To start a community, create a surround system

I was speaking to someone recently who has had a few stop-start situations with their community — as in they are super passionate about getting the community off the ground but hadn't quite found a way to get consistent traction.

I asked myself what would I do in that situation. What came to mind was to recommend they surround themselves intentionally and entirely with their people.

Starting. Community. Is. So. Hard.

Starting anything is hard, and unfortunately, there are no exceptions for communities. We seem to accept that businesses fail all the time, yet when it comes to community we just don't seem to talk about it enough.

We're supposed to find and create traction, flow, value, connection and consistency. As part of this we need to create things like systems, an online presence, design, content, and products.

As community builders, we have to do all these things. Of course it is hard. Of course many of us will fail. It's like starting a business and it's a big ask, of anyone.

And yet, when we go to build community, the first and most popular question people still ask is: what is the best tool to build community?

It's not that the tools aren't important, but it's like we think tools will magically build community for us.  Let us agree to look past the tools when we are starting out in community. 🙏🏽

Instead, when starting community, we should focus on deciding what to surround ourselves with.