Cynically: 'sense of community' gets destroyed in the search for profit when you're profiting from something else. If you're getting your profits from the commu

Cynically: 'sense of community' gets destroyed in the search for profit when you're profiting from something else. If you're getting your profits from the community, you'll build it up just fine. Not necessarily in a healthy way, but at least in a persistent one. Hell, I think you could convincingly argue that opening a new pub counts as founding a startup aimed at increasing people's sense of community. It doesn't have the unlimited scale of a tech startup, but it is a company that profits from offering a 'third place'. For that matter, plenty of churches have been run more like businesses than non-profits while still creating strong communities. As long as the sense of community is profitable, it might do well with startups. That just hasn't been a common state of affairs lately.