537: Step-by-step community engagement for your product – with Jake McKee

How LEGO built a passionate community that drives product growth Watch on YouTube TLDR Community-driven product development transformed LEGO from near-bankruptcy to industry leadership by engaging adult fans and positioning LEGO as a creative medium. This approach creates authentic relationships with customers who become collaborators, advocates, and co-creators for your products, ultimately driving innovation and business results. Key Topics * Relational not transactional: Build genuine relationships where “everybody goes home happy” rather than viewing community as free marketing or support * Four-part framework to build a community: Find the right people, identify the right timing, define clear outcomes, and design engaging activities * The “Octopus Theory”: Community engagement delivers multiple simultaneous benefits including better product decisions, advocacy, team motivation, and competitive differentiation * Ecosystem thinking: Communities influence broader audiences beyond direct participants * Executive champions: Senior-level support is crucial for sustainable community initiatives * Power of direct interaction: Engineers and product teams respond to feedback when hearing directly from customers * Shared purpose: Rally around something bigger than either individual benefits or company goals Introduction Today we are talking about building passionate communities that drive product growth. How can you create authentic, engaged communities that transform your product’s trajectory? We’re talking about turning fans into collaborators, advocates, and even co-creators. As a product manager, you need to know how to build something customers don’t just use—but love. This discussion will explore the steps to tap into the power of community, learning from successful examples at LEGO and Apple.  Our guide to make all this happen is Jake McKee—the original LEGO Community Guy. He didn’t just grow a community—he helped change the culture of one of the world’s most iconic brands, reviving a rapidly declining company. Today, he advises organizations on how to build loyal communities that fuel innovation and drive business results.  This discussion will help you avoid disaster and instead deliver sustained growth. The LEGO Turnaround Story: A Community-Driven Renaissance When Jake McKee joined LEGO in the early 2000s, the iconic brand was heading toward a financial cliff. By 2003, the company was nearing bankruptcy – a fact that many people today don’t fully appreciate. The problem stemmed from a fundamental misunderstanding of what made LEGO special. In an attempt to stay relevant in a world where children had less free time for play, LEGO had simplified their products – replacing multiple bricks with larger, single-piece components that reduced building time. As Jake explained, this strategy backfired spectacularly. The simplified products lost the core appeal of LEGO– the ability to build and rebuild with flexible components. The result was “the world’s worst toy” – not good as a traditional toy and not good as a LEGO product. Jake joined LEGO Direct, a division tasked with centralizing all direct-to-consumer efforts, including: * Catalog sales * Early online presence