Three phases when building a community(Part2)

Phase 2: Start your community

Do things that don’t scale to onboard the first 100 members

Emilie, a community writer, contends that the best method to create a long-lasting community is to concentrate on the first 100 members since they “will overwhelmingly set the tone for the community and play a pivotal role in how it grows. The first 100 are the seeds of your community’s garden — how you plant them is very important.”

• Make one-on-one calls to each new member to get to know them.
• For each new member, create a journey or growth path that you can then apply to other members who are similar to them.
• Use collab.land to tip off new members in your governance token.Perform a little user research: what do people like and not like? Experiment and try again.
• Get personalized feedback from community members by sending surveys or scheduling calls.

Effective onboarding of those early individuals might also include experimentation. Unpopular community strategy? Try another approach. The objective is to ascertain what your community’s evangelists or power users will desire. They want AMAs, right? IRL gatherings? Simply ask them. You’ll not only find out what they value, but you’ll also make them feel like they belong. Even while you might not want to experiment after you have a sizable community since you run the risk of losing them, doing so early on to secure the coveted first 100 is crucial.

Understand different types of motivation and design for them

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are two different forms. You may create reward systems that entice the correct contributions if you are aware of these sorts. Examples of intrinsic motivation:

• To learn about DAOs
• To grow in your career
• To network with other like-minded individuals
• To make friends Examples of extrinsic motivation:
• To make money, such as earning tokens via a bounty or paid role
• To gain status or recognition, like a speaking slot at a conference or more Twitter followers
• To get a reward, like a POAP

Contributors frequently join a group for an extrinsic motive before deciding to stick around for the intrinsic reason. Alternately, they could do so for a variety of factors. Extrinsic motives should not be used excessively. For instance, a governance token airdrop helped create a large number of web3 communities. Usually, the airdrop’s purpose was to equitably disperse project governance among its early adopters. However, this led a lot of individuals to forego joining the community and instead sell the token on the open market. Extrinsic incentives did not develop into intrinsic motivation, and groups had difficulty retaining members. Overusing extrinsic motives can also occur when bounties and duties are specified in excessive detail. For instance, it could be challenging to convince contributors to step into other areas and fill gaps that do not directly connect to their position if the role is very precise. There must be a careful balance between having too many and not enough external motivations.

Define boundaries to create unified growth

A tree won’t be able to reach its full potential if its planter is too tiny. The tree won’t be able to take root if the planter is too big since the soil and water will be too dispersed. The secret to ensuring the tree’s success is establishing the proper limits. “Defining where the community stands give members the freedom to move around unrestricted within that space.” According to Flowscience, “Without clear boundaries, people won’t feel safe enough to move around. If they do, the uncertainty can and likely will create tension, preventing progress toward a common goal” Boundaries can include:

• Media channels the community has access to publishing on
• Areas the community can lead in unrestricted (such as user research, onboarding, and customer service)
• Events the community is in charge of leading
• IRL conference dates the community will meet up on

Imagine that you are creating a “Happy Birthday” sign. You ponder how large to make the first H as you gaze at the empty paper. To try it out, you may pencil it in, but when you go to erase it, the paper gets smudged. But after you finish the H and A, the rest is simple. Less blank space on the page and more restrictions make it simpler, not harder, to complete the last section. Limitations may be a wonderful thing! In a decentralized workplace, they can facilitate work and increase productivity.