Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Most SaaS founders I work with are obsessed with paid acquisition channels. Facebook ads, Google ads, LinkedIn campaigns - they're throwing money at every possible touchpoint hoping something sticks. But here's what I discovered after working with dozens of B2B startups: the most powerful growth engine isn't paid at all.
Last year, I watched a client spend $50K on Facebook ads with mediocre results, while their small community of 200 engaged users generated more qualified leads than their entire paid strategy. That's when it clicked - we were treating symptoms, not building the cure.
The problem? Everyone talks about "building community" but nobody shares the actual playbook for turning community members into genuine product evangelists. Most approaches feel forced, inauthentic, or downright spammy.
After implementing community-driven growth strategies across multiple client projects, I've learned that referral programs and community evangelism work hand-in-hand, but require a completely different mindset than traditional marketing.
Here's what you'll learn from my experience:
Why most "community building" efforts fail (and what actually works)
The exact framework I use to identify and activate potential evangelists
How to structure community engagement that drives organic referrals
My step-by-step playbook for turning users into genuine advocates
The metrics that actually matter for community-driven growth
Industry Reality
What the growth gurus won't tell you
Walk into any SaaS conference and you'll hear the same advice: "Build a community around your product." The growth experts make it sound simple - create a Slack workspace, post valuable content, engage with users, and watch the magic happen.
Here's what they typically recommend:
Start a Slack or Discord community - Because that's where "everyone" hangs out
Share valuable content daily - Post tips, tutorials, and industry insights
Host regular events - Webinars, AMAs, and virtual meetups
Gamify engagement - Badges, points, and recognition programs
Recruit power users as moderators - Let your biggest fans help manage the space
This conventional wisdom exists because it works for certain types of businesses - usually consumer products with inherently social use cases or massive enterprises with dedicated community teams.
But here's where it falls short in practice: most B2B SaaS products aren't naturally social. Your accounting software or project management tool doesn't inspire the same community engagement as a fitness app or gaming platform.
The real issue? Traditional community building focuses on engagement metrics (messages sent, event attendance, time spent) rather than business metrics (referrals generated, customer lifetime value, organic growth). You end up with an active community that feels good but doesn't actually drive meaningful business results.
That's why I developed a different approach - one focused on identifying and activating the small percentage of users who are naturally inclined to become evangelists, rather than trying to turn every user into a community participant.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The turning point came when I was working with a B2B SaaS client who had tried everything. They'd launched a Slack community that had decent engagement - about 150 active members posting regularly. The founder was proud of the "community metrics" but frustrated because it wasn't translating to growth.
Their challenge was classic: they had built a nice-to-have community instead of a business-driving one. People would ask questions, share tips, and engage with content, but very few were actually referring new customers or becoming true advocates for the product.
Here's what we discovered when we dug into their user data: out of their 150 "active" community members, only about 12 were actually heavy product users. The rest were lurkers, competitors doing research, or casual users who engaged socially but barely used the core product.
This is when I realized we were approaching community building backwards. Instead of trying to build a large, engaged community and hoping some members would become evangelists, we needed to identify potential evangelists first, then build community experiences specifically for them.
The traditional approach treats community building like content marketing - cast a wide net and hope something sticks. But product evangelism is more like account-based marketing - you need to identify high-value targets and create personalized experiences that turn them into advocates.
So we completely pivoted the strategy. Instead of trying to grow the community, we focused on the 12 power users who were already getting massive value from the product. These were the people posting success stories, answering questions from new users, and generally showing signs of genuine enthusiasm for the product.
The insight that changed everything: evangelists aren't created through community engagement - they're discovered through product usage patterns and then activated through community experiences.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's the exact framework I developed for turning product usage insights into an evangelism engine:
Step 1: Evangelist Identification System
I started by analyzing user behavior data to identify potential evangelists. This wasn't about community engagement metrics - it was about product usage patterns that indicated genuine value realization.
The key indicators I tracked:
Feature adoption velocity (how quickly they explored advanced features)
Support ticket sentiment (users who submitted feature requests vs. complaints)
Retention curves (users who stuck around past the typical churn point)
Usage intensity (daily active users vs. weekly or monthly)
Step 2: Personal Outreach Before Community
Instead of inviting these users to a generic community, I had the founder reach out personally. The message was simple: "I noticed you're getting great results with [product]. I'm curious about your use case and whether you'd be interested in sharing your experience with other users."
This personal touch accomplished two things: it validated that these users were indeed getting value, and it made them feel special and recognized before they ever joined any community space.
Step 3: Exclusive Evangelist Circle
Rather than a public community, we created an exclusive "Customer Success Circle" - a private group limited to 25 high-value users. The positioning was crucial: this wasn't a support community, it was a strategic advisory group.
The circle included:
Monthly strategy calls with the founder
Early access to new features
Opportunity to influence product roadmap
Direct line to the CEO for feedback and ideas
Step 4: Structured Advocacy Opportunities
Here's where most community strategies fail - they expect evangelism to happen organically. Instead, I created specific, easy ways for circle members to advocate:
• Case Study Partnerships: We turned their success stories into co-marketed case studies
• Referral Incentives: Not just discounts, but exclusive access to new features for successful referrals
• Speaking Opportunities: We helped them present at industry conferences about their success
• Advisory Roles: Formal advisor positions for the most engaged members
Step 5: Amplification Engine
The final piece was systematically amplifying their advocacy. Every case study, conference talk, or referral was promoted across our channels. We made sure their advocacy efforts got maximum visibility and impact.
The key insight: people become evangelists when advocacy benefits their own professional brand, not just when they love your product.
Data-Driven Selection
Identify evangelists through product usage analytics, not community engagement metrics
Exclusive Access
Create scarcity and status through limited, high-value community experiences
Structured Advocacy
Provide clear, beneficial ways for members to advocate rather than hoping it happens organically
Professional Benefit
Align advocacy opportunities with members' career and business goals
The results spoke for themselves. Within four months, this small group of 25 evangelists generated:
Organic Referral Growth: 34 qualified leads directly attributed to evangelist referrals, with an average deal size 40% higher than other channels. These weren't just any leads - they came pre-sold and had much higher conversion rates.
Content Amplification: Every piece of content we created got immediate traction because our evangelists shared it with their networks. Our organic reach increased by 300% without increasing content production.
Product Development Acceleration: Having a dedicated group of power users meant we could validate features quickly and build exactly what our best customers needed. Product development cycles shortened by 30%.
Brand Authority: Multiple industry publications featured our evangelists talking about their success with our product. This third-party validation was worth more than any advertising we could have bought.
But the most surprising result? Our evangelists became better at their own jobs. By participating in our community and sharing their expertise, they built their personal brands and advanced their careers. This created a positive feedback loop where advocacy became genuinely beneficial for them.
The small community of 25 people drove more qualified growth than our previous community of 150+ members ever did.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons from building multiple evangelism communities:
Quality Beats Quantity Every Time: A small group of genuine evangelists will always outperform a large group of casual participants. Focus on depth of engagement, not breadth.
Evangelism Must Benefit the Evangelist: People don't advocate just because they love your product. They advocate when it enhances their professional reputation and career prospects.
Start with Product Value, Not Community: You can't build evangelism around a mediocre product. Make sure you're delivering genuine value before trying to activate advocates.
Personal Relationships Scale Differently: The founder's personal involvement was crucial in the early stages, but we had to systematize the relationship-building process as we grew.
Exclusivity Creates Value: Making the community exclusive and limited increased its perceived value and made members feel special.
Advocacy Needs Structure: Hoping people will naturally advocate doesn't work. You need to create specific, easy opportunities for advocacy.
Track Business Metrics, Not Vanity Metrics: Community engagement means nothing if it doesn't drive business results. Focus on referrals, retention, and revenue impact.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups looking to build evangelism communities:
Start with your top 10 power users, not a public community
Create exclusive advisory opportunities that benefit their careers
Implement structured referral incentives beyond just discounts
Track advocacy-driven metrics like referral conversion rates and customer LTV
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores building product evangelism:
Focus on repeat customers and high-value buyers as potential evangelists
Create VIP customer communities with early access to new products
Implement user-generated content programs that showcase customer success
Offer affiliate opportunities for top advocates to monetize their influence