[andreasklinger]

I helped building producthunt.com and overclockers.at (and other less successful ones)

Here a few learnings:

1. the community already exists, you just create a communication platform for it

2. make it clear what the community is about [positioning/marketing]

3. make sure the communication/content is interesting [quality]

4. make sure there is enough engagement [perceived critical mass] (encourage people to post, post yourself a lot, fake accounts if needed, only create subforums once the main ones are noisy)

5. have a rhythm - some communities need daily good posts, some live of the weekly newsletter

[Malcx]

> the community already exists, you just create a communication platform for it

That gave me a minor epiphany, it flipped my understanding of communities and their relation to tech. Thanks

[gweinberg]

Does it really though? The individuals with a common interest exist already of course, but if they don't meet in some common physical or virtual space, how is there a community?

[vokep]

There is a sort of proto community. A community that wants to be, but isn't because nobody started doing that yet.

The point of it of course is that, if such a proto community doesn't exist, its going to be very difficult for a community to grow.

[aewens]

Depends on how you look at the word "community". One definition of the word, "a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals," can dictate that a community can exist among those who have not yet met, but are of the same community through a shared interests / goals.

[wuliwong]

I think this is interesting. Since the original comment was from a producthunt perspective, I was thinking that in that case there was a community. Maybe a strategy is that there is a community that communicates already but this communication is spread across various mediums and not efficient?

[werber]

I religiously follow producthunt now because of the Devo extension ( https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/devo/elkhalpmbmbae... ), but have noticed that the forum portion tends to be mostly pats on the back. With other endeavors have you been able to create a space where people are more critical?

[arkitaip]

Product Hunt isn't a real community as it's a very explicit marketing platform, hence the pats on the back, astroturfing, etc.

[thojest]

Turtle (https://turtle.community) is similar to Product Hunt except that the focus is on dev tools and that we aim to build a real community.

[sky_rw]

As somebody who has suffered through "networking events" I can assure you, what you described is a very real community.

[a0zU]

It can still be a real community even with the marketing aspects.

[danso]

In your time, how much has producthunt's platform evolved and iterated? I mean, has it been worthwhile and/or necessary to add new features – anything from new functionality to design tweaks to social/API integrations – to keep the platform healthy and audience engaged?

[nwsm]

How do you "make sure the communication/content is interesting"? Are you talking about moderation or talking about making sure there is good content posted?

I've read the Reddit origin story of founders submitting content under several usernames to give the appearance of a forming community, while also dictating the initial content and therefore the audience and culture.

[larrydag]

Agree on all of these points. One thing is you need to preserve the engagement. If you are the founder of the community platform make sure you keep content being contributed and be personally accessible.

[sidwyn]

> 2. make it clear what the community is about [positioning/marketing]

Could you give some examples on communities with successful positioning/marketing?

[ethiclub]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumsnet

- PR and relationships with (governmental or other) organisations

- Intelligent positioning

- (Arguably good timing in the market)

- Community well targeted, needs catered for well.

- Appropriate (simple, fast) technology, little barrier to entry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_News

- Two way beneficial relationship with YC

- Careful / Aggressive (depending on situation and feature) moderation

- General (although arguably slipping into Eternal September) maintenance of a niche community but with steady growth

- Appropriate (simple, fast) technology, little barrier to entry