41
24 Comments

Why I kicked out 90% of free members

I spent months asking Indie Worldwide members what we could improve. What did they say?

"The group is too big. I'm not comfortable sharing."

When you feel watched, you can't be yourself.

Last month we kicked out 90% of members: from 4,000+ members ➡️ down to less than 500.

Anyone who Slack marked as inactive was removed. We re-added immediately anyone who's a paid subscriber and anyone who's asked to be re-added.

The goal of removing 90% of the Slack membership was not to punish people or exclude anyone who wants to be an active member.

The goal is to remove lurkers and people who are not very invested in the community in order to make more space for people who are building.

Now? There are 50% more posts this week vs a month ago. Fewer people, who care more.

A smaller community makes honesty possible.

Since then it's been really cool how quickly the conversation in the Indie Worldwide Slack has leveled up.

Posts that might not have gotten a response before are now getting half a dozen thoughtful responses.

People are sharing more often and more openly.

Removing inactive members is not the only change we made recently.

We also re-named and reorganized the channels. Some removals, some new additions.

Especially loving the addition of wins and praise which have brought a lot of positivity into the daily atmosphere.

Next up: Working on Slack bots to improve monitoring of inactivity and give people a heads up ahead of time so that they can stay active.

P.S. If you were a member of the Indie Worldwide Slack who's been removed, you can message me on Twitter, Email, or even leave a comment here to be re-activated.

P.P.S if you're interested if you're interested in joining the new, smaller, Indie Worldwide community here's the link: https://indieworldwide.com/

✅ Share openly with peers
✅ Collaborate with smart founders
✅ Share insider knowledge
✅ Push each other to grow

Small communities of smart people can change the world.

See you there 🌎🌍🌏

  1. 10

    Could have easily gone horribly wrong! In my experience, it's about the same in any community: Exactly those 90% that you call "lurkers" are indeed passive and just watching, but that does not mean they are useless weight!

    In fact, whenever I post something in my chosen groups, I get instant sales. Many more than people that actually commented. And it's weird to see that from all those favored "active" members, not a single one bought my products!

    In the end, it´s the "lurkers" that bought them...

    1. 1

      The downside of lurkers is that they make posters feel watched. Ironically it seems many "lurkers" only lurk because they are afraid of all the other lurkers!

      The number of active users in the Slack has actually gone up since this change, but it no longer feels like "anonymous eyes in the dark", because so many more people are posting.

      The change is more psychological than anything.

  2. 5

    They started posting because they were afraid you would kick them out too. JK

    1. 1

      That's true too, but maybe not a bad thing!

  3. 3

    Good move. I became inactive because of work stress, which meant I was not able to contribute anyway, and being removed took one thing off my shoulder and relieved the pressure a bit. But, in the words of a famous Austrian, I'll be back :)

    1. 2

      james cameron is looking to hire you for a specific kind of role for a robot & ai related movie. #cough

    2. 1

      Welcome back any time Farez, just send me a DM

  4. 3

    Gutsy, but insightful move! I think (and hope) time will prove this to be the smart decision.

    Big fan of the new channel names.

    1. 2

      Thanks Jon, it might be earlier to tell but it definitely feels like the right move based on initial feedback: more activity of higher quality.

  5. 3

    Makes sense. I'd pick an engaged community over a large community.

    Did you notify the users before removing access? Might be good housekeeping, running an automation every six months on the free "inactive" accounts. Similar to a mailing list cleanup.

    Good Luck!

    1. 3

      We gave advanced warning via the newsletter but not everyone opens emails so I'm still getting lots of "why was I removed emails".

      Also many people didn't realize that just reading posts or only sending DM's wouldn't be sufficient for Slack to mark them as active. I didn't know exactly how Slack determined activity either.

      Active seems to mean: posted in a public channel within the last two weeks.

      I'm working on a bot that will warn people ahead of time going forward.

      Wasn't so feasible for the initial clean-up given just how many accounts needed to be removed.

      Slack puts the ability to deactivate accounts via API behind a very expensive paywall ($1,000+/mo) which means that the task of removing accounts was done completely manually (by a VA I hired for the job).

      1. 1

        Interesting. Let us know how the bot comes along ☺

        Also, thank you for sharing; this is also useful for other communities.

        1. 2

          Will do! I've pretty much figured out how to do it, now need to do some house-keeping.

  6. 2

    I didn't even know this existed! Though I think this is great move to foster a better community and add more value. I will be definitely checking this out in the near future.

  7. 2

    Insightful. Thanks for sharing.

  8. 2

    I used to be a lurker in groups and communities that I joined for years. Mainly due to the fact that I am quite introverted and feared that people would judge me, or that my ideas would not be valuable to others. This has changed for me recently though. I joined the Small Bets community back in July. I did lurk for about a month, but something about the interactions in the group (and to be fair, my personal resolve to try to participate) made me bite the bullet and start to get a bit active.

  9. 1

    I was wondering why i got kicked out, right after talking to you after the one on one in meetup :D

    1. 1

      Wonder no more! At least now you know for sure it wasn't personal :P

      I think you've already been re-added, but if not please let me know the email you signed up with and I'll re-add you.

  10. 1

    Teaches one not to be a lurker, because being a lurker makes you get the treatment lurkers usually get. Thanks for posting.

    1. 1

      The goal isn't to punish lurkers it's to reward and encourage posters.

  11. 1

    Always, Quality over quantity

  12. 1

    Quality over quantity in this case! :)

  13. -2

    This comment has been voted down. Click to show.

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 49 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 29 comments My Top 20 Free Tools That I Use Everyday as an Indie Hacker 18 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments