Most of what you've read about why most founders get community building wrong is wrong. I know because I believed it too, and it cost me.
After burning through \$88,000 in ad spend with zero results, I discovered this counterintuitive strategy that led to 6x growth in just 9 months. Here's the full story and how you can replicate it.
The Counterintuitive Truth
Here's what surprised me most about why most founders get community building wrong: the best practitioners do less, not more.
When I was building MovieLaLa, we tried to do everything at once. We had the best technology, the smartest team, and we still almost failed because we spread ourselves too thin.
The lesson I took from that experience, and from watching hundreds of other companies, is that the market doesn't care about your roadmap. It sounds simple. It's incredibly hard to execute.
Why Most Approaches Fail
Let me be direct: about 70% of the approaches I see to why most founders get community building wrong are fundamentally flawed. Not slightly off. Fundamentally flawed.
The root cause is usually one of three things:
- Copying what big companies do without understanding why they do it. What works for Google doesn't work for a 10-person startup.
- Over-engineering the solution when a simple approach would work better. I've seen teams spend six months building something that could have been done in two weeks.
- Ignoring the human element. Technology is the easy part. Getting people to actually use it is where the real challenge lives.
The Reality Nobody Talks About
Most people approach why most founders get community building wrong with assumptions that made sense five years ago. The world has moved on. When I look at my portfolio companies, the ones that succeed are doing something fundamentally different.
The first thing to understand is that timing is everything in this game. I've seen this play out across dozens of companies. The pattern is unmistakable.
At RemoteTeam, we learned this the hard way. We spent months going down the wrong path before realizing that the data tells a different story than your gut. Once we made the switch, everything changed.
Real Talk: What Actually Matters
I'm going to cut through the noise and tell you what actually matters when it comes to why most founders get community building wrong.
First, execution speed beats perfection. Every time. I've never seen a company fail because they moved too fast on why most founders get community building wrong. I've seen plenty fail because they moved too slow.
Second, measure everything. If you can't measure it, you can't improve it. Set up tracking from day one, even if it's basic.
Third, talk to your users. This sounds obvious but you'd be amazed how many founders build their why most founders get community building wrong strategy in a vacuum. Get out of the building. Talk to real people.
This connects to broader themes around community-led growth, retention strategies, content marketing, SEO for startups, viral loops that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
Final Thoughts
After two exits, 200+ investments, and more mistakes than I can count, here's what I know for sure about why most founders get community building wrong: there are no shortcuts, but there are smarter paths.
The smartest founders I work with treat why most founders get community building wrong as a competitive advantage, not a checkbox. They invest in it early, measure it obsessively, and never stop improving.
If you're just getting started with why most founders get community building wrong, don't be intimidated. Everyone starts somewhere. The key is to start with the right mindset and the right framework, and then execute like your company depends on it. Because it probably does.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I apply this thinking to my own situation?
Start by identifying the core principle behind the opinion, not the specific example. Then ask yourself: does this principle apply to my context? If yes, test it in a small, low-risk way before going all in.
What experience informs this perspective?
This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 200+ startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.
Do all experts agree with this view?
No, and that's fine. The best ideas in business are often contrarian. I share my perspective based on my experience and data, but I encourage you to seek out opposing viewpoints and form your own conclusions.