About+Work

🌶️ Community isn't an audience strategy. It's a business model.

I've spent nearly two decades thinking about one question: What enables some communities to grow more durable and stronger over time, while others remain group chats that fade away?

Since 2007, community has paid my bills, allowed me to work remotely, and connected me to a handful of people that have changed my life forever.

Along the way, I've built communities, advised founders, invested in startups, and worked with organizations creating value for and with their customers.

All of my lessons learned can be summarize in 7 words: communities run on the economics of value.

Most communities focus on engagement. The best communities focus on value.

Sure, likes, comments, and activity matter. But they're not the point. A healthy community creates value for its members, value for the business behind it, and relationships that become stronger over time.

When one of those breaks, growth eventually stalls. When all of them work together, communities become remarkably resilient.

I'm obsessed with three things:

• How do communities become self-sustaining places people stay for years?
• Why does the barbell effect of communities exist? eg, communities are either [a] built on needing more people to succeed, or [b] built on limiting people to succeed.
• The knowledge that small, focused communities are more valuable that never as AI makes information abundant?

Through my Agency, I consult, advise, invest, and experiment. Some weeks I'm helping a founder think beyond a newsletter using a membership model. Other weeks I'm unpacking why a B2B community has stalled (and how to get it back on track). People are at the center of every project.

Over the years, I've seen communities fail because they chased engagement instead of economics. I've seen communities fail because they scaled before they created meaningful member value. And I've seen small, focused communities quietly become extraordinarily valuable businesses.

Those are the stories that continue to fascinate me.

If you're building a community, membership business, or audience-driven company, we should definitely connect. I'd love to hear what you're building.

Stay in Touch

I share regular observations on community, membership, and business design through my newsletter. If that sounds useful, you can subscribe here. You can also follow me on LinkedIn. And you can learn more about my work / request support via my Agency.

~ Patrick