“Community” is just the contemporary solopreneur’s version of marketing and marketing is just the process of building an audience. You need a market before you can sell (or at least before you can sell a lot and sell consistently).
Great products have always needed an audience to succeed. It’s just that the early internet convinced a bunch of people that direct-to-consumer sales was possible without marketing and without creating an audience. The internet certainly makes selling easier and you can do so with a relatively small audience but some audience is always necessary. Building an audience is good because then you don’t have to work as hard for the second sale (or the third or fourth). Big companies have known and understood this forever. This is why they have insane marketing budgets.
Great products have always needed an audience to succeed. It’s just that the early internet convinced a bunch of people that direct-to-consumer sales was possible without marketing and without creating an audience. The internet certainly makes selling easier and you can do so with a relatively small audience but some audience is always necessary. Building an audience is good because then you don’t have to work as hard for the second sale (or the third or fourth). Big companies have known and understood this forever. This is why they have insane marketing budgets.