What community model is right for my business?

I know predictable recurring revenue sounds awesome, and a membership community is usually the first idea that comes to mind… But if you’re not familiar with community strategy and design, you can easily spend months (or years!) building the wrong type of community for your business — and then wondering what you’re doing wrong when results don’t follow.

Or maybe you’ve past that and now feeling stuck trying to find new members, struggling with engagement, or endlessly planning without launching.

In this episode of Dear Bri, we kick off Season 3 with a powerful framework that will completely change how you think about community building.

I’m sharing a simple (but game-changing) matrix I spent the past decade refining. It is designed to help you identify the right type of community for your business because most communities don’t fail from lack of effort… they fail from misalignment.

You’ll learn why copying someone else’s community model is a fast track to frustration, the key difference between an audience and a community, and the biggest mistake people make when trying to balance education and connection inside a community.

If you’re thinking about launching a paid community in 2026, or fixing one that isn’t working, this episode is your starting point. Do not skip it.

⏳ Timestamps

00:00:00 | Introduction to season 3: Community strategy

00:02:19 | The fastest way to build the WRONG community

00:04:17 | Your community vs. your audience

00:05:23 | The community strategy matrix [Framework]

00:07:42 | Imagine your ideal community member

00:08:50 | The one myth I’ll bust right now

00:11:03 | Full recap

📌 Resources Mentioned

4 Types of Community - The Masterclass: https://preview.mailerlite.io/forms/775267/185716772091987335/share

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're building the wrong type of community for your business. There are four types of communities, and communities that fail are almost always building the wrong one for their business. That's the whole problem. In this episode, I'm going to show you The Matrix, a simple two-axis model I've spent a decade refining so that you can place yourself on it and immediately understand whether the community you're building or dreaming of building actually makes sense for your business. Welcome to Dearbrie, an advice column for community conundrums, fiascos, and drama. Season three is brought to you by Ember Consulting. That's my community strategy agency, where we help coaches, consultants, and creators build paid online communities that are good for their people and good for their business. This season marks the first time Deer Bree is available in video on YouTube. So if you want to put a face to the voice, come find me there. The link is in the show notes. And this season is solo. No guests. Just me, Bree. And that's because after two seasons of hosting this podcast with guests and 10 years of doing this community work, I've been able to crystallize the most confusing conundrums and darkest dramas into a few simple insights and frameworks, which is what you're gonna find in this season. Simply put, I had too much to say and not enough time. So it's just me and you on this one. And finally, I usually record this podcast from Hawaii Island, so a special thank you to the Kanakamale people on whose land I currently reside. Welcome to season three of Deer Brie. A quick intro for anyone who's new here. I'm Brie Lever. I'm a community strategist and the founder at Ember, which I started in 2020. I live on Hawaii Island with my partner and I'm a mom to be, so you might catch me being a little extra fired up today because honestly, nesting energy hits a little differently when you're talking about community strategy. Make sure you stick around to the end because I'm gonna tell you the number one trap I see people fall into with this matrix. I like to tell my clients, your community is perfectly designed to get the outcomes that you are getting. Let that sink in. That's the theme for this whole season. And it cuts both ways. If your community is thriving, it's because of the design. And if it's stalling, that's also by design. It's just not intentional design. Usually it's by accident. Here's what's coming in the next six episodes of season three of Deer Bree. How to choose your community platform, pricing strategy, how to increase engagement, and how to grill your community. This season is kind of like a comprehensive mini-series for launching or pivoting your community if you didn't get it right the first time. And while any community builder can take something from what we're covering here, I specifically designed this series for three types of people. First, folks who are getting ready to launch their community. You're doing the hard work now, and your future self will thank you for it. Number two, folks who have already launched but haven't seen the results that they wanted and they're wondering why. And finally, this is especially helpful for people who are pivoting or migrating their community to an all-in-one community platform. Because with that change, you have a profound opportunity to optimize your strategy. But before we go any further, we have to figure out what type of community is right for your business because everything else builds on that. Here's what I see over and over again. You get excited about community. You look around at communities that seem to be working, and maybe it's just a membership that you're in, or a group program that you loved, or a free Facebook group that's popping off. And that's your first mistake. Copying someone else's community is the fastest way to build the wrong one. Because that community was meant for or it works for their business, their audience, and their offer ecosystem. It is not a template for yours. Let's say you push through, you launch anyway, or maybe you get really lucky and the alignment is all there. You are going to hit two very specific challenges. And how you respond to these challenges is going to determine if your community survives or quietly dies. Challenge number one, bringing members in. You get your first 12 members in, then things stall out. You fall for the myth. The only way to bring in more good members is to build a bigger audience. The truth is you don't have to go viral to build a thriving community, but you do need the right type of community for your business. Challenge number two, getting your members to actually talk to each other and engage with each other in ways that feel meaningful and valuable. When you hit this trial, and you will, the myth you'll be tempted to believe is that your community just needs to do more. More content, more events, more offers, more connection, more education, more of everything. This is exactly what happened to a client that came to me recently. I'm gonna tell you more about their story a little later on and how we work through it. Because the truth is usually much simpler and a lot harder to hear. You're building the wrong type of community for your business. This is also where I see people mix up their audience and their community. They are not the same thing. Your audience shows up to get information and to consume. Your community shows up to participate. Your audience is people who follow you. But your community is people who have an identity as a member of a group. Treating them the same will stall both. So I want you to hear me loud and clear. Your community isn't working and won't fail because it's missing hustle. It doesn't need more, it's missing clarity on the right model. And that's just assuming that you've launched because I'd be leaving a whole category of people out if I didn't mention the most common challenge I see for community curious people is after a year, they still haven't started. They spend months tinkering with tech, trying out new platforms, perfecting their course, never quite pulling the trigger. And that's not a time problem. That's a clarity problem. So let's get you that clarity right now, especially if that's you, and let's do it through our matrix. This matrix is simple on the surface, but there are decades of nuance underneath. The first access is free versus paid. And here's a simple statement that I have earned the right to make after 10 years of doing this. Free communities work best for product-based businesses. Paid communities work best for service-based businesses. Full stop. When you're a coach, consultant, or creator, your community is most powerful as a paid offer. It belongs in your paid ecosystem, not your free funnel. I dig much more into why in the master class, but for now, just let that land. The second access is education and connection. Every community has some combination of both, but they are not equal partners and they should not be treated as such, especially in the beginning. Education-centric communities derive their value from a curriculum. There's a guided intentional learning journey. Experts are taking you from point A to point B, and you know what destination you're working towards as a group. Connection-centric communities derive their value from the container, the design, the rituals, the cadence, the events, the networking structure. Education can happen as a byproduct of connection, but it's more like organic. It's not because someone signed up to follow a three-step plan. They signed up to rub shoulders with someone who is freely sharing their expertise. You can think of education and connection more like a ratio and less like a binary selection of one over the other. So your community might be 80% education and 20% connection. Now here's the secret: there is no perfect number or ratio. However, there is one wrong ratio. Can you guess what it is? This one wrong ratio is a huge trap that we bust in the free masterclass, which dives deep into these four types of communities. I'm going to tell you the trap and the myth at the end. So stick around and then we'll do a deep dive in the masterclass together. This season of Deer Brie is brought to you by Ember, my community strategy agency. Most of our clients come to us for one of two reasons. Either they are launching a brand new community and they need it done right the first time, or they're ready to make a significant change, either because they've outgrown their old model or they're getting ready to migrate to a new community platform. Either way, every project runs through the same five-milestone roadmap. We look at discovery, making sure your value proposition aligns with your business model in your community and your customer needs. We look at your community business model, the tech you want to use, we dial in your onboarding strategy, and create a robust launch or pivot plan. Every project with us starts with two initial strategy sessions where we get clear on your model, your platform, and exactly what needs to happen next. You walk away with two things. First, a customized ecosystem map. This is where we get aligned on your model, your value proposition, and really wrap our hands around what's going to happen in this community. Second, you get a personalized roadmap scoped for your specific community. We assess where you're at with each of our five milestones and lay out the steps for what you'll need to do to work through each of them. Two calls, two deliverables for $999. When you're ready to stop throwing spaghetti at the wall and start building with an intentional plan, book a discovery call. The link is in the description. And when you're ready to find someone to run it, Ember Fractionals can help you find and even certify your next perfect community manager for the job. Link is in the description. Now back to the show. Here's a quick gut check. When you imagine your ideal member joining your community, what are they coming for? To learn something or to access the people inside. Here's a general rule of thumb. Beginners usually need education, and more mature members typically value connection. Someone who's just getting started needs a roadmap. Someone who's been in the game for years needs a peer. So right away, that tells you something about where your community sits in your offer ecosystem and who it's for. Now, there are four distinct types of communities that emerge in this matrix. I have names for all of them, and in the masterclass, I'm going to break down each one in full. What they look like, who they are for, the strengths and challenges, where they live and why, who they're best for, and which ones are kind of popping off as the most popular right now. For today, I just want you to notice which one do you typically gravitate towards yourself? One of them is the right fit for your community. And the sooner we figure out which one, the faster everything else starts to click. But let's go back to that one wrong ratio. Can you guess what it is? It's 50% education and 50% connection. And I get why this feels intuitive. You want to offer the strengths that both education-centric and connection-centric communities have to offer. You want it to be rich and full and layered. But here's what actually happens when you try to do both equally from the start. You're not building one community. You're building two communities at the same time. And let me tell you, one is hard enough. If your ratios are too close to equal, you will struggle to do either of them well. Your attention will be divided and your members will be confused about why they're actually here and what they're actually supposed to get out of it. So pick one dominant axis. Go all in on it. You can always layer in more later. There's absolutely a way to build a progressive journey where someone starts in one type of community and grows into another, except for the free to paid, but that's another myth that we don't have time to bust today. I had a client come to me recently and they helped thought leaders write and publish their book. They started their community on the paid connection-centric side of the axis. It was a space for their one-on-one clients to get support after the launch of their book. When people didn't quite pick up the behavior that they hoped for, like talking to each other or engaging in the community, they panicked and said, Oh crap, we need more people. So they opened up their community for free. Now, instead of having one not so great community experience, they have a community that is serving two different types of people and neither of them well. So now we're working with this client to understand which type of community is going to align with your business offer ecosystem. If we actually had the right type of community selected, then what we have here is a design problem and we need to take a closer look inside. So if you think you actually might have the right type, but you're not seeing the actions and results that you want from your members, stick around for more of this season because that's exactly what we're covering. All right, let's recap what we covered today. Number one, community is not your audience. Community accesses a person's identity as a part of the group. And as such, it is an even more powerful tool for your business. This simple framework and matrix helps you understand how a community can support your business. And it has two axes, the free versus paid, and the education versus connection. Where your community falls on these two axes determines everything: your launch strategy, your platform, your pricing, your engagement approach, your marketing engine, your growth model. The masterclass will help you figure out which one. The link is in the description. And in our next episode, we're going to talk about the signs that community is actually the right move for where your business is right now. I'm going to give you a very simple framework to find the sweet spot and make sure it's aligned. Don't miss it. Thank you so much for sharing some space with me on this episode. Please like and review wherever you listen. It genuinely helps more community builders find the show. To stay connected between episodes, sign up for the Ember newsletter. That's where I share what I'm building, what we're learning, and the things that don't make it into each of these episodes. It's also where you can hit reply and let me know what community conundrums are haunting you right now. Link is in the show notes. Aloha, and we'll see you in the next episode.