Community-led growth vs Product-led growth. Which is more important?

Milli Sen
19 replies
I believe both a product and a community play a major role in the success of a business. But which should you spend more time on? Building a community or a product? I think a community weighs more in terms of the impact. What do you think?

Replies

Heyalbert
I'm striving to strike a balance between these two factors. Both are crucial, even with a great product, without community support, its benefits might not reach the intended audience.
I think it depends. Some products are better suited to one growth strategy more than the other.
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Sebastian Karges
@jgani Totally agree, highly context-dependent on what's moving the needle.
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@sebastian_karges Yup. It also depends on external constraints. For example, I have an app that generates decent MRR, and is growing consistently. Despite being a healthy app, it cannot have product-led growth features in it. In the case of this app, it's a plugin that sits atop of another platform, which imposes restrictions that block my ability to implement growth features.
rokcso
I can't tell which of the two is more important, they're like the left and right hands of product growth. But I prefer my product to be product-led growth, and I believe that community-led growth is based on good products, or good products are easier to form good communities and build community-led growth.
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Kayla Lafi
I think there should be a balance. Without a community, the product may go under notice. However, once that community is building you can trust the product to lead that growth. When starting out, I would focus on building awareness and trust so that your product when ready can take the lead.
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Aris Nakos
Having a community will inevitably lead to product growth or finding PMM.
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Anastasia Liamets
Both! But I feel like the 2nd one is fuelling the 1st
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PRIYANKA MANDAL
Hey Milli, personally, I see the value in both community-led growth and product led growth. While a strong product is essential for attracting and retaining customers, a supportive community can amplify its impact and foster long term loyalty. I believe finding the right balance between the two is key. What matters most is understanding your audience and meeting their needs effectively, whether through product innovation or community engagement.
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Gurkaran Singh
Building a flourishing community can be like watering the roots of a tree - it nurtures sustainable growth. However, a stellar product serves as the juicy fruit enticing everyone to gather around. So, why not aim for a thriving orchard by nurturing both? It's like having the cake and eating it too!
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Neel
Very pertinent question! This is something I've personally been struggling to figure out. However, I would tend to believe that once users start appreciating a good product it's their word of mouth that would build the community around the product and its features?