**tl’dr**
- building communities has never been easier with the ability to start online to grow with free distribution
- they're important for stronger relationships in an age where digital interactions often dilute (and replace) genuine connection
- think in hypotheses and the core of your community starts with a consistent ritual, with a targeted group, that adds value to everyone.
- top 3 things for community blueprint
1. pick 1 main resource (funding, finding team members, knowledge) that seeds your community and 1 main way to share that resource (virtual events / in person events, podcast, newsletter)
2. consider what would you enjoy most to help make the community experience better because it's for you as well as higher likelihood of continuing
3. figure out who pays for it to sustain and grow the community: ads, sponsorship, or membership fees
the last generation's key to success was go to a good college.
this was not for the knowledge alone, but for the 100+ years of establishing specific alumni networks that led directly into work opportunities. this is one of the personal biggest boosts in network effects a person could have to increase probability of future success.
that may have worked for the 20th century, but the internet and social media have re-written the rules for the 21st century. rather than centered on institutional communities like college, the power is shifting to individual build communities through social media audiences, niche discord servers, and meetups around favorite podcasts.
and while some of the newest communities start online, there is a big focus on irl community because connection is still better in person.
digital first communities will only accelerate in the age of ai agents. check out boardy and how the next linkedin might be platformless and only accessible via voice agent on a phone call to make intros or bring together a community.
and funny enough, hardware meetup actually had the opposite problem: we initially only had the irl community when i started two years ago because hardware demos are way better in person.
we’ve been building new digital layers to connect the global community. my personal insight is even though it’s tempting to build out virtual infrastructure, that’s not the dna of our community.
this community will always be irl first, meaning the digital layers have to be complementary to and not replace the in person meetups.
first, think in hypotheses for how you want to structure the core community. know you might not be right at first, but you want to be intentional to test to see if you’re onto something.
the core of a community includes:
if hardware meetup had a written hypothesis it would be: