Building Online Communities in India

Deap Ubhi, Co-Founder& CEO, burrp!
The jury is out on whether building online communities in India is a replicable model. Many of us have played the concept arbitrage game from existing, mature internet-using markets and see value in creating passionate, sticky, online communities around something, as is evident in products that exist outside of our borders. Companies like Facebook, Flickr, and Slashdot.org have been successful at building communities, but can we recreate the magic here?

Whether or not online communities will achieve scale here is actually irrelevant. Some of the recipes to engage users and make them feel a part of something can still be used to create a community, regardless of size.

Listen to your users

Users are the best product managers your online business could have – and they’re free! Constantly engage, ask, and listen to your users. Personally reach out to them and get their feedback constantly and consistently. You, the entrepreneur, are biased. Users are not. They will only tell you what works for them and what does not.

Reward your users

You’d be surprised as to what really matters to your users. Nothing gimmicky but just some good old TLC, so forget the free iPod. Let them know you appreciate them, their participation, their feedback, and their evangelism of your product. A simple personal email, or some recognition on the actual product, both go a long way in telling your user, “thank you.” This will also act as an amazing motivator to get your users even more committed and active. The free iPod may buy you a lot of short-term love, but are you looking for a one-night stand or a loving spouse?

Police your community

There are many policing models and mechanisms, some centralized and others decentralized. Decentralized models are interesting, because they leave the policing of the community to the actual community themselves. It becomes a self-sustaining ecosystem, where certain users bubble to the top and earn policing capabilities and responsibilities. This has many advantages. Users will begin to aspire to climb the hierarchical ladder, and will become a more active community member to do so. Your “power” users will keep your community safe, respectful, buzzing and active. What more could you ask for?

Having all this said, creating and more importantly sustaining an online community is no walk in the park. There is the proverbial chicken-and-egg problem one faces at the get-go – users will not contribute meaningful content unless they see others contributing meaningful content, and hence the frustrating infinite loop of inactivity. It is an absolute must to identify, and personally engage an early-adopter community who could potentially catalyze your product by evangelizing it, all through good ‘ole fashioned word of mouth.

When we started burrp!, we did exactly that – we identified a small group of people we knew were using the internet. These were mainly bloggers, but also other friends of friends who had settled down in Mumbai. We told them very clearly that they would be the very first users of burrp!, and that the product’s shaping out would be highly dependent on their feedback.

Lucky for us, this was something that most of them felt privileged to do, and we were humbled by this. One must be completely willing to personally touch users; email them from your personal ID, call them, meet them, understand their needs, especially in the first phase of your product’s launch. This will make users feel empowered, that their feedback is actually making an impact. Continue to elevate users like this during the life of your product, and you will create an easier and more comfortable path back to your product.

Be active yourself! What better example for the community than the very people that have built the product. Use your product incessantly, and show the community what it can really do. Keep a corporate blog and most importantly, be honest on it. You don’t have to give away the secret sauce and let the world know what you’re up to, but when required, be bold, be honest, and tackle issues and questions head on. Your corporate blog can be a great voice to the outside world. We personally used the blog very heavily in the early stages of the company to show everyone exactly what we were going through with respect to all facets of building an internet product – everything from speaking to our users, to giving startup advice. In the long run, people will respect honesty over constantly beating your chest.

People want to connect with people, not a machine or a company. Our blog allowed us to connect with people outside of the context of being a user on our site. We were struggling human beings (still are, as a matter of fact!), and showing others the true pains we were going through to deliver an amazing experience actually helped us build a community of admirers, critics, and well-wishers.

A few more commonsensical pointers: imagine running a restaurant. You treat your customers like God, and offer great food and service. Over time, your customers begin to appreciate this, and become regulars. Business is good. Your customers have helped establish your business, but now, you owe them more in return. Perhaps you should remodel the joint for them a bit, give them a slightly nicer ambience to dine in. Or maybe you add a few more interesting things to the menu to give them more food options. Fancy wine list? Why not – your customers deserve it! Get the point? Similarly, doing the above listed things will get you to a particular level with your users, but you will continually be indebted to them, and never forget it. So keep it interesting, and refresh when it makes sense.

I’ll leave you with one more piece of advice here – never, ever patronize your users. It’s as simple as that. The holier than thou attitude will sink you here, so check your ego in at the door.