Community Building Trends for 2026 with Becky Pierson Davidson [Greatest Hits]

**Becky Pierson Davidson** (0:00)
This grad weekend experience is something that we've continued doing. The last cohort, we had 66% of the cohort show up, and we're close to like 100 people in a cohort, to give you an idea. And they're traveling from all over the world, even the people abroad are like coming to this LA weekend.

**Jay Clouse** (0:30)
Hello, my friend, welcome back to another episode of Creator Science. Today, I'm speaking with my good friend, Becky Pierson Davidson. Becky was last on the show in episode number 197 in June of 2024, when we recorded with Chanel Basilio at Kits Craft and Commerce Conference. That episode was all about building raving fans, and it was a listener favorite, so we were overdue to bring Becky back. Becky is a community-driven product strategist and founder of Affinity Collective, helping six, seven, and eight-figure online businesses, that's real, she works with very legit clients, build transformative memberships and courses through design thinking and data-driven customer research. She also hosts a podcast called Build with Becky, that's a voice note style show all about community. Becky and I share a lot of beliefs when it comes to community and membership-based products, and she's really doubled down on this over the last few years, so I thought it would be fun to compare notes and see if there were any areas of disagreement between us, and, spoiler, we found a couple.
In this episode, we talk about the current state of online community, trends she's seeing in 2026, what successful communities are doing right now, and some warnings for anyone running or thinking about running a community business today. Becky has been a longtime member of The Lab, one of our first, and speaking of Craft and Commerce, we are hosting The Lab's next two-day offline event in Boise ahead of Kits Craft and Commerce Conference again this year in June. We already have over 30 members of the community RSVP'd, and we'd love for you to join us. It's only available to standard and VIP members of The Lab, so to learn more and apply, visit creatorscience.com/lab.
That's creatorscience.com/lab.
There's a link in the show notes to learn more. We'll get to that conversation with Becky right after this.
This episode is brought to you by Circle, the community platform chosen by Tim Ferriss, Dr. Becky Kennedy and of course me. If you've been online over the last month, you've probably seen some chatter about Circle Eclipse, their biggest product release in company history. Here are two of my favorite parts of this release. First up, Circle AI. Imagine an AI partner that knows your business and runs it alongside you. Not only that, but it has the full knowledge of what you can do with Circle. From routine tasks to strategic work, it's like having the power of an entire team without one. What used to take you days or weeks to build, can now be built in just a few hours with Circle AI. Number two, Circle Discover. A marketplace where millions of people can sign up, tell Circle what they want to achieve, and get matched with the creator businesses on Circle that take them there. Discover already features thousands of the top communities, courses and events on Circle, and for creators, it's a new marketing channel that you switch on with a single click. These are just two aspects of the Circle Eclipse launch. Read about the rest and join the waitlist for Circle AI at circle.so slash eclipse. That's circle.so slash eclipse.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:30)
I see you.

**Jay Clouse** (3:31)
Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney Plus.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:34)
It's the film critics are calling the best avatar yet. Go, go, go, go. A true epic and completely jaw-dropping.

**SPEAKER_4** (3:41)
This is the only pure thing in this world.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:44)
Return to Pandora on Disney Plus.

**Becky Pierson Davidson** (3:47)
It will be an adventure for the whole fam.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:48)
And watch the Oscar-winning phenomenon at home. This is sick.

**Jay Clouse** (4:01)
We're obviously going to talk a lot about community and memberships today, but I thought we would start by defining some terms. So everybody is on the same page.
So when you say the word community, what does that mean to you?

**Becky Pierson Davidson** (4:14)
Well, in the broad sense, community is about bringing people together that have some kind of shared interest or goal.
But when I talk about community in the context of my work, I think about community a lot as a product versus as a marketing growth engine to help grow business or as a WhatsApp chat with your friends about your fantasy football league. I think about it more in the context of treating it as a product in your business and something that you really nurture and improve over time. But I think that's a me definition.