Building a community before having a product can be a strategic move to generate interest and create awareness. Connecting with people on a personal level and creating non-scalable experiences allows establishing relationships and building trust. Manual, personal interactions with early users are essential for truly understanding their needs and providing a superior experience. Stripe's personalized approach to onboarding users is an example of successful community building, fostering deep relationships with their customers. Building a strong community requires more than just a product, involving creating personal connections, organizing intimate events, and fostering a sense of belonging and trust. A developer community can provide numerous benefits, including increased product adoption and advocacy, enhanced product feedback and iteration, access to talent and collaboration opportunities, and creating a network of like-minded individuals who foster collaboration and drive innovation. By starting early, companies can create a core group of vocal brand advocates who promote their company and products to others, even before having a product. Building a community allows gathering feedback, understanding potential customers' pain points, and refining the product based on their needs, achieving product-market fit through iterative processes.