Andy Guttormsen

Posted in What's New?

Announcement: We've raised an additional $4M 🎉

Hey everybody! 👋

Here's some news

and I wanted to share with you today...

We've raised an additional $4M to help accelerate our vision here at Circle. Techcrunch covered our raise. And you can see the announcement when you scroll down below.

We did this fundraise differently.

We had a lot of opportunities to raise traditional venture capital from top tier firms.

Instead, we chose to raise money from well known angel investors, operators, community builders, and...our very own customers / creators. 🎉 🙌 ❤️

It's special to be able to add some of our customers and community members to the cap table this time around. We exist because of you.

Those investors/advisors are:

Anne-Laure Le Cunff

Tiago Forte

, Ankur Nagpal,

Nat Eliason

, Brendon Burchard,

Ben Tossell

Greta Eagan

, Elizabeth Yin,

swyx

Tonner

David Perell

Matthew Gartland (he/him)

and certainly others who I tried to tag but couldn't find 😂

This is a win for the whole community. Now we'll have more resources so that we can:

🏔 Execute on our product roadmap (which we're truly excited about)
👩🏻‍💻 Build the best community and education for folks building communities
🏅 Invest significantly in support and customer success

The creator movement is entering prime time, and so is Circle with a fresh $4M – TechCrunch

The creator movement has exploded in the last few years as platforms ranging from Substack to Clubhouse have made it easier than ever to reach an audience of willing readers and listeners. Yet the key to building sustainable creator businesses is the economics of these enterprises themselves. Get e…

https://social.techcrunch.com/2021/02/16/the-creator-movement-is-entering-primetime-and-so-is-circle-with-a-fresh-4m/

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📱 Circle's iOS app has launched!

Good news: Circle's iOS app is finally live on the App Store! 📱🎉

Here's an easy link to download the app or share it with your members: https://circle.so/ios. Alternatively, the app can be found by looking for "Circle Communities" on the App Store.

The app is completely free and available to admins or members of any Circle community.

How do I submit feedback?

If you encounter bugs or have feature suggestions, please reach out to our iOS team at ios@circle.so.

What's next for the app?

The app may be out of beta, but it's far from done! Our iOS team of three will be hard at work to make Circle's iOS experience the best out there for any community platform.

Here are some things to expect in the coming months:

Design and UX improvements
Homepages on iOS
Member profiles
More rich text and embed options for posts, comments, and DMs
Administrative actions (editing posts, inviting members, etc)

What are you looking forward to the most? Let us know by reaching out to ios@circle.so 🙂

Will I be able to white-label the app for my own community?

Unfortunately, the app does not currently have the option of being white-labeled. We had to make this trade-off to be able to iterate on our iOS experience at the speed that we'd like to — we're a small team with big plans!

With that said, it's worth noting that once members sign in to your community on the app, they won’t see any Circle branding whatsoever — the app will use your community logo and brand color.

How can my members find this app?

You can simply point your members to https://circle.so/ios or ask them to look for Circle Communities on the App Store. We recommend making a post in your community or emailing them at large.

Additionally, members accessing your community from an iOS web browser will see an app download banner at the top of the page:

If you want to hide this banner from members, you can do so from Settings -> General:

Can I opt my community out of being accessible from the app?

Yes, you can. You'll find a toggle to do this in Settings -> General which, when disabled, will make your community inaccessible from Circle's iOS app.

When is the Android app coming out?

We hear you! The Android mobile experience is important to us, too. While we're not actively working on an Android app just yet, we plan on starting it later in the year.

Thank you

A big show of gratitude to the 100+ communities which participated in the beta and were extremely patient with all of the rough edges 🙏

Thanks in particular to

Jay Clouse (he/him)

Buffy Owens

David Ferriol

Dan Fennessy

Alex Yungvirt

and

Jason Resnick

for bug reports and constructive suggestions 💪

And finally, thanks and congrats to members of our team who contributed to the app —

Codie Westphall

Darko Spasovski

Damir Stuhec

Rakesh Khicher

Puneet Sutar

Rudy Santino

, and

Karthik Ganesh

🍾 🎉

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Are you interested in testing our iOS app?

It’s time! We’re starting early beta testing for Circle’s iOS app. Use the form below if you're interested in participating.

Please note:

This is an early beta. There’s a chance you and / or your members may encounter bugs and incomplete features. If you aren’t comfortable with this, we strongly suggest you wait for the official release (not too far away!)
With that said, the point of an early beta is to listen to you and prioritize your feedback.
You'll be able to test the app yourself; or share the beta link with any members in your community for them to test it as well. We won't be making any announcements on your behalf to your members.
Circle’s iOS app will not be white-labeled — you’ll have to ask your members to “download the Circle app”. That said, once your members log in to your community on the app, they won’t be seeing any Circle branding.
The app is initially geared towards member features, and not administrative features. We hope to add administrative features over time.

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🏠 Introducing your new Community Home

Spaces are a great way to organize your content and discussions in Circle. But keeping up with activity across multiple spaces can quickly become overwhelming for your members.

That's where the Community Home comes in. It's a game-changing feature our team has been refining for the past few weeks, and we're very excited to launch it for everyone today.

🏠 A new home for your members

But, what is the Community Home? I hear you ask.

It's a personalized activity feed that helps your members stay on top of what's happening across the spaces they are a part of. No more bouncing around. Every member can now discover and engage with the posts that most matter to them –– all in one place.

In addition to the personalized feed, the Community Home features a list of trending topics on the right hand side. These are the topics that are getting the most engagement in your community. This way, your members never miss anything important.

And for some added personalization, you can now greet your members with a custom welcome banner at the top of your home. The perfect spot for community-wide announcements too!

🤩 A few examples

Curious to see what it looks like in practice? Check out the new Circle Community home! Here are some other examples, courtesy of SPI Pro and Freelancing School:

Pretty neat, huh?

✅ How to turn it on for your community

It's very easy. Just head to Settings → Home. Once enabled, your members will see a new Home tab in the sidebar. Voilà!

For a little more customization, you can:

Control how recent a topic must be to appear in the Trending topics list.
Set how topics will be sorted on the home feed by default. You can choose from Latest, Oldest, Most Popular, New Activity, or Alphabetical.
Prevent activity from specific spaces to appear in your Community Home. To do this, head to the space settings → hide from featured areas.

Need a hand customizing your home? Check out this knowledge base article.

✨ Ready to give your members a new home?

Show us what yours looks like below. We'd love to get inspired with your welcome banners too! Finally, a massive thank you to all our Beta testers who contributed helpful feedback to make Community Home better for everyone.

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☝ We're renaming Topics to Posts on Monday February 22

On Monday February 22 at 12:01am ET, we're planning to rename "topics" to "posts" across the Circle platform. As a result, access to your communities will be limited for a maximum of 2 hours (though hopefully much less!). Everything will go back to normal right after the brief maintenance period by 2am ET at latest.

We're performing this work at our lowest traffic hours during the week, so we can ensure a smooth transition with minimum disruption. You can follow Circle Status to be the first one to know when the maintenance is complete.

Why this change?

Over the past few months, we've heard from numerous customers about their confusion with the word "topic" — specifically, about how a "topic" differs from a "space". When we initially settled on the word "topic", Circle was a brand new platform. We didn't have paying customers, or even the concept of spaces!

But over time, it's become glaringly apparent to us that this confusion is worth resolving, and the best way to resolve it is by renaming it.

Additionally, "post" is more consistent with its usage on other social products: think of Facebook posts, Reddit posts, LinkedIn posts, and so on.

Do I need to do anything on my end?

If you are using the word "topic" in any of your community content, we strongly recommend changing it by Monday February 22. For example, some communities refer to "topics" in their welcome instructions, community guidelines, and other places.

Additionally, if any of your customized CSS or JavaScript code snippets use the word "topic", don't worry! We're mindful of breaking CSS customizations, and will work to ensure that the majority of customizations are automatically updated. The same goes for API requests and Zapier flows.

If for any reason we anticipate breaking changes, we'll reach out to you with further instructions.

Questions?

If you have questions or concerns, please contact our wonderful support team: support@circle.so

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🖼 New customization options for topic cover images

We've added some new customization options for topic cover images!

You can now upload a cover image file, enter the URL of an image from the web, or select a preset image from our integration with Unsplash, a repository for beautiful freely-usable images.

Image cropping

Images can now be auto-cropped to our recommended dimensions (840 x 300) with our built-in cropping tool.

Space-level control

And, last but not least — admins and space moderators now have space-level control on their members' ability to add cover images to their own topics.

Look out for the Prevent members from creating topics with a cover image toggle in space settings.

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Create a community newsletter with weekly digest introductions

Weekly digests are a great way to keep members updated with your community, but previously weren't very customizable. Well, we’ve got some updates!

1) Add a custom introduction
You can now set a custom introduction to show up at the top of every digest from Settings → Weekly Digest. You can update this introduction weekly before the digest goes out to members every Thursday to use it as a community newsletter.

Note: If your introduction isn't meant to be permanent, please remember to update or reset it after it goes out the following Thursday at 9am PT.

2) Choose which sections you want to include in your digest
We've introduced toggles to hide topics, comments, stats, or new member sections.

Pro-tip: You can ensure a specific topic appears in a weekly digest by pinning it to the top of a space or to the sidebar.

As always, share your feedback below, or email support@circle.so!

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Make more meaningful connections with 1-1 direct messaging

You asked for it — and it's here! Circle now supports private 1-1 direct messaging to help you and your members make more meaningful connections.

If you signed up to Circle before today (Thursday, June 11, 2020), you'll have to navigate to Settings → Direct Messaging and click "Activate" to turn it on for your community.

Once it's turned on, any member in your community will be able to send anyone else a 1-1 direct message.

Accessing direct messages

In the top right section of your community header, you and your members will see an icon for messages. Clicking on this icon will show you your direct message threads.

If you don't have any messages, you'll be taken to the new message view, where you can start a conversation by selecting a member from the community.

Starting conversations

Once direct messaging is turned on, you'll find a Message button on member profile cards across your community.

For example, in the Most active members section inside a space:

... or directly on someone's member profile:

... or inside the space or space group member directory:

This feature can be deactivated

We care about how this feature is used — and we'd hate for it to be used for spam, or to make anyone feel unsafe. So, we've made it really easy for you or your members to deactivate this feature on multiple levels.

A member can deactivate direct messaging for their own account for any reason from Settings → Profile.

As an admin, you can deactivate direct messaging for a member by navigating to a member's edit screen in the Members area. If you do this, the member won't be able to turn it back on or access any previous messages unless you do it for them.

And if for any reason you need to, you can always deactivate direct messaging for your entire community once you've turned it on.

Note: all the messages in your community will be scrubbed within 30 days and you won't be able to recover these messages if you wish to activate it again.

We're not done yet!

Stay tuned for future improvements:

An emoji picker
Open graph link previews
Ability to send image and file attachments
Ability to archive and delete messages
Ability to mark all messages as read

If you have any feedback, we'd love to hear from you: support@circle.so.

Happy messaging!

- The Circle Team

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10 small improvements we shipped in July

Thanks to the feedback we receive from you, Circle keeps getting better in nifty ways! 🙌

1️⃣ Disable topic truncation
You can now use the "Disable truncation" toggle in topic settings to prevent a topic from being truncated with "Show more." Great for pinned topics, guidelines, and content pages — like this one.

2️⃣ Maintain URL redirects on change
When you change your space or topic slugs going forward, we'll remember to redirect your old URLs to the new ones.

3️⃣ Default sort order for comments and members
In space settings, you can now set a default sort order for how comments show up in topics, and members in the Members tab. Also, we now enable you to sort your comments from new to old.

4️⃣ Customize reply-to email
In Settings > General, you can now customize the reply-to email for Circle member notifications. This means when members reply to a notification email, they'll be sending a reply to the email you provide here.

5️⃣ Customize topic author
Admins or moderators can now change the topic author on any topic.

6️⃣ Card view topic thumbnails
You can now set a thumbnail specific to card view in topic settings. This thumbnail can be a different aspect ratio (i.e. closer to a square) than your topic cover image.

7️⃣ More frequent email notifications for new unread direct messages

Previously, we would only email you when you received a direct message from someone you hadn't talked to before. Starting tomorrow, we'll email you about any new unread direct messages that were sent while you were away. (Of course, email notifications for DMs can still be turned off in Settings > Notifications.)

8️⃣ New topic/comment zapier triggers on all activity across your community
If you wanted to setup a Zapier trigger so that new Circle topics or comment events interacted with another service (for example, sent to a Slack channel), you previously had to select a space. The space field is now optional, which means that if you don't select one, we'll send triggers for topic/comment activity across all your spaces.

9️⃣ No more warning notices on Microsoft Edge with Defender

Some users were seeing a warning notice on Microsoft Edge + Defender. We've fixed this issue.

🔟 Custom domain automation

Custom domains are now fully automated. No more wait time!

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Create richer topics with custom HTML embeds

Our Embed feature lets you embed content from 200+ providers in topics, but sometimes, that’s not enough.

For example, Google Calendar is not supported by our native embed feature, but it provides users with custom HTML code that they can embed.

We’ve been cautious about enabling admins to add their own HTML embeds for a bunch of reasons — outlined below — but we've decided that the pros outweigh the cons (at least for now!)

So, we’re going to try an experimental version of this feature and enable it for communities on the Professional or Enterprise plan. We hope you’ll use it wisely :)

Remember: "With great power, comes great responsibility."

Please note:

This is an advanced and experimental feature for technical folks (ideally developers) only!
- Reason: A single character gone wrong in an HTML code snippet can end up breaking your community. We're weary of folks getting into these issues, and having to support such experiences at scale.
It's powerful! It lets you (and only you, the admin) add any custom HTML or JS into a topic.
HTML added here will most likely not work on our iOS app in its initial versions — but we’ll aim to make it work over time.

Here are a few examples of things you can embed with HTML:

Embed a Google Calendar

If you want to create a topic that hosts a calendar for your community, you can easily add the HTML code to display this for your members.

Add to Calendar Widget

You may post an event reminder in Circle, and want to provide an "Add to Calendar" button beneath the topic as shown below. We'd recommend using a tool like AddEvent.com to generate the "Add to Calendar" code:

Once clicked, members will be able to select their preferred calendar:

Provide your Calendly embed

Enable your members to easily schedule time with you!

The possibilities are endless. For more details about how to use this HTML feature, click here!

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Home

Latest

New activity

Oldest

Popular

Likes

Andy Guttormsen

Sid Yadav

Rudy Santino

Anne-Laure Le Cunff

Tiago Forte

Nat Eliason

Ben Tossell

Greta Eagan

swyx

Tonner

David Perell

Matthew Gartland (he/him)

How do I submit feedback?

What's next for the app?

Will I be able to white-label the app for my own community?

How can my members find this app?

Can I opt my community out of being accessible from the app?

When is the Android app coming out?

Thank you

Jay Clouse (he/him)

Buffy Owens

David Ferriol

Dan Fennessy

Alex Yungvirt

Jason Resnick

Codie Westphall

Darko Spasovski

Damir Stuhec

Rakesh Khicher

Puneet Sutar

Rudy Santino

Karthik Ganesh

🏠 A new home for your members

🤩 A few examples

✅ How to turn it on for your community

✨ Ready to give your members a new home?

Why this change?

Do I need to do anything on my end?

Questions?

Image cropping

Space-level control

Accessing direct messages

Starting conversations

This feature can be deactivated

We're not done yet!

Embed a Google Calendar

Add to Calendar Widget

Provide your Calendly embed