Why should you build a community around your product?

A curated guide with resources for indie founders starting with community building.

Author

Sofia Terlesky
January 10, 2023

When we started to build Unita some time ago, the main goal was to help people find the communities they belong to. However, as our platform grew, we saw a trend among indie founders using online communities to grow an audience, connect with potential early adopters, and gain a deeper understanding of their target market.

Therefore, we decided to create this newsletter to help those founders who are marketing their online products using the power of online communities.

In this first newsletter edition, we explore:

  • Top profiles of founders building community

  • Interview with a nocode community founder.

  • Latest tweets in the community world

  • Best resources for indie founders starting with community building

  • New community tools launched on Product Hunt

Already started a community? Add it to Unita's directory for free and reach your first members 👇

But, why should you start an online community around your product?

Building a community can be more reliable and effective than relying solely on social media for customer acquisition and retention, as social media can be unpredictable and change its rules.

A community also allows for a direct line of communication with customers and can help with marketing efforts and getting feedback from real users.

So, let’s see who are building communities in public 👇

🛠️ Top founders building communities in public

David is a marketer with over 20 years of experience in marketing and strategy roles who founded a community for vetted marketing professionals to learn from each other and connect in a more organized setting, free from the noise of social media 👉 Read our full interview to David.

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Rosie is a serial community builder who shares unique advice and insights to help you create and grow a sustainable community. If you’re new to communities, signing up for her newsletter is a must. In addition, she’s also part of the Indie Hackers community team and runs The Indiependent Community which is a Discord community for indie founders.

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Joshua has a large community of founders building with no code tools, which has grown exponentially over time. Now there are more than 15K founders in this community, turning it into one of the largest communities in the industry. If you’re planning to build a community in the no code world, joining No Code Founders and following Joshua on Twitter is a must.

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📣 Asking for a founder: How to start and grow a community?

We asked Joshua Tiernan how he started this online community and which tech stack is he using 👇

Q: How did you come up with the idea of starting a community and what were your first steps?

A: The idea for No Code Founders came from my desire to meet other founders in a similar situation to myself. Prior to setting up NCF, I’d tried my hand at starting an online business for 8 years with little success. Until I discovered Bubble.io and built remotecircle.com which was very quickly acquired by We Work Remotely.

This acquisition opened my eyes to the possibilities of no-code. And it made me realize that I could build a real tech business with no code.

I started No Code Founders as just a Slack community initially and built it to 100 members within the first 2-3 months. And then from there, it has pretty much grown organically.

Q: Which tools do you use to manage NCF?

A: In the beginning, it was just Slack. Since then, I’ve built the nocodefounders.com site which manages all the other aspects of the community. Such as events, deals, and our tools database.

Q: What are your suggestions for building and sustaining an engaged community?

A: I think the main thing is to set up your community management processes at the very beginning and stick to them. Changing things once you have started can slow things down. So it’s best to have a good idea of the tools and processes you will follow to manage your community. This includes the type of culture you want to build, your onboarding processes, weekly events, etc. The more you have planned out, the easier it is to get everyone on board straight away.

✨ Latest tweets on community building

💬 Best resources for indie founders starting with community building

  • Slack - to set up free community channels.

  • Burb - for analytics.

  • Carrd - to create a landing page for your community in no time 👉 Learn how with a step-by-step tutorial.

  • Indie Worldwide - a private community for indie founders.

  • The Community Club - a free community for community builders.

  • Indie Hackers - a place to connect with indie founders and promote your new community.

🚀 New community tools on Product Hunt

  • Threado - get insights, automate workflows, and activate members across Slack, Discord, and other platforms

  • Dots - automate manual tasks and get member insights.

  • Peers Community - a community platform for e-commerce and DTCs.