Expressed opinions Entrepreneur Contributors are their own.
I have always been an early adopter of technology. I remember the first time I felt like listening to music on the go using my Walkman. With Michael Jackson Bad Album to my ears, I was at the top of the world, if not stop.
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Technology enables us to access more information and learn from voices around the world. It is an incredible tool for empowering people of all walks of life So, when my 16 year old nephew told me about Discord a few years ago, I decided to give it a try.
Originally intended as a group-chatting platform for gamers, Discord has since become a hub for various communities. With over 150 million monthly active users, brands like OpenSea and Gucci are crowding out members only.
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But what I like about Discord is that it utilizes the knowledge of the crowd, which, in my opinion, is always smarter than any person. We have 35 employees in our startup, but since receiving Discord it often seems like we have 5,000. The community it has helped us nurture has blurred the line between customers, investors and employees. Here’s why it’s a good thing:
Creating a community that is as invested as your employees
We run a subscription-based business where customers pay a subscription fee for crowdfund real estate access. So, you could say that our company has cooperation and inclusion in DNA. Our Discord Server has helped build a community of members who have invested just like our team.
Discord is like a well-spirited version of Reddit. This has opened up new possibilities for our business. Being able to communicate with specific users is an incredible way to cut noise and get stakeholder feedback – which we can’t do through other social media channels.
It connects our employees with our members, creating a positive feedback loop where they can collaborate on ideas, check in to see how a project is going, or offer compliments. It has also served as a democrat – breaking the employee hierarchy and creating connections between otherwise silent stakeholders.
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Everyone is invited to the conversation, whether they feel more comfortable starting a new topic, keeping an eye on the other person’s thoughts or just hiding and observing in the background. That egalitarian approach means that everyone values their ideas.
Create the products that your customers want
Members don’t just ask questions and answer questions, they share ideas about how we can use our products and knowledge more effectively. In fact, Some of the most exciting initiatives of our company have come from our Discord community. Through crowdsourced customer feedback, we’ve been able to discover what makes sense to them, and we’ve been able to map out our products in real time – what they want – and don’t want -.
For example, one of our current projects is to create a financial literacy academy to help educate our members. The product is not yet launched, but thanks to Discord, we already have a lot of ideas about what its name is and what the desired features are.
We are no longer building for our community, we are building With Our community. We stumbled upon a way of beta testing in real-time, and the feedback from our members helped raise the bar of our business. For example, when we launch our upcoming “Advers” product (aptly named by our community) – one member mentioned that he wants to have an avatar for himself as mayor of the property he has invested in.
This led to a lot of funny memes and funny threads of conversation, but it also told us how our members wanted to use the product. Our clients are taking an ownership mindset towards our business and helping us improve all aspects of the process.
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Brand advocates can be your best recruit
We haven’t hired anyone from our Discorded community yet, but in many ways, that would be ideal. Take some time to scroll through the conversations on our servers and you will see how we run our company –– with complete clarity. It has become a great lead generator for potential talent where our built-in brand advocates can share job opportunities with their respective networks or apply themselves.
When we hire from our Discord community, we suspect that the onboarding process will be simplified. People on our servers already believe in our goals, understand our products, and are passionate about our purpose. Even now, our platform has volunteers who moderate conversations and ensure interaction and follow community guidelines.
The commitment I’ve seen from these members is what any employer expects from their employees. In fact, if any of them applied, I would accept. What boss doesn’t want a team that is passionate about their company’s mission and taps into their customers?
We never intended to use our Discord Server in this way, but the great thing about experimenting with new technology is that you never know which platforms will remove the index.
The bottom line is that our business is based on a crowdsourcing model, so leaning towards the same technology to build our company is not an extension for us. Now, with access to thousands of valuable mind opinions, why would you bind your business success on one person’s perspective?
I see it this way: when a Nobel laureate is asked about their great achievements, they never claim to be the most intelligent person. Rather, they acknowledge that they can surround themselves with broad thinkers and use the collective knowledge of the group.
And that’s what technology-resistant leaders have to lose. Incredible inventions and kissmates can be discovered by learning from a quiet voice. To show it as our leader – even if it’s in a collegial chat room.
