World Building: The Key To Lovable Communities | Skool News #31
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10 min di lettura
SUMMARY
The Skool team hosts an update on platform successes like Hamza's $2M earnings and Spencer's $400K monthly revenue, demos upcoming features such as subscription tiers, webinars, and analytics, previews community tours, and explores world building strategies for immersive online communities.
STATEMENTS
- Hamza, at age 28, has generated over $2 million in revenue on Skool within two years, using it to pay off his parents' mortgage.
- Spencer has achieved the milestone of earning $400,000 per month on Skool, sharing a detailed breakdown of his growth from zero.
- Recent live streaming updates enlarge video and screen share sizes, minimizing unused black space for a more efficient viewing experience.
- Custom backgrounds, including blurred or uploaded images, are now available in live stream settings to enhance personalization.
- Future live streaming enhancements will allow pinning and spotlighting multiple participants, with changes reflected in recordings.
- Improved reaction features for live streams will display larger, more engaging animations across the screen, beyond current corner placements.
- Subscription tiers introduce up to three paid levels alongside a mandatory free tier, enabling varied pricing models like premium or VIP access.
- Tiers permit unlocking specific content, such as courses or calendar events, which serve as marketing prompts for upgrades.
- The webinar mode transforms calls into presenter-focused streams where audiences watch and chat only, with options to invite participants onstage temporarily.
- Advanced analytics will track metrics like conversion rates, retention, monthly recurring revenue (MRR), and growth over time, segmented by traffic sources.
- Retention cohorts in analytics reveal how member engagement evolves monthly, helping identify strategies that sustain long-term activity.
- Goose's World Tour culminates in an Antarctica cruise meetup, with seven cabins available via a free Skool group at gooseify.io.
- The School Bus Project converts a custom "schoolie" bus for a year-long U.S. tour, hosting meetups, podcasts, and merch distribution in every state.
- World building expands communities beyond a single website by creating interconnected elements like events, merch, and media to foster immersion.
- Disney's 1958 model created synergy across movies, Disneyland, merchandise, comics, magazines, music, and TV to drive cross-engagement.
- Skool's ecosystem includes School Games challenges, School Stories podcast, physical awards, HQ visits, and the beloved School Cat character.
- Community culture emerges organically through inside jokes, promoted personalities, and bottom-up initiatives rather than forced top-down efforts.
- Starting world building involves a core community, weekly calls, ambassador development, and eventually merch to build belonging.
- Documenting community activities naturally generates content for emails, videos, and ads, reducing the effort of fabricating topics.
- Thematic integrations, like coffee in AI Jack's community or anime in Shreds, tie personal interests to group identity for deeper resonance.
- Bottom-up contributions, such as reviving School Stories by demand, ensure authenticity and prevent inauthentic over-management.
IDEAS
- Earning platforms like Skool enable young creators to achieve financial independence swiftly, funding family milestones like mortgage payoffs.
- Incremental feature tweaks, such as reducing black space in streams, demonstrate how small changes compound to professionalize user experiences.
- Multiple subscription tiers lower entry barriers while upselling premium access, turning free users into revenue-generating loyalists.
- Deep analytics reveal hidden traffic efficiencies, allowing creators to abandon underperforming channels and scale winners.
- Global adventure tours, even to Antarctica, blend digital communities with real-world escapades, complete with Wi-Fi for seamless work-life fusion.
- Constructing a "world" around a community mimics Disney's empire, weaving media, events, and merch into a self-reinforcing engagement web.
- Lore-building, inspired by Tolkien's invented languages, infuses communities with mythic depth, spawning fan analyses and unbreakable bonds.
- Inside jokes and emergent memes act as cultural glue, evolving naturally to distinguish vibrant groups from bland forums.
- Physical artifacts like custom buses or plush toys transform abstract online ties into tangible symbols of membership.
- Promoting "GOATs" elevates everyday members to stars, inspiring participation and creating aspirational narratives within the group.
- Content droughts end when communities become content mines; capturing events yields endless videos, posts, and stories effortlessly.
- Themed rituals, such as coffee-fueled calls, embed personal passions into communal routines, making interactions uniquely memorable.
- Bottom-up innovation outperforms top-down mandates, as user-driven revivals like podcast reboots build genuine enthusiasm.
INSIGHTS
- Interconnected ecosystems amplify community stickiness by turning isolated interactions into a holistic, immersive narrative that rivals entertainment franchises.
- Subscription flexibility not only diversifies income but strategically uses gated content as perpetual upgrade incentives, optimizing lifetime value.
- Granular analytics shift creators from intuition to precision, uncovering retention levers that sustain growth amid churn pressures.
- Webinar formats professionalize broadcasts, enabling scalable education while preserving interactivity through selective participation.
- Real-world extensions like tours humanize digital platforms, forging emotional loyalty that virtual spaces alone cannot achieve.
- Organic cultural evolution—via jokes, themes, and user initiatives—cultivates authenticity, making communities feel alive rather than engineered.
- Documenting serendipitous happenings transforms mundane management into magnetic storytelling, easing content creation and attraction.
- Elevating internal leaders creates a ripple of motivation, where recognized achievements inspire collective elevation over individual isolation.
- Synergistic elements, from merch to events, create promotional loops that self-perpetuate visibility without exhaustive marketing efforts.
- Thematic personalization aligns group identity with founder quirks, fostering belonging through shared rituals that transcend transactional ties.
- Gradual world-building prevents overwhelm, starting with core engagement to ensure scalable depth without alienating early adopters.
QUOTES
- "Hamza paid his parents' mortgage with school."
- "He's the first person to crack $400,000 a month on school."
- "World building - how to build lore and culture around your community."
- "If you have a community and you want to make it great, you need to enrich it, make it more deep than just a website on the internet."
- "This is what makes something special instead of it just being a a community or a software product."
- "When you build something cool, all you really need to do is capture it and share it and then you have your content."
- "It's got to come from the people. Yes. That's what a community is."
HABITS
- Hosting weekly community calls to share updates, celebrate wins, and discuss strategies, as seen in School News.
- Iterating on platform features incrementally based on user feedback, such as enhancing live streams over time.
- Documenting and broadcasting internal events and successes to generate organic content for promotion.
- Organizing regular in-person meetups and tours to blend online engagement with real-world connections.
- Encouraging and amplifying member contributions, like reviving popular initiatives through popular demand.
- Promoting emerging inside jokes and personalities to naturally cultivate group culture and cohesion.
FACTS
- At 28 years old, Hamza amassed over $2 million in Skool revenue across two years, showcasing rapid platform scalability.
- Spencer pioneered $400,000 monthly earnings on Skool, highlighting the potential for high-revenue niche communities.
- Disney's 1958 synergy framework integrated movies, theme parks, merchandise, comics, magazines, music, and TV for cross-promotion.
- J.R.R. Tolkien crafted an entire fictional language for the Lord of the Rings, inspiring fan wikis and linguistic analyses.
- Converted school buses, known as "schoolies," feature custom interiors with beds, showers, kitchens, and toilets for nomadic living.
- The Antarctica cruise in Goose's tour offers Starlink Wi-Fi, gourmet food, and workspaces for digital nomads.
REFERENCES
- Disney synergy model (1958, Walt Disney drawing integrating movies, Disneyland, merch, comics, magazines, music, TV).
- Disneyland as a physical hub for immersive experiences.
- Lord of the Rings lore by J.R.R. Tolkien, including invented languages and fan analyses.
- Goose World Tour via gooseify.io, culminating in Antarctica meetup with Nomad Cruise.
- School Games challenges and Horoszi partnerships.
- Physical awards and Olympic torch icon.
- Quarterly winner events at School HQ.
- School Stories podcast by Matthew Thompson, now rebooting as 2.0 on YouTube.
- School Cat character, evolving into plushies and software elements.
- School merch, including upcoming in-platform tab.
HOW TO APPLY
- Establish a core online community platform as the foundation, inviting members to join freely or at a low entry price to build initial engagement without barriers.
- Launch a weekly call or newsletter series to regularly update members on activities, celebrate achievements, and discuss ideas, fostering consistent interaction and visibility.
- Identify enthusiastic members as potential ambassadors or "GOATs," featuring them in posts, calls, or interviews to elevate personalities and inspire wider participation.
- Introduce merchandise like stickers, plushies, or apparel once the group gains traction, using it to symbolize belonging and integrate cultural icons like inside jokes.
- Organize small-scale events or meetups, starting virtual then progressing to in-person, while documenting everything through videos and posts to create shareable content loops.
ONE-SENTENCE TAKEAWAY
World building transforms online communities into immersive ecosystems, driving loyalty through organic lore and interconnected experiences.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Adopt subscription tiers early to segment access and encourage upgrades via gated premium content like exclusive courses.
- Leverage upcoming analytics to audit traffic sources quarterly, reallocating efforts to high-conversion channels for efficient growth.
- Host thematic weekly calls incorporating personal interests, such as shared rituals, to weave founder identity into community fabric.
- Promote bottom-up ideas by polling members on revivals or additions, ensuring culture evolves authentically without top-down imposition.
- Plan physical extensions like local meetups once virtual engagement stabilizes, bridging digital bonds to real-world immersion.
- Capture all community happenings in clips for social media, turning events into effortless promotional assets that attract newcomers.
- Develop simple merch tied to emergent symbols, like custom icons, to boost belonging and generate passive revenue streams.
- Build lore gradually by latching onto inside jokes in posts, creating a shared narrative that deepens emotional investment.
- Feature top performers in spotlights to create aspirational roles, motivating retention and organic advocacy within the group.
MEMO
In the bustling digital landscape of online communities, the Skool platform is redefining success stories with remarkable tales of financial triumph. At just 28, creator Hamza parlayed his Skool group into over $2 million in revenue across two years, a windfall he used to erase his parents' mortgage—a poignant reminder of how virtual spaces can reshape real lives. Not far behind, Spencer shattered records as the first to hit $400,000 monthly earnings, dissecting his ascent in a viral post that underscores Skool's potential for explosive scaling. These anecdotes, shared during a lively Skool News broadcast, highlight a ecosystem where ambition meets accessible tools, propelling users from novices to millionaires.
Platform enhancements are accelerating, blending user feedback with innovative tweaks to elevate the experience. Live streaming now boasts larger video feeds and custom backgrounds, banishing the dreaded black voids that once marred sessions—ideal for traders needing crystal-clear details. Upcoming webinars promise a Twitch-like polish, confining audiences to spectator mode while allowing hosts to spotlight guests dynamically, with vibrant reactions set to explode onscreen. Yet the crown jewels arrive this fall: subscription tiers enabling up to three paid levels atop a free entry point, unlocking courses and events as upgrade bait. Analytics, meanwhile, will dissect MRR, retention cohorts, and traffic origins with forensic precision, empowering creators to prune inefficiencies and chase spikes in engagement.
Beyond code and commerce, Skool is venturing into tangible adventures to knit its users closer. Goose's audacious World Tour crescendos in an Antarctic cruise, where seven cabins remain for intrepid Schoolers to network amid icebergs, sustained by Starlink and fine dining. Echoing this wanderlust, the School Bus Project commissions a branded "schoolie"—a retrofitted coach with bunks and a podcast studio—for a year-long odyssey across every U.S. state. These initiatives, from meetups to merch handoffs, aim to transplant online camaraderie into flesh-and-blood encounters, proving that true community thrives when screens give way to shared horizons.
At the heart of Skool's vision lies "world building," a strategy borrowed from Disney's 1958 blueprint, where Walt envisioned synergy across films, parks, and paraphernalia to captivate audiences holistically. For Skool, this manifests in an interwoven tapestry: the School Games challenges feed into ambassador videos and podcast guests on School Stories; the mascot cat graces plushies and software; quarterly HQ bashes yield ad clips. J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings lore, complete with fabricated tongues, serves as a literary parallel—deep narratives that spawn fanatic devotion. Here, culture brews bottom-up: inside jokes solidify into memes, member-driven revivals like the podcast reboot gain traction, and themes (coffee in AI Jack's automation circle, anime in Shreds) infuse identity.
This organic alchemy demands patience; start with a vibrant core group, layer in weekly calls to spotlight stars, then merch to mark allegiance. Content, the perennial creator's quandary, flows effortlessly from these happenings—news becomes narrative, events etch lore. As Skool's architects note, forcing the magic risks dilution; instead, nurture what resonates, letting users co-author the saga. In an era of fleeting digital ties, such worlds don't just retain members—they inspire belonging, turning platforms into legacies that endure beyond the login.