Intro

Community - we hear this word tossed around frequently, but what does it actually mean? Dictionary.com defines community as:

a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.

While these words sound great on paper, does this actually embody a community’s heart and soul? In short, a community is a group of people with shared interests and values. But, it's also so much more than this. A community is the heart, the soul, the mindshare, and the catalyst for any lasting project or organization.

Community is the catalyst for our very existence. In the early days of society, communities were often referred to as 'tribes.’ A tribes organizing principle was kinship, as expressed through nuclear and extended family ties, lineage, and claims of descent from a common, often mythologized ancestor. The key purpose was to render a sense of social identity and belonging, thereby strengthening a people’s ability to bond and survive. Without a tribe, you simply could not survive. In the early days of society, a tribe was proximity-based - you bonded strongest with those you were in daily contact with.

The internet and the advent of the metaverse have drastically impacted this. Communities are now being built entirely online, often with the members never actually meeting each other in person. Yet despite the physical distance, the bonds have never been stronger. The reasons for this could be explored extensively, but the root is human connection. The need to bond, to survive, and be involved with something larger than ourselves.

In the crypto space, without community you will not survive, it's that simple. Sadly many projects push community to the back burner, an afterthought to the development and product side of things. Even marketing often comes before community. The truth is, a strong community will do a better job marketing a project than any number of marketing and agency hires. Like most products, word of mouth is the most efficient and effective way to spread the word. This will all come from your community. Let's now outline how to start a community, grow a community, and eventually pass on a community.

I like to think of community like a campfire - it takes effort to get started, even more effort to maintain, but ultimately its rewarding and keeps you warm. Let’s break it down.

🔥 Building The Fire

While we could continue to expand on what community means in a broader sense, I will be explicitly focused on crypto communities for this article. The background information above is helpful for understanding the flow for the remainder of this article.

A strong community is the most undervalued catalyst for any successful project. Community is the heart and soul - the voice of the people. Without conviction, dedication, and unity, there is nothing.

The initial step of community building is finding your people. Crypto helps streamline this process by providing an initial filter for collecting - the project. The project provides a set of values to align behind - if your project has yet to clearly define its values and what it stands for, do that right away. These values are the emotional motivators for why you are doing what you do. It's one thing for someone to believe in what your project is looking to achieve, whether it be DAOs, DeFi, NFTs, Web3 innovations, or anything else, but it's a much stronger connection when what they believe in resonates on the emotional level. This circles back to our innate need to be involved and contribute to something larger than ourselves.

At first, your community may seem a bit homogeneous, and that’s okay. This is often because when starting, we tend to reach out to our closest friends first. There's nothing wrong with this, but be cognizant of the importance of diversity and make it a priority early on. Your community is guaranteed to be vastly diverse, and the quicker you create an accepting and welcoming culture for all, the better. A more diverse culture can be grown easily through connecting with 'anonymous' social media accounts that are passionate about your project. With newer generations (i.e Gen Z) growing up digital native entire personalities and personas are created online that are not directly tied to their actual identity. This digital identities are just as important and valid as our 'physical identity' but allow for the unfiltered truth come out without fear. These anon accounts have been some of the strongest supporters in a few communities I have been involved with. Long story short, don't dismiss someone because their face is not their profile picture.

The early adopters of your community are what we will refer to as the 'power users.’ There are dozens of other names for these individuals, but these are the folks who will get the community from zero to one. The users who will be the driving force in any and all significant advancements in activity and growth. Do everything you can to empower these folks.

The crypto space is filled with a tremendous amount of noise and it's often difficult to break through. In these situations power comes in numbers and uniqueness. A way to filter out your kin among the chaos. Work with your power users to find a creative way to self-identify - this could be a unique name for your community or an emoji in your name! The possibilites are endless here so get creative. One of my personal favorites is a combination of a unique term for your community and an emoji to correlate to the name. Emojis are a universal language spoken by all. Work with your group to find something a majority of the people like and let them go. It may take some time to pick up but consistency is key here. Don't get discouraged if something doesn't take off right away. If your community has enough conviction it will happen.

After establishing your community and gaining some early traction it's time to grow togethor and meet up. These 'meet ups' can in person, virtuality, or a combination of both. You can even meet up in the metaverse as projects continue to build and ship in this space.

<aside> 💡 Do you know how your community prefers to gather? Do you know where they are located? Will they want to dox in order to meet in person?

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Now we are here. You have a growing community, you have aligned on some common values, yall are talking regularly. Now it's time to host the first meet up. The most important question I like to ask when setting up a meet up is 'Why are we gathering'? What is something you and your group can do collectively that is better shared than by themselves. You want the event to be purposeful, participatory, and repeatable. Make the purpose of your event loud and clear - this is even more important for your first collective gathering.

Put effort into creating as safe and welcoming environment as possible, promote the event, properly prepare, but try not to set any expectations. It's likely the first event will be a success and everything will goes smooth, but that's not always the case. If your first event does not go as expected that's okay. Refocus on the purpose of the gathering and try again.

Now it's time to double-down on the goals and values of the community.