community-building
refoundai/lenny-skills
Build and scale product communities using frameworks from 18 product leaders at Notion, Figma, WordPress, and more.
What is community-building?
Help users establish and grow engaged communities around their product. Use this when starting a community, scaling an ambassador program, driving community-led growth, or choosing between user, developer, or partner communities. Covers identifying community type, finding shareable moments, listening to early members, and protecting quality during growth.
- Identify the right community type (user, agency, or partner) for your product
- Find the atomic unit of sharing—what members naturally want to show off
- Design listening-first approaches to understand early member motivations
- Scale ambassador programs starting from your 20 most vocal organic supporters
- Avoid common pitfalls like premature scaling, wrong platform choice, and over-monetization
- Apply frameworks from product leaders at Notion, Figma, WordPress, and similar companies
How to install community-building
npx skills add https://github.com/refoundai/lenny-skills --skill community-buildingHow to use community-building
- 1.Clarify what type of community you need (user, agency, or partner)
- 2.Identify your 20 most vocal organic supporters as initial ambassadors
- 3.Conduct 1:1 listening calls with early members to understand their needs before imposing structure
- 4.Determine your atomic unit of sharing—what would members naturally want to show off
- 5.Choose the platform where your target audience already gathers
- 6.Design for quality over growth by implementing application processes and cohort-based onboarding
- 7.Apply the core principles: build a movement not just a product, let community drive enterprise credibility, and protect intimacy as you scale
Use cases
- Starting a Discord or Slack community for early product adopters
- Building an ambassador program from existing vocal users
- Choosing between user community vs. developer vs. partner community models
- Designing onboarding and cohort structures to maintain community quality
- Identifying influencers and key entry points in your target audience's social graph
- Product managers launching new communities
- Founders scaling word-of-mouth growth
- Community managers designing programs from scratch
- Growth leaders building ambassador networks
- Marketers seeking authentic community-driven channels
community-building FAQ
Start early with listening. Launch Discord or Slack when you have early users who are already talking about your product. Begin with your 20 most vocal organic supporters before formalizing an ambassador program.
It's what community members naturally want to show off because it exhibits something about themselves—templates, workspaces, creations. Products with strong atomic units of sharing drive organic community content and word-of-mouth amplification.
Don't scale too fast. Establish norms and intimacy with a small, engaged group first. Use application processes and cohort-based onboarding to maintain quality and psychological safety as you grow.
No. Prioritize ubiquity and word-of-mouth over extracting revenue early. Community helps you achieve name recognition and enterprise credibility; monetization can come later.
Treating community as a marketing channel. Community requires genuine value creation and solving problems the product alone doesn't. Hire practitioners and respected members as advocates, not just marketers.
Full instructions (SKILL.md)
Source of truth, from refoundai/lenny-skills.
name: community-building description: Help users build and grow product communities. Use when someone is starting a community, scaling an ambassador program, driving community-led growth, or choosing between user, developer, or partner communities.
Community Building
Help the user build and scale communities using frameworks from 18 product leaders who have built communities at Notion, Figma, WordPress, and more.
How to Help
When the user asks for help with community building:
- Identify the community type - Clarify if they need a user community, agency community, or partner community
- Find the atomic unit of sharing - Determine what community members would naturally want to show off
- Start with listening - Understand why early members are there before imposing structure
- Design for healthy growth - Help them avoid scaling too fast and diluting quality
Core Principles
Build a movement, not just a product
Matt Mullenweg: "Don't just build a product, build a movement... we give people something to believe in, a philosophy, a worldview." The most successful communities unite around a shared mission, not just utility.
Community drives enterprise de-risking
Camille Ricketts: "Your community helps you achieve such ubiquity and such name recognition that it actually allows you to start moving upmarket into the enterprise." Widespread community adoption signals safety to enterprise buyers.
Go where the community already is
Claire Butler: "Dylan identified immediately that Twitter was the place where that existed... he built this tool or this scraper where he identified a couple influencers in the design community." Map the social graph of influencers to find key entry points.
Find your atomic unit of sharing
Camille Ricketts: "Community lends itself particularly well if you have something that your product creates that people want to share because it exhibits something about themselves." Templates, workspaces, and creations drive organic community content.
Community amplifies word of mouth
Elena Verna: "Community is really important here because you need to bring people together as they're exploring... Community also amplifies that word of mouth." Launch Discord early to allow users to share and help each other.
Start small with the most vocal
Camille Ricketts: "The initial base of the ambassadors program was just 20 people and they were the 20 people who we happened to see be the most vocal already." Identify organic supporters before creating formal programs.
Listen before structuring
Camille Ricketts: "I would recommend highly not necessarily coming in with preconceived notions about what a community needs to look like... a lot of listening of the people who are actually participating." Conduct 1:1 calls with early members to understand their needs.
Protect quality over growth
Camille Ricketts: "Don't dilute the impact of what it is that you're trying to do in order to show growth. Make sure that you are learning what individuals really want." Implement application processes and cohort-based onboarding to maintain intimacy.
Questions to Help Users
- "What would members naturally want to share or show off?"
- "Where does your target audience already gather online?"
- "Who are your 20 most vocal organic supporters right now?"
- "What problem does the community solve that the product alone doesn't?"
- "Is your goal user community, agency community, or partner community?"
- "What would make this community feel like home to members?"
Common Mistakes to Flag
- Scaling too fast - Growing before establishing norms creates the "auditorium effect" where no one speaks
- Forcing a platform - Building on Slack when your users live on Discord (or vice versa)
- Over-monetizing early - Prioritize ubiquity and word-of-mouth over extracting revenue
- Treating community as marketing - Community requires genuine value creation, not promotional content
- Hiring non-practitioners - Advocates must be respected members of the community, not just marketers
Deep Dive
For all 30 insights from 18 guests, see references/guest-insights.md
Related Skills
- Positioning & Messaging
- Brand Storytelling
- Launch Marketing
- Content Marketing
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