Build a 90-Day Community Launch Plan
Objective: Design a complete pre-launch-to-90-day plan for a new branded community: platform choice, founding member recruitment, launch event, and a repeating content calendar.
Squarespace wants to launch a private community for its Website Designers plan subscribers. You've been asked to produce the full 90-day plan before a single invite goes out.
Choose a platform that fits the audience, design a founding-member recruitment list, script the launch event, and build a 4-week repeating content calendar.
Before you start
What you'll need
Free path (everything below is enough to finish)
Free, fast to share across a small internal launch team
Free tier covers reusable social templates without a designer
Paid upgrades (optional, faster/deeper)
Manual posting from a shared calendar sheet is completely viable for the first 90 days; only add a scheduler once the cadence is proven.
Saves manual posting once the cadence is locked in
No access? Post manually from the calendar sheet for the first month
The process
4 steps
Step 01 of 04
The lesson's platform comparison shows private communities outperform public ones by 57% on engagement, and the right platform depends on audience behavior, not what's trending.
Website Designers plan subscribers are professional freelancers who work async, in different time zones, and want to show off finished sites. Which platform fits: Discord, Circle, or a branded forum?
Procedure
- List the audience's real behavior: async, professional, portfolio-driven
- Score each platform option against that behavior, not against follower trends
- Pick the platform and write one sentence justifying it against the audience, not the hype
Platform scorecard Discord: real-time chat, mismatched with async freelancers -> 2/5 Circle: async posts, portfolio showcase, events -> 5/5 Branded forum: SEO value, but slower to build community -> 3/5 Decision: Circle
Healthy
The platform choice traces directly back to a documented audience behavior.
Unhealthy
Picking Discord because it's the platform every other brand community uses.
What this means
Platform fit is an audience-behavior decision, not a trend-following one.
So what do I do about it?
| Symptom | Action | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| The chosen platform doesn't match how the audience already works | Re-score against documented audience behavior before committing budget | 30 min |
Step 02 of 04
The first 50 to 100 members set the culture permanently, so the lesson recommends personal outreach to vocal customers, subject matter experts, and internal team members before any public launch.
You have a list of 400 Website Designers subscribers. Which 50 do you personally invite first, and what do you offer them?
Procedure
- Pull the top 30 most active support-ticket repliers and reviewers from the subscriber list
- Add 10 internal Squarespace design team members who will model good behavior
- Add 10 micro-influencer freelance designers who already talk about Squarespace publicly
- Draft a personal (not mass) outreach message offering a founding-member badge and early access
Founding member list (50) 30 top-engagement subscribers (from support + review data) 10 internal team members 10 external freelance-designer micro-influencers Outreach: personal email, founding badge offer, early access to a new template library
Healthy
All 50 invites are personal messages referencing something specific about that person.
Unhealthy
A single mass email sent to 400 people labeled 'You're invited to our new community.'
What this means
Founding members respond to being personally needed, not broadcast to.
So what do I do about it?
| Symptom | Action | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer than half of founding invites accept within a week | Switch to a warmer channel (a call or DM) instead of email for the remaining invites | 30 min |
Step 03 of 04
AMA sessions boost weekly engagement by 42% in the weeks that follow, and the lesson recommends planting 10 to 20 questions and responses so the space doesn't feel empty at launch.
Your launch is a founder AMA. What do you prepare before a single real member has posted?
Procedure
- Write 15 realistic questions a Website Designer subscriber would actually ask
- Draft founder-voice answers for each, ready to post at defined intervals on launch day
- Schedule the AMA for a specific 90-minute live window with founding members pre-briefed to show up
Launch AMA plan Format: 90-min live AMA, founder + 3 founding members seeded in first 10 min 15 planted Q&A pairs drafted, staggered every 4-5 minutes Goal: no dead air in the first 30 minutes
Healthy
The space has visible activity within the first 5 minutes of going live.
Unhealthy
A launch post sits with zero replies for the first hour because nothing was planted.
What this means
A quiet launch produces a quiet community; planted activity sets the social-proof baseline.
So what do I do about it?
| Symptom | Action | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| The launch thread has no replies after 15 minutes | Post a planted question/answer pair immediately to break the silence | 5 min |
Step 04 of 04
Most communities die because content becomes inconsistent after the launch high, and the lesson notes polls generate 3.8x more interactions than standard posts.
Design a 4-week repeating weekly cadence that won't run out of ideas by week 5.
Procedure
- Set Monday as a weekly discussion prompt or poll (lowest-effort, highest-interaction format)
- Set Wednesday as an educational post or behind-the-scenes template share
- Set Friday as a member spotlight or mini-AMA
- Design a lightweight branded template in Canva so each post looks consistent without new design work each week
4-week content calendar (repeating)
Mon: Poll ('Which template style gets the most client pushback?')
Wed: Behind-the-scenes design breakdown
Fri: Member spotlight + shoutout
Canva template: 1 reusable spotlight card, 1 reusable poll cardHealthy
The calendar can run unattended for a full month without anyone inventing new formats daily.
Unhealthy
Content is planned only through week 2, forcing daily scrambling by week 3.
What this means
A repeating structure protects against the post-launch content cliff.
So what do I do about it?
| Symptom | Action | Effort |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement drops sharply in week 3 or 4 | Check whether the calendar's repeating format was actually followed, not abandoned | 5 min |
Final deliverable
A complete 90-day community launch plan: platform decision with justification, a 50-person founding-member list with outreach approach, a launch-day AMA run-of-show, and a repeating 4-week content calendar with Canva templates.
See a reference example
Zomato Foodie Circle, 90-Day Launch Plan (excerpt) Platform: Circle (async, portfolio-friendly, matches restaurant-partner behavior) Founding members: 45 top reviewers + 5 internal team Launch: Founder AMA, 12 planted Q&A pairs, 90-min live window Content calendar: Mon poll / Wed recipe feature / Fri partner spotlight
Success criteria
You're done when you can:
- Platform choice is justified against documented audience behavior, not popularity
- Founding-member list totals roughly 50 people with a personal (not mass) outreach approach
- Launch plan includes planted questions to avoid a dead first hour
- Content calendar repeats indefinitely without requiring new formats each week