Brutal Question: Why Do Most Communities Fail?
Let’s be honest for a moment…
Most online communities don’t grow.
Most become inactive.
Most slowly die without anyone noticing.
Why?
In your opinion, what’s the real reason communities fail - even when the platform is solid?
Is it:
🔹 No clear value proposition?
🔹 Weak onboarding?
🔹 Poor structure?
🔹 No engagement strategy?
🔹 Founder burnout?
🔹 Trying to monetize too early?
Or something deeper?
Let’s have an honest (respectful) discussion 👇
Your insight might help someone build better.
I’ll start 👇
I think many communities fail because the founder focuses on features instead of experience.
They build spaces…
But don’t design interaction.
What do you think matters more:
Structure or energy?
I completely agree with your point about focusing on experience over features. Having built an ecosystem of communities to over 19K+ members, I’ve had my fair share of bitter mistakes.
If I had to answer the "Structure vs. Energy" question based on my own failures, I would say Energy absolutely trumps structure. Structure is just the container; energy is the lifeblood that fills it.
Here are the real reasons I’ve seen communities (including my own early ones) slowly die off, which perfectly align with your points:
- Founder Absence (The Energy Killer): I once went traveling and reduced my presence to a few times a week. I actually wondered why the community went quiet—which is hilarious in hindsight. If the founder stops showing up, commenting, and leading by example, the members immediately mirror that energy and fade away.
- Assuming Instead of Listening (The Feature Trap): I spent weeks pre-building massive courses and complex resource sections before launching, thinking it was a killer value proposition. The reality? Almost nobody used them. I wasted time building structures instead of doing a simple onboarding process and asking members what they actually needed.
- Chasing Vanity Metrics over Culture (No Engagement Strategy): I once brought in hundreds of members overnight through a social media blast. It felt amazing for a few days, but without a solid culture or engagement strategy, it quickly turned into a ghost town. Fast growth without deep connection is a fast track to an inactive community.
- Building Before Participating: You can't host a great party if you've never been a good guest. I tried running a community before spending time as an active member in others. Because I didn't understand the user experience firsthand, I couldn't design a good one.
Ultimately, whether you are building with FluentCommunity or any other tool, communities aren't just about platforms, portals, or member counts. They are about people, the experience, and the daily energy the founder breathes into them.
To everyone else reading: Have you ever spent way too much time building a perfect "structure" or "course" for your community that ended up getting completely ignored?
Such great advice Hoang Hxn some of this reminds me of advice my sister gave me about teaching (she's a teacher).
She said we often think people want to be taught things, but often the best experiences of learning is the doing and the interacting with fellow students.
I forget that all the time and think I have to offer this and that, and features and lectures or more courses when people just want to interact and engage with a community that shares their goals and values .
Ego can make it hard to imagine that they are not there just for us and what we have created.
Hoang Hxn Thanks, I love your reply...
Nicolai doing and the interacting with fellow students. Noted
I’ll try to convey my thoughts through a metaphor:
A community is like a grandfather who brings gifts. At first, everyone is excited and the food is delicious, but eventually they get bored and want to go outside for a walk.
If you want your community to thrive, you must be ready to keep surprising people, find ways to engage them, and sometimes even listen to their whims.
And you have to accept that your grandchildren will grow up and their interests will change. But if you were a good grandfather, new ones will come into your life.
The main thing is not to get discouraged, to stay true to yourself, and not to give up. In time, your grown, experienced children will return with their own gifts, and they will treat your community the way you once treated them.
Artur Abakarov That's a great metaphor. It's absolutely true.
The immutable rule is that where there's input, there's output, even within a community.
Artur Abakarov great metaphor indeed
Hoang Hxn Bryan William Thanks, much appreciated.
Lack of engagement. To have energy and life a community needs a few people who start meaningful conversations and keep them going.
I took a course by Seth Godin once and they had people whose job was to build connections and start conversations in the forums. They would @ people all the time saying things like:
"Ella is developing a similar program, maybe she can share how she got her first members"
or "Jeet shared a great story in the newcomers forum about overcoming this exact problem, maybe he has some tips that you can use for your situation"
The energy and engagement they generated was incredible.
They have to be meaningful though, not engagement posts like "Write the name of your favourite actor and why you liked them in the comments" That kind of forced engagement will get me to leave a community :)
Nicolai build connections and start conversations in the forums. Noted
Thanks for sharing, engagement is my major concern
Very interesting questions and answers – I enjoy reading along.
Any One You are welcome
This is such an important topic! Thanks for bringing this up. I have a community but have been fighting to engage with the community because my time is limited. Definately think I should organice better for that. Having an engaging community needs a lot of time and organization. This is a very important topic. Thanks for sharing.
Does anyone have experience with how much having an app matters? I have had several people tell me they want to join my community but don't remember to check it because there's no app. The weekly digest helps some, but not on all the other days of the week.