How to Start a Community From Scratch with Melanie Bond

Today, we’re joined by Melanie Bond, Director of Community at Nanit, a high-tech baby monitoring system that makes the lives of new parents more manageable by connecting them to their child's development and well-being.

A supportive community of parents who can relate to and/or help solve new parents’ problems can make them feel less alone. The advantage of starting a community from scratch - as opposed to inheriting or scaling an existing community - is that you can spend time talking to your potential members and collecting data to help create a community that users love engaging with. It’s better to launch a community in phases, let the user and/or team’s feedback drive its iterations, and ensure that your team and the rest of the organization have resources to support the community. The focus of a new community team should be to resolve customer tickets quickly (for customer success), spread brand awareness (or collect feedback), and create a smooth customer experience.