Was ein gutes Produkt wirklich ausmacht

0:00Why do you feel like school has the success it does right now? What's the key indicator why people love school right now? >> to use the analogy of 100 golden BBs and no silver bullets. And so it's a lot of little details. And it's hundreds and hundreds of little details I've tried to make it just that much better. And so even I was talking to Sam who is the co-founder and he he was talking to me about like the live light for like if someone's got a little green icon next to him. He's like, well, it sounds simple, right? You say, "Okay, well, if they're online, make it green."

0:27He's like, "But what if someone's online on their phone and then they turn it off and then they're on their desktop? What if they're using multiple browsers? What if they have a tab they have the tab up but they're not on that tab? How long do I give them before I go from green to not green?" Right? And then he's like, "Because thing is if if I if I turn it off too fast, then people are going to feel like they're having conversation and then it's over but the person's still paying attention. They're switching back and forth. But if I have it too long, then they're going to be messaging me like, 'Hey, where are you?'" >> Right. >> And so that's just like one iota of an example of all the details that exist within school to make it better. But the but Daniel is the um That one, sorry. The the the head the the whole development team came from a gaming background.

1:07>> Mhm. >> And so they came from Riot Games. And so they know how to gamify things in a way that makes it fun. And so one of the big missions of school is to make make business online fun and easy. And so the whole concept of building a community for fun and profit, right? Is that we wanted to take all the friction out. And so the reason that most people can't get started online, for example, is that like tech is that no one can do technology. It's like, "Okay, well, what if we just took all of that barrier away and just made it easy?" And then within the communities, if we know that people in our communities can engage way more, then they're going to stay longer, refer more friends, and so the people who own the communities just make more money because the the platform itself will make you the money.

1:46>> Correct. >> Now, that's on the microcosm level. On the macro level, there are many communities on school and so it allows people to search for whatever they want to learn. And that's what I'm, you know, super passionate about, which is like to make real business education accessible for everyone. School should make education accessible for everyone. So, whether you want to teach watercolor or you want to put your your downline on there or your sales work or whatever it is in that place and you want to teach them in a systematized way, it's one of the best ways to do it because if you put it in a, let's say, a white-labeled whatever, sure, there's going to be it's going to be dead. And that's the problem. Is there's no activity, there's no life.

2:21And so, inside School, there's so much activity because it's been so gamified for engagement that that's why you're seeing the engagement that you want. And that's And I can't take credit for that. That's the dev team. That's Sam, that she's amazing at product. Um I just saw the stats cuz I came in as a business guy and I was like, "What are the growth? What are the What are the the referral rates?" And the thing was growing with zero marketing. I'll just say a lot every single month. >> Right. >> And for years. And so, as soon as I saw that, I was like, "This is a product." And so, that's why I, you know, wrote a massive check and then became a co-owner.

2:52>> There's creators on here watching right now. So, aside from the sales people, what do you feel creates a very solid community? Like, if you could boil it down to two to three things, what's a strong community in your eyes? >> So, communities approximate access. So, they're fractionalized access. Whoever owns the community, people are getting a very small slice of them for usually a much lower price than they would normally charge for like one-on-one. Got it. In person. If that's the absolute extreme, you training somebody one-on-one on how to sell versus one to many in a remote setting would be the absolute opposite. And so, it's a fractionalized version of that. So, how do we approximate access? So, one is having a very simple value prop for the community, which it's about value per second rather than seconds of value. And so, a lot of people want to build communities and say like, "I'm going to stuff so much stuff in there."

3:39But then, the number one reason that people cancel communities is overwhelm. >> Mhm. >> And so, that was a big finding for us. And so, we're like, "Oh, okay. So, it's actually about pairing things down because fundamentally, people usually buy for one or two or like one or two reasons. And as long as the the value proposition that we have for the community just meets that one thing, then they're like, "Oh, I got it." And so, more people want to be like, "Oh, I'm consuming this." Whereas, let's say you offer 100 things and they use one, even if I had the same price for 100 things and I only gave one thing, and somebody uses one of one versus one of 100, they will feel like they're getting way less value if they use one out of 100 things.

4:13>> Right. >> Because they feel like they're not using it. >> Mhm. >> And so, we found that it's actually about making fewer things better inside the community that people actually will consume, because everybody already has all the information they need at their fingertips. Everybody has Google. So, there's no lack of information. It's about curating the information and focusing on how do I compress it and make it the most digestible humanly possible for those people from an information perspective. From the access side, so I said there's two things. From the information side, from the access side, it's what are the ways that have the closest approximation to you. And so, I think like weekly call and maybe like one big thing, like that's what we're doing at school cuz we looked at the data. It's like, I do one call a week inside of the community for school. And one day a month, I do 8 hours of full training with the top community owners who won that month.

4:59That's what's inside. >> Got it. >> That's it. And that way they can stay up to date with it. They're like, "No, I didn't miss anything. Like, I watched the video and once a month I do a Saturday and I binge it." >> Oh. >> But if I if if cuz what we'd had for a minute was we had three calls a week with basically we took the top winners, we interviewed all of them, we asked them these questions, we put all of those in and we're like, "We're just over-delivering with value." But people were like, "I'm getting behind." I can't I can't keep up with all this stuff. And so, it's like, "Okay, what are the fewest things they absolutely need to be successful and give nothing else." Not cuz we can't, but because they can't handle it.

5:30>> Right. >> And that was a big finding for us. And so, it's about having fewer better things that even one of the things on its own, it's like, that alone is worth it. >> Right. >> And so, just the calls with Alex is worth it. Just the calls with Dan alone is worth it. The one down like the one 8-hour thing a month, my god, people pay $50,000, $100,000 a year for masterminds and this guy's making more than those guys and he's just giving it away. >> Right. >> That alone would be worth it. And so we want the few bullets of value in and of themselves to be worth far in excess of the price that even if they only use that one thing it'd be worth it, but we don't want to have a list that's this long.

6:02>> Right. >> We want to have a couple of core things that are the main reason someone buy. Are the shoes comfortable? Do they look good and are they affordable? >> Smart, yeah. >> And that's the idea. >> So it's smaller things, higher usage. Make sure people are not getting intimidated by everything else. >> Yes. How how recently when would did you just partner up with School? >> 9th is when we announced it, I think. >> That you partnered up with them, right? >> That's when we announced it. >> What what's next for you inside of the business? Like where are you looking to take School? >> I mean we want to go all the way, you know, we want to we want to have a place where people can learn whatever they want to learn and teach whatever they want to teach and do it inside of a community. And part of the reason that School even began was because Sam had a big kind of coaching business called consulting.com.

6:41>> Yep. >> And he saw that people would buy the training, they would log in, they'd watch two or three videos, and then they'd spend the rest of the time in the Facebook group. And but the Facebook group sucked. It's like they would get sucked off, they'd have ads from competitors, the post didn't have any reach, so you'd have to have a support team to manage the fact that no one could get their questions answered cuz no one would see the questions, and there was no gamification and all these other things. And so he was like, is there a way that I can put the courses, the schedule for the for the classes, the actual community itself, kind of put leaderboards in place, kind of gamify it so that when someone adds more value to the community they get rankings and what that does is it encourages people to actually provide value. So this is one of the most ingenious things is that because you get points for engagement, for your long-term status, you are incentivized to make good quality posts.

7:27>> Correct. >> that makes the it lifts the overall quality of the community. It's one of the the the the the the big benefits of being a community owner is that it's kind of like hosting a big party. It's not really about who hosts the party, it's about how good the part the people at the party are. And so if you curate the right atmosphere, like you don't need to be the coolest guy, you just have the right people in the room. And so, one of the other cool things, probably my favorite feature of School, is like I I probably write like one long-form post in there, probably two, three times a month. Like I'm like, "You know what? I'm seeing this common question. Like let's let's crush it, right?" And so, I'll write a really thought-out post, and that can actually go into the curriculum.

8:05And so, you can write the post, see that it works really well, and then you can just tag it and associate it with the course of curriculum. Cuz a lot of people, and we found this out, too. A lot of people just prefer to read. As much as there's there's lots of videos that sometimes video seems long, you're like, "I'd rather just read the post." >> Yeah, yeah. >> And people are more well thought out. Like when people make videos, they just ramble and blah blah. But like, when you write, you tend to be a little bit more concise with your language. And so, uh but you can also use that from your community. So, if John makes an amazing post on how to follow up with a ghosted lead, you can just tag that into follow-up.

8:36And then, underneath of the video, you've got John's post, too. >> Right. >> And so, these things don't disappear anymore. The best things you can uh uh turn into artifacts that that crystallize and stay there forever. So, you can immortalize things. And I think that the best content that I've had in like in Gym Launch, when we had the community of gym owners, like some of the best content that was there wasn't from me, it was from from the gyms. And I I just had to lose it, and then I'd have to like take it, and then I'd have to like make a video on it and put it, and then it would like lose its its its value. But if you could see that post with all the engagement and the questions being answered underneath, it makes for a much more engaging education overall.

9:10>> Right. >> And so, that's one of the I mean, we do that right now in the School community. Like in the School Games, if someone has figures out like, "Hey, I'm running ads in the ads section." It's like Evelyn made a great post on how she's running and what she's doing. Just put it right over. I didn't have to do it same day that I had to do. And so, you you kind of crowdsource the value itself. And so, those things alone, it's like you provide your role-playing, you do one big training per month that's really valuable, right? And you curate a community that already has all the incentives built in place to provide the most valuable posts.

9:41And then you put those things in to the area where they can be immortalized. And people get incentives to make a amazing stuff because they get points and they rise in status. >> Yeah, we've seen it right away. Like people like it's encouraging great behavior. >> Right. Just like you said, like everybody's going to show up to the Gatsby party and everybody's going to look great. >> Right. Gatsby doesn't even have to show up. Everybody just looks good at the Gatsby party. >> It's the same thing that's happening inside of our community. People you're encouraging valuable behavior to as well.

10:06>> There's like in some communities you will see people, you know, talk and there's hate, etc. We've seen none of it. >> Yeah. >> We've seen none of it. Like I I don't know why. It might come. Sure, this is part of, you know, the internet, etc. But everybody just like came together as family and it was like Sally was helping John within like >> Yeah. >> a matter of an hour. And these two people I know were completely disconnected. Guys like, "Man, how would you do this?" And then everybody's answering on the post, "Oh, this is what I would do with this prospect, etc." And it made my life easier as a creator. And people have to understand it's like cuz you can only do so much. I'm like, "Oh, 18 people just answered it." I just liked it. I said, "Good answer."

10:43>> Yeah. >> That's it. >> Oh, that's I like excellent breakdown. >> Right. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. >> all the time. >> Yeah. >> And um the the the crazy thing about this is that the putting all the incentives in place is what actually takes like a long time to build that kind of built-in incentive that people behave the way you want to. But even the look and the feel of School is purposely like fun. You know what I mean? It's light. And so that it's it'd be weird if there was like this long troll post cuz it's like it almost feels like it it sticks out, right? >> Um

11:09>> But to your point, the whole point for creators is we want to make it the most leveraged for a creator to be able to host a community. And if you have thousands and thousands of members, you can't answer everyone's question. And one of the problems with Facebook, for example, is that if you make a post or one of your customers makes a post, no one sees it. Cuz it it reaches like 5% of people. If it's not a good post, it just disappears into the ether. And so one of our super users has, you know, tens and tens of thousands of of members in her community she's saying, "I pay $400,000 a year in support just because I no one gets questions answered on Facebook because it's dead because no one actually sees the posts." And she's like, "In school I could cut $400,000 a year out of my out of my payroll because every post gets 100% reach and when I post everyone sees it. Like, 100% see it and you can notify everyone also via email that you made a post." And we we limit it so that you can only do that once every 3 days as a creator. So, you don't spam your your audience and that way when they do see an email they're like, "Oh, it must be worth it." And so, we've been you know, we've been able to test these cadences that like once every 3 days is the sweet spot where like you make something that's really valuable.

12:12Like, "Hey, I did this breakdown post you should check it out." And you you notify which cuz you're an admin you can do that and then everyone sees it. >> For anybody to sign up, it's school like in my community for anybody sign up it's school.com. >> Yeah, {slash} games. >> {slash} games. >> Yeah, cuz in the games we have a couple of extra, you know, fun things. It's a >> I think it's a 14-day trial. I take calls once a week. We have a 8-hour dump that I do once a month of like a huge in-depth training on all the best community owners and what they're doing to reduce churn, how they're pricing, how they're acquiring customers, what are they doing to make content, run ads, do outreach, do phone sales. Some of them doing direct to their about page.

12:47How they're optimizing their about page to increase conversions. All that kind of stuff like the in-depth tactics. Um and then there's just the community that's awesome. And I have a step-by-step training too if like you're starting from zero to one and starting to >> Is that is that paid or free? >> That's it's free for the first 14 days and the goal >> games for free. >> Yeah. >> For the first 14 days and cancel if I want to cancel. >> Yeah. >> Got it. >> Yeah, I like to make it back a foot, you know. >> So, I would get access if I were to access games right now, I would get access to all the content in the past two as well. >> Yeah. >> I can use up everything.

13:14>> Yeah. >> Got it. >> The the the one stick for the the the the big 8-hour unlocks, they unlock when you get three members into your group. >> Uh love it. Into your group you said? >> Yeah, into your community cuz to join the school games you have to have you have to be a school community owner. That's how it works. So, you start a community and in the school games they teach you how to run communities. That's the school games. >> Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. >> If you were like, I want to learn whatever, then you search in discovery and just find whatever groups you want. So, if you're going into Daniel's group for sales, then you would type Daniel and you'd have sales and then you'd be up there and then they join. So, people are going to the basketball community.

13:46They're going to the watercolor community. They're going to the sales community. They're going to all these different communities. And the nice thing is that when I mean, this is where the compounding effect happens is that if Susie has a watercoloring and John has basketball and you have sales, when Susie brings watercolor person in, they also see your stuff. >> Mhm. >> And so, the traffic and the way that the algorithm works is that the best communities rise in the rankings. And so, we will feed the best communities ourselves with the mountain of traffic that we have.

14:12>> And they're free communities. So, it's free on the opt-in and then free on the communities in the back end. That's freaking wicked. Anyways, dude, thank you so much for being here. Real quick, if you're a business owner and you're not growing as fast as you'd like, I'd like to give you a free gift. So, my team and I put together the $100 million scaling roadmap, which is basically 200 hours of us looking over all the portfolio companies we've had and what stages of growth they went through and more importantly, where they got stuck and how they got past it. And so, we broke it into these 10 stages and we made this little kind of quiz thing where if you put in your business information, it'll tell you where you're at and the most important part for you, what to do for each of functions of the business across product, marketing, sales, customer success, recruiting, IT, human resources and finance. And so, no matter what you're struggling with, someone else has already struggled with it and solved it. And so, I'd like to give you this thing absolutely free. You can go to acquisition.com/roadmap, plug in your business information and if you want us to actually help you de-confine the business and you're trying to scale, we'd love to help you out. On the thank you page, you can just book a call with my team and we will look at the business, see if we can help and if we can, we'll invite you out to Vegas and we'll do this in person live.