Community is important

Why are so many crypto companies community-obsessed?

Crypto is known for being fast-paced and constantly changing, with new technologies and trends emerging frequently. Building and maintaining a strong community can provide a significant advantage for crypto projects building for the long haul. What began largely as a social media support function has become a crucial part of many companies’ sales processes and customer retention strategies. At the intersection of Customer Success and social media, companies realized their users weren’t just talking to their representatives, but also to each other, learning to use their products better and leverage them in new ways.

Community fosters innovation. Crypto is already on the bleeding edge, and a healthy community can provide a platform for exchanging ideas, collaborating on feature development, and sharing research. Most communities are made of various stakeholders including team members, users, partners, researchers, and developers. When a community is healthy, it’s a place where these different stakeholders can share ideas and find new, innovative solutions (sometimes).

Projects that have strong communities can use those relationships to inform building new features or improve existing products in line with what their users want.

At the end of the day, your community provides the best feedback. Crypto projects need to be constantly iterating to stay ahead of the curve of their competitors. By building a healthy community, you can get invaluable feedback from your users and stakeholders which can help you understand their needs better. This leads to developing better products, addressing user concerns, and improving their overall experience.

Building and supporting a healthy community can help projects provide a platform for their users to network, share knowledge, and learn from each other. A diverse set of viewpoints from community members with broadly alilgned interests but niche specialties can help a project stay on top of industry trends.

Community helps build loyalty. Crypto is a crowded industry - CoinGecko tracks over twelve thousand different coins. A healthy community helps people build confidence in the tools they use and projects they support. When a project engages with its community and listens to their needs, it creates a sense of validation. This means users are more likely to support the project’s products and be an advocate to others in the industry. Just like for traditional businesses, brand loyalty can help a crypto project build a sustainable user base, the network effect of which turns into a competitive advantage in the market.

An underrated aspect of loyal communities are their potential as recruiting pools. A healthy community can help a project create a positive culture and environment around its products that attracts the smartest people in the industry. When a project has a strong community, it can provide team members with a sense of purpose or pride. This can lead to higher employee engagement, job satisfaction, and productivity. When team members and users feel like a project considers them a priority, they’re more likely to stay with the project despite market volatility.

Community is essential for crypto projects. By building and supporting a healthy community, projects can create easier onboarding for new users, foster innovation, build brand loyalty, receive valuable feedback, attract talent, and stay up-to-date with industry trends.

As the crypto industry matures and works through its growing pains, projects that invest in building a strong community can gain a significant advantage over their competitors.