As with any product or a startup, always start small or with a minimum viable community in mind. Get a small cohort of your early adopters and help them add value to each other.
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"There's a magic you can only create in small groups. As a community grows, it loses some of that magic. It's almost always better to start small when building community." - David Spinks
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Here are a few reasons why there is tremendous value in starting small:
- Focused relationship building - build 1-1 meaningful interactions and get to know the members better.
- More opportunities for members to explore and experiment - there's more room for everything. Testing new initiatives, assigning community responsibilities to your members and more: you could be building your core team here!
- Greater alignment - easy to align all members to focus on the community goals in a small cohort
- Rich interactions - less in volume of interactions but more in depth and value.
- Efficient administration and moderation - while starting out you want to focus completely on building relationships and enabling quality connections and less on the logistics of it all.
- Family - each member feels at home. Small cohorts tend to bring about an atmosphere of retreats and a sense of belonging.
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"Start small. Start tiny. 95% of communities can start as a simple group chat. A community only needs a shared purpose and a place to thrive. Don’t overthink it" - Greg Isenberg
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