Mack,

Excellent post! I believe your following quote extends to businesses of every kind:

"That's happening because the team at Threadless understands that online communities don't create around the idea of being monetized, they create around a shared interest and passion. Online communities aren't simply waiting for you to find a way to make money off them. (Again if anyone needs a moment, feel free... .)"

Good to great businesses are built from the inside out on a foundation of values and a concept of community, made up of employees, customers, potential employees and customers, and the home communities they serve by living in them and sharing with them.

Not enough space to expand on the above; however, we know that companies based on the above produce equal to greater margins than those built on the bottom line.

Exactly Lewis. You need to watch the video if you haven't, because Jake and Jeffrey come across as possibly the most unpolished speakers you've ever seen, but it's also completely obvious that they are members of the communities they have created. They are talking from the customers' point of view, and that makes them completely believable.

I think it's important for marketers to hear their story, because so many people are wanting to create online communities so they can monetize them. If that's your goal, you are almost always doomed from the start. It just won't happen, because people don't get excited about the idea of being monetized, and can tell when someone is attempting to do so.

Great post. Alot of companies are way to focused on achieving immediate results. They overlook whats important to the customer. This is just a glimpse into the new world of making your customers feel like you care about them.

Brilliantly said, Mack. More people should be paying attention to the kind of success those guys are having...

Absolutely right, Mack. Their charm lies partially in their unpolished speaking styles, and how their passion for their business completely carried them through.

"This is just a glimpse into the new world of making your customers feel like you care about them."

Adam I think it has to go beyond that. The key point in the Threadless example is co-founders Jake and Jacob met on another forum built around art and design, and no doubt thought 'wouldn't be awesome if...' they could create a site like Threadless. A site that caters to other people that enjoy art and design, and creating cool designs, as they do.

In other words, they created a community around their passion. A passion that was shared by other people, and they came together to form a community. It goes beyond making your customers feel like you care about them, because the Threadless founders ARE the customers! They are part of the same community and share their same passion. Threadless wouldn't exist without its founders running the site, but as the founders freely admit, the community could also crush them if they decided to. One needs the other in order to survive.

Ben and Jackie cover Threadless in Citizen Marketers, and they have a great story about how Jake made a mistake in coding the site that instantly erased almost all of the blogs on the site. He quickly posted to the community apologizing and letting them know what had happened. The guys thought all hell was about to break loose, but the community began searching through Google's cache and finding many of their own posts, and began reposting as much content as possible. IOW, the community felt a sense of ownership in the site, and immediately rallied together to fix the problem.

That's what happens when companies and individuals join their communities and give people a sense of ownership in something larger than themselves.

Too right, Mack ... it's about making something that people want to be part of. It is about belonging -- and Jake and Jeffrey are clearly part of their community. Great video!

Thanks so much for the link to these guys. It's really inspiring how unbusinessy these guys are. I haven't watch the whole video yet but I intend too.

"That's what happens when companies and individuals join their communities and give people a sense of ownership in something larger than themselves."

You da man, Mackeral.

Tammy it could almost double as a comedy video. Love when they are talking about Naked & Angry and they mention that 'Something exciting happened recently, we actually hired someone that knows how to work in this industry'. Also very interesting how they talked about adding the 'fun' factor to a site, like with Flickr, and how LinkedIn doesn't. It's definitely worth your time.

Very interesting point about online community building. Even big consumer brands seem to miss the boat by a large margin when trying to create online communities for their brands.

I think a motto to go by when building online communities (or really any company) comes from the HeadRush blog on Creating Passionate Users:

"you have a much better chance for success when your business model makes what's good for the users match what's good for the business, and vice-versa"

Looking at successful communities like Facebook where the advertising model benefits most from giving users better tools to communicate with friends, it's clear that empowering your users rather than monetizing them is perhaps the real key.

All excellent points here, couldn't agree more about how to build up a community..

This is so true. Beleive me, I know. I created the Awesome Million. So I know a thing about awesome-ness, don't I? :)

www.awesomemillion.com

"you have a much better chance for success when your business model makes what's good for the users match what's good for the business, and vice-versa"

I was SO happy to see Kathy say that, because that's EXACTLY what I mean when I say that companies need to join their communities of customers. The aim is to become a community member, so that you aim for satisfying the community's wants and needs, which in turn satisfies your OWN wants and needs. It places your customer's wants and needs on an even or higher level than your own. THAT is what creates evangelists and an excited community.

So many companies go the opposite way of wanting to make their money upfront, and then satisfy the customers next. Again, the idea of being monetized does NOT excite people and encourage them to come together to form communities.

Neat post. Four quick thoughts:

(1) Newish model with simple measures (or newish variation on real world truisms extended online) that's proven its value and effectiveness in a shorter amount of time in practice than a formal agency campaign or experiment;

(2) Embrace of "unpolished" as an ideal comes in waves, and is usually a reaction to "sophisticated" tastes and expectations (i.e. excess). Also, the more companies embrace and emulate it, the more it risks becoming a style, commodity, affectation consumers will grow to loathe or expect and reject.

(3) No successful online community was ever marketed with a pure "corporatey" identity, but there's short shrift given to enterprises that launched with profit and online model in mind in which community grew up/filled in the space. That's where Garrett's point is really key about ensuring value through features.

(4) All told, we're finally learning not to apply real world overlay to *every* online action. People are hard to peg when it comes to their online communities and network behavior, especially affinity and loyalty.

Personally, I wasn't swayed to join this crowd when I first got the heads up from a friend- maybe it's a cultural thing- but I know best not to ignore tides as well.

That clip was from the Community Next event held in February. Those guys were probably the biggest hit out of the presentations given & it was very apparent that they love what they're doing (probably the main factor in their success).

Mack your ideas are so refreshing here! thanks for the heads up! Great discussion too.

here's my question...

how can a firm create energy Online and rejuvenate talents and voices -- when they have yet to use the tactics that will do so in brick and mortor settings at work?

Would love to see you elaborate a bit more on common links that rejuvenate workers.