Community-First Paradigm in the Web3 Era: Building a New Model for Sustainable rise

In the Web3 era, blockchain technology reshapes the form of communities, creating an open, fluid, and interconnected new ecosystem. In this ecosystem, individual autonomy and collective consensus are equally important, while decentralization and token mechanisms stimulate the endogenous power of the community. Users gain autonomy while actively participating in value co-creation and sharing, forming common goals and consensus that transcend individual interests.

"Community First" has become a new paradigm for the rise of Web3 projects. This approach first gathers participants who share common values, builds consensus among them, and develops into a highly active and cohesive community. Then, it relies on community collaboration to design products and achieve rapid and sustained business growth through community dissemination. Before achieving product-market fit (PMF), prioritizing community-market fit and community-product fit is more critical.

The community-first strategy ( Go-to-Community ) can serve as an effective precursor phase to the marketing ( Go-to-Market ) strategy, and in the context of decentralization and Web3, it may even completely replace traditional marketing strategies. The community has become a key foundation and driving force.

Building a community and actively engaging with early members during the product development process can provide valuable feedback, validation, and social recognition for ideas, assertions, and products. An active and highly engaged community helps drive network effects and viral spread, which in turn drives the growth flywheel through community-driven user acquisition, participation, and retention.

Making community engagement a key part of the listing strategy can:

• Obtain early feedback and validation from potential users
• Build trust and credibility with early adopters
• Create a sense of belonging and engagement towards the project and products among community members.
• Drive user acquisition, engagement, and retention through community network effects and viral distribution.

The key difference between the incentive strategies in market promotion and community prioritization lies in the distinction between value capture and value creation.

Created by the community, for the community

Community building is primarily a mindset. It emphasizes the establishment of relationships and the promotion of interaction with a group of people who share common interests, goals, or values. This helps foster a sense of belonging and ownership among community members, thereby encouraging greater participation, retention, and rise. This requires sincerity, empathy, inclusiveness, and collaboration, placing the needs, interests, and goals of the community above individual interests.

• Authenticity: Adopt a people-centric approach, maintaining real, transparent, and honest interactions with the community.
• Empathy: By actively listening, understand and resonate with the community's perspectives, pain points, and needs.
• Inclusivity: Create a friendly and inclusive environment for all members of the community, viewing diversity and co-creation as key driving forces.
• Collaboration: Work with the community to co-create solutions and establish a shared vision for the future.
• Long-term vision: Treat community building as an ongoing process rather than a one-time task, continuously collecting feedback and iterating and improving based on the ever-changing needs of the community.

Minimum Viable Community(MVC)

Similar to applying lean methodologies to product development, the development and construction of a community can also start with creating a minimum version to test acceptance and fit, beginning with the minimum viable product (MVP) and iterating around it before investing more resources. The minimum viable community (Minimum Viable Community) refers to the lowest level of community interaction and support programs, gathering a small group of core members around a common goal and finding value and a sense of belonging in the content established.

MVC is an excellent way to test whether the target resonates with early community members and to identify which factors provide the most value. Starting small before scaling helps to focus on building relationships and mutual understanding among the core team.

This method carries lower risks because it grants you the freedom to experiment and test without having to deal with large-scale communities, complex tools, and processes. When starting on a small scale, sincerity and trust tend to be established more naturally, which will become an important foundation for understanding the desires, needs, and issues of the members. These experiences can be used to continuously optimize community goals and scope, as well as the values and culture being shaped.

Starting on a small scale means that you can truly understand people's needs, preferences, and the issues they face. These insights can be integrated into the building of the community and the dialogue created together. Starting small also allows you to focus more on the culture being shaped, guiding it through your own actions and the actions of the people you invite into the community.

A minimum viable community can be formed with just 10 to 20 committed contributors or stakeholders (MVC). However, it is crucial for the initial core team to identify and recruit early members and contributors to ensure there is sufficient common ground and consensus around your high-level goals – your "why". Influencers, thought leaders, core users, or super fans are excellent candidates to invite into the community. They often share the same passion and values as you, have demonstrated commitment, and are willing to invest time and energy during the initial community formation and norms establishment stage. Additionally, these "influential" types of members are typically seen as social leaders, and once the community is ready to scale, they can help guide their followers to join, triggering user acquisition and a continually increasing network effect loop.

Community - Member & Community - Market Fit

When establishing the minimum viable community, the key is to focus on finding community members who are suitable for a small group of believers. When you start building a community with those who are most likely to make meaningful contributions, you can create a solid and cohesive foundation for the community's growth and centripetal force. Community-member fit refers to the initial core team of members consistently providing meaningful value to each other without being asked.

Indicators that show a high degree of alignment between the community and its members include:

• Members visit regularly without reminders.
• Interaction occurs spontaneously, without intervention.
• Members voluntarily adhere to community rules and guidelines
• Members organize activities on their own
• Members actively recruit other members
• The community atmosphere is harmonious and friendly.
• Members voluntarily provide feedback

On the other hand, the alignment of the community with the market means that you have built a community that is not just a small group of believers gathered together. If your community meets the needs of enough people and can develop on its own, it indicates that your community is what people need. This is because your community provides a sense of belonging and meets real market demands. At this point, your community is attractive enough to draw in new members and retain them.

How to determine if you have created a community that people want?

• A core and stable team of super users and contributors has been established.
• The initial members' activity level is high enough to continuously attract new members and gradually integrate them into the core of the community.
• Community organic rise occurs spontaneously through member introductions, community dissemination, and network effects.
• The interaction among members continues to rise, gradually taking over the responsibilities of participation and management, relieving the burden on the initial community leaders and managers.
• There is a strong retention rate of new members, and there is sufficient "fear of missing out" among new members.

Community-Product Fit & Minimum Viable Product ( MVP )

Establishing a minimum viable community and achieving alignment between the community and the market is a crucial step in delivering the minimum viable product (MVP). This helps you gather feedback and validate your product idea before investing significant time and resources. Community-driven product development combines decision-making speed with a customer-centric development approach. When the market continually tells you what it needs, finding product-market fit becomes easier.

The alignment of the community with the product is achieved through feedback from the community, adopting rapid experimentation and validation methods, much like building a product with toy blocks. This approach is a "community-driven" method, meaning that community members are involved in the creation and decision-making of the product. Discussions and content within the community reveal their needs and concerns, as well as the product features they appreciate and those that frustrate them. This method ensures that the product meets the needs of the target community, making it easier for them to accept and use it. By establishing an early supporter community that is passionate about your product goals, you can ensure that the product you co-create meets their needs and that they are more willing to use and promote the product.

Startups, when building the minimum viable community ( MVC ), must first tell the story of what they plan to build, share their vision with people on the internet, invite people to join the creative process in the online community, and give them some incentives to realize this vision (, which can be tokens or other means ), providing them a platform to share ideas, listen to others' opinions, and then turn this vision into reality.

Community-led rise & Product-Market Fit(PMF)

When promoting products or services, establishing a strong community that aligns with the market is crucial. This helps ensure that the product or service is popular within the community, making it easier to expand to other users with similar needs and desires. Moreover, having a community that is already actively engaging with your product and trusts your company is a valuable resource for business expansion. They are more likely to become early adopters and advocates, helping to broaden your influence and reach more potential customers.

Therefore, establishing a community that aligns with the ( market and product ) can provide a strong foundation for early adoption, product validation, and social validation, and generate network effects that can drive rise through continuous user acquisition, engagement, and retention.

Having an active and highly engaged community can provide social recognition for your product, making it more attractive to potential users. As more people join your community, it becomes a powerful marketing tool that can help attract new users and members. Additionally, by continuously interacting with your community and iterating on your product based on their feedback, you can cultivate a sense of ownership and investment among your early community members, turning them into advocates once the MVP is launched. In this way, the community becomes a new barrier and a powerful force driving rise and establishing product-market fit.

Ultimately, by encouraging and motivating community members to actively participate and co-create, a community-driven enterprise has the potential to activate rise, not just limited to user acquisition, loyalty, and network effects. When community members feel ownership and the aligned incentive mechanisms enable them to share in the opportunities of value rise, brand value continuously increases due to the diverse and loyal community's active participation and co-creation of value.

Brand New Marketing and Rise Framework

This approach combines community-first methods with a lean methodology through multiple validation phases, fundamentally changing traditional marketing practices. It is no longer just about building products and attracting audiences through a series of acquisition-activation-retention stages.

On the contrary, adopting the GTC method provides you with a whole new rise framework for identifying product development trends, which we call the "ACP Funnel." This framework helps to understand and apply this new method more easily.

• 受众(Audience): Engage people in the story you are telling.
• 社区(Community): Create a space for people who love your story and identify with your brand.
• 产品(Product): Provide a product for your community to help them achieve their goals and improve their own stories.

In short, community-first means starting small, inviting a group of early believers, and gaining deep insights into their desires to craft a story that resonates with them. By leveraging their feedback and validation, you create products that meet their needs and solve their problems, and you not only establish product fit.