The work of running a small social media platform is primarily social, rather than technical.
Unlike big platforms, which are largely differentiated by technical affordances and whose work mostly involves building and maintaining technical infrastructure, small platforms are largely differentiated by social factors and most of their work involves building and maintaining social infrastructure.
So, what is small? We think it’s platforms that serve roughly a few dozen to a few thousand people. Essentially, anything that could conceivably be a group chat but that lives on its own platform. At that scale, running a platform is more like hosting a dinner party than building a rocket. The distinct and valuable thing you’re building isn’t a new technology, it’s a community. The central tasks are recruiting people to join the community and keeping them involved once they’ve joined. The former requires outreach and the latter requires social scaffolding, like facilitation and moderation.