Communities Sell Human Judgment: Three Types
Sid Yadav, co-founder & CEO of Circle, on the 3 types of community businesses
Circle’s customer has moved upmarket because the hardest thing these communities sell is not information, it is access to other people’s judgment. Since 2020, Circle has expanded from fan communities for creators into businesses where the community itself is the product, including professional networks, training academies, coaching groups, and customer communities inside larger companies. That fits especially well in verticals where members pay to learn from peers, not just consume content.
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The early wedge was creators with audiences, but the newer core user is a more established operator. Circle now supports seven figure community businesses, and it has added enterprise use cases like customer education, partner hubs, and practitioner networks for large organizations.
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The strongest product market fit shows up in three concrete buckets. Professional networks, like B2B marketers or Airbnb hosts. Learning academies, like career switchers or people training for a monetizable skill. Life clubs, like health, parenting, or wellness groups. All three depend on member to member advice and accountability, which makes the product more durable than a static course.
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That is also why AI is additive, not substitutive. Circle’s AI can answer repeat questions from course materials and prior discussions, but the highest value conversations are still introductions, war stories, and niche operator judgment. Competitors like Kajabi are stronger at course commerce, while Circle wins when the business needs discussions, events, DMs, directories, and ongoing interaction in one system.
The next phase is Circle becoming core infrastructure for higher ticket, higher trust internet businesses. As more low end information products get commoditized by AI, the winning communities will center even more on peer access, coaching, reputation, and repeated interaction, which pushes Circle further toward professional, vertical, and enterprise community use cases.