Community isn’t cheap, fast, or easy

Today “community” gets slapped into marketing decks like a buzzword, and you’ve likely heard me write and talk about it.

(Most recently, Community Over Ads: Tips for Organic Audience Growth, then Your Founder is your best Community-Building asset, and of course, The Future of Marketing is Community — I spoke at the Community Summit a couple of months ago here in Toronto).

Last night I went to Led by Community’s first Toronto event — a gathering of people who live and breathe community-building.

There was a panel hosted by Anita Chauhan, who brought together a variety of voices in Dani Zacarias, Jasmine Williams, and Raad Seraj.

Hearing real stories from people in the trenches (focused on building communities every day) was a good reminder that community is much more than a marketing tool.

“Let’s just spin up a community.”

Tackling myths about community building for businesses and organizations was part of the conversation that had my attention.

One of those myths is that community is easy or cheap.

Corporate teams often want community because they see it as a low-cost lever for loyalty or brand love. “Let’s launch a Discord” or “start a Slack group” — as if that’s enough. As one panellist put it, “We gave them community — their Discord. Now love us forever.”

It doesn't work that way.

You can’t fast-track trust. You can’t treat connection like a funnel. And you definitely can’t assign one person with no support to “run community” and expect it to scale.

It’s not just a headcount thing, there’s also emotional labour. It’s knowing when to be visible and when to get out of the way. It’s designing for emergence, not just attendance.

Community ≠ Vibes

Another myth surfaced: that people join a community for community.

Instead, people come for something specific — to learn, to find answers, to move faster, to grow. The community is what gets them to stay.

It’s like friendships. We don’t become friends by sitting in a room and saying we should be friends. We become friends because we did something together, went through something, built something or pursued side quests, Raad explained.

“Give people a reason to gather. The relationships come from the shared journey.”

Jasmine’s approach also resonates — letting her community shape itself before locking it into a niche. She noticed patterns: solopreneurs, creatives craving connection, people who had tried coworking or running events themselves.

It was less about defining the group and more about designing around the lived experience they shared. I love that.

Monetization vs. Momentum

Of course, the monetization question always comes up. But as Raad said, “What are you even monetizing if the community doesn’t exist yet?”

Community is slow. It’s messy. It forks. People leave and start their own thing. That’s part of the beauty of it.

You’re not selling seats at a table — you’re nurturing a garden. The reward isn’t transactional. It’s transformation.

That’s why the people who do it well — who do it for real — don’t just host events or manage groups. They create spaces where people feel seen, safe, and stretched.

What’s next for community?

Here are my takeaways:

• Small is the future. Big community doesn’t mean one big space. It means many small, intentional ones — cozy rooms, recurring moments, micro-gatherings that build momentum.

• IRL is back. Dani reflected on choosing online-first community for ease — and realizing what they missed. Online can scale, but it rarely sustains. Offline, even if harder, is where the magic happens.

• Structure + flexibility. Jasmine’s co-working model is a great example — set times and containers, but freedom within them. This rhythm of consistency + autonomy is something I think we’ll see more of, especially for creators and solopreneurs.

• Community as cognitive infrastructure. This one hit different. Raad shared a study about the cognitive cost of AI overuse — and made the case that community might be one of the last frontiers for real human learning. Not just knowing, but feeling, disagreeing, and growing together.

You don’t find community. You build it.

Most people, especially in big cities, post-pandemic, are looking for places where we can show up fully and be seen. But those places don’t appear out of nowhere.

We create them — in carpet shops over Persian tea or in co-working Zooms (as the panellists mentioned), or in cozy rooms after panels.

I created an online community of people working in social good through The Good Growth Company — gathering on Zoom for over a year, and hosting our first in-person event recently, with more to come.

That’s the magic and the burden of being a community builder. You’re building what didn’t exist before — and trusting that others will recognize themselves in it.

So if you’re building community, or hoping to, remember that…

It’s not fast.
It’s not easy.
It’s not always clear what success looks like.

But it’s worth it.

Because we don’t need more content.
We need more connection.
And connection isn’t built. It’s earned.

– Daniel

Let’s talk Community

Have a few minutes to watch some short videos? I’ve included a few more of my thoughts on community here:

PS — The waitlist is open for my Group Training on Social Media & Content Strategy for Growth. It’s my brand-first approach to showing up online, building trust, and creating content that connects. Interested in joining me for a live one-day intensive?