Walking into our latest meetup I was doing some mental math and realized this is our 25th SaaStanak event.
With 17 events in Zagreb, 2 in Belgrade, 2 in Ljubljana, 1 in Skopje, 1 in Zadar, and 1 founder forum + 2024 conference, we managed to host 53 different speakers at our meetups + an additional 28 at the conference.
We’ve also had 20 different companies backing the meetups as sponsors or hosts.
SaaStanak events generated over 1500 unique signups, including 400 people joining the conference. We have around 40+ new signups per event with an average attendance of 60 people per event.
The team consists of 5 core members actively working on content, event organization & promotion. We’re also working with talented contractors (Photo, Video, Web design), enthusiastic students, and community leaders who have helped us along the way.
It’s a pleasure and a privilege to work with a community that likes knowledge-sharing and giving back as much as SaaStanak folks do. And for that reason, I thought it makes sense to share some learnings about building one.
Building a community
I’ll share 3 learnings that I’ve gathered over the past 3 years because I’m too lazy to write 25 learnings for 25 events 🙂
1. Communities emerge with effort
Community is an overused word – every brand calls its customers “a community” but I don’t think we fully understand what it means.
I see it as a shared context to which every member attaches a meaning. Brands often think of it as an intentional painting or a mural but I think it’s more of a mosaic. It’s made up of small pieces that give it character and meaning, and it’s hard to describe until you have enough pieces.
Brands often want to assign a “personality” to the community and I think that’s wrong. Although you can influence it, you kinda get what you get – sometimes you might not like it in the end, but sometimes it pays dividends.
It takes effort to get the full picture and it comes from community enthusiasts – be it organizers or people championing it, inviting others, or contributing to the events.
2. Communities can’t be “owned”
I don’t think we own a SaaS community. What makes a community vibrant is voluntary participation and that can’t be “owned”, it has to be inspired & is altruistic in nature.
I see SaaStanak as a “custodian” or a megaphone for a community that would emerge regardless. Community members vote by participation – if we don’t do a good enough job, people will stop showing up, migrate to other communities, or create their own.
Creator communities are different as you could argue that without the creator, they wouldn’t emerge. But still – the community has its own mind and the Creator acts as a “guiding force” or an “influencer” although in a more direct manner than a brand.
3. Trust is the building block & the biggest asset
Communities are built on trust. Members either trust the Creator & their judgment (a good example is Lenny from Lenny’s podcast) or they trust the brand (like SaaStanak).
The audience trust is hard to acquire and easy to lose – there’s a delicate balance between providing good content & monetizing and for the community to survive – you need money.
We struck that balance by monetizing the conference and keeping meetups free by collaborating with host companies that are ready to sponsor the events (providing venue space, drinks & food). It’s a low-cost proposition for the sponsors and it doesn’t compromise the event content, so I think of it as win-win.
To the road ahead
It’s been super fun so far and I’m quite happy with how far we’ve come. Businesses in SaaStanak community have been recognized as true international players and people working for them tend to think of themselves as part of a wider industry than before.
Founders we’ve met are truly inspiring – most have an innate hunger for achieving more & we’re happy to support them throghout the CEE region.
We’ve also inspired ourselves to do better & bigger things. For me personally, the feedback we’ve got after the conference inspired me to set big goals for next year and I’m super excited to share some news about it in the following days 🙂
See you all in Belgrade & Skopje next week!
