Community as Owned Distribution Channel
Sid Yadav, co-founder & CEO of Circle, on the 3 types of community businesses
This points to community becoming a distribution asset, not just a retention feature. For a startup, the community acts like an owned media channel where prospects read discussions, attend events, join webinars, and see customer expertise in public, then convert into product users or buyers. That is why Circle has expanded from forums into websites, email, events, courses, payments, and AI support, because customers increasingly want one place to capture attention, educate leads, and monetize deeper engagement.
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The practical comparison to a media property is top of funnel control. Instead of renting reach from Facebook, LinkedIn, or search, a company builds its own destination, collects member emails, runs programming, and keeps the customer relationship inside software it controls.
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Circle’s customer base has shifted from creators with fan communities toward mature businesses, including seven figure community businesses and enterprise organizations. That supports the idea that community is moving from side feature to core business infrastructure.
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This also explains why Circle competes across categories. A startup using community for acquisition may otherwise stitch together Substack for email, Zoom for events, Teachable or Kajabi for courses, and Slack or Discord for discussion. Circle is trying to collapse that stack into one product.
The next step is community software becoming a standard part of go to market for startups, especially in expert driven categories like software, training, and professional services. As more companies treat education, peer interaction, and member identity as part of acquisition, platforms that combine audience building with monetization should keep moving closer to the center of the SMB software stack.