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14d (edited) • 🟣 🎉 Celebrations
🌟 Community Reflection: Sometimes “It Depends” Is the Better Answer
Free or paid.
Public or private.
Quiet members.
Getting more eyes on a community.
Starting another community.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I realized how often we were coming back to an answer that can be incredibly frustrating when you just want someone to tell you what to do:
It depends. 😂
Not because we didn’t have ideas.
Because the answer changed depending on what Sara was trying to accomplish.
Take engagement.
We talked about members who read but don’t necessarily comment.
People who may not want to attend calls.
Members who could be using what they’re learning without us ever seeing it.
So how much engagement is enough?
I asked Sara what a community that’s working looks like to her.
She thought about it after our call and came back with:
“People participating and enjoying the community. I think as long as I get some feedback (which I have), then I will be happy.”
There it is.
Not somebody else’s engagement benchmark.
Sara’s.
We ran into the same thing with monetization.
Sara’s current community is free.
She’s also thinking about starting another community and considering making that one paid from the beginning.
Could both choices be right?
Absolutely.
We talked about public versus private communities, too.
There are advantages and tradeoffs to both.
Same with calls.
Same with how we bring people into our communities.
Same with a LOT of the decisions we make as builders.
And maybe that’s why looking for THE answer can get us into trouble.
Should I charge?
Should I go public?
Should I have calls?
Should I post every day?
Should I worry that people aren’t commenting?
We can get an answer to every one of those questions.
But without knowing what we’re trying to accomplish, it might not be the right answer for us.
So maybe before asking:
What should I do?
There are a few other questions worth asking first.
🌿 What does a community that’s working actually look like to ME?
🌿 What am I trying to make possible for my members?
🌿 What am I trying to make possible for myself?
🌿 What am I doing because it fits this community—and what am I doing because I’ve seen other communities do it?
🌿 What would I need to know before I could make this decision for MY build?
Maybe “it depends” isn’t a non-answer after all.
Maybe it’s where designing begins.
💛 Thank you, Sara, for a conversation that gave us so many good questions to carry back into our own builds.
🌱 Every conversation has something to teach us. Thank you for learning alongside us.
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🌟 Community Reflection: Sometimes “It Depends” Is the Better Answer
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