan Pollock.
