Thinking about starting a community? Or wondering why yours isn’t working the way you hoped? In this episode, I break down the top five reasons I see communities fail, based on real conversations with founders and the patterns I’ve seen across dozens of clients. From pricing mistakes to missing transformation, these are the lessons I wish every creator and coach knew before launching a membership.

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I had one of those really, really amazing, serendipitous feeling coffee chats last week with a community builder named Romy.

You might know what I'm talking about when you.

I mean, you're building community, so you probably do.

You have a connection call with someone and you're just like, oh, we're going to be friends, we're going to work together, we're going to have cart collaborations.

This is going to be great.

Like, that was the feeling from this call I had with her.

I was so impressed by her and the company that she has built.

It's called the Daily Drip.

The.

They're a media company and they're a community, and they're based out of South Florida.

She's built this with her co founder.

It's super amazing.

They help thought leaders, um, they help people become thought leaders, and then they use that thought leadership to write articles and create media for the media company, which is amazing.

And anyway, we had a really long chat about all things community, and we started talking about how communities are just popping up everywhere.

Like, we were talking about my business, and she was like, it's such a smart business.

Community, communities everywhere.

And then we got into like, okay, it's so common right now for people to start thinking about starting a community.

And she told me this story.

And they're four years in.

They're four years into their journey, mind you, which is like, a good amount of time in the community world.

I mean, a lot of communities that I talk about and work with and that are successful have only been doing it for, you know, a couple of years.

So they're four years in.

And she told me that she's talked to people that say, say, like, oh, you guys have built community.

It can't be that hard.

So I think I'm gonna go out and give it a shot.

And I'm paraphrasing, but we both laughed for quite a while, and then we agreed that the unfortunate truth is that most would fail.

And that's not to knock anybody who is thinking about starting community or saying like, oh, it's really hard to get into.

It's just that people don't really realize what they're building or how much work it is or.

Or have a lot of, like, purpose around the kind of community that they're creating.

And so it often fails.

You probably hear all the time that people shut down their memberships, they close their communities, that they gave community a shot or it didn't work for them.

I talked to so many people that run programs that are like, I'll never go back to a membership model because I sucked at that.

And the truth is like, you can do it, you can build it there.

There is going to be so many more communities because we are just craving that like niche experience of I want to work on this one thing in my life with people that get it, that are in alignment with me and that is niche and curated and small.

And so we're less interested in like the Facebooks of the world and we're more interested in the really small, intimate group communities that we can connect with and especially if there's some kind of in person component.

And so anyway, I think the main problem is people don't even realize what they're getting into.

They don't realize what they're getting themselves into, realize the amount of work that it takes to build community.

And so they get in over their head and then they shut it all down and they're like, never again.

But community is incredible and if you can figure out what not to do, then it becomes a lot easier and we can be successful in it.

So if you're listening to this, maybe you're thinking about building community, maybe you have recently started one and you're wondering like, how do I make sure that this doesn't fail?

How do I make sure that this actually becomes successful?

So I want to talk about the five reasons why communities fail that I have seen.

So the first reason is that the transformation and overall purpose of the community isn't clear.

If I see one more sales page that says meet with and connect with like minded individuals that are on a similar path, like it's so generic.

We need to be a lot more clear and specific about who we're serving and what journey they're going on.

And they need to have shared goals, they need to have shared interests, they need to have shared values.

And we're so afraid to share values and share what we care about because we don't want to offend people or ostracize people or make people feel not included.

But the reality is we just need to be who we are.

And that means showing up in a full expression of what your values are.

Who, like, what are the values of your community?

What is important?

What are you helping them accomplish?

When you think about the transformation you're serving, you want to think about, I take people from A to B. I take people from not being able to run a mile to running a full marathon.

That could be a really long journey, but it is possible and you could serve different stages and have different products for different stages of that journey.

That's the transformation you're serving.

Maybe there's a program experience or a membership experience that is all about running your first marathon.

That's a really clear transformation.

There's going to be really clear steps and there's going to be a really clear roadmap and journey that you can take them on.

So the number one thing is like not having that clear transformation or purpose.

Why are people coming together?

What are they focused on?

What is their goal?

And if it's more focused around connection, that's great too.

Like Jay Clouse, his community, the lab is for professional creators, and it's all about professional creators coming together to experiment together and grow.

That's more of a community of practice.

But it's a really clear premise.

There's a clear purpose as to why we're coming together.

And the focus is very much on connection and knowledge sharing, but it's also very advanced.

That doesn't work as well for earlier stage creators or entrepreneurs that really just need that roadmap.

And so, yeah, we need to think very thoroughly about what this transformation looks like.

And if you have that, that's one of the biggest, most important pieces.

So that's number one.

Number two is they just simply aren't built well.

They lack an onboarding experience that sets really clear expectations, such as, you know, an email sequence that says, hey, you're going to join the community.

This is how you're going to get involved, this is what you can expect to get from it.

This is your ABC roadmap that you're going to follow, that's going to get you to your next stage or your next goal.

And in general, if there is a confusing user experience, if it's not clear how to navigate the community or how to access the things that they've bought, then they're not going to ever log in again, they're going to cancel, they're not, they're going to disengage.

And so, you know, yeah, the number two thing is really just not building it well.

And so making sure you have those clear foundations, strong onboarding, strong programming, strong structure, all of the stuff that I've talked quite a lot about, those are the important things to get in place in order for it to be successful.

And also we need those in place before we scale.

The third thing is that the founder doesn't plan appropriately to pour into the community the way it is needed or the way that we need for the community to be successful.

They don't Set aside enough time or price it appropriately, appropriately so that they can pour into it the way they want.

So I swear, if I hear from one more person that's like, I want to charge $47 a month and I think I can get 50 people in here and I'm going to offer all of these calls and I'm going to give people feedback on this and that, and all of a sudden I'm like, okay, so you're going to pour all of your time into something that's going to make you about $2,000 a month.

How much?

How, what kind of financial goal do we have here and what other things are you doing in your business?

I mean, when we actually do the math, that isn't going to work.

It isn't going to be successful.

And it takes a long time.

Especially, you know, if you're not partnering with a large creator or you don't have a huge audience, like, it can take a long time to hit 50, 100, 200, 300, 500 people in a community.

And is that even the experience you want?

Because the size of the community can impact the experience.

So if you want, you know, a small 50, 100, 200 person community, what should your pricing look like for the experience that you're offering and how much time you're putting into it?

So we need to plan appropriately in order for the community to be successful.

The fourth thing is that the community experience doesn't evolve with the members or change as it scales.

So let's say you already have a community and you're like, okay, I need this to be making me more money, or I need this to be more successful in order for this product not to fail in my business.

Well, are you evolving with the people that are in there?

And this also, there's kind of twofold here.

It's like, are you getting feedback from the members that are in there, understanding how they're evolving in their journey and their transformation?

And maybe they've ran their first marathon and now it's time to help them with consistency and what endurance looks like between races and how they need to treat their body or wellness or whatever of all these other practices.

So maybe we need to like start to morph what the purpose of the community is.

Or maybe there's a second tier that comes into play here.

And so we need to think about how this evolves.

Like, one of the biggest mistakes I see with membership models is that it's not like a program where they're going like through it and then it's over with and we can just like continually make the program a little bit better, but it's structurally pretty much the same.

This is something that's almost like a living, breathing organism.

It's not set and forget.

It's like, okay, what, what were the themes that came up last month and how is that going to impact the programming for the next month?

It's oh, it always needs this like iteration.

So constant iteration is necessary for it to be successful.

And then the second part of this is like as you grow, let's say you go from a 50 person community to a 250 person community, that experience changes.

And so you also need to change structure as it scales.

Maybe once you get to that threshold, you need to start thinking about some small group cohort experiences that you can start to create.

So changing the experience, changing the structure, changing the programming as your community grows, evolves and scales is the other thing that people often get wrong but is super, super necessary for it to be successful in the long term.

And then the last thing is that the founder isn't willing to commit to the long game because honestly, the truth is that most communities won't cut it because it's such a long game and it takes a lot of patience and it takes a lot of hard work.

But I promise you that if you stick to it, it's such a compounding type of business and it is the most sustainable and rewarding business you can build.

Because when your business has a low, when you're struggling with something, it's the community that gets you through, it's the community that helps you keep going, that grows your business, that helps push you into the next evolution of whatever you're offering is, it's so important to think about it as a long game and something that you're putting compounding interest in the same way you would into like the stock market.

So yeah, think about the long game.

Think about being committed.

I'm committed to the long game.

I'm committed to building the sustainable business for myself, for my family, for my community.

And I'm going to evolve it and shift it with them.

I'm going to make changes as it feels right for me, as it feels right for the community.

And just recognize that it's a living, breathing thing full of living, breathing people, right?

Like we, this is a human business and it's all about connection.

And so just being open to how things ebb and flow and change is super important.

So those are the five reasons that most communities fail.

I hope you enjoyed this.

I hope it was helpful and if you liked this episode, please share it with a friend and make sure you're subscribed and follow and all of the good things.