#AskPS
Product Development
Challenges of building a community based platform!
Sayon Mondal .

Hello Pushstarters!
It is really inspiring to see how Neeraj and the entire Pushstart team has created a "Trust Secured Bubble" for the entrepreneurs and given them a platform to showcase their work & collaborate for mutual growth, at the same time creating a profitable business out of a once stared bootstrapped initiative 3 years back.
Would love to know about the challenges of creating a community based business and example of both successful and failed stories of other community based businesses.

Originally Posted Here
10 Comments

Neeraj Joshi

Rarely koi successful hua hai, one of the biggest success stories is of CommonFloor.
Ccing Vikas Malpani and Giri Malpani


Apart from that, in India specifically Paras Pundir would know

Sharechat is another example

Giri Malpani

Whether we realize it or not, as a leader (particularly community builder), all eyes are on us as the people within our circle of influence want to know what we stand for, and what are we proactively doing for the benefit of their cause and society at large.

What I'm passionate about these days is transparency. How could we build a community that allows hard questions and honest conversations so we can stir up transformation in one another ? At large democratcize discussions..

@Leher app - is doing a fabulous work and I'm hosting a 6pm show daily around honest and candid conversations.

Paras and Neeraj - would love to have you in one of my next show to share insights on your personal challenges in building the community.
I'm a big fan of both of your work and it does truly inspire a lot of people.

I fortunately have a chance to watch the entire journey of PS right from its baby steps and I'm sure there is lot more to come.

Amit Baliga

Asha Chaudhry co-founded www.therodinhoods.com and was pretty successful IMO!

Neeraj Joshi

depends how you define success?

it was a side gig imho and they could never directly
Monetise via this

Amit Baliga

Having seen them initially way back in 2012 and onwards, I would call them very, very successful! And success will be different for different people - you, me, others! For some it would be money, for some it would be what have they given to others, for some the beautiful relationships developed. What I have seen first-hand is, Rodinhoods was among the first community driven true enabler in India, both offline and online, much before many of us even imagined that such a force could exist, much before it was 'easy' for ideas to get validated, much before VC funding 'was made easy'. Dozens of experienced folks, even at PS here, would have had first hand experience of Rodinhoods and how it nurtured them, gave a launchpad, a platform when none existed and was a kind of true incubator! And I don't think monetization was their North Star ever! It was more to enable folks. Remember - this was way before FB/WhatsApp groups were popular! And I don't know why you would call it a side-gig - the commitment from the founders was as much as you or me would put in if we did a full-time stuff!

Asha Chaudhry

Amit Baliga thanks for the kind mention. a) so success depends on the purpose and objectives that one has set for the community. ours was never money. ours was to enable others which did very successfully - we have thousands of case studies as there was no online community for entrepreneurs way back in 2010 when therodinhoods was founded as a free & pro-bono community. rodinhooders have built life long relationships through the community. they will tell you how they benefitted. b) brand engagements came our way - we just decided we didn't want to go up that road. c) 5 whole years of my life was not a side gig. community building done properly can never be a side gig. peace out!

Paras Pundir

I'm not sure today is the right time to answer this question with respect to Indian ecosystem. Community as a buzzword has came out only last year, before that not many were really interest in the depth of it.
Now, building a brand community and reaping benefits out of it is a really long term process. You can't compare it to any other business strategy.
Also, in our ecosystem, businesses are exploring marketing & branding perspective of communities wherein outside India, a lot of brands have invested in user support communities which directly impact the revenue as it narrows down your support team costs and saves money directly as your support community becomes the support team of the organization.
There definitely are bigger challenges here as it requires continuous resources & efforts. And who actually cared for the brand trust value in such a bullish market of India which is the major benefit of building a community.
There are companies who are investing in it, small or big, they have got teams to manage & organise community gatherings but then measurement is the issue. We are in the early stage of Community Management in our country and like I said, this is not the right time. It has started the grow now. Let's wait for few years to see successful examples getting created in our ecosystem until then let's trust communities & build them🙂

Sayon Mondal

thanks a lot for such detailed enlightenment. Any successful examples to look forward to in the global scenario where it's comparatively more matured industry?

Aditya Raja

Bubble becomes an ocean when amass many bubbles. Never felt this is a bubble. You want X, you have PSer. You want Y domain connect, you have a PSer. Am I wrong saaar Neeraj Joshi

Harshay Buradkar

Aditya Raja it’s a drop not a bubble. Calling something a bubble is condescending so I am sure even the OP wanted to call it something else. I hope.

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