I ask this question about ideas and pitches where there’s a community tie in all the time.
Usually it’s because somebody has a creative endeavor, pursuit, or idea of some sort, and they’re all excited about the business potential of who’s ivolved and why.
It’s infectious passion. I’m a magnet for this stuff. But I can’t always get sucked in, especially if I (or they) don’t understand what follows. You have to ask this question:
Is it a startup?
Or,
Is it a scene?
Keep community in mind as we go through this.
A startup is a business proposition. It has something that inherently scales inside of it.
Since it’s Girl Scout cookie season, they’re a good example to kick your brain out of making a tech association. I mean, make the tech association too, but recognize it’s working on the same principle as a love for Thin Mints.
A person has access to cookies and a market has demand for cookies. The person taps their network of potential buyers, sells product, and everybody feels good about themselves (until I realize I ate a full sleeve of Thin Mints and can’t move because I’m in sugar shock, but still - totally worth it).
Before the sale, the person wasn’t in business. During the sale, all the attention was on the orders and the execution. After the sale it’s back to grade school and waiting for next year.
I love my niece, but I almost never think about her as a girl scout except for when the order form comes out. That’s an insanely valuable feature of this entire program.
All of the awareness and attention for the startup is focused on the relationships and the transaction in combination, at scale, when it’s time to distribute beyond the group.
And a startup starts and ends right there.
A scene is totally different.
Girl Scouts in and of themselves, apart from the cookie sale, is a scene.
Parents bring the kids in. The kids hang out with each other. There’s status and badges and who’s cool vs. who’s not, and that goes for the parental and child levels.
The awareness of the Girl Scouts is that it’s a shared activity a group gathers for on the regular without a commercial purpose.
The Girl Scouts are the rare scene that can also morph into a startup at a point in time and then morph back.
However, the underlying principle of the scene is that the awareness and attention for the scene is focused on the relationships and ongoing gathering in combination, without concern for scale beyond the group.
Startups must have a scale function.
Scenes must not have a scale function.
Because once a scene has a scale function it ceases to function as a scene. New people come in (you've been there, you know how sometimes too many new people come in and that always makes a scene weird) and then original people leave, so that it all changes.
When someone comes to me with an idea about a community, this question cuts to the heart of what they’re after, and I get to figure out if, how, or why I want to contribute in some way.
If it’s a startup, all I need to know is what they’re scaling.
If they’re a scene, all I need to know is who’s going to be there.
The former is for the transaction, the latter is for the relationships.
It’s so easy to see.
The minute I sense confusion or forcing values across the line, is the minute I reallocate my time and attention (until or unless they can figure this detail out).
If I can contribute to the scale, I want to get to work, and if I can contribute to the who’s who of cool people I want to collaborate with, I want to get talking. Simple as that.
Now, where are those thin mints…
