The Karmic Community
Community is a funny word. I remember reading it in the dictionary as a young child (yes, I read the dictionary). We are familiar with this definition:
Community (com·mu·ni·ty): a group of people who live in the same area (such as a city, town, or neighborhood)
And that’s how most of us think about it most of the time. But community is so much more. We often talk about how Karmic Bikes can improve our city and towns, yet the Karmic Community still feels like a small neighborhood.
We created the K.O.G — or Karmic Owners Group — a Facebook Group for Koben owners to share their stories, pictures and modifications of their Karmic Bikes. It’s been really fun to see how people use their Kobens, and to get real-world feedback on how to improve the next version of the product.
I also hope we do more events and meetups, but the 80 or so members are from all over the country, so that’s been a bit tough to organize. I do believe that early KOG members will become the node for their local communities to form around, as more and more people learn about Karmic.
Kickstarter is a wonderful community. Most people think of it as a crowd-funding platform, just about getting money to bring projects to life. It is that, yet so much more. The Kickstarter community is what brought the Koben, and even Karmic itself, to life last year. This year we launched a new model called the Kyoto. It isn’t going as well, but we still love our backers on this second campaign. They have chosen to join our community of supporters.
We developed the Koben from prototype to production with the earliest members of the KOG. Robert and Faye now have the highest-mileage Kobens, but their early testing and feedback has made every Koben better. That benefits every Karmic owner. Everything we do is for the benefit of the Karmic Community. We are a small, but growing group. We want to create more Karmic Families that ride together. Giving away kids bikes helps too.
My friend David is a well-respected community builder in the world of startups. He hosts the premier conference for all things capital-letter-C Community. He wrote about how a Business is a Community. David says:
But over time, through industrial revolutions, businesses stopped looking like communities and started looking more like machines. They optimized for growth of the business, often at the expense of the community.
I couldn’t agree more. Other companies launch a new model by copying what independent creators have been making for years. They’ll try to buy their way into a niche, and own it by claiming category creation, rewriting history with pretty websites and slick ad copy. That’s a ruthless money-making move that hurts the real creators and small business owners trying to make a living. This is anti-community. Many consider this “business as usual” for the bike industry. We don’t buy it. We think there’s a better way.
I’m heading off to Interbike next week, the annual trade show for our band of misfits known as bike geeks, bike shop owners and bike companies trying to show off their latest and greatest. A lot goes on at the show, but I look forward to catching up with old friends, and making new ones. This trip to Las Vegas isn’t the typical one that most people take. This is about making our bike community stronger, and ensuring we all have a long future ahead.
Cheers,
Hong
