How Nextdoor and StackExchange Scale Their Communities

Managing Communities
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Originally published at: How Nextdoor and StackExchange Scale Their Communities?

Mega communities (1m+ members) often face a similar problem.

To scale a community they need to facilitate sub-groups. If they let everyone create sub-groups, they will fill their communities with empty ghost-towns. However, they don’t have the resources to create and manage every sub-group themselves.

The challenge then is how do you identify, motivate, and support people to create successful groups within an existing community?

Not many organizations get this right.

The two that stand out are StackExchange (via Area51) and Nextdoor. Both tackle this from a slightly different angle. StackExchange takes group creators on a 4-phase journey from defining…

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You’ve gotta give it to Nextdoor for their growth strategy. Having worked at a startup trying to build the next Nextdoor in India, and having failed, I’m amazed how they do it. Especially #4: Highlight The Work And Next Steps Involved. Trying to understand “Why would people do that”, “What’s their motivation to get their neighbors on NextDoor”, is particularly interesting.

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Tagging in @mlinsner here.