The Core of Your Community: People vs Personalities

There are two distinct approaches to building a developer community: one centered on people and the other focused on a central personality. Understanding the difference is crucial for nurturing that initial spark into a sustainable campfire that warms everyone involved.

(A quick note: If you're building a community around a business or product, the people-focused approach is likely your goal. This post will primarily explore that path. If you're an influencer building a personal brand, you'll find some insights on how to fit in with people-focused communities, but less on building your own personality-driven one. Both are valid. They just fulfill different needs.)

Foundational Bonds: Reciprocal versus Parasocial Connections

At its heart, transforming that initial community spark into a lasting campfire is about fostering connections. The type of connection differentiates these two approaches significantly.

People-Focused Communities Start With Reciprocity

The goal here is to build reciprocal connections throughout the community. You want developers engaging not just with your company representatives but with each other. This creates an environment where ideas are shared in all directions, problems are solved collaboratively, and members connect with acquaintances and friends they recognize. While individual interest in your product might fluctuate, these strong social bonds endure. Fostering these relationships eventually creates what famed community builder Mary Thengvall terms a "flywheel," where engaged members naturally draw others in.

Personality-Focused Communities Start With Parasocial Bonds

The alternative relies on building a parasocial relationship between a central figurehead and the community members. Initially, this can create strong bidirectional ties between the central personality and individuals, often leading to rapid early growth if the figurehead possesses the right charisma.

However, this model faces scaling challenges. As the active community grows; often hitting significant straing around 20-30 active users. By the time it approaches Dunbar's number (~100-150 active users), it becomes impossible for one person to maintain meaningful reciprocal relationships with everyone. The connections become largely unidirectional – from the members to the figurehead. The community's energy, content, and excitement become overwhelmingly dependent on the central personality. If they reduce their output, engagement plummets. If they leave, their community follows them.

Community Behavior

The underlying structure of a community profoundly impacts how members experience and participate in it.

In a people-focused environment, every member has the potential to be recognized, feel empowered, and contribute. Active participants become creators – whether through chatting, building, helping others, or writing content. Crucially, their enjoyment isn't solely dependent on a central figure; they derive value from interacting with and supporting each other. A strong Developer Relations team can guide and facilitate this, but once ignited, the community develops its own momentum.

Conversely, a personality-focus tends to cultivate consumers. The primary mode of engagement is consuming content produced by the figurehead. While community members might still create, the most visible reward often becomes acknowledgment from that central personality. As the community grows, gaining this recognition becomes harder, potentially discouraging contribution. Think of a large Twitch chat – it often resembles audience reactions more than a collaborative discussion among peers.

Growth Engines: Orbits and the Flywheel

How do these communities grow and sustain themselves?

The people-focused approach aligns well with a model developed by Orbit (now part of Postman). Their Orbit Model illustrates how healthy communities have members at different levels of engagement – from casual observers ("outer orbits") to deeply invested contributors ("inner orbits"). As members become more involved and move towards the center, they increase the community's "gravity." This pulls others inward, creating that self-sustaining flywheel effect. The community's growth expands its reach, naturally exposing new people to your ecosystem.

The personality-focused community, lacking this strong inter-member gravity, relies on the figurehead's constant effort to pull people in and keep them engaged. Growth is often tied directly to the figurehead's reach and activity level, rather than an organic, community-driven expansion.

Insight Quality

Perhaps one of the most critical business impacts is the difference in the quality of feedback and insight generated.

Personality-focused communities, where members are primarily consumers seeking validation from a central figure, can inadvertently stifle critical discussion. It's often easier and more rewarding to agree with the leader than to offer dissenting opinions or nuanced feedback. This can create an echo chamber, limiting the depth and honesty of insights you receive about your product or company.

In contrast, people-focused communities, built on mutual respect and empowering members as creators, foster an environment where individuals feel safer and more rewarded for sharing their genuine thoughts. This is where you'll find the deep, thoughtful, and honest insights that are invaluable for iteration and improvement.

Building a Sustainable Campfire

A well-structured, people-focused community possesses remarkable resilience. It can often continue functioning, albeit not optimally, even if direct company involvement dips temporarily. This ability to self-sustain, to foster a sense of belonging where people want to be, is the hallmark of a truly healthy community. Achieving this is deeply rewarding, though perhaps less immediately glamorous than leading a personality-driven group.

Building this type of sustainable community requires investing in your Developer Relations function – the facilitators and enablers of those crucial peer-to-peer connections. If you build this foundation, you can always partner with influencers (personalities) strategically to boost visibility and attract new members to the top of your community funnel, without making them the single point of failure at its core.

Ultimately, if long-term health, user empowerment, and rich insights are your goals, focus on the people, build the connections between them, and tend that sustainable campfire.