Phase 1: The Desert

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. — Laozi

Phase 1 of any community is best defined as wandering in the desert. The “community” has three or fewer members. It could also just be you, an idea that isn’t fully fleshed out yet, and a lot of confusion.

Setting the Stage

At this stage, the best thing to do is establish key operating behaviors and mental frames of mind that will help you recruit the first believers to your mission.

Creating a space

All interactions create a space. The nuances and details of the interaction set the atmosphere of this space. Let’s take an example from our daily lives.

The space created when a group of friends gets together is very different from the one created when they meet individually. This is because their interactions have vastly different details and nuances despite inhabiting the shared space (as group members).

When the details and nuances of interaction are consistent, the space has a constant atmosphere that fosters bonding. When these are inconsistent, we see the breakdown of a group into several sub-groups where interactions are consistent.

Being objective and intentional in your interactions increases the chance of maintaining a consistent atmosphere. This has a positive effect that compounds over time.

Building a narrative

Communities exist because they fill a void that members can’t fill themselves. This could be doing something ambitious, feeling seen and heard, exploring interests further, or anything else.

Ambitious goals require teams of people to achieve them. Feeling seen and heard requires attentive ears and a safe space. Exploring interests requires exposure to experts and beginners alike, which unlocks new perspectives and a deeper understanding. All of this is only possible in communities, never alone.

A straightforward narrative easily conveys the value members can expect to get from the community. It also does a great job of setting the right expectations and separating people who are casually interested from those that are genuinely interested.

Approaching work

The best way to think about growing a community is to think about raising children. Everything you teach them needs to be constantly updated and reinforced. Simply saying something once isn’t enough. You must make an effort every day to emphasize your values until they get embedded in the “space,” and you must prepare and address the needs of today.

So you must be intentional in your approach to working for your community. Since there is a high chance that all interactions (or most of them) are online and exist solely in digital communication channels, it is imperative to maintain objectivity and clarity in your communications.

Time to Perform!

Activity 1: How do you show up to yourself?

ℹ️ Creating spaces

Remember, the point of a space is to create an atmosphere conducive to operating in and growing your community. This means it starts at the individual level, with you.

How you show up to yourself and your various roles is how you show up to your community. Observing yourself as a group and noticing the various interactions is quite revealing. One way to immediately become aware of this is to be conscious when reasoning. When thinking through things, we often give conflicting parts of our minds distinct personalities. For example, you have probably used some version of the following: “this part of me wants X, but this part of me wants Y. Given this, I must look also consider…”

Write down the various parts that make “you.”
- These could be the roles you play (a friend, a parent, a teacher, etc.)
- Or your various motivations and desires (I want to read this book, but I also want to go out with my friends).
Notice the interactions between these various parts.
- Are you combative or collaborative? (for example, do you often resolve conflicting desires with harsh words like “No, we will not do this!” or in some other way?)
- When you favor a certain part, is it out of domination or a place of understanding? (for example, the teacher in you wants to reprimand the disruptive student, but the friend in you wants to laugh at what they said.)
If there are others in your community now, get everyone to do this exercise individually and share the results with each. It will not only deepen your understanding of each other, but it will also help in communicating better.

Activity 2: What are you getting people excited about?

ℹ️ Building narratives

A strong narrative is like insurance. Dire times reveal its actual value. A good narrative keeps community members intrinsically motivated and attracts new members simultaneously.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Ideally, you want your community to grow because there is something you cannot do alone. What is this? Create a one-line summary that explicitly states your goals and motivations.
- “I want to be surrounded by people that share my niche interest of X.”
- Now imagine for a minute that you successfully gathered this kind of people. What type of work will you do together? What will that lead to?
  - “A group of people that share this interest will get together, and A, B, and C activities will have P, Q, and R effects on the world.
- The effect you will have on the world becomes your narrative.
  - If I am surrounded by people who share my niche interest in Pokemon, we shall participate in and conduct events, fund relevant projects, and contribute to the franchise by creating content. This will introduce a broader audience to our interest and provide them community and entertainment.
- The above, distilled into your narrative, becomes — we are expanding the Pokemon fandom around the world.
- Remember, the best narratives evolve with community participation. As your community grows, it will collectively decide to focus on something slightly different or even completely different. So while you must think, spend only a little time here.

Activity 3: Spread the word.

Now that you have clarity create a content strategy around your narrative and post on Twitter, Lens, and Farcaster.

Activity 4: How do you participate in your community?

ℹ️ Working smart

Setting a healthy, intentional approach to working goes a very, very long way. It is tempting to “just get it done” when it’s just you or you and a couple of others. But not spending time on this is like extending a line of credit which will be due once your community grows. Having said that, it’s the early stages, so clarity and brevity are essential. Making a laundry list of rituals, values, and processes will backfire and dilute your existing motivation. It is ideal to stick to a few — think hard about what you care about — and be open to changing or adding to these as your community grows.

Discover the core value(s) of your community.
- Everyone and every group have some set of values that they never compromise on. These could be explicit or implicit. Try to notice the patterns in yourself and those around you.
  - Do you try to finish things as soon as you can? Are you over-communicative in your interactions? Do you try to be thorough in everything you do? Do you tolerate ambiguity well?
- It is easier to notice the patterns in others than in yourself. If it’s just you right now, ask your friends and families about ways to describe you.
Consciously set rituals.
- Rituals bring a sense of stability to a community. Good rituals make members feel heard and indirectly direct member behavior.
- Ideally, you should have an initiation ritual and a connection ritual.
- Initiation rituals define how you welcome new members to your community. Ideally, this should be a two-way interaction. For example, new members must collect a Mirror post and collectively introduce themselves to the group. On the other side, all members must try to reach out to the new member individually.
- The best initiation rituals are memorable. For example, you could have all your existing members change their Twitter profile picture to the new member’s for a week. Who said it couldn’t be fun?
- They foster a certain bond among community members outside of the context of “work.”
Good connection rituals manage the expectations of members. This could be a weekly call where members take turns sharing what’s on their minds —
- Did anything unexpected happen in your interactions this week?
- is there something insignificant that is bothering you? The way someone replied, or something they did that is trivial but made you make a note of it.
- Was participating in this community this week an exciting challenge or a daunting task?

Activity 5: Create your manifesto.

Your community narrative and your values make up your manifesto. If you have done the above exercises diligently, preparing this won’t take long.
Next, create a collectible Mirror post of this manifesto (ideally free) and personally send it to all your existing Twitter followers.

Common Roadblocks

For the love of the immortal snail

Communities, in the beginning, are ideas, and ideas die a slow death. Keeping your community alive requires consistent effort to keep the vision alive. This is harder than it seems.

When there are just one, two, or three people, everyone’s behaviors and outlook have an outsize impact on the team’s motivation. The good days are excellent, and the bad days are terrible. So all challenges in this stage pertain to maintaining motivation.

The only way to navigate this phase thus is to uphold your values rigorously and religiously partake in rituals. This will ground you and help you maintain a baseline level of motivation to keep the idea alive.

Take an iterative approach to everything and focus on “done good enough” instead of “done perfectly.” Iterations feel good and keep the morale high. Think of it like taking the stairs vs. jumping directly. The latter is no doubt faster and sometimes more fun, but it might break your legs and is not a strategy for the long run.

Conclusion

By now, you should have set the stage to spread your mission and recruit early believers. You have a clear idea of what you are doing and a sustainable, healthy way of working and growing your community. You also have a tiny presence on social media (like Twitter, Farcaster, and Lens) and a manifesto that introduces the world to your community.

Hopefully, the bedrock of your community strengthens over time, and you chip off at work, one day at a time, one task at a time. Eventually, there comes a point when your team starts growing. You slowly double in size and reach a team of five or six people. Things change — some for the better, some for the worse — and you must keep up. Let’s learn how.