Unexpected benefits of Skool 🔥

Hey guys - I started using Skool about a week ago and just wanted to say how much I'm loving it so far.

I'd assumed that the community element of my program would primarily be people asking me questions... but we've already got people helping each other out, sharing their own knowledge & lessons, and making connections/recommendations. So it's quickly become a big value-add, and I'm genuinely quite excited to see how the community can evolve over time.

At first I couldn't really pinpoint why I found using Skool better than other community platforms I tested. But as

@Alex Hormozi

would likely say: it's the 100s of golden BBs, not one silver bullet. There's lots of little details that initially don't seem that crucial, but which all add up to a really seamless experience overall. An example is requiring users to choose an avatar when joining - in my previous community most people didn't have a profile picture, so it felt soulless. I also feel like Skool is somehow just more intuitive to use, and the gamification works even better than I expected.

Another thing that has surprised me is that a lot of my members already had Skool accounts. So it's super convenient for my community to be here too, rather than them having to remember a whole separate community website (which most people would inevitably forget about).

And of course for all the members you refer who AREN'T already on Skool, there's the potential for automatic referral income in future if they start their own group.

Honestly it seems like an absolutely crazy decision for anyone to still use facebook groups, and barely be able to reach their own members.

Also... I don't see anyone else talking about this, but the fact that Skool payment fees are just 2.9% and +30c is actually kinda crazy. For me to accept international payments using Stripe directly was actually higher than this. Not just that, I've heard plenty of horror stories with Paypal/Stripe freezing accounts, but haven't heard any with Skool (which makes sense since Skool can see what you're doing on their platform).

But it gets even better. Because Skool is merchant of record they handle all the EU VAT and international sales taxes. This would have meant a huge headache and big accounting bills using a normal payment processor. But Skool takes care of all of it.

In short: really great experience so far, and it seems my community members feel similarly. 😁 Totally see the vision now of Skool becoming the central hub for education online, and I'd invest if I could. :) Either way, cool to be here whilst we're still so early.

Having said all that... definitely a few things I would love to see added to take things to the next level:

1️⃣ More pricing flexibility - for example charging a higher upfront initial entry cost to join the group (which often includes unlocking courses etc), but then a lower recurring fee to maintain access. I think this would massively help with churn for a lot of communities. (I understand why the current system is designed for simplicity, but the more flexibility we have over the price setup - like different pricing tier options - the more opportunities Skool unlocks).

2️⃣ Ability to move members onto different pricing plans (or even move to the free plan without them having to leave the group and rejoin).

3️⃣ Native video uploads - I think I read this is already being worked on, but this definitely feels important.

4️⃣ Affiliate program per group - again I think this is in the works, but not sure if it's far off? It would be a game changer if we can give members referral bonuses for referring others, AND have skool automatically handle all the payouts.

5️⃣ This is a very minor thing... but is there a reason for not having bold/italics text? I agree with not having loads of colours and fonts as it'd get messy, but being able to press ctrl+b to bolden text can be useful to break up long posts... like this one :)

Overall though, seems like there's an amazing community here already, and I'm very happy to be a part of it. Chat with you all soon! 😁

P.S. One very final thing... I know there was some debate about whether my group should be eligible for the skool games, as I have a bit of an unusual setup right now. I really appreciate all of you who argued why it should count. 😅

Even though I am hoping to build long-term MRR, given my current setup I 100% think it makes sense to remove my group from the Skool games leaderboard. The current setup I have is working well for my business, but I don't think it makes sense for the Skool games, as a lot of the revenue could end up being one-time payments. I'll compete in future with a more traditional group instead. (But I don't wanna leave the Skool Games group as I'm watching the trainings... so hopefully

@Andrew Kirby

@Sam Ovens

can just take me off the board).

Thanks to the Skool team & all of you for the warm welcome! :)

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