A group chat somebody asks you to add a friend to most weeks. Or a Facebook group, where the platform decides which of them sees what you posted. Either way, those are people who listen, and you already have them. When one of them asks a good question, you answer it there. Then you answer it again, in the DMs of the five who didn’t see it.
And two of them would hit it off, if they’d ever met. So far, the only way any of them meet is through you.
You’ve got more to say to them than you’ve got time to say five times over. What’s missing is a place they gather that’s yours.
Where your people gather, and whether that place is yours.
Somebody who’d sold this kind of thing was surprised by what had to come first, and he said so:
— one person’s experience, posted on r/Entrepreneur, in a thread from February 2026“What surprised me and a lot of people is how important it is to invest in marketing. People won’t find you organically unless you’ve been building an audience for some time. A lot of people approach selling info products as a build and they will come and that’s just not the reality at all. It’s best to build an audience before you launch so you can be successful at it.”
The audience comes first, then. A community isn’t a shortcut to one; it’s what you do with one. And you’ve got people, so the question is only where they gather.
What the community does.
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You decide who gets in. Open to anyone, or private, where every request to join comes to you first. You can ask a question or two before you say yes.
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One topic doesn’t drown another. Channels inside the group for the things that keep coming up, and some of them can be private.
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Your people answer each other, not just you. Posts they reply to, react to, and attach things to. You moderate from the same feed.
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A live call, a live video session, or an event just for members, in a built-in room or on the link you already use, with the reminders sent for you. Running something public, with tickets? That’s over here
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The best of the week reaches the people who missed it. A digest goes out to members by email, at a time you choose.
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The answers somebody gives when they ask to join land on their record in your contacts. Once they’re in, they log in to one branded place that holds the community, any courses, and what they’ve paid.
A group can be free, or paid: once, or by the month. How the money side works
Somebody asking to join can start a workflow. How automations work
A community is an audience you own.
Your email list is one audience that’s yours. A community is another. Neither one depends on somebody else’s platform deciding which of your people get shown what.
And a community does the one thing a list can’t. Your people are in the same place, hearing you and each other. A question gets asked once and answered once, where the next person can find it. The two who’d hit it off can meet.
The list is the other half. What you send to it
The community we run ourselves is on this same software.
A community can hold your course. It doesn’t need one.
A course can sit inside the group: open to everyone, opening up over time, or bought right there. The same course can also be sold on its own. How courses work
A community doesn’t need a course to be worth running, and a course doesn’t need a community to be sold. You can have either one without the other.
What a community costs.
A community is part of the software at $127 a month. Set the first one up yourself, or put it in your queue and the team sets it up for you.
Questions people ask about communities.
Can I keep it private, and choose who gets in?
Yes. A private group is visible to members only, and every request to join comes to you first, even when somebody arrives from an invite link. You can ask a question or two before you say yes, and the answers land on their contact record.
Can I charge for it?
Yes. A group can be free, paid for once, or paid for monthly.
Can I run live calls with the group?
Yes. An event for members can run in a built-in live room or on the link you already use, and members get reminded.
If it’s a public event with tickets, that’s over here
What’s the difference between a community and a course — do I need both?
You don’t need both. A community is where your people are alongside each other. A course is something one person works through. Either one works on its own, and a course can sit inside a community if you want the two together.
Other features that work with communities.
Courses
Something your people work through, on its own or inside the group.
Events
Public events with tickets, for people who aren’t members yet.
Email marketing
The other audience you own, and what you send to it.
Selling online
When the group has a price on it.