Is building a community actually driving acquisition, or just keeping founders busy?

We spent months setting up a private community, posting daily updates, and hosting discussions to drive organic acquisition. While the community members are super engaged, we looked at our attribution data and realized it brought in almost zero paying customers.

It made me realize there’s a big difference between building a loyal audience and building a revenue channel.

How do you measure the actual ROI of community building, or is it mostly a long-term brand play for you?