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Part
01
How much do startups spend yearly on community building tools/activities?
No data is available either as a pre-compiled figure or as a calculation that describes how much startups spend yearly on community building tools/activities. This is because this area is fairly niche, and the data has yet to be collected. However, I was able to find that tools like Slack and Ryver are particularly popular in this area.
METHODOLOGY
In order to answer this question, I first searched for a pre-compiled figure that described how much money startups (based in the US) spend annually on community building tools/activities (such as Slack and conferences). First, I looked through industry reports on the Startup market in the US, for example in this US startup outlook for 2017 and for 2018. However, I found no useful data available in these reports. Next, I looked through reports on budgets for startups in the US (e.g. here and here), but again, details of spending on community building tools/activities was not available. I also looked at online database, Statista, the National StartUp Association, and through various reports statistics of US startups (e.g. this one from Small Biz Trends). However, no useful data was reported. Finally, I searched through recently published articles, news stories and research papers on startups in relation to this topic. But unfortunately I can conclude that no pre-compiled data exits online. I believe that this is because it is a fairly niche topic, and data collection has yet to be carried out.
Next, I attempted to calculate this figure. To do this I decided to look for how much are startups spending annually on particular tools (e.g. Slack). I looked for lists of most popular community building tools/activities that startups are using (these lists were scarce but I was able to find this list of tools used by startups, and this one on the top 27 startup tools of 2017), and then tried to find out how much startups are spending on the tools specifically focused on community building. To do this I first looked for pre-compiled figures of how much startups in particular are spending on each tool. However, after a thorough search I found that this was not available for any company, most likely because the data has not been collected. Next, I looked for the percentage of startups who use the tool in order to calculate how much this totals to by using annual prices of the tool, and the number of startups in the US. However, I found that this data was also not available online. I also looked for specific conferences that startups are attending relating to this area, but again, data was not available. Therefore, there is no data available either as a pre-compiled figure or as a triangulation that tells us how much startups spend each year on community building tools/activities.
USEFUL FINDINGS
While I could not find a direct answer to your question, I was able to gather some information about this topic, which I think will be helpful for your project.
I was able to identify some of the tools which are popular with startups. To begin with, I have found that Slack has developed close relationships with startups. According to this article, the company invested $80 million in startups building software for the company. In particular, Slack has a close relationship with startups in the area of software development. To date, the company has supported 11 new bot startups.
Ryver is another community building tool that is popular with startups. The tool is being consistently recommended to be used by startups. It is also identified as one of the game-changing software solutions being used to power startups.
POSSIBLE CONTINUED RESEARCH
In understanding what types of information are and are not publicly available on this topic, I’ve suggested a few other routes you may be interested in researching.
For example, you may wish to understand more about the specific companies that startups are using in this space. It might be interested in seeing how the main players (such as Slack and Ryver) compare and contrast in a competitive landscape.
CONCLUSION
To sum up, I have found that there is no data available online to tell us how much startups spend yearly on community building tools/activities. There is also no data that allows for this to be calculated. This is because this area is quite niche and the data has yet to be collected. However, I was able to find that tools like Slack and Ryver are particularly popular in this area.