5 Lessons Learned Building Our Community Business - Collis Ta'eed

Envato CEO, Collis Ta'eed, presenting at Swarm Conference 2014 on 5 Lessons Learned Building Our Community Business.

Transcript

1. .COMMUNITY
2. My name is Collis and I work at Envato.
3. Before I managed a community, I was a community member.
4. Envato. Influenced by my community experience Market, Studio & Tuts+ By Creatives, For Creatives Bootstrapped
5. Forums at the Heart, Mixed with Social and Blogs. Authors, Buyers, Learners, Staff, the Lot.
6. 30 million visits a month 4 million members 1.5 million active buyers 30,000 active authors 70,000 unique forum posters 1 million social followers Big
7. Community Business.
8. HBR & eBay 2006 Study converting customers into community participants: 25% got involved.
9. Community vs Control Bid 6x as often. Earned 6x monthly sales revenue, And 10x more first time sellers. Spent 54% more in total. “Do Customer Communities Pay Off?” HBR Magazine Nov 2006
10. All Kinds of Community Businesses Wikia, Reddit, DeviantArt, 500px, StackExchange, Yelp, … Envato, Etsy, AirBnB, eBay, … WordPress, Mozilla, …
11. 5 Lessons Learned Building Our Community Business.
12. It’s a People Business 1 .
13. If that doesn’t sound awesome, don’t do it.
14. + Purpose Economic Driver High Engagement Direct Line to the Customer Product Ecosystem Hiring pool Evangelists
15. - Loud stakeholders Accountability More Responsibility Emotionally Charged Constant Attention Requires Commitment
16. You should genuinely be passionate about people.
17. Win-win. 2
18. Create a symbiotic relationship.
19. Understand what your community cares about.
20. Your community will always be a little suspicious of your motives.
21. Win-Win aligns the business and community.
22. Bake it in. 3
23. As a company grows, it’s pulled in many directions. You need a compass.
24. When the Community Succeeds, We Succeed. One of Envato’s six company values.
25. $1B All-time Community Earnings Company Goal (We’re at $206,000,000)
26. We report: Quarterly to Company Annually to the Community
27. Everyone’s a Community Manager. 4
28. Induct Staff Global Meetups Profile Community Hire from the community Community Visitors Staff Authors and Users
29. Community Product Development Discussion, interviews, surveys, testing and annual roadmap.
30. DIY Launches and Comms
31. Community is my most important job. 5
32. Community is a people business, People operate on trust.
33. People don’t trust companies, People trust other people.
34. Leaders and managers need to Be Community Advocates Keep a Cool Head Honest & Trustworthy Able to Carry through Change Be a Real Person Empathetic
35. And … Admit when you got it wrong.
36. Community is Purpose.
37. At the end of the day it’s not about business drivers.
38. Creating the Community Experience Encouragement, Involvement, Engagement, Inspiration, Connection.
39. It’s an increasingly disconnected world. That’s why our jobs as community and social managers are so important.
40. Meet the Envato Community youtube.com/envato
41. Thank you.