Strong communities are built around a shared identity members aspire to — not around your product; people join because of the product but stay because of the people. Value must flow to members first at every touchpoint (exclusive knowledge, peer connections, status, product influence). Launch from zero by manually recruiting 20-50 founding members, seeding conversations before you open publicly, setting the culture explicitly, and doing things that don't scale like welcoming every new member by name. Expect roughly 1% of members to generate 90% of value, so identify and invest in power users. Track health weekly — DAU/MAU (above 20% is healthy), new-member post rate, thread reply rate, and the share of content created by non-staff — and treat 'most posts come from the company team' as a red flag.
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We're a B2B SaaS that wants to start a community. Should we use Discord or Slack?
FAQ
Should we use Discord or Slack for our community?
For B2B and professional communities, Slack fits best — it's familiar to SaaS buyers and lives in their workday — but watch the free-tier history limits and the fact that it can feel like more work. Discord is stronger for developer, gaming, and creator communities that want real-time chat, at the cost of noise and weaker search. Circle is a clean alternative if you want a course- or creator-style space without platform baggage. Anchor the decision on your ideal member's identity: professionals during the workday lean Slack, hobbyists and developers lean Discord.
We launched a community but everyone just lurks — what do we do?
That's a new-member activation problem, typical of the launch stage. Do things that don't scale: DM and welcome every new member by name, seed 5-10 posts that model the behavior you want, and build a new-member journey with a pinned welcome, a #introduce-yourself channel, and a clear 'start here' path. Define one core action members should take weekly and reward it publicly. Focus on the handful of power users who generate most of the value rather than chasing every lurker — and if most posts still come from your team, that's the warning sign to fix first.
How do I build a brand ambassador program?
Identify people who already recommend you unprompted — scan reviews, social mentions, and community posts. Make the ask personal and 1:1, explaining why you chose them specifically rather than sending a generic form. Offer meaningful benefits beyond 'early access to features': exclusive access, swag, revenue share, public recognition, or direct product input. Give them tools to act — referral links, shareable assets, talking points, a private channel — then measure referral traffic, signups, and engagement they drive and double down on what works.
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