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Is community in B2B SaaS a cost center — or a growth engine hiding in plain sight?

In this episode of Unchurned, Josh Schachter sits down with Jon Wishart and community strategist Brian Oblinger to break down what community really means beyond vanity metrics and buzzwords.

They explore how community drives retention (GRR), expansion, and customer success — and why most companies are measuring it wrong. Plus, they unpack how AI is reshaping search, traffic, and discoverability, and why declining pageviews don’t mean declining value.

If you’re building, scaling, or rethinking your community strategy, this episode will change how you think about impact — and the future of customer connection.

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Timestamps

0:00 - Preview & Introduction

1:45 - Meet Jon Wishart & Brian Oblinger

7:56 - What community in B2B SaaS actually is

9:00 - The “eras” of community ownership (Support → CS → Marketing → Product)

12:30 - Is community a cost center? And measuring impact

18:15 - The CFO conversation: investment vs expense

19:35 - AI, traffic declines, and community panic

21:30 - Why AI isn’t killing community

26:42 - The shift from “How do I?” to “How do we?”

30:40 - How community impacts feature development strategy

33:13 - Starting from zero: advice for new community builders

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What You’ll Learn

* The core definition of community in B2B SaaS (without the fluff)

* How community drives retention, expansion, and lower support costs

* Why operational metrics (posts, members, pageviews) are outdated

* How to measure community’s business impact using cohort analysis

* What AI is really doing to search traffic and discoverability

* Why declining traffic doesn’t mean declining value

* How to future-proof your community strategy

* The fundamentals every new community leader must get right

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Where to Find the Guests

Brian's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-wishart/

Jon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-wishart/

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Where to Find Josh:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/

Unchurned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com/

B2B Communities Aren't Dead, Your Outdated Metrics Are ft.Jon Wishart & Brian Oblinger