---
aliases: ["Discord Community Soft Launch"]
Is A: Experiment
Belongs to: "[[25q3]]"
Status: Open
Owner: "[[person-luca-rossi]]"
---
# Discord Community Soft Launch

Soft-launched a Discord community for the Refactoring newsletter with an initial cohort of 50 beta subscribers. The goal is to validate whether a private community can drive meaningful engagement, reduce churn, and eventually become a monetizable product tied to [[25q3-community-launch]]. This experiment directly informs whether community is the right next revenue line beyond sponsorships.

## Hypothesis

A curated Discord community with 50 hand-picked beta members will achieve at least 40% weekly active participation (defined as posting or reacting at least once per week) over the first 8 weeks, and at least 70% of members will express willingness to pay $20/month for continued access.

## Setup

- Invited 50 beta members from the most engaged newsletter subscribers (high open rate, frequent replies, active on social).
- Created a minimal channel structure: #introductions, #general, #content-ideas, #career-advice, #weekly-thread.
- [[person-luca-rossi]] posts a weekly discussion prompt every Monday tied to that week's newsletter topic.
- [[person-paco-furiani]] moderates and tracks engagement metrics.
- Running a survey at week 4 and week 8 to gauge willingness to pay and feature requests.

## Results

- Currently in progress. Early signals after 3 weeks:
  - Weekly active participation: ~52% (above the 40% target so far).
  - Most active channels: #career-advice and #general. #content-ideas is quieter than expected.
  - Three members have organically started peer accountability threads (unplanned, positive signal).
  - No dropoffs yet, though engagement tends to decay after the novelty period.

## Takeaways

- Early results are encouraging but it is too soon to draw conclusions. The real test is whether engagement sustains past week 6.
- The #career-advice channel suggests the community's core value may be peer networking rather than content discussion. Worth leaning into.
- If the willingness-to-pay survey at week 8 confirms demand, this becomes the foundation for [[25q3-community-launch]] and a potential path to the [[2025-reach-22k-mrr]] goal.
- Lessons from the [[25q1-paid-newsletter-trial]] apply here: the value proposition must be access and connection, not more content.
- Key risk: community management overhead. Need to assess whether [[person-paco-furiani]] can handle moderation long-term or if additional support is needed from [[responsibility-team-management]].
