I have been really, really wanting to get more people to Steemit and form a community for over two years now. The single reason I have not been able to do so is because the Communities feature hasn't been available. If I bring someone here, they have no reason to stay. Whereas if they could hop on a Community section where there are other people gathered around the same interest, that would give them a reason to participate and keep them coming here. There is no reason for them to be here otherwise.

Communities is the one single most important feature. I think much more important than everything else that was done over the last 2+ years.

You don't need to do marketing. Every single one of your users will be your marketer. They will advertise the platform, form their communities, bring over their friends and existing communities. In fact, they can't wait to do that. But right now they can't do it because there is no point bringing in more people if there is nothing for them to do here.

There are a lot of fundamental mistakes being made in regards to the sequence in which things are developed. New technologies go through an adoption curve, where at the start of the curve you have early adopters. We are still there. This means things like easy onboarding are not a priority at all at this time. Early adopters like products that require more skill to figure out, they like it when the product is not polished, when it is still not ready for the masses. That gives them a chance to adopt it before the masses. But without Communities, there is only one big ocean of people and posts, so the "social media" part cannot really happen. So my suggestion to all entrepreneurs on this blockchain is: read the book The Four Steps to the Epiphany in order to understand more about developing your product from an idea to a massive business.