6 Principles For Building A Successful Web3 Community

Hey everyone - welcome back to another Deep Dive Monday 👋

Today, I’ll show you 6 principles all successful Web3 communities implement.

For the past year, I’ve been closely watching the rise of many successful communities and even helped a decent amount of them with Coinvise. After working with them long enough, I began to notice some actions they all take.

I analyzed their actions and their results and grouped them together into 6 principles.

These principles represent, for me, the essentials for any community to thrive. They aren’t all easy to implement but are what make the difference between an “OK” community to a community that attracts thousands of contributors and generates revenue.

So, without further ado, let’s dive in!

Principle #1 - Make It Fun

This is such a simple principle that I can already imagine you rolling your eyes.

The truth is, all the communities I’m *really* invested in are all fun.

We join Web3 communities because we WANT to. Not because we HAVE to.

So if you want new members, the least you can do is make their experience enjoyable.

There are 3 elements that make a community fun and enjoyable:

1. Storytelling
2. Vibe
3. Graphic identity

Look at the Grand Leisure website by Poolsuite, for example.

This is a lesson in marketing and community building.

The 

The graphic identity is excellent. The storytelling is on point. And the sole promise they make you when joining their community is to:

"Explore what's possible when thousands of the internet's finest leisure-inclined minds come together to reimagine media, fashion, collaboration, and olive-forward martini topping technologies."

Grand Leisure is all about Vibe and Fun.

Principle #2 - Bring It From URL to IRL

Yeah, Web3 is fun and all, but at some point, members want to share IRL experiences.

I don't talk about your average IRL meetup or crypto conference here ( often overcrowded, lackluster in vibes, and rarely mesmerizing.)

I talk about creating memorable IRL experiences and opportunities.

And this means being prohibitive and exclusive, both financially and culturally.

I recently attended the FWB FEST, and it was such an amazing experience.

The festival was restricted only to $FWB holders, creating a friendly environment.

I met dozens of awesome people and created new friendships over the weekend.

So my advice to you if you’re a community builder.

Go above and beyond for your next event. You won’t regret it.

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Principle #3 - Have An Ambitious Common Goal

To succeed, your community needs a purpose beyond its existence.

If there are no compelling reasons for people to come together, your project will fail.

The cool thing in Web3?

Whatever crazy idea you have, someone will help you build it.

1. Want to buy a basketball team? Join Krause House.
2. Want to participate in a weekly Joke contest online? Join JokeDAO.

Krause House Landing page.

I’ve written an entire deep dive on how to define a shared goal that drives stickiness in your tokenized community, so I won’t go into too much detail here.

But basically - it takes 3 steps:

1. Define with your members an important problem to solve.
2. Then build a story to spread this goal.
3. And finally, implement this shared goal in daily tasks.

Principle #4 - Surround Yourself With Strategic Partners At The Beginning

Web3 is a positive sum game.

Because “We’rE SO eaRly,” there isn’t a fully developed Web3 market yet.

This means it’s the perfect timing to make alliances.

In Web3, you need others (and others need you) because everything is interoperable.

Getting tokens from a community can give you perks in another one.

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So go out there and send DMs.

Reach out to a DAO tooling platform you admire. Or a community you follow.

If you learn how to send DMs that convert, you’ll get a reply 90% of the time.

And your project will grow tremendously.

Principle #5 - Don’t Financialize It

Financialize your community only if it needs to be financialized.

Otherwise, it will simply ruin it by attracting speculators.

But not being financialized doesn’t mean being non tokenized.

You can create a token without giving it a financial value.

Champagne DAO, for example, has created the BUBBLY token to serve as a gratitude currency. They are bringing the intangible (gratitude) into a tangible asset in the form of a token.

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And there are dozens of other examples of thriving communities leveraging tokens without giving a financial value to them.

So my 3 steps framework to don’t ruin your community:

1. Create a token (social token or NFT)
2. Create cool use cases and experiences around it
3. Explain clearly your token doesn’t have financial value

It’s that easy.

Principle #6 - Make It Accessible To Anyone (But Not Everyone)

Successful Web3 communities don’t close their doors through tokens.

They simply let enter only specific members.

That’s the difference between “token-gated” vs. “Token-enabled.”

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New members can’t simply come and go as they want.

To enter the community, they need to prove their worth.

For example, to unlock the experiences within the SeedClub community, you need to hold some CLUB tokens. To get those tokens, you needed to be one of the alumni of their accelerator or be part of other respected communities.

With this, Seed Club has created one of the most thoughtful and engaged community.

If you have a community, let the chance to anyone to join you.

But don’t accept everyone.

That's a wrap!

If you implement these six principles in your community, you’ll ensure having an engaged community that grows tremendously.

So again, when building a community, make sure to:

1. Make It fun
2. Bring It From URL to IRL
3. Have an ambitious common goal
4. Surround yourself with strategic partners at the beginning
5. Don’t financialize your community
6. Make it accessible to anyone (but not everyone)

I hope this will help you create a thriving community!

Chat next Thursday!

– Eliot Couvat (@CDTEliot)