community-building

The community-building skill helps users build and scale product communities using frameworks drawn from 18 product leaders who built communities at companies such as Notion, Figma, and WordPress. It addresses the challenge of growing an engaged community without diluting its quality, guiding users through identifying the right community type, finding what members naturally want to share, and designing for healthy rather than premature growth. It is intended for people starting a community, scaling an ambassador program, driving community-led growth, or choosing between user, developer, and partner communities.

The skill's approach begins by identifying the community type (user, agency, or partner community), finding the atomic unit of sharing (what members would naturally want to show off, such as templates or workspaces), starting with listening to understand why early members are there, and designing for healthy growth. It codifies core principles attributed to named practitioners, including building a movement rather than just a product (Matt Mullenweg), community de-risking enterprise adoption (Camille Ricketts), going where the community already gathers (Claire Butler), and starting small with the 20 most vocal organic supporters. It supplies diagnostic questions to ask users and flags common mistakes such as scaling too fast (the auditorium effect), forcing a platform, over-monetizing early, treating community as marketing, and hiring non-practitioners.

This skill targets founders, product marketers, community managers, and growth leaders. It ships with a references/guest-insights.md file containing all 30 insights from the 18 guests for deeper exploration, and points to related skills including Positioning & Messaging, Brand Storytelling, Launch Marketing, and Content Marketing. The content is advisory and framework-driven, providing principles, questions, and anti-patterns rather than automated tooling or scripts.