“I do have a shirt that says ‘I’m fine. Everything’s fine’ with the meme of the dog and the house on fire.”
This was Claudia Cafeo’s candid, laughing admission when I asked her how things were going. As the Senior Community Manager at Zapier, she lives in a state of controlled chaos, a feeling familiar to any community builder. They are the digital-age chaos coordinators, part architect, part teacher, part diplomat, and part firefighter, often wearing multiple hats across the business. “
“Everywhere I worked, I was often the only Discord builder and manager,” Claudia shared. “Because I’m a builder and a helper at heart, I naturally support many cross-functional initiatives. But my long-term vision is a dedicated community team – one focused on nurturing all of our community spaces, including Discord, and continuously evolving the experience for our members”.”
And yet, this broad surface area is precisely what makes her work so impactful at Zapier. Claudia’s role touches customer success, customer advocacy, activation, retention, community-driven insights, partnerships, and education – turning community into a cross-functional engine for the business.
This is the central challenge for modern community leaders: they are often isolated innovators, tasked with building a deeply human “moat” around a business while simultaneously proving its value to stakeholders.
So how do you do it? How do you build an unbreakable, human-centric fortress of loyalty, especially when you’re the only one on the wall?
Claudia doesn’t just have a playbook; she has a philosophy. It’s built on “Three Cs” that could very well be the new foundation for 21st-century business.
The 3 C’s: The Foundation of a Human-Led Moat
For any executive skeptical that a “fluffy” community can have a better ROI than a hard-data funnel, this is the thesis.
“Whenever I talk about community, I always talk about the three Cs of community,” Claudia says. “I often joke and I say, ‘Of course. One of them is Claudia.’ But what I usually refer to is Consistency, Communication, and Care.”
1. Communication: “We’re Building Our Home Together”
For Claudia, “communication” isn’t just posting announcements. It’s the radical act of co-creation. It’s the difference between building for your users and building with them.
“I often say to our community members, ‘We’re building our home together.’ You need to feel comfortable here. We can discuss what kind of space we want to create, but the point is that people need to feel at ease. A sense of belonging doesn’t happen when decisions are simply imposed on the community.”
This approach transforms the user relationship. They are no longer just informed; they become “a part of this collective build.”
This isn’t just a “nice to have.” It’s the engine of advocacy. Claudia herself is the prime example.
“Before joining Zapier, I was a user. I collaborated with others in my network, shared workflows, learned from them, and built alongside them. So when I joined Zapier, it felt natural – I already believed in what the company was doing. Now I get to help others feel that same empowerment.” “
2. Consistency: The Human Behind the “Bot”
Great communities don’t run on autopilot. They run on the relentless, human consistency of their leader. For Claudia, this means showing up every day, and doing the human work—like personally checking in on members who have gone quiet.
This is now so rare, in fact, that it can be confusing.
“People sometimes think that I’m a bot,” she laughs. “That’s because I check in so consistently. I’ll message someone saying, ‘Hey, I haven’t seen you in a week – everything okay?’ And they’ll genuinely ask if it’s an automated message. It’s not. I care, and I want people to feel supported.” ‘”
That single interaction “No, it’s me. I do care.” is the entire foundation of a community moat. It’s the unscalable, human-to-human connection that no AI can replicate.
3. Care: The “Secret Sauce” of Collective Growth
“My favorite one is care,” Claudia says, her voice warming. “You have to be passionate about what you do… people feel the care.”
This isn’t just customer support. It’s about a genuine, empathetic investment in the success of the people in your space. This manifests in a philosophy she calls “Collective Growth.”
“I believe deeply in collective growth. If I’m growing personally or professionally, there’s no reason I can’t bring someone with me. Over the years I’ve helped people land roles, find clients, and build confidence – never for personal gain, but because small gestures can genuinely change someone’s life.” “
This is the ultimate ROI. When a user feels that a brand’s community genuinely cares about their personal and professional growth, not just their subscription, they don’t just become a customer. They become evangelists.
The “AI Slop” Apocalypse and the Search for “Real”
Claudia’s human-centric model is emerging at a critical moment. For the first time, social media use is dipping. Platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram are overrun with what many call “AI slop“. Generic, low-effort content that our brains are rapidly learning to reject.
“Our brains are wired to recognize patterns, and we can now spot low-effort AI-generated content instantly. If someone didn’t take the time to write something genuine, why should we spend time reading it?” ‘”
This digital fatigue is driving a mass exodus toward authenticity.
“That’s why people go to Reddit,” she says. “I find myself adding ‘Reddit’ at the end of my Google searches because I want to see what real people think about that particular topic.”
This is the new landscape. People are starving for real, unpolished, human conversation. And this, she argues, is the community builder’s moment. “Now is our time to shine,” she asserts. “Because of the spaces that we’ve built with people.”
Architecting the “Third Place” on a “Gaming” Platform
Of course, building a professional community on Discord comes with its own baggage.
“I often run into the misconception that Discord is only for gamers or that it’s inherently chaotic. Many people have experienced noisy servers in the past, and that first impression sticks.” “
Her solution? Treat the platform not as a chatroom, but as a piece of architecture.
This mindset stems from her “past life.” “I did have a window of me wanting to become a UX UI designer. And so I do think that I adopt a very people-centric approach when I’m building communities.”
She’s not just a “manager”; she’s an architect. And a good architect uses the right materials for the job. Her single most “game-changing” feature for professional communities built on Discord? Forums.
“The opportunity to be able to build forums within your Discord servers is such a game changer for me,” she gushes. “You can have that sort of day-to-day interaction chat in the text channels, but then the forum is where all the focused conversations happen.”
- Text Channels = The chaotic, real-time “picnic” or chat.
- Forums = The focused, organized, and—most importantly—searchable “library” or knowledge base.
She uses this “architecture” with precision:
- At NoCodeOps (the Zapier community), she has a forum for “Operations” where people can post focused, threaded questions about their challenges.
- She also has a “Zapier Showcase” in a media forum layout, where users can upload videos and screenshots of their zaps. It serves as “a gallery of inspiration.”
This intentional design (a skill she honed as a teacher, which we’ll get to) is what separates a valuable “third place” from a “noisy” server.
How to Co-Create (and Find Your Hidden Stars)
This brings us to content. How do you create compelling content in an age of AI-fatigue?
Claudia’s rule: “Co-creation is way more valuable and powerful to me than extracting the insights using AI.”
She makes a brilliant distinction: AI is for internal use. Human co-creation is for public content.
“We have our events, we record some of them, and then I use the transcript to generate content on what’s been discussed… I’m not a bot developer but I’m sure anyone can now leverage AI to extract these types of insights and drastically improve their internal reports and operations.
For public-facing content, she does something far more powerful.
“I’ll often open a shared Google Doc with nothing but a topic and invite members to contribute their thoughts. I’ve created collaborative articles this way, then turned those contributions into carousels for LinkedIn..”
The result? The content is guaranteed to resonate because the community built it. “They take ownership and pride into that piece of content that we created together.”
But how do you find these “hidden stars” to co-create with? It goes back to consistency and care. It’s not automated. It’s work.
“I connect with each individual who joins. I review their application, look at their background, learn what they’re excited about, and personally introduce them to others. When I see potential, I reach out and invite them to contribute or speak. It’s like uncovering a diamond — watching someone shine is incredibly rewarding.” ‘”
The Strategic Scrapper: “Ask Forgiveness, Not Permission” (With a Caveat)
This level of deep engagement allows Claudia to run scrappy, brilliant experiments. She knows some people in her community might be too shy to showcase their work on LinkedIn, but they will feel more at ease sharing that content in a safe space first, and build that confidence to share widely after.
So she launched the “Zapier Showcase” forum as a quick MVP.
The result? “We already have more than 20 use cases being posted,” she says. “I then connect the dots and use that beautiful automation magic to showcase their work internally and turn our customers into Zapier celebrities “
This is the “ask for forgiveness, not permission” mentality. But she offers a crucial, mature caveat.
“You don’t experiment blindly. You don’t wake up and decide to be sneaky. Every experiment I run is rooted in empathy — empathy for the community and empathy for the company’s goals. That’s what makes it low-risk and high-impact.”
It’s not “scrappy”; it’s strategic. It’s a low-risk experiment, built on a strong hypothesis, that aligns with a major company goal (gathering use cases).
Your “Past Life” is Your Superpower
So how does one person manage all of this? The chaos, the strategy, the individual connections, the 30-kid-classroom-level energy?
It turns out, Claudia’s “past life” as a primary school teaching assistant was the perfect training.
“Vocal control. Chaos,” she laughs. “I still feel like I’m teaching — just bigger kids sometimes. Helping people learn, grow, and build confidence is still at the core of what I do.”
It’s about seeing the “aha” moment. “When you see that something has landed… when you see the ‘aha’ moments in people’s eyes. I love that moment… I’ve passed on something, right? I’ve left some legacy.”
This is her why. But it’s her other “past life” that gives her the how—how she manages the burnout of being the “community team of one.”
“When you feel like the burnout is creeping in,” she says, “I think of my younger self and more specifically I try to remember my karate lessons. One in particular stuck with me.. We would be sitting still while the sensei walked around striking the ground with a stick. You didn’t know when the noise would come, but the challenge was to remain centered. When burnout creeps in, I remind myself of that discipline. I try not to react to every sudden noise.””
And that is the final, most important lesson. In a “house on fire” job, the Community Architect must first be the calm center.
Then, when the inevitable burnout does creep in, her “3 Cs” save her. She defaults to Communication and Care.
“When things feel heavy, I default to transparency. I’ll tell the community, ‘Today’s not my best day.’ And the support that comes back is always beautiful. “
That’s the moat. It’s when your community, which you’ve so carefully and consistently built, turns around and cares back. You can’t buy that with a marketing budget. You have to earn it, one human connection at a time.