None of the communities I’ve built were monetized, they were all for communities of practice and SaaS products.
Monetization is always a tricky balance. IMHO there has to be first value in joining beyond community (e.g. content, services, knowledge you won’t get elsewhere) and community becomes an extension that supports the flywheel turning.
You might enjoy the book Get Together it lays out some simple steps to building community (the authors later helped build community at Substack and OpenAI):
Pay attention to the folks that keep showing up
Create and supercharge the leaders
