Community

Community Skill

A community is a retention and acquisition asset that compounds. It is not a Slack group. Done right, it reduces churn, generates referrals, produces UGC, and builds a distribution channel you own.

Done wrong, it is a ghost town that creates support load.

Project context is loaded from the active CLAUDE.md. Apply all frameworks to the specific audience, product, and stage from that context.

---

When invoked

$ARGUMENTS defines the community goal or stage. If no arguments, ask one question: what is the community meant to do — retain customers, acquire new ones, or both?

---

Framework 1: Community Purpose First

Before platform or structure, define the single job the community does.

Purpose	What it means	Best for
Retention	Members stay longer because they are invested in the community	SaaS, subscription products, courses
Acquisition	Members refer others; community is public proof of results	B2B, agency, high-ticket
Product feedback	Members co-develop the product; they feel ownership	Early-stage product
Revenue	Community is the product itself (paid membership)	Educators, niche experts

A community trying to do all four does none well. Pick one primary purpose. Secondary purposes follow.

---

Framework 2: Platform Selection

Choose the platform where your members already spend time, not where you prefer to build.

Platform	Best for	Avoid if
Discord	Younger audiences, gaming, dev, creator, crypto	Your ICP is 40+ or enterprise buyers
Slack	B2B, tech, professionals	You need async threads longer than a few messages
Circle	Courses, paid memberships, structured communities	You need real-time chat as the primary mode
Skool	Education, cohort-based, gamified	You do not have a content-heavy programme around it
Facebook Groups	Broad consumer audience, older demographics	You want to own the platform or data
Forum (Discourse)	Deep knowledge communities, SEO benefit from public threads	You need real-time engagement
WhatsApp/Telegram	High-touch, local, or high-engagement groups under 200 people	You need structure, searchability, or scale

Platform decision rule: Go where the behaviour already exists for your audience. If your ICP uses Slack for work, they will tolerate another Slack. If they do not, do not build there.

---

Framework 3: Community Launch (0 to First 100 Members)

Pre-launch (weeks 1-2)

1. Define the promise — what does a member get that they cannot get elsewhere? State it in one sentence.
2. Recruit founding members manually — 20 to 30 people who already care. Current customers, warm prospects, people from your network. Do not open publicly yet.
3. Seed content before inviting — post 5 to 10 pieces of content before anyone arrives. An empty room feels dead.
4. Set the rules — write 5 to 7 community norms. Post them in a visible place. Enforce them from day one.
5. Create the core channels — fewer is better. 3 to 5 channels maximum at launch. Add more only when a topic overflows.

Launch (weeks 3-4)

1. Invite founding members — personal invites only. Generic mass emails do not create belonging.
2. Welcome every new member publicly — by name, with one specific detail about them. This sets the social proof and warmth norm.
3. Run a kick-off event — live Q&A, AMA, or group call. Creates energy and a shared founding experience.
4. Prompt early activity — post a question or prompt every day for the first 2 weeks. Do not wait for members to start conversations.

Post-launch growth

• Open referral loop: make it easy for members to invite colleagues or peers
• Add a public win thread: members post results; you screenshot and share as social proof
• Tie community access to the product: community membership comes with the subscription

---

Framework 4: Content Calendar and Engagement Loops

Weekly cadence (template)

Day	Content type
Monday	Weekly prompt or challenge: kick off the week with a discussion question
Wednesday	Resource or teach: share a template, framework, or tutorial
Friday	Wins thread: members share what they accomplished this week
Ongoing	Respond to every post within 24 hours for the first 90 days

Consistency beats volume. One meaningful post per day beats ten noise posts.

Engagement loops

A healthy community has three loops running:

1. Value loop — member gets value (content, answer, connection) → stays longer → refers others
2. Status loop — member contributes → gets recognition (votes, badges, replies) → contributes more
3. Social loop — member meets peers → forms relationships → community becomes a habit

Design for all three. Most communities only design for the value loop and wonder why engagement drops.

Prompts that always work

• "What's your biggest challenge with [topic] right now?"
• "What win did you have this week? Share it here."
• "Tag someone in this community who gave you advice worth sharing."
• "What would you do differently if you were starting [X] over today?"
• "Share the resource you've been using most this month."

---

Framework 5: Moderation

Moderation is active curation of what the community becomes. Removing bad actors is only the visible part.

3-tier moderation system

1. Rules — written, visible, specific. "No self-promotion" is vague. "No posting links to your own products or services in threads not designated for promotion" is enforceable.
2. Moderators — 1 mod per 200 active members minimum. Power members who get moderation access in exchange for contribution.
3. Culture — the behaviour you model in the first 90 days becomes the norm forever. If you tolerate off-topic spam once, you will have a spam problem.

Common failure modes

• Over-moderation: members feel policed, stop posting
• Under-moderation: quality drops, best members leave quietly
• No response to reported posts: erodes trust in the rules
• Moderator burnout: happens when moderators are not recognised or replaced regularly

---

Framework 6: Community-Led Growth

Community generates acquisition when members bring others in without being asked. This requires:

1. Public proof — results are visible inside and outside the community. Post wins where non-members can see them.
2. Status incentives — members want to be seen as community contributors in their professional circles. Posts about community wins on whichever network their peers actually use (LinkedIn, X, an industry forum), being featured in community spotlights.
3. Referral mechanism — make it easy. An "Invite a colleague" button with a trackable link beats "tell a friend."
4. Graduated access — free tier exists for prospective members; full access requires product subscription or paid membership. The free tier is a sample, not the full experience.

Community as acquisition channel (the flywheel)

New member joins (referral or organic)
    → Gets value from community
    → Shares wins publicly
    → Their network sees results
    → Network joins community
    → Loop repeats

The flywheel only starts if the first members get real results and share them. Everything else is secondary.

---

Framework 7: Community Health Metrics

Metric	What it tells you	Target
DAU / MAU ratio	Daily active vs monthly active (stickiness)	20%+ is healthy
New member 7-day activity rate	Do new members post within 7 days of joining?	40%+
Posts per active member per week	Engagement density	1+ per active member
Response rate	Percentage of posts that get at least one reply within 24h	80%+
Member retention (90-day)	Are members still active 90 days after joining?	50%+
Referral rate	What percentage of new members came from existing members?	20%+ in a healthy community

Track monthly. If DAU/MAU drops below 10%, the engagement loops are broken. Investigate before growing.

---

Framework 8: Paid Community vs Free Community

Type	When to use	Risk
Free (included with product)	Retention play; membership comes with subscription	Members may not value it if it is free
Free (acquisition)	Public community drives awareness and leads	Requires constant moderation; lower-quality members
Paid (standalone)	Community is the product; recurring revenue	Hard to launch; requires clear value prop before launch
Paid (premium tier)	Free tier exists; paid opens up more access, coaching, or events	Tier line must be obvious; free must not be hollow

Paid communities require proof of value before launch. Run a free community first, prove engagement, then charge.

---

Output format

For a community launch plan:

1. Purpose statement (one sentence)
2. Platform recommendation with rationale
3. Pre-launch checklist
4. Week-by-week launch plan (4 weeks)
5. Content calendar template
6. Metrics to track at 30/60/90 days

For a community growth audit:

1. Current health metrics vs benchmarks
2. Biggest engagement gap
3. Three interventions ranked by impact
4. What to stop doing

Rules:

• Never recommend launching publicly before founding members are active
• Never recommend more than 5 channels at launch
• If the community has no clear purpose, define that before anything else