Communities are overrated

All right, so I get the hype.

Everyone seems to be wanting to launch their own community nowadays.

But it's kind of the shiny object that has a brutal reality behind it that I see happening to many small creators over and over and over again.

I fell for this trap too one and a half years ago…

I got maybe 10-15 people inside (way less than expected) and because this was my second product, I didn't know how to sell or market it.

I didn't even have a launch campaign for it haha.

And I was absolutely crushed.

I had spend months building it out, and after a month in I had only a few people inside the community.

I had to help them but at the same time work on the marketing and try to figure out why more people weren't enrolling.

Yesterday I talked to a new creator falling into this exact same trap.

First ever product, no clue on how to market it aside from 2 stories saying "it's here" with a link sticker.

No campaign, no emails.

And it flopped for him too.

Now after working with over 250 creators and seeing this pattern repeatedly, here's what I've learned:

When you're launching your first info product, you need all your mental energy focused on two things:

perfecting the product and figuring out how you’ll get more sales.

With a community, you split that energy three ways: product, marketing, AND ongoing support.

It's like trying to learn three skills at once instead of mastering one at a time.

If this is where you are at right now, and you want to save yourself a lot of frustration:

Start with a passive product, like a course, template, ebook (basically digital products without ongoing support.)

This lets you focus entirely on creating something valuable and learning how to sell it.

No weekly calls. No constant questions. No community management.

And the good thing is…

If that passive product crushes it and your customers ask for more support,

then you can just move it to a community platform.

Because now you know the demand is there,

plus those original customers will most-likely join the community right away,

ensuring you’ll avoid this trap and run a successful community.

P.S. If you're a creator with over 10,000 followers in need of help with monetizing your content, check out AI Volve Academy, just 3 spots open for June.

-Stay awesome💪

Melvin Hagström (AI Volve)