Target Tight-Knit Communities

Dan Porter shares insights about viral growth and community building from his experience with Draw Something, which reached 250 million downloads. He emphasizes that successful viral growth comes from understanding and leveraging how communities naturally share and connect.

Key Points:

• Viral Growth Strategy:

  • Focus on small, tight-knit communities first (liberal arts colleges, smaller countries)
  • Word-of-mouth works better in contained communities of 5,000 people than large dispersed groups
  • Success in smaller communities can build momentum for broader adoption

• Community Building Principles:

  • Give communities ways to interact and share what makes them special
  • Create simple, recognizable symbols that bind people together (like Overtime's "O" hand signal)
  • Don't force sharing features - let users naturally share through screenshots and organic posting

• Product Design for Viral Growth:

  • Simplify everything - remove unnecessary metadata and complications
  • Make it accessible to everyone, not just experts
  • Focus on emotional connection rather than technical features
  • Create experiences that make people laugh and feel connected

• Brand Building:

  • Study successful communities (soccer clubs, bands, cults) to understand what creates passionate followership
  • Create ways for community members to identify each other (hand signals, catchphrases)
  • Sometimes withholding access (like Overtime's shirts) creates more demand
  • Focus on telling simple, relatable stories rather than complex technical details

• Content Strategy:

  • Remove barriers to understanding (excessive stats, details can turn people away)
  • Keep messaging simple and emotionally resonant
  • Let the community feel ownership ("this is their shit")
  • Turn challenges into opportunities (like using stolen content as free marketing)

The core message is that viral growth comes from understanding human behavior in tight communities rather than trying to engineer broad market adoption through technical features or forced sharing mechanisms.