What does community-led growth mean to you?

A company that truly invests in and cares for the community and ecosystem they serve. There's some other varying definitions here - https://village.rosie.land/t/wha...

Communities as the main growth engine generating word of mouth.

Good question. It's the essence of social SEO. Once the people involved spread the word you don't need to push your products anymore and waste money on ads that get clicked by bots.

Most people would say that community lead growth is about turning your users into your greatest advocates, so that they are out telling everyone about how great your product is. What community lead growth means to me is rooted in how well we listen "genuinely" to our community, and take in their feedback in a way that they feel like a part of your process. Making users feel like you get them and their needs.

There's two major parts for me. One is having a product that clearly solves your community's needs, something they're vibrating with excitement about. Two is having support in place for your community growing your product. This could look like affiliate programs, discussion spaces, easily-shareable wins from the product, and a team that cares about the community at every level. (We're trying to practice this at Burb, so excited to see what others chime in with!)

For us, Community-led growth is turning our product's users into its best advocates, who go on to share their experiences using our product with their peers.

Ooo such a great question, Eithiriel! I believe there is no official definition of community-led growth just yet, just because the term only started to bloom in the 2020s. There are some multiple definitions I gathered though: - “Community-led growth implies building, cultivating and growing a community of loyal and passionate consumers.” (e.g., Michelle, 2023; Warne, 2022) - “It involves community members in every business decision and thus creates double value.” (Commsor Inc., 2022) - “Being community-led means that community is the engine, not a sidecar, of your business”, Brian Oblinger, strategic community consultant, said in an episode from In Before The Lock podcast (Kuhl and Oblinger, 2023) - In the case of Notion, “it's when your community helps you achieve such ubiquity and such name recognition that it allows you to start moving upmarket into the enterprise.” (Camille, 2022) - Or the working definition: “Community-led growth means making a company’s go-to-market strategy revolve around the community, involving its members in the decision-making process, and, as such, acknowledging that community is a source of sustainable growth” from the recent research on “Community-led Growth as a GTM catalyst: An exploratory approach.” (Camilla, 2024) The way I think best explains the Community-led Growth concept is to simply break it down into two core elements: “Community-led” and “Growth”. "Community-led" means (1) putting community as the center of your business, including shaping goals, product development, and strategies, (2) making informed decisions with input from members and (3) having buy-in across the company as people acknowledging community is a vital source of growth/growth driver. "Growth (strategy)" means an overarching strategy of sustaining business growth that highlights (1) the bottom line expansion, (2) the customer base expansion and (3) lifetime value increase, often resulting in creating an organic, self-sustaining growth cycle where community members continually contribute to acquisition, retention, advocacy, and expansion. I am curious to see other perspectives on this!