Community leaders deserve better: An open letter about community software

A better, built-in application flow and onboarding experience – Application submission, review, and approval, as well as a better, more productized onboarding experience should be native to the platform to keep membership organized.

Lapsed members or those who are at risk for churning

Ability to engage across different channels –While new platforms often try to change user behavior and redirect their attention to a new destination, we’re interested in meeting members where they are. That could mean the ability for users to engage with the discussions via email or text message (if that's their preferred medium). Flexibility shoul... See more

Payments and built-in monetization models – Just as ads have become the predominant monetization model for social platforms, we believe member subscriptions are promising for communities. Because people are more likely to consume a product when they pay for it, subscriptions can incentivize engagement.

Here are the leaders by market share, with a few example brands for each:

Member directory – Typically, Slack or Discord communities have an #Intros channel for members to introduce themselves. But these posts are ordered chronologically, and the volume of posts rapidly becomes overwhelming as communities grow. A turnkey directory product that aggregates and showcases member information and interests in a centralized pla... See more

There are actually about a dozen platforms designed to fill this need - and they make up about a $2-3B annual market for brand community platforms today. Community-building is nearly as old as the internet, and so much has been developed since the advent of message boards and forums. 

Analytics & automated actions in response to member activity – We dream of a dashboard for better understanding member behaviors, with metrics such as:

I've always thought it would be interesting for someone to build blockchain and ownership tokens into the very structure of a community platform. It wouldn't be too complex - simply replacing the gamification engine (used to give people ranks and points based on quality and quantity of participation) with a tokenization engine. Everything else - fo... See more