So recently, I came across a post from prolific builder, @MrNikk_Buzz:

What’s more interesting is that he assumed people only joined the community because of him, which may be true, but the community management ended up feeling like a drain on his energy. Which contributed to the final decision. Something common I’ve seen amongst builders.

Very few articles online talk about why not to shut down your community, and that’s a shame. Because it can be a great additional revenue generator, while also keeping lines of communication open with raving fans.

If you search on Google, you’ll find articles like this on first page results:

So before you decide to shut your community down, I’m going to cover the following 6 things for you to consider:

Let’s dig in.

First of all, let’s start off by saying that community isn’t for everyone. That’s definitely true. Outside of Nick, there are countless other micropreneurs who started a community, then realized it wasn’t for them. One of those people being Justin Welsh himself:

If you can still earn a profit without one, and be happy with the decision, then it’s probably the right decision for you. However, if you’re having doubts, it might be worth exploring other ways to keep the community going without your direct involvement. There are definitely ways to do this sustainably.

Community is a long-game. Despite there being a lot of hype around it, especially when it comes to online businesses, most people abandon them before they’ve even had a chance to bear fruit. This is unfortunate.

Tech products scale easily. And you can often make quick decisions about them. But people (especially communities) are not as easily scaleable. If anything, when building community, you often have to start doing things that don’t scale. Why? Because people still feel “authenticity” through personal brands. And those who get this, see massive payoffs down the line.

Although what Matt Gray says above is true, community can be still be taxing for micropreneurs who prefer to create products vs deal with people. But before you pull the plug on a community — if you’ve already started one — ask your members what they’re truly there for. Nick (from earlier on) assumed that they were for him. But if you took yourself out of the equation, is there another reason? Are they in a community for access to you, or the content/tips you produce?

If the latter, you can automate a system that takes all your tweets, videos, blogs, etc. and publish that automatically into your community. You can setup a content calendar 30-60 days in advance, which simulates questions for discussion, etc. You can then charge people more if they want more access to you. As a micropreneur, you can dictate the terms of your own paid community.

So before you pull the plug, ask your members what they want from you — because then you can figure out what to separate.

Another way to deal with the overwhelm that comes with managing a community (free or paid), is to do the following:

This should help you “hack” already existing habits to make the mental load seem less taxing with the new activities or behaviors.

If you’ve tried everything yourself, but you still see the value of your community, consider hiring someone (or an agency) to take on the community management. Usually you can find your best hires from within your community (usually they’ll be your loudest or most proactive members). If you don’t have anyone internally, consider looking outside. There are a lot of competent community managers in the market, actively looking for work. You can even get in touch with my company Faiā for this.

Justin Welsh mentioned that he didn’t realize how much effort it took to answer repetitive questions and do customer support for his community. He felt like he had to always “be on.” With the rise of AI, chatbots are now becoming a lot more intuitive and user-friendly — meaning they can help solve this particular issue:

If you’re reading this, this is a way for you to replicate yourself (via your knowledge-base and content) using AI. There are a lot of cool new tools out, including Droxy.ai and Coachvox.ai. If you use Slack for your community, the company announced the release of new AI features which will allow users to get even more answers straight from within the community.

But this will surely change as the technology gets better.

In conclusion, shutting down your paid community may not always be the best solution. By understanding the desires of your community members, automating or outsourcing tasks, and utilizing new technologies like chatbots, you can continue building great products while still keeping your community engaged and happy. Although the decision is a hard one, consider the items from this post before letting go of all the good work you’ve done already. Your community will thank you for it.