#01: What is a community?

Community is a term that is used a lot in the crypto space. But what is its true meaning?

Happy 1st day of March and welcome back to our bi-monthly newsletter.

Crypto Twitter was mayhem the past two weeks from NFTs gaining popularity, the crypto flash crash all the way to the Tether FUD. It was definitely full of emotions, and we're expecting to see more crazy weeks and months ahead. We hope you all buckle up and get ready for the crazy and fun ride🎢 Okay, enough detour and let's go back to our main topic which is community. ☝️

In today's issue, we're covering:
🤝 The concept of community
🔨 8 fundamentals of building a community

What is a community anyways?

Community is a term that is used a lot in the crypto space. But what is its true meaning? Just like success, we think of a community as subjective. Each one of us has our own meaning of community, and that's okay. We think that what makes every community special, a definition in which we resonate the most and the reason why we join one.

For us, community means a group of people who come together and share the same interest with a common goal, and more importantly, they feel they care about each other.

For example, let's look at the Stacks community and their Code of Conduct by Juliet Oberding that describes its community root ethos of "Can't Be Evil". This rallying cry represents a deep core belief in a user-owned internet flanked by the pillars of privacy and self-sovereign identity. They strongly believe in fundamental digital rights together with decentralization. This ethos is a centrepiece of their community and development.

Never forget that every community has a common denominator: the underlying motivation on why it exists, and this particular motivation is what sympathetic with our own experience and outlook, the main reason why we contribute and believe in one.

We ask a few industry experts and here's what we got

"The community is not just a space for Q&A. We should focus on having ownership of the project and educating them. Also, it requires long-term commitment, not short-term cramming." — GM Chung, Co-Founder of DeSpread

"The Tezos community is extremely close knit and supportive of the project, through thick and thin. They are the opposite of hype-seekers and are true believers in a decentralized digital commonwealth." — Lukas, long-standing community member at Tezos

"I would say there is only one thing which matters, and that’s authenticity. You can’t build a community if you aren’t authentic with the people you are trying to attract. Additionally, it’s also important to mention that, while you can growth-hack your follower-base, you can’t growth-hack a community. These things take time, like brand recognition in that regard." — Max Desalle, Head of Growth, SimpleLogin

8 fundamentals of building a community

Is there any magic recipe? Nope — to set the record straight, building communities doesn't have any magic recipe — it is all about establishing authentic connections and creating a space where we are all equal. Simply put, we are rowing in the same direction to collectively achieve our goals.

1. Get started with a personalized approach

Remember, the person who just joined your community — he or she might be skeptical about your project or not sure where to start; either way, you will be the one that points them in the right direction by figuring out what they need.

Of course, you can start with a friendly greeting with some questions, but instead of doing the same boring introduction like "Hello, how can I help you", try to be more personal, listen closely and show your desire to learn more about them while providing useful information that they need. Feel free to experiment with memes, gifs, or even link to the latest crypto trend from NFTs all the way to DIDs.

Remember, communication is always two ways. 😜

2. Kindness, authenticity, and patience

If you care about keeping the community members as much as you care about acquiring them, you and your project will win people's hearts. Like GaryVee puts, "kindness is always rewarded, someone is always watching — make your kindness a currency".

Being patient is difficult, you're not alone — it's a challenge to all of us. When you find someone who seems not easy to talk to, or the community's growth is slower than you expected, just remind yourself, building things takes time — and don't avoid the tough questions, be real. You can do a little checkup, such as "am I using the personal approach?", "am I being authentic?", "do I need to make one more example to help that person understand what I try to communicate?"

And be there, when anyone asks questions, even you don't know the answer, you can say, "let me check with the team and get back to you in (a specific time range)."

3. Over communicating

With the internet and all kinds of chat rooms, you can now build the community and talk to the community members anywhere and anytime. And over-communicating is a must-have during community building.

And make sure you have follow-up sessions with people you answered their questions, it's always nice to check-in. Remember, a simple conversation can go a long way.

Fun fact: The slightly smiling face 🙂 is an emoji that is considered passive-aggressive, according to Emojipedia. We try to avoid using it when we chat with the community members online. 😊 could be a nice alternative, or ☺️.

4. Team extension

A community doesn't just exist to make your project look better. Treat them as team members and extension of your existing teams, whether be it engineering or marketing they are there to create value, and that's proven. Make your community accountable by giving them KPIs that they can report on. They want to create value and giving them a clear direction on how to achieve it helps.

5. Support

We need to set up each and everyone for success. We can do that by providing them with a clear onboarding path while giving them the right resources and support to do the things that they are good at. In the beginning, every community member will need a lot of handholding, and championing them with a different kind of support is the way to go. Time will come that they will take the lead, have autonomy and ownership in the things they do.

Trust us when we say community members will eventually become community leaders and when this happens, expect exponential growth.

5. Platform choice

One size doesn't fit all. We are all familiar with this statement and community building is no different. Sad to say, we had to learn the hard way and this took us some time to figure out, even though this was very obvious in hindsight. We found success in segmenting our crypto community based on their interest. For example, we all know that Telegram is more token-focused and can be the permanent home for community members that are focused on trading and investing while you can use discord to be the home for all developers, builders, and ecosystem contributors.

7. Touchbase

Don't underestimate the power of 1:1s, weekly check-in, and monthly community calls. It is a time to get personal and get to know each other and put a face to everyones' anon handles whether be it on discord or telegram. Try to mix it up! These calls don't have to be about work, we can also use this time to deepen our relationship with each other. From hosting virtual parties to AMAs, it is all about establishing that connection with your community.

8. Empathy

This is the secret weapon of every great community builder, by the end of the day, we're all humans craving for authentic connections. We know how we all love to talk and project our own thoughts. Don't underestimate the power of listening, be open to taking in how the other person feels or thinks without trying to solve their problems or airing your own thoughts and feelings."

Now, remember these are just guidelines on how to build your community by the end of the day, each community is different in its own unique way. Don't be afraid to make mistakes and try different things from time to time. There's no community playbook, we are all here to learn and that's the beauty of it.

Question for the day: what does community mean to you? We'd like to hear your thought and please leave your comment below.

Made with Passion. Hustle. Dedication. Positivity. ❤️

Jun & Louise

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About Jun and Louise

Jun is proud to be a "woman in tech" with a decade of experience in driving growth, leading global brand campaigns, and launching innovative products and partnerships across consumer technology and blockchain. Previously, Jun was the co-founder of Dapp.com and now working on something new.

Louise is currently an external consultant in the Stacks Ecosystem. He expanded the Stacks Community to more than 30 groups worldwide, with over 50,000 members spanning 32 countries. He found a home in Amsterdam 🚲 after previously working with various tech-startups in Asia, Europe, and the United States.