Unleash the Power of Communities

P.S.: You don’t have to build your own community to do it.

Jul 12, 2024

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Dear GTM Strategist,

Let’s get real—yes, there are 7 Growth Motions, but unless you are sitting on a pile of money, you will have to prioritize those that deliver measurable results FAST and (almost) FREE.

Well, what could that be?

Here is a hint …

Nearly half of the B2B companies use Community-Led Growth to scale their GTM efforts (source: GTM Partners Research, 2023).

It is fair to say that I would not be where I am today without utilizing communities on my go-to-market mission, professionally and personally. I have learned so much, met the industry's brightest people, and had many great business opportunities.

Some examples where community was a core GTM Motion for my career.

When I was a CMO at OriginTrail, the community was our key GTM motion for raising $22.5 million for development. It continues to be an essential pillar: Last week, the team had 17K+ streamers on X supporting their new launch - on the 4th of July from all days. Their traction is incredible. 🙌 #funding

Building a 13K local Facebook community gave me an opportunity to invite Sean Ellis to speak in my home country Slovenia. This event and connection created a huge lever (from leads from this event, I made +$100K with retainers over the next two years) and positioned me on the global roadmap. #positioning

I co-hosted the ProductLed podcast with Wes Bush and Ramli John pro bono for 2+ years, during which time I met many interesting experts, including Leah Tharin, Elena Verna, Ben Williams, Chris Walker, and many others. This experience unlocked numerous speaking and content-creation opportunities. #networking

LinkedIn community generated 3000+ signups for the launch of my book Go-to-Market Strategist, which sold 600 copies in pre-sale—enough to hit the best-selling badges for a week. And the rest is history. #presale

And the list goes on and on and on.

These would never happen without communities. 🙏

Do not be mistaken for a second that it was serendipity, aka “it just happens.” You have to be very consistent. You have to give, give, and give without expecting anything in return over a long period of time, and then one day (measured in months or even years), something wonderful happens. It is definitely a long game.

And you might be thinking: “Maja, I get it.”

You spend a lot of time online, and you like meeting new people.

But is community really a worthy GTM Motion for me to invest in?

We have 3-18 months or runway to make it or break it.

In my portfolio, communities worked well for 97% of the 650+ companies that I have helped with their go-to-market strategy, from traceability software solutions, dog supplements, CRMs, and AI-first products to liquid cooling solutions for hardware.

Why?

💡 Because you do not have to build your community to leverage this powerful GTM motion.

Building your own community takes a lot of time and effort.

It is a cold start problem.

Instead, you can penetrate existing communities where your target audience is already actively learning, seeking guidance, and discussing their business challenges.

In this Substack, we dive into:

Practical theory: Types of communities to consider
Case #1: Extreme case - My freelancing class: How no-name freelancers got clients even without any portfolio experiences by value commenting and posting
Case #2: Established company: Lessons learned from my conversation with growth marketer Esther Trapadoux who is Head of Community at Amplitude
Let’s bring it all together: Elements of a thriving community and how to create one (Community Canvas by GTM Strategist)

Let’s get this party startin' 🎉

6 types of communities to consider in your GTM Strategy

Communities come in many different shapes and sizes. From a community of 12 people on a mission to think about the future of AI at a founder's retreat in Bali to tens of thousands of people on a mission to advance an open-source product with their GitHub commits.

There are 3 pitfalls GTM experts often make when defining a community as a GTM lever:

Community = channel. Many think that Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook profiles, where you publish your content to generate a couple of likes and comments, are communities. For the purpose of this post, let’s agree that those are social media channels, not communities that can be built across platforms. My community, for example, spreads over LinkedIn (comments and DMs), discussions after I publish my Substack, and networking calls that I sometimes do. It spreads across different platforms.
Admin = the king. Your newsletter is unlikely a community if you do not get massive replies back and vivid interaction in comments between members. The community's DNA is that members interact and help each other to create synergic effects. The community effect only happens when members activate and start helping each other. Communities are not about you - they are about them (the members). Becoming obsessed with added value for members is the best recipe for building thriving communities. The secret is that you create enough goodwill and added value to trigger the effect of reciprocity and the “top of mind” effect. That can only happen if you are consistently a great contributor.
Solely wearing the sales hat. While the idea of having thousands of people who will gratefully grasp your new product or discount deal is tempting, it is unlikely that it will work. Communities have to be nurtured and managed carefully. Yes, they work as a sales channel too, but you will have to earn the right to sell there.

After you avoid these pitfalls, the next question to tackle is what shapes and forms communities take.

There are free communities and paid communities (yearly fee $500-20,000, median $1,000).

There are open communities and private invite-only communities.

Humans have always been tribal beings.

Channeling my inner Peterson: While gorillas are stronger, humans dominate as a species because we have formed collaborations. We always gravitate to connect with like-minded people who share our interests and identities and try to create synergies to advance our pursuits.

I like to use jobs-to-be-done in combination with motivation to create a list of communities to consider on a GTM journey. My underlying logic here is that humans work well together if they share a goal or receive benefits (recognition, payments, value-added that they wanted - i.e. knowledge or emotional benefits - form new bonds and friendships).

Here is how I systemize them based on jobs to be done (with examples):

If you have any other classification of communities, I am eager to work with you on v02; hit me up ✌️, but after careful consideration, this is v01 I propose.

Now, let’s hop into the trenches.

How can we unleash the power of communities as a GTM Motion?

Case #1: Leverage external communities as your Go-to-Market driver

When you launch your own community, a handful of members will be there. You will have to engage fiercely to demonstrate the value added for them and deserve their continued attention. You will also have to create new habits for them to start paying attention and visit your community frequently to convert them to active members.

Sounds daunting?

It is. Been there - done that. You too?

🦗🦗🦗

While building a community of raving active members is a really powerful asset, I do not like to send my GTM champions on such a mission without making sure that we have some good leverage.

If you have a pre-existing audience, you can go ahead and start thinking about your own community (next case), but if you are just starting out, you have a much better fighting chance if you penetrate existing communities and build traction there before going solo.

Go where the audience already is.

How do you know that?

Ask them.

A simple email could be an amazing source of intelligence, like this email an engineer sent to learn more about where his customers spend their time:

You can do it even more casually by asking field-relevant people on LinkedIn what they would recommend, make a list and see if these communities are a good fit for you.

C’mon, do it - it takes 30 seconds and saves hours of desktop research.

After you know which communities exist, you can start planning how to penetrate communities where your target audience is already actively learning, seeking guidance, and discussing their business challenges.

But don’t just go there and smash your link - the admin ban hammer sways hard. 🔨

Add how to add value first before you earn the right to “go promo”.

My greatest learning on how to do that with grace and respect comes from my freelancing course business venture. My partner Tim and I helped 200+ local freelancers to launch and grow their businesses. It is a vivid group of marketers, developers, creators of edu products, designers, and other field experts who are interested in launching their own businesses. Most of them did not have established personal brands, audiences and shiny portfolios, but work has to be done nevertheless.

For most freelancers, one of 3 ways how to win new business worked (in addition to warm intros, which you one day ran out of):

Super-targeted outbound with irresistible offer + value inside. This worked well for all, experienced and noobies.
LinkedIn and Instagram inbound strategy only worked well with people who have already built at least some audience and credibility before (measured in 3 months).
Value posting and commenting to selected communities where their ICP was present worked well for all who played by our rules.

What are the rules?

From being an admin in five 10K+ groups, I can tell you that the only way to “survive in larger groups and maintain quality” is to follow the group rules to the T (single source of truth) and give fast feedback loops to those who violate them. You know what I mean with that 🤠. Here is what we admins are allergic to:

Members who join to sell
Spam their links to comments and organize “shilling” with their friends
They only want to take, not give to the community
Being a “know-it-all” douche without any sensitivity and respect for other members.

This is why we recommended our freelancers to start their community mission with value commenting and posting. Only once they have delivered an insane amount of value for the community do they earn the right to publish a promo upon agreement with an admin.

If you are a new entrant to a community, show respect by:

Actually read the conversation, review channels/topics, learn the context of the group, and decide if they have a relevant PoV or advice there. Don’t just comment “great post”, but ask additional questions that appear intelligent and knowledge-seeking.
Your first activation should be a comment that adds value; produce at least 5 value comments in 5-7 days to build traction.
Your first post should be a non-gated, not promotional asset, which is extremely valuable for the group (think breakdown, analysis, case study, and lessons learned) without any call to action.
Give before you take. Esther (you will meet her in the next case) called it the Jab-Jab-Jab-Right Hook rule 🥊. Give, give, give (again), and then ask. I suggest 3-5x value posts in the community, and if they land well, I would ask an admin for permission to publish an offer, survey, event, or free consultations/work CTA.
Continue being active there. It is a long game.

Now you understand how hands-on penetration in a community can be. This is why it is not wise to join 100 groups at the same time and post your promo intro there, but you should strategically select a handful of relevant communities and build strong traction there. The overall results will be much better.

Remember, existing community members already like and trust each other. You are there as a stranger first and will have to earn their trust.

But the good news is that 80% of members in most communities are passive—they read, not create content. This is why you, as an active participant, can get a lot of attention and “power” there really fast and stand out. Use this power for good. ✌️

Case #2: How Amplitude builds the community strategy

Now let’s move to more advanced use cases.

At the Product Hackers Conference in Madrid, I had the pleasure of meeting and listening to a wonderful keynote on PLG communities by Growth Marketer Esther Trapadoux who is on a mission of building a community at Amplitude.

One would think - oh cool, Amplitude is such an awesome company - they can send out an email and get 500 members to Slack in a heartbeat 🤠, but the story is MUCH more profound than this.

Amplitude has been celebrated as a great partner to other communities before launching their own community. I first learned about their community programs from Sean Ellis more than five years ago. They were always eager to support product and growth communities such as MeasureCamp, Reforge, Product at Heart, and countless local communities. It is in their DNA.

Creating their own community was frequently discussed and had an internal buy-in.

Amplitude was established in 2014 but only launched their community recently.

From the first-principles thinking, the right question to ask: is “Should ____ even have its own community? - Why?”

Esther explained: My colleague and mentor John Cutler and I had long discussions on the added value of Amplitude’s community for the members.

This is what planning for Amplitude’s community looked like:

A big part of the process was going deep into our assumptions, risks, and getting crisp on the community’s core values.

As mentioned above, it was important for us to acknowledge the risks that we would not be able to find Community-Market Fit. We broke down the biggest risks and built-in key actions in our early roadmap to help de-risk our bets. (Or maybe, in the end, we prove our fears true and there really wouldn’t be demand for an Amplitude community.)

There’s a great article that says community building (and decision-making) comes down to four categories: people, content, member experience, and technology.

We took this framework and ran. We knew we needed to nail these things in a specific order, creating value first and then figuring out how to grow and scale. Looking back, and this was mapped out towards the end of 2022, we’ve followed this rough roadmap pretty closely.

After developing a value proposition for the community, Esther kicked off community operations. From what I have seen, they are really in it to win it. Not afraid of doing things that do not scale and within the value system that works for communities. Here are some of her best practices that you can consider:

Find the fastest path to learning. Experimentation and fast feedback loops are central to how our team operates. We probably need to slow down at this point and spend more time looking back. But in those early days, when we were manually pumping the community flywheel, we did our best to keep tests light, fast, and iterated quickly. This was the only way we could start spotting signs of life.
Do things that do not scale. Esther commits to book interviews, really meeting members, and discussing with community members what they need and how the community can best support them. She explained: “Amplitude plays a small role in their busy and vibrant work life. It is so valuable to learn what that role is and how Amplitude fits into a broader picture of how they work. These insights are invaluable for product and marketing as well.
Make community members heard. Instead of inviting (only)) flashy speakers, empower community members to share knowledge and exchange experiences. Many of them have incredible knowledge but are not frequent public speakers. Help them prepare for the event and empower them to thrive.
More than community - it is a support system- Esther loves to support members on LinkedIn. She mentioned: “I am very interested in how community members advance in their careers. Not only to celebrate their achievements, but Amplitude also prioritizes supporting active community members who lost jobs and either initiate connections or feature them in their newsletter to support their job quest.” It is definitely more than a job.

In the meanwhile Amplitude still works closely with external communities. They have a thriving community of 15k+ members who are joining community programs, attending user groups, and exchanging ideas online. This also includes 3k+ members on Slack and 4k+ members in their community forum.

Their core priority is helping Amplitude users in their analytics practice and to unlock growth in their roles and business. They want to see our members soar. If you don’t use Amplitude and want to level up your analytics game, you’ll still find value in their community. But don’t be surprised when they win you over. 😉Learn more and find your community at: https://community.amplitude.com/

Let’s bring it all together ✌️

Over the years of working and being an active member of hundreds of communities, I believe that there is only one secret sauce to running a successful community:

A strong mission statement backed with shared values.

In simple words, why does this community exist, and what benefits does it bring to members?

If shared values and rules of engagement are the glue of the community, a clear mission is a compass and key to its longevity.

If you are interested in building your own community, try my GTM Community Canvas. It beautifully captures different elements and stages of community development. It is 100% derived from my experiences and tested to work with the teams I coach. It will help you make an actionable plan on how to onboard and activate the first 100, 500, and 1000+ members. While the tactics might change, the mission remains untacked.

To end this on a fun note so that I can repost into LinkedIn wherever I run out of content ideas 🤠 - here are 5 Community Management Lessons I learned from running agility with my two dogs 🐶🐶 in my garden🏡 . They work.

Once is always - never keep your guard down. They will push your limits and stay consistent.
There will always be a hierarchy. There can only be one pack leader. It is either you or the dog.
Intelligent life needs to work. Dogs are domesticated to work. If you do not keep them busy, they will find their own ways to get busy. You probably will not like that.
Progress is lost if you do not practice. Reps are the key to progress. Dogs and humans alike need routines and habits. We are learning by doing. Plan your activities in advance and stick to the schedule.
Make it fun and rewarding. During intense training, the dog needs to rest and get rewards- play, food, and petting. Rest and appreciation are part of the training. Positive reinforcement works wonders.

😁Gosh that was fun.

And that was it, dear people!

Thanks for reading.

Reply to this email or comment if you have any questions, cool experiences, or ideas on how we can improve this Substack.

This is one of the subjects that is near and dear to my heart, and it is definitely not a one-off post. We shall return to it again.

Till then - thank you for being part of the GTM Strategist community ❤️

You are my why, and I appreciate you to the moon.

Let’s go to market!
Stronger together ✌️

-Maja

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