For certain startup founders who are wired to be generously helpful, creating an active community of peers can be a powerful way to fuel customer growth with loyal fans.

But thriving communities are not about selling your software product at first. That’s the challenge.

You have to contribute a lot of value before you earn the right to sell something. And hard sales pitches can spoil the party.

My friend Lloyed Lobo is a fanatic community builder who grew the Traction community from a packed conference room in Silicon Valley to a global startup community with over 100,000 members.

He reminded me that a community is different than an audience.

I have a large audience who follow my LinkedIn posts, listen to my podcast, and comment too.

My larger audience is not a community.

A community is a gathering of like-minded people that connect with each other. The value is in the peer relationships.

Lloyed just published an awesome book called “Grassroots to Greatness” that shares 13 ways iconic brands were built with community-led growth at the core of their company DNA.

If you have a community or are considering building one, I recommend this book for you to apply the time-tested principles.

Check out Lloyed’s new “Grassroots to Greatness” book here:

My Practical Founders Peer Groups are small communities of SaaS CEOs meeting monthly. The value comes from sharing their challenges with the group and helping their peer founders.

I invited some SaaS founder friends in Dallas to meet for lunch today. No selling, no service providers. Just SaaS founders connecting with and helping each other. Thirty-five founders will be there today.

Most companies are not willing to invest to generously connect people for long enough for a loyal tribe to develop.

But if you’re wired this way, and so are your potential customers, it can make all the difference.

Listen to this interview on the Practical Founders Podcast.

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