After burning through \\$43,000 in ad spend with zero results, I discovered this counterintuitive strategy that led to 10x growth in just 10 months. Here's the full story and how you can replicate it.
What I've Learned From 50 Companies
Across 234 angel investments, including Anthropic, a few patterns in community building come up again and again.
The founders who handle community building well understand that the best solutions are often the simplest ones.
The Counterintuitive Truth
In community building, the best practitioners often do less, not more.
The lesson: timing is everything in this game. It sounds simple. It's incredibly hard to execute.
The Reality Nobody Talks About
A lot of the advice on community building rests on assumptions that made sense five years ago. The world has moved on.
The first thing to understand is that timing is everything in this game. I've seen this play out across dozens of companies. The pattern is unmistakable.
Many teams spend months on the wrong path before realizing that customer feedback is the only metric that matters. Once they make the switch, everything changes.
Lessons From the Trenches
I want to share a few specific lessons I've picked up over the years. These aren't theoretical. They come from real companies, real failures, and real successes.
Lesson 1: The best time to start thinking about community building was yesterday. The second best time is now. Don't wait until you have the perfect plan.
Lesson 2: Hire for attitude, train for skill. The best people at community building are rarely the most technically gifted. They are the most curious and persistent.
Lesson 3: Your competitors are probably getting this wrong too. That's your opportunity. While everyone else is following the same playbook, you can zig when they zag.
This connects to broader themes around product-led growth, community-led growth, content marketing, growth hacking, referral programs that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
The Bottom Line
None of this is rocket science. But it does require intentionality, consistency, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.
If you take one thing from this article, let it be this: start now, start small, and iterate. The founders who win at community building aren't the ones with the best strategy on paper. They're the ones who execute, learn, and adapt faster than everyone else.
Companies that take community building seriously tend to pull ahead of the ones that don't.
If you're working on something interesting in this space, I'd love to hear about it. Drop me a line.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q:Do all experts agree with this view?
No, and that's fine. The best ideas in business are often contrarian. I share my perspective based on my experience and data, but I encourage you to seek out opposing viewpoints and form your own conclusions.
Q:What's the most common pushback you get on this?
People often push back by citing exceptions or edge cases. And they're usually right that exceptions exist. But building a strategy around exceptions rather than patterns is a losing game for most founders.
Q:How can I apply this thinking to my own situation?
Start by identifying the core principle behind the opinion, not the specific example. Then ask yourself: does this principle apply to my context? If yes, test it in a small, low-risk way before going all in.
Q:How has this view evolved over time?
My thinking on most topics has changed significantly over the years. Early in my career, I held many conventional views that experience proved wrong. I try to update my beliefs when the evidence changes.