How to Drive Business Growth By Fostering Your Community

Referral is one of the primary currencies of communities. It’s a deeper level of advocacy in which members are so bought into your community and product that they’re willing to put their own reputation on the line and refer it to others. 

Communities can impact product in other ways beyond raising issues or suggesting features, too. Managing an active open source community is a great way to have users directly contribute to product growth. 

Your most prolific users are likely the best source of product feedback. They want your product to work better for them and in turn, they’re willing to help shape its future. This is an opportunity to get high-quality feedback and ideation from the people that know and love your product most.

SaaS success is predicated on long-term user retention, and a vibrant community can help ensure users receive long-term value. Users who’ve gotten to the point of retention are some of your company’s best spokespeople. These folks likely have a deeper sense of connection to the product and may even have some novel ideas on how to better apply its f... See more

Support forums can also be instrumental for helping users get their product questions answered, so they can get up to speed and discover value sooner. With community members volunteering knowledge and answers, there’s less overhead on the company.

A community provides a place for users to share their insights and fascination with others, often leading to more sign-ups and active users. 

In a GTC context, a company’s community should drive positive word of mouth (online or in-person) or create popular content that drives awareness.

Ideally, this value creation drives community growth and, as we’ll see below, value capture for the business will occur as a second-order effect of that growth. 

Not unlike the first stages of product development, the early phases of building community are highly collaborative, require iteration, and involve some upfront, hands-on work. With community, you have to prepare to be in the trenches with folks – learning about people and their interests, answering questions, and seeing where there’s a fit between... See more