Community-First Business Models
Build an online community and get your users to help you build your product.
What is ETHSafari?
ETHSafari is an event that will be held in Kenya, bringing together people from around world to learn, hack, discuss, and celebrate our decentralized future. Safari is the Swahili word for journey.
What events will be there?
ETHSafari will feature an online hackathon, a bootcamp in Nairobi, alongside other side events in the city under the sun.We will have a train journey on the Standard Gauge Railway and the climax, a conference and festival on the Kenyan coast in Kilifi. A further breakdown of events is available above.
Who should participate?
Anyone with a passion for all things decentralization, from crypto to web3 and everything in between can participate. We bet that includes you!
How can I support to ETH Safari?
You can send ETH to our Juicebox where we use a multisig wallet to manage all funds. Check it out in the section below. Contributing to ETH Safari by buying some SAFARI means we have more opportunity to engage and support the community and as they support us
Support and gain access to event exclusives and discounts via our Juicebox fundraiser
Register and get your tickets here.
Community Firsssssst…🤔
For years, the only way to build a successful business was to sell a good or service and hope that it would attract enough customers. But now that we live in the age of social media and online communities, there's another path to success: building your audience by connecting with them on an individual level. In this article, we'll explore the idea of community-first businesses and discover how you can use this model to grow your business today!
Building the new community-first marketplace 🌐
In the next generation of e-commerce, you’ll be able to find all the things you need—and more importantly, everything you want—by connecting with other people who share your interests.
The new community-first marketplace is a network of people who are passionate about a specific topic. You can join and engage with like-minded individuals before making a purchase decision because your connection has already been established by sharing similar values and experiences.
This new way to buy and sell goods and services will transform online shopping by allowing community members to create personalized product recommendations based on their feedback on previous purchases or reviews written by others in their network.
Having a token for your community can create many benefits 🤯
“Tokenization is a concept that can be applied to many different business models and applications,” said Daniel Sternberg, co-founder of the Cryptoasset Fund Initiative and an advisor to many of the world's leading tokenized companies. “The most obvious way is to create your own cryptocurrency and use it as a means of exchange for products or services within your community. There are also other ways to tokenize communities by creating tokens for specific types of content or specific types of ownership rights."
While there are many reasons why you may want to create your own cryptocurrency (and there’s a lot more than just the financial incentives), having a token for your community can create many benefits:
Tokens make it easy for members who don’t know each other personally to transact with one another. This makes them ideal for peer-to-peer transactions on marketplaces such as OpenBazaar, which lets customers choose between meeting face-to-face at an open location or paying online via Paypal or credit card but requires all listings be priced in dollars rather than bitcoin because they need fiat currency right now if they want their designs printed out locally (and not overseas).
Creator Tokens 👨🎨
We can look at a few examples in each category to better understand the (often murky) delineations between the two. For example, here’s a sampling of creator tokens:
Mihlali could create a direct relationship with her true fans by launching 1000membership NFT passes. Holders of these NFTs unlock exclusive access to all her premium YT content, tutorials, monthly in-person meet-ups, and other special perks.
DJ PH could unveil $PH as a way to create a broader ecosystem. Holders receive early access to music, merch, and a future NFT drop, among other incentives. Owners also receive additional content, including remixes and edited tracks.
Why is creating a community so important? 🤔
But why is creating a community so important? The answer lies in the fact that community is an integral part of the product. In fact, it’s not just one part—it is many parts. Community can drive adoption, provide customer support and feedback, aid in marketing efforts and sales strategy, help with product development (i.e., user testing), and even facilitate partnerships between organizations.
How to support communities.
There are many ways to support your community. There should be a person or team who is dedicated to the community and can help with any questions or concerns. This person or team is called the Community Manager. Sometimes this role is filled by multiple people, depending on the size of your company and your budget.
The Community Manager has many responsibilities including:
Helping new users find their way around using tools like guides, FAQs and other resources
Responding to questions about how things work in your product/app (or if there's something missing)
Hosting events such as meetups and workshops
The community manager may also have some other responsibilities depending on what kind of business you're running: For example, if you're selling tickets for events it's important that people who buy tickets from you know when those will happen—and where! So maybe part of being a good customer experience manager would include having someone keep track of upcoming events so customers always know what’s coming up next month at their favorite local venue."
Examples of community-first businesses:
Producteev is a community-first business model. Producteev is a productivity app that allows users to share their workflows and schedules with each other, so they can collaborate on projects and stay on top of deadlines.
GoFundMe is also a community-first business model. GoFundMe is an online fundraising platform where people can raise money for personal causes like healthcare costs or education expenses, but it's also used as a way to fund local businesses by offering "donation" rewards in exchange for donations (like Kickstarter).
KickStarter is another example of this kind of business model; however, it's actually different from both GoFundMe and producteev in some very important ways: First off, Kickstarter doesn't just focus on raising funds -- it has other functions too like crowdfunding (where creators create products with the help of backers who pledge money in exchange for rewards). Secondly though most importantly: Kickstarter isn't just about getting money out there from regular people - it’s also about bringing down barriers between creators/developers/artists/etc., making them more accessible than ever before."
Real-life use cases 💰
Community-first businesses are not limited to cryptocurrency. There are many companies that have adopted the community-first model, such as Airbnb and Uber.
In traditional business models, the company owns all of its assets and then sells products or services based on those assets. For example, if you own a coffee shop chain, you will likely hire employees to make and sell coffee in your stores while you keep all of the profits for yourself. With community-first business models, this is reversed: the people who use your product often have more say over how it’s produced than you do!
Community-first platforms operate differently from traditional ones because they allow users to interact with each other directly without using middlemen like Uber or Airbnb (see image). In addition to sharing information about their experiences with each other through these platforms’ forums or messaging systems (e.g., Facebook groups), users can also offer suggestions for improving these platforms together as one big family rather than relying solely on third parties for feedback about their needs (e.g., customer service).
At its core, the idea behind a community-first business model is simple. Build an online community and get your users to help you build your product.
At its core, the idea behind a community-first business model is simple. Build an online community and get your users to help you build your product.
From there, the community helps you grow your business by providing feedback on new features and enhancements or even building them for you (this is where open source software comes in). It also helps market your product by promoting it within its own ranks and beyond—a benefit that's particularly true for open-source projects like Linux. Finally, when it's time to sell, having a loyal following of fans who already know and love what you're selling makes it much easier to close sales than if you were selling something unknown or blandly branded as "generic."
Elevation way! 🚀
In conclusion, we think it’s important to remember that this isn’t just a trend. It’s a shift in how people work and interact with each other online. The world is moving towards more openness, transparency, and collaboration than ever before — and that means the future of business is changing too.
I hope this newsletter makes you a little smarter heading into the new week. It’s very much a work-in-progress — please send feedback and help me out by submitting the things you come across that make you smarter here.
Thanks for reading
Wisani