How do I start a community when I have nobody to put in it?

Build the room first, then go and get people. Not the other way round, because the room is the thing that makes an invitation worth accepting.

Updated 16 September 2026

1. 1

   Decide the one problem your room solves

   Not your whole practice. One problem, for one kind of person.

   "Coaches who are good at the work and hate selling" beats "a community for coaches", because a stranger reading it can tell whether it is about them.

   The name goes on top, and what it is about goes underneath. Those two lines are what every person you invite will read before deciding.

   

   The name on top. Underneath, what it is about.

   Name my community
2. 2

   Put three or four things in it before anyone arrives

   This is the step people skip, and it is the one that matters most. Write a handful of posts that solve a real piece of that problem. Not an introduction, not housekeeping. Something useful enough that a stranger would have been glad to find it.

   Open Content and it asks "What would you like to post today?" Some of the ways in write the post with you; one hands you the editor if you would rather write it yourself.

   While you are there, use the paperclip in the composer to attach the thing people actually want: a worksheet, a checklist, a template. It takes PDFs, Word, spreadsheets, PowerPoint, CSV, plain text and zip. One genuinely useful download beats ten posts about how excited you are.

   

   Pick where you are starting from. One of these hands you the editor.

3. 3

   Give people a date to turn up for

   "Join my community" is a weak invitation. "Five day sprint, starts Monday, here is what you will have by Friday" is not. A challenge gives a stranger a reason to join this week rather than someday.

   Challenges live under Games. Set up a game asks you five questions in plain English, who it is for, what they will have at the end, how long it runs, and you can speak the answers rather than type them. It writes the tasks, the posts and the reminders from that, and saves as you go, so you can stop halfway and come back.

   

   Games is where challenges live. Points are already running above it.

4. 4

   Open the door and take the link

   One link does everything. There is no separate invite link and no second address for members.

   Copy link puts it on your clipboard, and Open shows you exactly what a visitor sees before you send it to anybody.

   

   Community, then Settings. Copy link puts it on your clipboard.

   Get my community link
5. 5

   Now go and find people

   This is the half that makes it lead generation rather than admin. Open Outreach and press Discover. It goes out, finds places your people already gather, and invites them, continuously, once you have set it up.

   Each suggestion carries a reason underneath saying which part of your audience it reaches. Read the reason before you accept it: that is the difference between reaching your people and reaching everyone.

   Find people to invite
6. 6

   Watch the right number

   Not member count. Whether anyone came back a second time.

   The dashboard counts posts, comments and new members over the last seven days, and Quiet 30 days counts members who have not posted or commented in a month.

   

   Posts, comments, new members, and the quiet number underneath.

   See my dashboard