The idea of the Lean Startup was first advanced in the 2011 book by Eric Ries. At its core, Lean Startup means build-measure-learn, a dynamic method that can help a product, service, or company go from idea to successful business rapidly.

What if we applied these principles to the concept of building a new online community?

"Using the Lean Startup approach, companies can create order not chaos by providing tools to test a vision continuously." (from the Lean Startup website)

The first step in the process is having a vision of what your community is designed to accomplish. The Lean Startup process is a scientific method, so you need to think like a mad scientist setting up an experiment. 

What problem are you solving with this community?

• Our customers need a faster, more efficient way to get help.
• Our nonprofit needs to foster conversations about our mission.
• Our company needs a focused hub where we can share information and get feedback from employees.
• Our team needs to find out what our customers think about a planned design change.
• We need a private space to talk about our project.

Create a minimum viable community

Many community platforms (including ours) encompass a dizzying array of features. For a brand new community, you don't need to go out "guns blazing."

Your day one community should be the minimum feature set that will support solving the problem you defined in the first step. That might mean disabling a raft of features at the outset, and then using the "measure" process to determine when more tools are needed.

In this phase of the process, it would be a good idea to have conversations with the people who will ultimately be using the online community. These should be hand-picked, personally invited people who will most benefit from the community.

Lean Startup process often uses the "five whys" to get to the heart of problems that arise during the initial deployment period.

Example: Members are going inactive after one month

Why? They lose interest.

Why? They aren't seeing enough value to invest time in the community.

Why? They aren't being notified about valuable conversations.

Why? There isn't enough outgoing communication from the community.

Why? We don't have a regular newsletter.

In the case of the Lean Community, some of these whys can be answered by the community members themselves. If members are steadily losing interest after an initial period, reach out to members proactively to ask them what would make the community more valuable to them. Maybe it's something as simple as not having email notifications set correctly.

Creating a build-measure-learn feedback loop

With the minimum viable community deployed, the final step is to create an ongoing iterative process.

An online community is never "done." As we can see in the Community Roundtable's excellent community maturity model, even mature, Networked communities must constantly evaluate and iterate in order to stay successful.

Looking at the problem you're trying to solve, what metrics could you put in place that will help you see success, or recognize failures in order to iterate?

• Number of peer-to-peer support interactions
• Number of successfully implemented customer suggestions
• Monetary success of an influencer campaign tied to the community
• Number of active participants over a period of time in a community of practice
• Achievement of a community mission (fundraising for a non-profit, for example)

How will you know that your community is successful?

If the metrics aren't looking good, you must have a process for changing course. In Lean Startup parlance, this is "pivoting."

Note that we want the good kind of pivoting (you have measured, evaluated, and come up with a course of action) not the bad kind of pivoting (acting out of sheer panic, like Jared on HBO's Silicon Valley).

If your community was originally intended for one audience, but another type of audience is clearly interested, you might want to consider a pivot.

Sometimes the community itself will pivot without your intervention. (Turning from discussions about one TV show to a more general pop culture community, for example.) Listen to what your members are telling you, either overtly or through their activity.

Don't be afraid to try new things, iterate, experiment as you grow your community. Communities are made of people, and people are ever-changing.

Have you ever thought about applying Lean Startup principles to your own online community?