From YouTube Creator to Community Builder: Renting vs Owning Your Platform

If a platform can switch you off overnight, you don’t own your business, you’re renting it.

Dakota Snow (The Bearded IT Dad) is committed to avoid that reality when it comes to growing his audience of 65k. He started on Discord, moved to Circle, then before he knew it he’d built an owned stack: WordPress + Fluent Community + a custom plugin for async coaching + a branded Android app.

The payoff? Push notifications brought people back, engagement jumped, and he is able to ship requested member features that no turnkey community tool could.

Watch the full podcast:

The Ownership Threshold Test

Transitioning from a rented to an owned platform can feel overwhelming. And there are many reasons not to build your own community platform, most of which I likely don’t have to spell out for you here as they’re probably pretty loud objections, tailored to your specific context.

But it is harder to know when it is the right time to actually move away from the “safer” turnkey solution.

Here’s Dakota’s streamlined approach:

• Assess when to switch by asking if your current platform limits your growth or control.

• Strategist about how to keep your tools simple and centralised to avoid unnecessary complexity.

• Start with a hybrid setup and quickly experiment with meaningful features that differentiates your community.

Here are 3x questions you can ask yourself to test if you’re ready to build:

• Is your community platform blocking revenue-critical features? (for Dakota it was things like analytics, workflow access, and a new feature: async mentorship)

• Are the “pro” features priced beyond what you can afford, and vital to actually get ROI?

• Would one custom feature create a defensible moat for your business? (i.e. revenue, partnerships etc)

If “yes” to any, you may want to seriously consider setting up a hybrid or totally owned platform.

Dakota’s Scrappy System for Owning Your Community

Basically, all it took for Dakota to move from renting to owning his community, was a handful of carefully chosen tools and a clear focus on what really matters. He didn’t need a big team or a fancy budget—just the determination to take control and two key moves:

1. He started by setting up his community on WordPress, powered by the Fluent Community plugin and a couple of lightweight, custom-built plugins for his unique needs. This gave him the ability to own his data, manage his own logins and payments, and decide which features to build next—no more waiting on someone else’s roadmap.

2. To keep members coming back, Dakota leaned on push notifications to help re-establish their habits and draw them back in. Instead of waiting for them to launch their own app or chasing complex tech, he built his own Android app with what he already knew, using AI to fill in any gaps and ship new features quickly.

Simplicity was key: each tool did one job, there was one source of truth, and he ruthlessly eliminated duplicates or distractions. He measured real engagement, member feedback—return visits and feature use—instead of getting lost in vanity metrics.

Most importantly, Dakota didn’t try to do everything at once. He started with a hybrid setup and kept things simple until he crossed the ownership threshold, then confidently made the leap to a fully owned platform, on his terms.

Steal This Strategy: Experiment with a New Feature

1. Define the smallest win your members keep asking for. Write one sentence that starts with “Members can…” and ends with a measurable behaviour change.

2. Design the bare-minimum flow on one page. Inputs, outputs, notifications. No extras.

3. Build with what you know. Prefer plugins and simple code you can maintain. Use AI for scaffolding and debugging.

4. Ship to 3–5 trusted members. Ask one question: “Did this save you time or make you return?”

5. Close the loop. Add push notifications or email nudges. Measure return visits and completions for two weeks.

6. Decide. If it moves the needle, keep it. If not, roll back fast and try the next smallest bet.

Flywheels are Better than Funnels

Dakota’s community fuels content ideas which fuel videos which fuel more community suggestions. The feedback‑to‑format flywheel kills blank‑page syndrome and compounds his reach over time (hence why he’s got over 65k followers at time of publishing.

So if you’re looking to learn more about how to integrate flywheels into your growth strategy here’s how Candid Collab can support you:

• Watch this episode of Scrappy Systems on YouTube.

• Join the Candid Community as a free guest to meet peers building community-driven businesses

• Subscribe to our newsletter for more free community growth systems!