How to Build a Community: Starting with “Why?”

Maybe a bit of an aside, but community is such a weird word these days. It can represent a group of people who mostly only interact with each other (a remote mountain community) or a group of people that just have one thing in common (a data tool forum, the investment banking community).<p>These things are different and I think it matters. You say “members of a community” and it’s easy to imagine people who live within a half-day walk of the same river. But it’s not that at all, anymore. You used to be a member of <i>a</i> community. Now you can be in as many as you want.<p>There’s a trade off for that. Are the people on the forums I frequent going to show up at my wedding, my funeral? Will I watch their kids while they take care of their sick parents? No, none of that.<p>We’ve sliced ourselves so thin. There are benefits and costs to that. Any niche interest I have, I can find 100 people to talk about it with. I don’t have to worry if my neighbor is into it. I don’t have to worry about him at all.

I sometimes wonder about the “why?” for HN. It’s probably some mix of “because it’s interesting to the YC principals and participants”, “because it’s good inbound marketing (generally and specifically) for YC itself”, “it’s good marketing spot for YC companies to launch and hire”, and a sliver of “because it means arc gets used in prod somewhere”.<p>I wonder the original mix and how it’s shifted over time.

I&#x27;ve struggled with finding the &quot;why&quot; for the things that I&#x27;m doing, as my hyper-rationalizing brain often comes up with thousands of whys and I get stuck in not knowing which one why to choose.<p>&gt; But if these are the primary motivators for why you’re building a community, I’m skeptical that you’ll succeed. These reasons put the benefit of the company ahead of the community member, and I’m pretty sure that any of our community members would see right through these motivations.<p>What I read in the quote from the article above is that it may be less about <i>why</i> one is building a community and more about <i>for whom</i> one is doing it. I&#x27;ve generally found for myself that this question motivates me more: &quot;For whom am I doing this?&quot;<p>Just seems that the why answers are rationalizations that we often give after doing something, whereas for-whom answers may motivate us to do something before we have done it.<p>I don&#x27;t know though, I&#x27;m curious to hear your experiences.

I like this essay and it sounds like a good development model for certain companies and organizations. However, all my favorite communities were initially existed because “what” or “who” that can be summed up in one word (“Paul Graham” in this forum’s case.) That what or who is not only shorthand for a rallying collection of ideas, goals and preferences. It gives the community something to regularly do or react to together. As the communities grow, they start to become defined by themselves, i.e. by the value of the network and association with the accomplishments of many community members. At a point, asking “why” becomes a useful way to delineate and communicate the accidental collection of principles from the original who&#x2F;what.

The assumption that community building is an unalloyed good pervades tech, especially FOSS. I never see any analysis that concludes &quot;building a community takes lots of work, requires skill sets that not everyone possesses in equal measure, and often can&#x27;t justify the ROI&quot;.<p>I&#x27;d like to see an article on why you should <i>not</i> build a community.

These corporate mission statements make me gag. It sounds like you came up with a money making idea and then reverse engineered a mission statement from that so that employees who need a sense of purpose can pretend they have one.

This reminds me of the Simon Sinek classic &quot;Start With Why.&quot; He leans on the example of Apple a bit too much, but otherwise it&#x27;s a book that gets your attention and makes you wonder why something so simple can be missed by so many.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;simonsinek.com&#x2F;product&#x2F;start-with-why&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;simonsinek.com&#x2F;product&#x2F;start-with-why&#x2F;</a><p>TED Talk as well, tho&#x27; I don&#x27;t think it does the book justice.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA</a>

It is important to start with the &#x27;why&#x27; because often managing around the community becomes a thankless endeavour. It helps persevere till the point when it becomes self-sustaining or additional hands are available.<p>“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”<p>― Friedrich Nietzsche

I searched the post for &quot;video&quot; and &quot;stream&quot;. Zero.<p>How can one build a community without video and livestreaming in 2021? Not that I like it but even hard-core tech communities, eg in the embedded space, have some video exposure. Or big discords have often some video&#x2F;streaming outlet.