I recently had a chat with @Jakub Pacanda. Some people love the community industry. Some people care for it. ...and then, there's Jakub. He plugs it into a power socket with 440 volts! I've been in the community industry for 20 years and I can count on one hand the people who match his energy for online communities...and I'd still have fingers left over. It makes me feel the industry is in safe hands. (no, i'm not retiring yet 😅) It started simple. Jakub follows me on LinkedIn - and figured I had something worth seeing and asked for a demo of Jatra - the community platform we make. It was supposed to be a 30 minute demo. But we spoke for 90 minutes. We talked about a lot of things: - about the platforms, what they get right and wrong - where the community industry is heading - the opportunities opening up - buying and selling communities. I didn't know it's a real market! I'm impressed by his commitment to uniting the industry. I want to know from the community: 1. Who's the most energetic person you know in the community industry? 2. What's your take on the future of online communities?

I'm Kaustubh, and this is actually my second introduction in this community. Apparently, one introduction wasn't enough. 😄 I've been building online communities for nearly 20 years. Over that time, I've built some very large communities from scratch and used pretty much every popular community platform I could get my hands on. ...and somewhere along the way, I got frustrated. So I made a list of everything that annoyed me about community platforms... and started building my own. That prototype eventually became Jatra Community Platform, which I launched in 2024. Unlike Skool or Circle, Jatra is built specifically for business communities. The idea is simple: a community shouldn't just engage existing customers. It should also help acquire customers! So we've put a lot of work into SEO and AEO, making community content discoverable through Google and AI platforms. Once people arrive, you're not limited to discussion threads (my biggest frustration!). You can run discussions, chats, chat rooms, articles, events, jobs, a shop, feedback, and more inside the same community. No plugins required! You don't have to use everything. In fact, you probably shouldn't. Having different formats gives community builders a lot more ways to create useful reasons for people to come back. Just about two days ago, we launched Jatra AI. It keeps an eye on the community 24/7, helping with the boring monitoring work so community managers can spend more time doing the part AI is still pretty bad at: building actual human relationships. Thanks to @Jakub Pacanda for reminding me about this lovely community. Looking forward to meeting more community people here, exchanging notes, stealing good ideas responsibly, and learning from everyone. 🙂