Community as the Core Product
Sid Yadav, co-founder & CEO of Circle, on the 3 types of community businesses
This marks a shift from creator tools into business infrastructure. When the community is the thing being bought, the customer is no longer paying for a bundle of videos or bonus chat access, they are paying for ongoing access to peers, accountability, live sessions, group identity, and a structured path to an outcome. That makes the product more recurring, harder to copy, and better suited to an all-in-one platform like Circle.
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The clearest examples are professional networks, training academies, and life clubs. In each case, members are buying entry into a live environment where other members, hosts, events, and discussions create the value, not a static library sitting behind a paywall.
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This is why Circle expanded beyond forums into websites, payments, courses, events, email, and AI support. A business built around community needs one place to sell access, onboard members, host sessions, answer common questions, and keep people engaged week after week.
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It also changes the competitive set. Kajabi is strongest when the core product is a course or digital product with community attached. Circle is moving toward businesses where the ongoing member experience is the product itself, which helps explain its growth from $1M ARR in 2020 to $21M by May 2024.
The next step is that more creator businesses start to look like lightweight schools, networks, and clubs. As AI makes information cheaper and easier to reproduce, the scarce thing becomes trusted groups, relationships, and workflow around them. That pushes community platforms further toward being operating systems for outcome driven membership businesses.