Community Commandments

Guidelines for building and nurturing healthy communities

Camille Ricketts
How Notion leveraged community to build a $10B business

Community Commandments

"One of the worst things you can do is say, let's cut this off at the knees if it's not generating ROI... making sure that you are learning what individuals really want out of this and making them feel like they're very seen and very heard. That was a big area of focus and I think it's what kept people really engaged." - Camille Ricketts

What It Is

The Community Commandments are a set of operating principles for building and maintaining thriving communities, distilled from Notion's experience growing one of the most successful product communities in tech.

These guidelines help avoid common mistakes that kill community engagement—like over-measuring, over-growing, or under-investing in relationships.

The Commandments

1. Don't Measure Too Soon

Resist putting ROI metrics on community in the early days. You'll kill what's working by optimizing for the wrong things.

Instead:

  • Trust the organic signals (are people showing up? talking about you?)
  • Focus on quality of engagement, not quantity
  • Start measuring when you have enough scale to learn from data

2. Don't Grow Too Fast

Rapid growth destroys community intimacy. When it feels like speaking to an auditorium, people stop speaking.

Instead:

  • Add members in small cohorts (Notion did ~20/month)
  • Give existing members time to welcome newcomers
  • Maintain the feeling of knowing who else is there

3. Listen More Than You Broadcast

Community is about member-to-member connection, not company-to-member broadcasting.

Instead:

  • Have one-on-one conversations with members
  • Ask: "Why are you here? What would make this better?"
  • Let members guide what programs you build

4. Make Members Feel Special

The draw must go beyond transactional benefits. Create genuine connection and access.

Instead:

  • Offer early access to features and genuine input on product
  • Create access to leadership (AMAs, direct conversations)
  • Help members achieve their own goals (visibility, skills, businesses)

5. Align Community Goals with Member Goals

Understand what members want to get out of participating, then help them achieve it.

Common member goals:

  • Building their own platform/following
  • Starting a business (consulting, templates)
  • Professional development and learning
  • Forming friendships with peers

6. Share Community Energy with the Company

Broadcast community activity internally to inspire employees and remind them who they're building for.

Instead:

  • Regular all-hands updates on community activity
  • Slack channels sharing community highlights
  • Stories of how real users are using the product

7. Enable Member-to-Member Help

The best communities are peer-powered. Create conditions for members to help each other.

Instead:

  • Don't try to answer every question yourself
  • Celebrate members who help others
  • Build infrastructure (channels, forums) for peer support

How to Apply It

  1. Start with 20, not 2,000 - Your first cohort should be small enough to have real relationships with

  2. Invest in one-on-ones - Early community building is high-touch conversation, not automation

  3. Create specialization paths - Let members self-select into focus areas (events, content, consulting)

  4. Resist metrics pressure - If leadership demands ROI proof, explain that organic fervor is its own evidence

  5. Iterate on member feedback - Treat community like a product with continuous discovery

When to Use It

  • When launching a new community initiative
  • When an existing community is losing engagement
  • When stakeholders are pushing for premature metrics
  • When deciding how fast to scale community programs

Source

  • Guest: Camille Ricketts
  • Episode: "How Notion leveraged community to build a $10B business"
  • Key Discussion: (00:41:44) - "Commandments for community builders"
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

Related Frameworks

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