The French Drain
Most community builders build pipelines disguised as communities. A pipeline directs traffic toward a transaction. A French drain lets the right elements find their level — and lets everything else drain away.
Three experienced community builders were working through a problem that doesn't have a clean answer.
The conversation had been running for a while — past the polished takes, past the frameworks, into the kind of talk that happens when people who have actually built something stop performing and start thinking out loud. The question underneath everything was about friction. Specifically: how much of it belongs between you and the people you want in the room?
Too much friction and you build a wall. The right people don't scale walls — they don't have time, and they don't trust what's waiting on the other side. Too little friction and you open the door to anyone who can click a button, which turns out to be everyone, which turns out to be the wrong room.
The builders in that session had felt both failures. They were trying to name the space between them.
At some point, someone said: what if it's a French drain?
The room reconsidered.
