Maximize Joy in Community Building
I've told people that running a community can become one of the best parts of their work.
But it may not be entirely true.
While I still believe this can be true, I've seen many founders lament the amount of work involved to run a community well. They feel thrown by "urgent, but not important" tasks. They feel like if they get one more "How do I…?" for the 74th time they might crack. While many founders may not confess to the increase in stress, I can see it.
While it's true that community can at times be fatiguing and stress-inducing, it doesn't have to be that way forever. Stress can be mitigated and handled swiftly.
Every stage of a community offers different challenges and opportunities. And in an effort to keep you from burning out, I've outlined how to create room for joy and delight in each phase below.
Phase 1: Building the Dream.
This is the stage where I get the most natural enjoyment as a community builder. I love unpacking what makes someone tick and learning what dream it is they want to turn into reality. While new ideas are energizing, I've seen fatigue set in here too. Some founders are plagued by analysis paralysis. "Which idea should I pursue? Will this work? Will people like it? Maybe we should.. or maybe "X" would work better." Overtime, this anxiety zaps the energy out of dreaming.
Instead, a path to finding joy at this stage is to reflect (or even journal) through the following questions:
What can't I wait to tell more people about?
What is really driving me to create this community? How can I tap into that motivating force better?
What stressors are illegitimate? Which decisions do I need to make in order to feel peace and relief?
Who in my life will help champion my cause even if they're not a member of the community? (The goal with this is to find a friend, family member, or colleague who believes in you for who you are.)
Phase 2: Launching
Launching is stressful. You want your community to be ready, maybe even perfect, but no community is. At some point, you just need to let others in. The anxiety at this stage often comes from a good place, you really want to serve your members well. But this desire to care can turn into needing too much control.
Here’s what I do at this stage to keep things in their right place:
Put first things first. Launching brings pressures along with it that we give undue weight to. Nailing down what your community exists to do > Spending 2 hours polishing how the event promo looks.
Plan a super fun launch event that you genuinely wish you could participate in.
Reward yourself. Launching something like this deserves celebration. Treat-cho-self!
Phase 3: Early Community Life
No community performs as planned. We create containers for a sense of community to develop over time. This stage is inherently stressful because often it’s the case that your members aren’t behaving as you’d like them to.
Here, I’ve seen founders beat themselves up and I know I’m more likely to be self-critical myself at this stage. But this comes back to managing expectations and finding room for new opportunities to emerge.
Aim to be kinder to yourself.
Enjoy what has materialized, build off where you do see momentum.
Take pride in the fact you’ve risked building something difficult and you’re taking the steps to make it even better.
Again, make more events that you yourself would enjoy being involved in.
Phase 4: Maintenance Mode → Scaling
Once your community gets to the position where all the features you initially dreamed of have launched, things can start to feel monotonous. But as a founder, you’re likely the kind of person who naturally starts to think, “What’s next?” anyways. Here, rather than starting from scratch and preparing to build something new altogether, give this a shot instead:
Try to repeat what you’ve created in a different context. (Try not to adjust on the audience much, instead, aim to adjust on geography with IRL events or new contexts the same pain points exist in).
Create new roles for your community to step into.
Develop new features that revolve around existing features that already have broad community buy-in.
Make the adjustment from Founder → CEO. Not every founder likes this jump. In fact few do, but it might be best for you to step back and delegate the community’s growth to someone else you trust so you can go and build the next thing.
Momentum occurs when you have vision for what’s next. Churn happens when that vision has been achieved.
Constantly be curious about what’s next, aim to serve others, enjoy the process of doing so, and the anxiety turns to joy.
