Co-Creation
Open the factory door and let your audience help build the thing.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 80%
Co-Creation is Flynn's practice of involving the audience in what you build. On a small scale, it can be offering a few book-cover options and asking which people prefer — opening the factory door and giving fans a voice. On a larger scale, SPI invites community members to teach subjects where they out-expert the team, adding to the curriculum from within. Collaborations with peers — joint videos, shared email lists — extend the same principle. The governing question for any project is simply: how might I get my audience involved in this?
Origin
Flynn discusses co-creation in his book Super Fans and practices it across SPI, from crowdsourcing decisions to elevating community members into instructors, citing peers like Amy Porterfield who co-create with their audiences.
Core principles
- 01Involving your audience in what you create makes them feel a genuine part of the process.
- 02For anything you build, ask: how might I get my audience involved in this?
- 03Your community holds expertise you don't — invite them to teach and lead.
- 04Collaboration cross-pollinates audiences and builds shared ownership.
How to run it
- 1
Crowdsource small decisions
Offer a few real choices — like alternative book covers — and ask the audience which they prefer or to suggest their own.
Pro tip This opens the factory door and gives people a genuine behind-the-scenes voice.
- 2
Invite members to teach
Find community members who are smarter than you at some aspect of the topic and give them a platform to teach it to everyone.
Pro tip It grows your curriculum from within and elevates members into recognized experts.
- 3
Collaborate with peers
Shoot joint videos, cross-share email lists, or bring another creator into your community to serve it together.
Pro tip Like Bruno Mars first reaching audiences on Travie McCoy's 'Billionaire,' collaboration lets people fall for your work through someone else's platform.
- 4
Ask the involvement question
For anything you're creating, habitually ask 'how might I get my audience involved in this?' and act on the answer.
In the wild
Flynn points to Lego's ideas.lego.com, where any fan can design a creation from existing bricks, upload it, and if it earns enough votes Lego will actually manufacture it and pay the designer a royalty. Lego's leadership framed it as having hundreds of in-house designers but hundreds of thousands of potential designers out of house.
→ Fans get involved in the design process and earn royalties, deepening loyalty while expanding Lego's product pipeline.
Common mistakes
Building in isolation
Never asking how the audience could be involved forfeits the engagement, expertise, and loyalty that co-creation unlocks.
Is it for you?
Best for
Creators and community builders who want deeper engagement and to tap audience expertise.
Not ideal for
Situations demanding a single confidential vision or where audience input would dilute the outcome.
From the transcript
“when you are creating anything asking yourself the question how might I be able to get my audience involved in this is is is wonderful”
“we have like you know hundreds of designers inhouse but we have hundreds of thousands of potential designers out of house”
From the episode
Pat Flynn: Online Business 101, How to Generate 6 Figures of Passive Income and Create a Cult of Superfans
Pat Flynn