.COMMUNITY

My name is Collis and I work at Envato.

Before I managed a community, I was a community member.

Envato. Influenced by my community experience

Market, Studio & Tuts+ By Creatives, For Creatives

Bootstrapped

Forums at the Heart, Mixed with Social and Blogs.

Authors, Buyers, Learners, Staff, the Lot.

30 million visits a month 4 million members

1.5 million active buyers 30,000 active authors

70,000 unique forum posters 1 million social followers

Big

Community Business.

HBR & eBay 2006 Study converting customers

into community participants:

25% got involved.

Community vs Control

Bid 6x as often. Earned 6x monthly sales revenue,

And 10x more first time sellers. Spent 54% more in total.

“Do Customer Communities Pay Off?” HBR Magazine Nov 2006

All Kinds of Community Businesses

Wikia, Reddit, DeviantArt, 500px, StackExchange, Yelp, …

Envato, Etsy, AirBnB, eBay, …

WordPress, Mozilla, …

5 Lessons Learned Building Our Community

Business.

It’s a People

Business

1

.

If that doesn’t sound awesome, don’t do it.

+ Purpose

Economic Driver High Engagement

Direct Line to the Customer Product Ecosystem

Hiring pool Evangelists

- Loud stakeholders

Accountability More Responsibility

Emotionally Charged Constant Attention

Requires Commitment

You should genuinely be passionate about people.

Win-win.

2

Create a symbiotic relationship.

Understand what your community cares about.

Your community will always be a little suspicious of your motives.

Win-Win aligns the business and community.

Bake it in.

3

As a company grows, it’s pulled in many directions.

You need a compass.

When the Community Succeeds,

We Succeed.

One of Envato’s six company values.

$1B All-time Community Earnings

Company Goal

(We’re at $206,000,000)

We report: Quarterly to Company

Annually to the Community

Everyone’s a Community

Manager.

4

Induct Staff Global Meetups

Profile Community Hire from the community

Community Visitors Staff Authors and Users

Community Product Development Discussion, interviews, surveys, testing and

annual roadmap.

DIY Launches and Comms

Community is my most important job.

5

Community is a people business, People operate on trust.

People don’t trust companies, People trust other people.

Leaders and managers need to Be Community Advocates

Keep a Cool Head Honest & Trustworthy

Able to Carry through Change Be a Real Person

Empathetic

And … Admit when you got it wrong.

Community is Purpose.

At the end of the day it’s not about business drivers.

Creating the Community Experience Encouragement,

Involvement, Engagement, Inspiration, Connection.

It’s an increasingly disconnected world. That’s why our jobs as community and

social managers are so important.

Meet the Envato Community youtube.com/envato

Thank you.