Everybody wants the growth playbook and the growth playbook is the least important document. What decides whether a community works is who the first fifty people are, and you choose them one at a time.
A community needs a reason to exist that somebody could state in one sentence. Without it you have a room, and rooms with no purpose fill with announcements. The question is what people show up to answer.
Do this: Write the question your community exists to answer. Show it to three people outside your team and see if they can repeat it back.
A mass invite produces a room of people who joined out of politeness. Fifty personal invitations, each explaining why that person specifically, produces a room where people speak. It is slow and there is no substitute.
Do this: Write fifty individual invitations. If that sounds like too much work, the community is probably not worth building yet.
Tell us members, posters and who answers. We reply with the stage you are at and the one thing to change first.
Whatever happens in the first two weeks becomes the norm. If founders post announcements, it becomes an announcement channel. If founders ask questions and members answer, it becomes a place where people talk.
Do this: For the first fortnight, post only questions. It feels unnatural and it sets the pattern for a year.
An automated greeting saves time you do not yet need to save, and it teaches new members that nobody is really there. Greet by hand until it genuinely hurts.
Do this: Greet every new member by name yourself until you reach a point where you cannot keep up. That point is much later than you think.
This is teaching material and our own reading of standard practice, not advice for your specific community. Check anything important with your own specialist before you act on it.
How many members, how many post, who answers questions. We reply with the stage you are at and the one thing to change. No call, no pitch.