BYOC: Build Your Own Community

Welcome to the Community Coach newsletter, a value packed read
for community builders who agree with Sam Altman that AI will be the reason people crave human connection within 5-10 years (full video and my thoughts at the end of this newsletter).

In this ceiling to the floor newsletter…

📚 Community 101: How communities emerge (feat. David Spinks)

🤖 Build Your Own Community website + app with this all-in-one platform you can white label: Honeycommb

🎱 Using AI to find insights in voice notes: Vocal AI

🔥 Inspiring community builder: The new era of community branding (vs. personal branding): Raw Dawg Run Club

👋 No question this week: just Sam Altman’s video that should help you feel even more important as a community builder in the future 🙂 

Community 101: How communities emerge

There are quite a few people in the community industry that I look up to - and David Spinks is one of them.

David has recently published an “unfolding thesis” on how communities emerge, and it has some great insights that all community builders should read.

One of my favourite parts (that I’ve always thought about but appreciated the concise accuracy):

Full article link below, but if you need a quick summary:

Emergence Defined: Emergence is a natural phenomenon where simple elements form complex systems without central direction, likening it to how human communities form organically through interactions like schools of fish or flocks of birds.

Human Urge to Connect: This is driven by evolutionary advantages - think strength in numbers. Human survival instincts passed on through time.

Lifecycle of Communities: established communities “often starts with a humble beginning, and complexity emerges over time”.

Human communities are different from ant colonies (phew!): We have leaders who set rules and rely on complex, conscious interactions, allowing for varied community structures.

Expect the unexpected: Some communities start with a lot of intentional structure, but what emerges within that structure is never totally in their control.

Community all-in-one platform
Honeycommb

Honeycommb is a platform designed to support “indie social networks” and is a turn-key solution that comes with everything you need to gather, engage and earn revenue from your community.

Here are some features:

• White labelled web & mobile app: you can build your own social network platform with your own white labelled website and app (note: white label option is extra $$$)

• Engagement tools: Create content, groups & chats, custom mobile notifications, host community events (free and premium) - for in person, online & livestreams

• Customizations: Honeycommb offers numerous, easy to apply customizations through the Control Center that allows you to create an experience that’s right for the community.
  

• Integrations & automations: connect your course content/ learning management systems (integrates with Teachable for example), e-commerce (e.g. Shopify), CMS; webhooks + Zapier means endless automations!
  

• You have control over your community: You own your content and data. You can write and adjust your Terms of Use and Privacy Policy to govern how YOU use the content and data generated in your network. A separate Control Center app gives you control over every aspect of your community.

  learn more

• Monetize via Membership Subscriptions: built-in membership subscription system so you can create membership tiers with premium content, additional features, groups, and premium events.

Pricing

Based on number of members and app features. You pay a monthly subscription.

1-100 members: $25 USD/month
101-1000 members: $90/month
1k-5k members: $300/month
5k-10k members: $500/month

Additional white label cost: $150/month
Paid subscription: 5% transaction fee
Dedicated mobile app: $300/mth + $1500 setup fee (waived if paying yearly instead of monthly)

Is it worth it?

I can imagine some community builders thinking this pricing can become pretty expensive very quickly.

It really depends on how you are monetizing this community and what is important to you. Some builders will prioritise owning their own content and data for example.

Doing some quick math, say you have 500 members in your community, want your community white labelled with a dedicated mobile app and charge 200 members $20/month for premium membership. Here’s a quick financial breakdown:

Revenue:
$48,000/year (200 members @ $20/month)

Cost:
$2400/yr for paid membership transaction fees
$1080/yr for 500 members +
$1800/yr for white label +
$3600/yr mobile app =
$8880/year total cost (or $10380 if you pay monthly and pay the app setup fee)

Profit:
$39,120/year (or $37,620 if you paid the app setup fee)

It looks like total cost of using this platform would be around 18-21% of your revenue in this example. (And if my back of a napkin math ain’t mathing please let me know!). Hopefully it gives you a rough guide.

Further details on the platform:

Voice collaboration tool:
Vocol AI

I am constantly thinking of ways that AI can empower community builders and improve the member experience.

One recent thought I had was the increased popularity in people leaving voice notes to each other to share their thoughts.

It’s quicker than typing for a lot of people and it feels like having a “natural” conversation and sharing thoughts by vocalising them.

There have been a few platforms years ago that had got audio sharing really popular and then just disappeared (Clubhouse where you at?! And anyone else remember Racket?!) but it got me thinking:

1. Why is sharing voice notes not that popular in communities if we love sharing voice notes in DM’s?
   
   Perhaps it’s just difficult for community members to listen to a bunch of voice notes vs. reading quick real time chat messages?
   

2. For communities that do share voice notes (such as Whatsapp and Telegram groups) - are we doing enough as community managers to track the insights from these notes?
   
   It’s difficult for community managers to keep up with listening to all these voice notes and find key insights that can practically be used to improve the member experience.

Then I realised that AI could step in and create an even better experience for members. AI can:

• create transcripts of voice notes/recordings

• summarise key messaging of these voice notes/recordings

• organise voice notes/ recordings by theme

• provide useful insights as it can crawl all notes to find common threads and popular themes

Communities libraries are popular - so why not include voice notes in them, organised beautifully and with summaries/insights includes?

I went to work and did research to find a tool that could help execute this idea, and I have figured out a solution for combining voice notes with a tool called Vocol AI.

The use cases on Vocol AI’s website focus more on team collaboration, calls, meetings, podcast interviews etc - but it made me think that Vocol AI could also be used to create a voice recording notes library with summaries and reports for communities.

Here’s how it would work:

1) Save all your voice notes in a folder. You can automate this using tools like Zapier and Make. For example, if you have a telegram community that uses voice notes, you can create an automation to save all voice notes created in a Telegram group. This thread mentions the process in more detail. Note: understanding how to create automations is key here.

2) Upload all of these voice notes to Vocol AI.

3) Create highlights and organise these notes - thanks to AI.

Another bonus by using AI is as a community manager you can find additional useful insights such as popular topics and keywords discussed via voice notes.

Especially useful for larger communities where community manages don’t have the time to listen to everyone’s voice notes and recordings - AI can do the heavy lifting here.

The one downside with Vocol is their pricing. This tool has a bit of a complicated pricing structure where you are awarded credits that can then be used to convert recordings into insights (higher credits required for longer recordings).

If you truly want to create the ultimate “voice note community library” powered by AI (what started me down this rabbit hole in the first place!) it seems that you would need to contact Vocol to understand how the number of users accessing the library would impact credits.

In the meantime it still would work very well as a tool for community managers to receive better insights into their community voice notes. Another alternative platform would be Speak AI (mentioned in one of my first newsletters!).

Inspiring community builders
Raw Dawg Run Club

I was watching Brett Fully’s video about the community “Raw Dawg Run Club” on TikTok (full video included at the end) and he mentions how the era of personal branding is dead and that we are entering a new era of community branding in 2024.

Here is the summary of Brett’s full video, along with some of my additional notes to take away for your own community:

1. Raw Dawg Run Club built a physical community in Austin, Texas. The founders are a diverse group of creators who actively build that community in person
   

2. The creators work together to build something much bigger than their own personal brands - they are building Raw Dawg Run Club together - creating “sub-communities” within the run club as runners start to identify with specific creators.
   
   These creators are “community ambassadors” and real “influencers” combined
   

3. The content they distribute is documentation for their viewers to be taken on a journey of what it’s like to be a part of the club and behind the scenes of building it

Key learnings to apply to your own community

• Think about community ambassadors: do you have any (or are you the ambassador?), how can you empower them so they can grow the community and help your members feel they “belong” by identifying with them

• Documenting building your community from behind the scenes is a power move - include the good, the bad and the ugly. This makes for compelling content as you’re lifting the curtain for members and showing them all the effort you put behind the scenes.

• Google rankings - interesting insight: if you do a google search for “Raw Dawg Run Club”, the top results shown are all social media mentions: 1) Reddit 2) Instagram 3) Tiktok followed by Youtube, Strava, more IG and Tiktoks and finally at 18) their website. Is this the sign of an incredible community when their top google searches are actually people and members uploading content about them?

• Potential downsides for their community (that they need to be aware of): there are rants on Reddit about some of their run groups “hogging trails” and ruining it for the rest of people because of their huge social media presence and membership. This is a classic case of where communities that become too large become difficult to manage at scale.

@brettfully

Raw Dawg Run Club is one of the best cases I’ve seen for growing a brand by community which leads to world building.

Sam Altman thinks human to human connection will have a premium in the world of AI

Watch from 16:42: AI's Role in Shaping Future Jobs and Experiences

I’m a big fan of Sam Altman and was thrilled with this interview - especially his comments on human-to-human experiences and connections becoming even more important in the future.

In a world where AI tools can feel like a threat to “replace” community managers, this interview highlights a more optimistic world where AI could instead helps community managers do what they do best (and will be deemed increasingly important in a world of AI): connecting humans with each other.

No questions this week! Got one for me? DM me on Twitter or reply to this email and ask away. Your question may be answered in a future newsletter (and I’ll reply to everyone who asks).

Until next time,

Carmen
Community Coach

Connect with me on Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn.