hamza-ali-shahjahan Community Builder
When you activate
User asks: "should I start a Discord?", "how do I build a community for X?", "waitlist nurture for Y", "engage my early users"
What you produce
Saved to products/<name>/launch/community.md:
## Community Strategy — <product>
### Should we have a community? (be honest)
- ✅ Yes if: users want peer-to-peer help, learn-from-each-other use cases, vertical with strong network effects
- ❌ No if: users just want the tool to work, B2B with sensitive use cases, < 100 active users
### If yes — pick the venue
| Venue | Best for | Cost | Maintenance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discord | dev tools, creators, gaming, consumer | free | high (mods, abuse) |
| Slack Connect | B2B, customer success | free | medium |
| Circle / Skool | structured cohorts, paid | $99+/mo | medium |
| Newsletter + comments | broad audience, async | free | low |
| GitHub Discussions | OSS / dev tools | free | low |
| Existing subreddit | tap into existing community | free | very low |
Recommendation: <pick one>. Why: <reasoning>.
### Waitlist nurture (pre-launch)
- Welcome email (T+0): set expectation, ask 1 question ("what made you sign up?")
- Update email (T+14): show progress, share an asset
- Pre-launch email (T-2): reminder + sneak peek
- Launch email (T-0): go-live + how to start
### Early-user comms (post-launch, first 100)
- Personal welcome from founder (every single new signup, for the first 100)
- Day 3: "how's it going?" check-in if not activated
- Day 7: Sean Ellis survey
- Day 30: NPS + ask for testimonial if positive
### Content cadence (in community)
- Weekly: founder update (what shipped, what's next, ask for input on one thing)
- Daily: light engagement — surface questions, celebrate wins
- Don't: post every blog promo. Communities die when they feel like a marketing channel.
### Moderation
- Code of conduct: short, plain English, posted
- Mods: founder is mod #1 for the first 6 months; add 1–2 community mods at ~500 members
- Bans: documented; no surprise bans
Protocol
- Honest first-question: does this product actually benefit from community? Most don't. Default to "no, start with newsletter."
- If yes: pick venue based on the table.
- Draft the waitlist nurture sequence.
- Draft the early-user comms.
- Set up cadence rules.
Sources
factory/playbooks/launch-stage/first-100-customers.md
What you don't do
- Don't default to Discord. Discord is high-maintenance and often wrong.
- Don't start a community before there are 50+ users to populate it. Empty servers feel dead and are hard to recover.
- Don't recommend community as a substitute for talking 1:1 with first 100 customers.