Skool Notes
22 Curated Lessons & Highlights From Being Active in Skool for 1.5 Years
A backstory and practical notes from spending 1.5 years inside Skool: beginner advice, practical advice, expert lessons, and thoughts on the hobby plan.
Beginner Advice
1. A Skool community gives you authority automatically.
Hormozi mentioned this. You are ready. Launch messy. Take action and clarity will follow.
2. Give it time.
Most people stick with their niche until it works. All your other ideas will probably also work, but changing your niche forces you to start over again and again, which does not allow you to grow.
3. Nothing worse than a struggling person trying to add value.
Do not try to add value if you are struggling. Quoting Sam Ovens: nothing worse than a struggling person trying to add value. Nothing is more wholesome than genuinely asking for help. Thanks to Bijan Izadi for setting the example.
4. Do not try to fix future problems.
You will deal with problems as they appear. Most of the time, these problems are not a real concern right now. The problems of today require your immediate attention. Start building for 10, not for 1000.
5. Skool is free of ads. Share it.
People experience an internet full of noise. Skool is a distraction-free space, with Wikipedia vibes, about topics people like. Use that to your advantage by mentioning that Skool has no ads.
6. Eight ways to make money on Skool.
When starting, I kept coming back to a fantastic post by Hormozi for inspiration. It used to be my favorite.
7. Business should be fun.
Make memes and inside jokes to create culture. We even had an official Skool meme challenge last year where you could win $10k. My submission finished in the top 10 and was mentioned on Skool News.
Practical Advice You Can Apply Today
8. Be available for support.
Make your support email easy to find. Add it to key places like your community's About page, the welcome post, or the first page of any course. The easier it is for members to get help, the better their experience will be.
Expert Advice
9. Scheduled posts will never be a feature.
This is one of the most requested features on Skool. I really like Sam's vision on this.
10. Accountancy is not always as simple as it sounds.
There was a lot of discussion around Skool payments, merchant of record setup, invoices, VAT, and accounting. The important update: this VAT setup will change sometime soon.
11. Save historic data.
At one point, people worked around reporting limitations with Google Sheet automations or third-party tools. Update: Skool Analytics is live.
12. Feature requests need a problem.
When you post a feature request, do not frame it as a nice idea. Explain what problem it solves, otherwise it will probably get ignored.
13. Focus on one thing.
Sam sold his company Consulting to focus on Skool. Losing money allowed him to get clarity and focus. Do not pursue multiple income streams. You do not need seven income streams.
14. Growing a low-ticket community can take time.
Results can vary, of course. My YouTube grew from 100 subscribers to 1000 in one month and helped me get 50 paying clients at $5 and $10 per month. It was a great start, but my MRR was $300 and views started to stagnate. When I switched to a higher-ticket offer, I could charge the same amount to one member and help them with more impact.
Thoughts on the Hobby Plan
I love that Skool added the $9 per month Hobby plan. But from my experience, the $99 per month investment changed something psychologically. It had to work for me, yes or yes.
I took on a boring side job to make it work, supply for the family, and go all in. If I had started on the $9 plan, I am not 100% sure I would have been as focused as when I started last year. It needs to hurt a little.
15. Jump on calls.
I went from uncomfortable posting online, to jumping on calls with strangers, to making friends online. I believe it took me six months or so to jump on my first 1:1 call.
16. Let Skoolers roast your About page.
Post a screenshot of your About page. I have seen this often in the community, and it frames you as a person who wants to learn from feedback. It allows people to comment with less friction, because roasting means you are not going to feel offended.
17. Go to a Skool IRL event.
Whenever you get the chance, visit a Skool meetup. I went to the Amsterdam event and had a great time meeting other Skoolers.
18. Skool is an easy place to surround yourself with winners.
It does not matter how hard you row. It matters which boat you get in. With Skool, you are on the right boat. And congrats: you jumped in very early.
19. Search in Skool.
Before posting your questions, try to find the solution yourself. Use the search bar to find discussions about the topic you are unclear about. Fun fact: search for scheduled posts and you will find a lot of feature requests.
20. The Skool team apologized for a feature that hurt members.
The Skool team wanted to limit the amount of communities you can be in to 50. There was a lot of resistance from Skoolers. Sam took ownership and apologized on Skool News.
21. Your About page is your landing page.
Do not bother making a custom landing page. Point your traffic toward your Skool About page. This is how some of the highest earning Skool creators do it: YouTube to Skool.
22. Reducing stuff is better than adding stuff.
Maybe I should have done that with this post. I will let you be the judge of that.
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