Community Building

# Community Building - All Guest Insights

*18 guests, 30 mentions*

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## Alex Komoroske
*Alex Komoroske*

> "I created a secret group that I called Navel Gazers... you set the norms very explicitly and say, 'This is a collaborative debate environment. This is only yes, and.'... This sounds by the way very non-rigorous... It turns out there's limited amounts of time and so people will choose to build on the things they find most interesting."

**Insight:** Internal 'Nerd Clubs' or strategy salons create high-value insights by using 'yes, and' norms to filter for the most resonant ideas in a low-stakes environment.

**Tactical advice:**
- Start with a small 'seed crystal' of highly engaged people to establish norms before scaling.
- Use 'I wonder' statements to offer critiques without triggering defensive reactions.
- Actively facilitate by encouraging people to share their ideas in the group and providing positive reinforcement (emojis, notes).

*Timestamp: 00:49:17*


## Camille Ricketts
*Camille Ricketts*

> "it's when your community helps you achieve such ubiquity and such name recognition that it actually allows you to start moving upmarket into the enterprise. And I know that might be very specific to enterprise oriented companies, but that's how we defined it at Notion was the fact that so many people were talking about this, sharing what they had built about it, honestly starting businesses of their own around it to formalize the relationship with teams that I think it de-risked Notion as a choice for a lot of companies"

**Insight:** Community-led growth creates ubiquity and name recognition that de-risks the product for enterprise buyers.

**Tactical advice:**
- Focus on achieving ubiquity to move upmarket
- Encourage users to build their own businesses or formalize relationships around your product

*Timestamp: 00:13:09*

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> "I think that community lends itself particularly well if you have something that your product creates that people want to share because it exhibits something about themselves. So at Notion it was templates or even people just creating their own workspaces and being really excited to show them off. So Notion really benefited from being a creative product, but the same is true of Figma or Canva or any of these where showing people what it is that you've created is an aspirational thing to do."

**Insight:** Community thrives when a product has an 'atomic unit of sharing' that allows for self-expression or aspirational display.

**Tactical advice:**
- Identify the 'atomic unit of sharing' in your product
- Enable users to show off their creations to signal expertise or organization

*Timestamp: 00:20:19*

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> "I would really urge people to sit down and really think carefully what is going to be more conducive to our long-term success? Is it going to be that ubiquity or is it going to be revenue now? And I think if we look at a lot of the companies that have been just wildly successful from the start, they're people who have pushed off maybe monetizing every little thing if it's going to really put a damper on that type of enthusiasm and momentum"

**Insight:** Prioritize long-term ubiquity and word-of-mouth momentum over immediate monetization of every feature.

**Tactical advice:**
- Evaluate if organic word-of-mouth is more valuable than short-term revenue
- Avoid over-monetizing early if it dampens community enthusiasm

*Timestamp: 00:27:45*

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> "I would recommend highly not necessarily coming in with preconceived notions about what a community needs to look like. ... I think that some communities get built where people are like, okay, well we have this community and it's going to be this and this and this... As opposed to I think a lot of listening of the people who are actually participating."

**Insight:** Avoid rigid, preconceived structures for community; instead, listen to active participants to shape the experience.

**Tactical advice:**
- Conduct one-on-one or small group Z