Community

Text at the scale of social

Text at the scale of social

Community is a communication app aiming to bring 1-1 communication to the scale of social. Essentially, they have built a platform that enables community leaders to communicate directly with their audience members, all through text messaging. Their technology is enabling a more intimate and authentic form of communication, in contrast to the mass broadcast format we are used to today with platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Why text and why now?

The opportunity Community is capitalizing on sits at the crossroads of a couple larger trends. First, they are seizing an opportunity to create engagement that is quite different than what we get with large social media platforms. Social media platforms have gotten so large that it has become rife with trolls and subjective algorithms heavily influenced by advertisers. In other words these platforms have become watered down, giving less control to the people with large followings. Rather than community leaders (think celebrities, influencers, artists, thought leaders, etc) broadcasting meaningful messages to large and disparate audiences, they can direct their communication to smaller, more engaged audiences, all through text messaging.

Text messaging is one of the mediums most familiar to us. If you're a community leader, it is the form of communication that offers the least amount of friction so naturally more people will receive and engage with authentic messages. We are seeing text messaging being utilized by more and more companies to get our attention, and Community is betting that people are also hungry to get more personalized messages from the people they look up to and admire.

The benefits of social messaging

From a consumer standpoint, social messaging platforms like Community offer a way for us to engage with our favorite artists, thought leaders, organizations, etc, in a 1-1 way. From the community leaders standpoint, Community offers many benefits such as activism and altruism, promotion and monetization, filtering and segmentation, early releases and last-minute invitations, check-ins and celebrations. Their ability to have more control over their data and conversations will help them build more engaged and connected audiences.

Cool story

Community has a fascinating founding story. What originally started as an app for artists to connect with fans called Shimmur (2014), the startup really picked up steam in 2018 when it was discovered by Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary. They were on the look out for an application that could enable artists to connect with their fans and learn more about them. After five years of looking for the right technology to invest in, Ashton and Guy went from zero to epiphany in an instant. Shimmur rebranded as Community, and the rest is history. With their connections and resources, Community has grown quickly and attracted a diverse set of users like Jennifer Lopez, Duke Basketball, Mark Cuban, Ninja, and droves of others.