If you are building a community, what's one lesson you learned the hard way?

1. That it takes time. More than you think. Every follower, every member is hard earned despite what the exceptional stories of virality may lead you to believe. 2. If you're building a social/community based product - create products that are not wholly community dependent. Sounds counter-intuitive, but apart from the Big Social Media, people come for the utility and stay for the community. The latter rarely comes without the former. Example: we offer utilities very specific to movies and shows such as recommendation games, making movies/show lists etc. 3. That you will not be able to please all members of your community no matter how much you want to. Know who you're building for and focus on them.

Putting lots of people within one slack, discord, or WhatsApp group doesn't turn them into a community. It requires careful planning, events, participation from the members, and a common goal among the community members.

Listen. If you have a great product that addresses a problem, the community probably exists elsewhere. Don't get lost in inventing. Go for the most natural way to centralize it. It's about how they want it, not how you've imagined it. Value comes first, your product/service is three ladders down. Put yourself into their shoes - what would you like to read and discuss? Raise meaningful questions that empower or solve challenges, ask for feedback, praise innovation. And ideally, start with a plan flexible to adapt over time.

That it's about 3 things no matter what: 1. Giving massive value. We give everything to the underrepresented tech job-seekers on our TalentList to help them land more valuable jobs. The massive value via our interview/resume/imposter syndrome workshops and Hiring Mixers inspires them to start showing up in our Slack community, sharing resources, and connecting others to opportunities. 2. Being Real. We skip being fake and get right to being real, because nothing is more boring than a stiff company trying to drum up conversation. It doesn't come across as authentic. 3. Being Consistent (and being dedicated to the long haul). If you don't have a grand vision for what you're building with your community, you'll run out of steam when it's in the early stages. To really grow, you have to be consistent and share the vision. At LessonsUp, we're growing a two-sided community of underrepresented tech-talent that we connect with SMB/Startup Leaders and Founders who know that hiring a diverse team leads to the innovation that helps companies grow and scale. After all, hiring a team with the same pedigrees and background = the same ideas and problem-solving skillset. Mixing it up with diverse skillsets and experience brings a flood of innovation and perspective. Good luck to everyone growing a community! If you're job-seeking in tech or looking to connect with tech talent to help you grow your company, connect with us! :-)

I think the most important lesson for me is that it is necessary to be patient and consistent. But building a community is definitely pays off in a long-term perspective.

Be patient and don't compare your community to others It is always tempting to compare your community to others in the same field. You shouldn't do this, as it only distracts. After all, you don't want to build exactly the same community as your competitors, you need to offer people something unique. Keeping an eye on other communities and keeping up with them is certainly helpful. But don't copy them. You shouldn't worry about them; it's better to concentrate on what you're creating. Forget about the number of participants in your community - that number doesn't reflect how strong and successful the community is.

Once you've created promotions and other marketing materials for your community, you need to make sure you're getting the right level of engagement. You need to make sure that your players are interested in what you offer. The worst thing you can do here is to ignore the engagement . Just because you think promotion might be a good idea doesn't mean it will work in practice. You have to make sure you're creating content that your subscribers want to interact with. An aloof community won't produce the results you want. To be able to get conversions, clicks and other important metrics, you need to make sure that you are developing your community correctly.

It's about building conversations and relationships with others. Its not always about you. So, participate in conversations as an equal, and don't just take the center stage and insist on being the conductor. That'll come naturally as you gain clout.

Major shoutout to everyone who contributed on this thread! We're just getting started and y'all have all been incredibly helpful

The time commitment behind consistently creating content that is valuable to your community so that they are engaged and keep coming back to you.