There are around 200k subscribers, plenty of active users. I've been part of this community on reddit for the last couple of years, and was part of a related community a couple years prior, AND have been part of the wider community that this community is morphing into for 15 years. -- it used to be quite laser-focused, but is now becoming more about general self-improvement. Having gone from zero to almost-hero, I am well aware of the desperate pain-points of the community, and helping solving those problems definitely aligns with my values.

The strategy is as follows:

• build a platform that provides a much better experience (content, features, value) for this community than the subreddit -- people must experience a major AHA moment within seconds of visiting my platform and be drawn in the more they interact with it
• provide a way to automatically import a user's reputation/content by just their reddit username (will automatically send a PM with verification link from a throwaway account)
• possibly import my own content from the subreddit to pad out the platform and give initial visitors immediate value
• give the existing mods of the subreddit control over the new platform, while also enticing them with more rewards for their moderation (exposure, recognition, money/profit share, tools)
• scrape the reddit and get in touch with most active contributors and invite them across
• make post on the main subreddit (with permission from mods) telling them what I've built and asking for feedback
• learn, measure, monetise, improve ad infinitum

Does anybody have any insight/suggestions/gripes with the above strategy? Any suggestions on what would be included in an MVP for this? The reddit-like post structure would only be one section of the platform, but perhaps it would be better to build something completely divorced from reddit so it doesn't seem like an alternative, but more of a separate community in its own right.

Would you attack it from this angle, or perhaps from a content marketing perspective? - that is, build great content and share that with the subreddit, use that to build traction.

I'm more than confident I can provide a very well-tuned platform for this particular audience, and a platform that doesn't really exist at the moment. Of course, I would use other avenues to gain traction, but this subreddit would be the initial target.

Anybody tried anything like this before?

 

Hey, no worries.

This is surely not a fad. The community has largely changed direction towards self-improvement due to its effectiveness in reaching the goals of its members. Many new self-improvement topics have been introduced over the last 12 months and I can see this trend continuing as the community matures. There are already people blogging about the community, selling ebooks, etc, so the demand is there for content.

However, being a developer first and a writer second, my initial urge is to build a valuable set of tools that will help members get the most of their self-improvement journey. There is also a notable section of users who are very desperate - depression, isolation, major frustration, significant disadvantages, bad finances, no direction, etc, etc, -- and another notable section of users who are self-improvement Gods of sorts, highly intelligent, highly driven, highly successful. The plan is to give them a better platform to help each other.

"Also is there a self improvement community in the reddit subreddits "

Yes, there are a few self improvement subreddits linked to in the main subreddit. Masses of content is produced daily, but it lacks any clear direction. The reddit itself is just a dumping ground. I plan to provide a more concrete structure to the content, while maintaining the original philosophy and lens of the sub.

"Finally what’s in In for them specifically ? I don’t know how much experience is a factor that drives behaviour on reddit ?"

This is what I'm trying to determine myself. I guess the offer is a platform that will help beginners dramatically increase their success, help them better connect with others in the community, and help the elders of the community better guide/serve. It will also feature highly condensed, high quality content, and a much improved way of navigating the many aspects of self-improvement it is taking strong interest in.

There are many other ideas I've had on top of that. Considering on one side you have lost, desperate users, and on the other you have highly successful users, I could provide mentoring features, for example.

 

Thanks for the feedback!

I mean, I think the current forum is kinda run well -- mods try to delete crap and keep it somewhat pruned, but the direction of the actual community is taking an unstoppable turn, and the moderators cannot control the influx of the new self-improvement focused material. The community was quite childish and bitter when it first began, and it is shedding its teenage angst and developing maturity. Old timers in the community can't keep up with it (and many have moved on), and neither can the mods. At the same time, there is a tonne of rehashed crap or completely unfounded tripe coming through the forum every day and it doesn't seem to be making much progress addressing this. A lot of the recent material completely overlooks the original philosophies and truths the forum was built on.

To be honest, I don't think the community knows what it wants to be having become more mainstream over the last couple of years -- which is where this opportunity comes in.

Having said all of this, it doesn't necessarily matter so much because the core functionality of the platform I'm developing will not be a traditional forum - it would be more of a social network, a content network, an online academy.. many other potential directions.

For example, I mentioned mentoring/coaching/guidance above. There are many members that come through this forum looking for advice on where to find therapists, and there are a lot of people who are desperately at a loss on where to begin to sort their lives out. Having been there myself, these are the kinds of people I think would benefit most from more personal feedback rather than running in circles trying to digest it all.

But yes, absolutely, I will attempt to poach these members as subtly and wisely as I can. Whether the forum is run by greedy idiots or not, if I believe I have provided 100x the value of the current forum, I'm going to be ruthless in force-feeding that to the community.

 

Considering I'm intimately aware of the problems and pain-points in this community, I'm starting to think perhaps it would be a better idea to solve one of those specific problems to a high degree and build momentum that way.

 

Something interesting happened over last few days.

I sent a message to the mods of this subreddit and gave some of my ideas, explained my plans.. basically just to start a dialog. They never replied.

Since then, the forum has been locked down (no new posts, just comments), completely pruned of all crappy posts, and they've made two posts asking for suggestions on their own planned platform. -- one of their examples is one of the ideas I sent over in my PM.

Admittedly, they did already have this platform, but it was just a backup to the reddit in case it was taken down.

Ha, I wonder if one of the mods is in this forum?

Seems like they felt the twinge of competition and went into panic mode? Am I reading too far into that? Never seen the forum locked down in the last two years.

I think I've learned something. I'm very naive when it comes to business.

 

Thanks for the advice and graphic! Very useful.