Designing Relevant Communities: Identity = Shared Journeys
The clearest marker of relevance in a community is shared journeys—mapping a Venn diagram of lived experiences helps you understand both who you are and the community you’re meant to build.
Last year, I moved from the fast pace of NYC to the quiet edges of suburban life and realized that what I missed wasn’t the city, but the collisions.
It wasn’t the restaurants or the endless hum of activity. It was the chance run-in with a friend of a friend, or overhearing a book recommendation that sparked a whole new train of thought. In short: I missed community.
But what exactly is community, and what makes it feel relevant?
Over the past decade, as a community architect, I’ve worked across continents building ecosystems around entrepreneurship, innovation, and belonging.
In my book Hacking Communities, I defined relevance as pre-established trust derived from shared identity. Today, I want to go one level deeper.
In this essay, I argue that the biggest marker of shared identity isn’t just who we are—it’s what we’ve been through. The more layered our lived experiences, the more likely we are to find trust, belonging, and resonance with one another.
It’s the journey that makes the hero. Not the other way around.
Relevance = Familiarity = Trust
“We build and enhance trust through (recurring) encounters and relevance.”
— Hacking Communities, p. 134
Relevance is the backbone of serendipity, and of all meaningful communities that emerge from it.
It’s not about virality or mass appeal. It’s about shared identity: someone showing up and thinking, these people get me.
The strongest signal of identity is shared journeys.
The more lived experiences people share, the easier it is to relate. Familiarity grows, and with it, trust. Trust deepens relationships and builds lasting communities. Relevance creates the pathways to get there. The fastest route is shared experiences.
In Hacking Communities, I describe relevance as the contextual significance that accelerates connection.
It’s the invisible thread that signals, consciously or not: I belong here.
When relevance is high, people move through the stages of connection more naturally and quickly—from the initial spark (Lighthouse), to consistent engagement (Port), to true commitment and contribution (City).
The Funnel of Belonging: Lighthouse → Port → City
“It is not about the party, but the conversations around the table.”
— Hacking Communities, p. 188
To scale intimacy without losing depth, I use a framework introduced in Hacking Communities:
Lighthouse: Attract through clarity and resonance.
Port: Engage through rhythm and repetition.
City: Deepen through commitment and co-ownership.
Community isn’t created by gathering people: it’s created by giving them reasons to stay, return, and invest. Relevance creates the foundation for belonging.
Shared Identity: a Catalyst for Serendipity
Put simply, engineering serendipity is the art of accelerating relevance. Meaningful communities don’t happen by accident. In Hacking Communities, I liken this to collision theory:
“Engineering serendipity is to enhance the chance of successful encounters by increasing the rate of collisions between people.”
— Hacking Communities, p. 185
You can design for:
Frequency: Recurring gatherings that build familiarity
Density: Cozy environments that spark conversation
Catalyst: Relevance—the trust accelerant
I defined relevance as a catalyst to great connections, alongside other key factors like frequency and density:
“A catalyst increases the rate of reactions. It sparks those seemingly spontaneous connections. When we meet someone who feels familiar, we bond faster than usual. Consciously or not, it stems from perceived trust, provided by relevance.”
— Hacking Communities, p. 189
When engineering serendipity, simply increasing exposure—i.e., the rate of encounters over time and space—isn’t enough. If you want people to feel like they belong, they need to feel recognized. That’s what transforms a gathering into a home.
And it’s not static. It’s dynamic—co-created over time through deep conversations, rituals, and repeated encounters that bring people into deeper contact with others and themselves. Ultimately, relevance is about more than what you have in common. It’s about how your experiences resonate.
That resonance creates the kind of trust you can build on.
Community = Marketing Meets Operations
“A real conversation always contains an invitation.”
— David Whyte
Community lives at the intersection of intentional design (marketing) and consistent delivery (operations).
Define: Marketing
Let’s reframe marketing as a process of identity-mapping.
It’s not just outreach or growth hacking: it’s about understanding who already belongs together. As I wrote in Hacking Communities:
“In truth, there is no such thing as community building. Some people already belong together.”
— Hacking Communities, p. 169
All we do is connect existing dots. But knowing which dots to connect requires real discernment, and that’s what this essay explores. My argument is simple: the best indicator of relevance is shared lived experience.
Your role as a community builder is to:
Identify the right people people
Create the space and cadence for them to meet again and again
Enable conversations that evolve into deeper relationships
In short: the journey of a relationship should mirror the community journey—from Attraction (Lighthouse), to Engagement (Port: "Let’s do this again"), to Commitment (City: "Let’s stay in this together").
Define: Ops
Operations is where this takes shape: the very art of bringing people together through rhythms, rituals, and systems. But bringing people together is just the first step. The real work lies in making it easy and worthwhile for them to return, to reconnect, and to remember why they showed up in the first place.
The goal is for them to discover relevance: to learn more about one another and find shared pieces of identity through meaningful conversations.
Closeness requires time and space. That’s why many of our deepest friendships come from school, neighborhoods, or work. It’s not the activity itself, but the accumulated time spent together that forms bonds.
And in creating those shared experiences, you’re also reshaping identity—through new memories that tether people to each other and to place.
As my friend and placemaker Nani Kahar puts it:
“People make a place their own when they share stories—memories—around it.”
Building the Venn Diagram of Shared Identity
“A high rate of serendipitous encounters reflects high relevance within your community.”
— Hacking Communities, p. 200
The more shared experiences people have, the more they have to talk about, and the more they can relate at a deeper level.
Think of shared identity as a Venn diagram of lived experiences.
Motherhood. Migration. Creativity. Grief. Adventure. Entrepreneurship. Failure.
The more overlaps two people share, the more likely they are to trust and understand one another. It’s not about checking boxes; it’s about mutual recognition.
Significant life experiences and major rites of passage are the foundation stones of identity. But not every shared experience necessarily creates relevance.
From both personal experience and informed theory, I believe shared journeys matter more when they are freely chosen and reflect mature, self-directed aspects of someone’s identity—rather than predetermined labels they were born with.
The Limits of Labels
Having lived abroad since 2010, I often hear, “Oh, I know another Brazilian,” whenever I mention where I’m from. To which I resist replying, “Great—there are 211 million of us.”
Sure, my interest might shift slightly if I hear this person went to my alma mater, a prestigious law school in Brazil. But that would likely lead to a shallow conversation about mutual contacts. I dropped out and never felt much connection to that school. Now, if you told me this person was also a massive Lord of the Rings fan who ran a poetry club, I’d perk up. There's a decent chance we crossed paths, or should have.
Still, that would likely fall into the category of "interesting but outdated."
Identity Is Fluid
Major rites of passage change us. They remind us that our identities are always in flux.
The most meaningful connections often happen with those who’ve gone through deep, transformational experiences—especially ones we choose. As my friend and fellow traveler Annysa Polanco puts it, we’re all in a state of “endless becoming.”
Why Peanut Didn’t Work (for Me)
When I became pregnant with my first child, I downloaded Peanut: like “Tinder for Moms.” As both a community geek and a curious expectant mom, I was eager to try it. But I didn’t really feel the urgent need for it until I moved from NYC to the suburbs.
The issue with Peanut isn’t just the dating app-like interface (I don’t need to see six pictures of another mom taking 2/3 of the screen). The real problem is that it makes you fish for relevance in an ocean of irrelevance.
Its markers for “shared identity” were mostly two things: Location and Motherhood. But having given birth and living 10 miles away isn’t enough relatedness for me to want to go out of my way to grab coffee with someone.
Time is precious, especially as a mom. And all that swiping took too much of mine.
Especially as a mom, it takes real effort to download an app, make a profile, and swipe through endless profiles—hoping one leads to a safe, relevant, mutual-interest playdate. We’ve all heard horror stories, and no one wants to get stuck in a less-than-interesting interaction while wrangling a toddler.
My Personal Venn Diagram
In trying (hard) to make friends in my new neighborhood, I started understanding my own criteria for connection. Rooted in my lived experience. Imagine the following as overlapping circles in a Venn diagram:
Mother of children under 3
Recently moved from a big city like NYC
Global experience (lived on 2+ continents)
Entrepreneurial or creative background
Adventurous & outdoorsy (into surfing, hiking, etc.)
If someone matched all of those, she’d probably be my BFF. But I know that’s rare.
On Peanut, I was simply hoping to find someone who matched at least two, maybe three—after upgrading to Premium and swiping endlessly.
Relevance Isn’t Random
At Timeleft, we faced similar challenges when it came to matching people. But I won’t focus on that here—I wasn’t merely a user, and the product is still evolving its relevance engine.
What I will say is this: whether you're building apps like Peanut or Timeleft—or designing any kind of community—not every encounter leads to a meaningful interaction. But the more you create relevant encounters, the more likely meaningful ones are to occur.
In Hacking Communities, I compare this to collision theory and identify three key factors for engineering serendipity:
Frequency – the cadence of recurring encounters
Density – how cozy or concentrated the environment feels (online or offline)
Catalyst – relevance itself, created through shared identity (lived experiences)
Curating My Own Community
Ultimately, I quit Peanut and went back to doing what I do best: curating community. I realized the best way to find my people was to design experiences that deeply resonate with their lived experience.
Because the strongest signal of relevance is shared lived experience.
Even more powerfully: when those shared experiences are chosen, not just inherited.
Building Nest & North: A Case in Practice
Starting small is one of the best hacks to stay relevant as you grow.
Eventually, I gave up trying to find my people through existing tools—and started curating my own. Nest & North was born from that journey.
In a way, it emerged from the Venn diagram I mapped while trying to make friends through Peanut, local events, and other “mass-target-audience” experiences.
Over time, I discovered a kind of hierarchy in what I seek when connecting with people I want to bring closer into my life. All of it relates more to lived experiences than to predetermined labels like where you’re from.
What you’ve done—and how you’ve experienced life—matters more than anything.
This also forms the baseline for building truly diverse communities.
Where I Landed: Core Criteria for Relevance
Creativity or Entrepreneurship (manifested or in curiosity)
Having started a business or a creative endeavor—or simply dreaming about doing so—is the single strongest indicator we’ll have long, rich conversations. It means turning a vision into reality.
Going Through a Major Shift (e.g., Motherhood—but not limited to it)
Having recently gone through a transformative life moment, a “rite of passage”, often creates a powerful point of resonance. For me, that moment was becoming a mother. But parenthood alone isn’t enough for deep connection. What matters is shared awareness of the journey it takes to become.
Curiosity and Open-Mindedness
Often expressed through having lived abroad or speaking multiple languages, but not exclusively. I often find this in people who’ve spent most of their lives in NYC—because that city pushes openness. Sports like surfing or hiking can also signal this.
Solely Operational: Location
As someone who has built both local and global communities, I’m now building the same community in two different ways. For me, location is merely an operational variable—not a meaningful factor on its own.
It Started with a Map
The original intention was simple: to gather women navigating identity shifts who were ready to reclaim their voices through storytelling. But beneath that intention was a map. My own Venn diagram.
Over time, I saw a clearer hierarchy in what I was seeking in others. What mattered most wasn’t where someone came from or the title they held. It was what they had done and experienced.
Creativity or entrepreneurial drive was the strongest indicator of depth.
Motherhood added richness—but wasn’t sufficient on its own.
A spirit of curiosity, often revealed through global living or nature-based practices, helped cement bonds.
The key insight?
Labels don’t matter. Lived experiences do.
Closing: Build from Your Own Venn Diagram
So—where do you begin?
With your own lived experiences.
Draw your Venn diagram. Notice what experiences, choices, or identities have shaped who you are. That’s your starting point. If you want to build a relevant, resonant community, design for shared journeys: not just shared spaces.
Because community isn’t something we manufacture.
It’s something we remember.
It’s something we return to.
The more we see each other, the more we talk.
The more we talk, the more we trust.
The more we trust, the more we belong.
This essay builds upon concepts from Laís de Oliveira’s book, Hacking Communities: Cracking the Code to Vibrant Communities (2020)