My 2024 review of Skool. Plus complete idiot's guide. Everything you need to know about skool.com. My honest first impression and opinion.
Here it is guys, my skool review and guide! Well, idiot’s guide to skool.com to be accurate. You’ve probably heard a lot about Skool recently. And there is good reason for this. It is blowing up everywhere, due to a huge investment made by Alex Hormozi. Let’s be honest, the reason you are reading this now is because of Alex Hormozi. I hadn’t heard of Skool before his investment, and I’m guessing I’m in the same boat as you lot reading this.
In this post we are going to take a look at what the heck Skool is, whether you should sign up to it, and loads of other stuff relating to it. So we can find out if its any good and worth investing our time in!
So the big question, what is Skool? I have answered this here. But to summarise, it advertises itself as a “community platform”. This basically means you can create and join different communities. Some of these communities are free to join whilst others you have to pay to join. Basically it is an education platform (that’s why its called Skool I’m guessing 🙃) that allows you to learn specific topics. The best way to get a grasp of what it is is to create an account and see what it’s all about.
Now we know what Skool is, lets take a look at whether it’s any good! How are we going to determine if it’s any good? I hear you ask. Well let’s set out to learn something. If we do learn something, then I think it will be fair to say that Skool is good. If we do not learn something, I think it will probably be fair to say that Skool is bad. This is of course the most scientific approach to reaching this determination. As I am typing this, I am browsing through the communities in an attempt to find a subject that would be of interest to learn. I am drawn to a group called “THP Jump Training – this course will give you all the resources to get your first dunk and beyond!”.
This sounds great and I would actually love to do that, but I will try to find a group a bit more specific to coding or the internet in general. Okay, so I have found a community called “Amplify Views”, this is a private group with the description: “We’re on a mission to take 1,000 YouTube channels to over 100,000 subscribers”. This sounds good to me, as I have a YouTube channel.
I have submitted my application and my membership is pending. I will receive a notification once I have been accepted into the group. So far I am finding the website easy to navigate and intuitive to use. Which is obviously good. So far I am of the opinion that Skool is… wait for it… good.
Right, so a few minutes have passed and I have been accepted into the community 🥳. I’m having a look around and there seems to be a lot of useful content here. Remember this is a free community so I have not paid a penny for all of this information that is available.
The first tab is the “Community” tab, it seems to mostly be people posting questions and other users responding. This is great as it is a group of likeminded individuals all in the same boat, trying to achieve the same thing. Helping each other to get there. The next tab is “Classroom” – this is the one that interests me the most and is the main reason I picked this community to look at. This contains a “Full YouTube course with over 20 hours of content”. So far I am very impressed. I will have a look over the course and update this review once I have gone through the videos. It is worth mentioning, that it is almost certainly a case of there being great courses available and not so great courses. This will come down to the specific community creator.
I have now been an active member of the community for a couple of days. In that time I have managed to rise to number 1 on 7 day leaderboard 😃. And number 4 on the 30 day leaderboard. Impressive, I know.
One thing I have noticed, is that the community is very friendly. Everyone is polite to one another. Everyone is grateful for any advice offered to them. This is a pleasant surprise to me. I had imagined that there would be at least a few rude comments. But I am yet to see a single swear word. I imagine this is down to a couple of things.
Which rewards users based off of likes. You won’t get very far by being rude or abrupt.
Because everyone is in the same boat. Working towards the same thing. There is a strong sense of community. you see the same faces each time you login. You get to know people. Skool has got the community aspect down very well.
If you don’t know this already, I will be surprised, but Alex Hormozi is a famous entrepreneur. I first discovered his content on YouTube in January 2023. He provides amazing advice to business owners on this channel and its no surprise to see how quickly it has grown. He owns acquisition.com most famously but we are talking about him now because of his recent involvement with Skool.com.
The reason I am personally interested by Alex Hormozi’s involvement with skool.com is quite simple. Hormozi is an extremely credible entrepreneur. He is extremely successful. But more importantly, he is extremely influential because of this. I have written a whole post on why Alex Hormozi’s involvement with skool is significant. Check it out.
Now I can’t remember the exact quote and I don’t know what the video was that I saw this 😅.. BUT I remember him saying that he wouldn’t publicly name companies that he has invested in. And the reason that he gave for this, was that they would have so much more to gain than him by doing this. And he (Alex) would have a lot to lose, reputation wise, if something went bad with one of these companies. He said that in order for him to put his face on a company, he would have to REALLY believe in it. Now as I mentioned, I can’t remember the exact quote, but that was the gist of it. This is why I am interested in skool.
Alex – If you are reading this, and this was your plan all along. And you planted that seed all that time ago knowing it would make people extra interested in skool. You are even more of a business genius than I ever imagined 👏.
So what exactly can you learn on Skool.com? The short answer is anything. The slightly longer answer is – anything that has a community. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at what sort of communities are available!
Now we know what skool is, let’s look at who it is suitable for. The broad answer to this is – skool is suitable for everyone. But there are 2 main types of users. Group creators and group subscribers.
Pretty self explanatory this one. Group creators are users who create groups. Anyone can become a group creator. And there is no limitation (that I know of) in regards to what your group can be about. The point is that it is to help each other learn. For this reason you see a lot of groups relating to learning very specific skills.
Also pretty self explanatory. But group subscribers are users who join, or subscribe, to a group or groups.
So how exactly are people making money using skool.com? Well this is a very interesting question. And you may or may not be surprised to hear that there are multiple ways to make money using skool. Notice I say “using skool”, not “on skool”. Because while there technically are multiple ways to make money on skool, using skool as a tool to help you make money in other ways is also possible. I have written a detailed step by step guide on how to make money on skool. But lets take a quick look at what I’m waffling on about!
The most obvious way to make money on skool.com is by charging your group members a monthly fee for access to your group. This is pretty self explanatory. Skool make this super easy to do. All you have to do, as a group owner, is connect your bank account through Stripe and then set the price you wish to charge your users monthly.
Remember though, you don’t have to charge your users. This may seem counter intuitive, but keep reading to see why this may be a good decision.
This next option isn’t the main point of skool.com. But you can earn a commission by referring people to skool. When someone signs up after clicking your referral link (also known as affiliate link), you earn a commission. I have included my own link on this page!
Skool is a great place to grow your community and keep in contact with them. By providing value to your community for free, it is possible that they will eventually become paying customers of yours. I have noticed some group owners have both a free group and a paid for one. With the paid for group acting as an “upsell” to the free group.
Selling products and services to your skool community is a great way to monetise. By having a loyal following there is already a huge level of trust between yourself and your group. This makes selling to them that much easier. Of course, it is important to only sell or recommend products that you truly believe are suitable for your group. And it would make no sense to break their trust by selling them sub par products.
The main way you can use skool to make money is by joining groups. Now this might seem strange. But let me explain. There is so much knowledge available on skool. Knowledge that can be accessed by looking at courses. And knowledge that can be accessed by engaging with the community.
A large portion of the groups on skool are focussed on making money. By joining groups related to this. We can level up our money making skills and learn from others who have more experience than ourselves. And once our money making skills are levelled up. We will be able to use them to… wait for it… make money!
There is so much information there. Information that is being provided by people who have been there and done it. The best part is you have a direct line of contact to these people! This is what makes certain groups more valuable than others. And why group owners can justify charging for membership. As mentioned previously. The quality of these groups will vary depending on the group owner. But it isn’t difficult to see the standout groups.
But check out my full guide on how to make money on skool for step by step instructions on how to start earning with the platform!
There are a lot of groups to choose from on skool. Some of them are worth your time. Some of them are not. Here are some indicators of whether a group is worth joining:
The number of members in a group is a good measure to tell if a group is worth joining. If there are lots of members – chances are the group is worth being a part of.
How active the community. The more active a community is, with providing good information, the better a group is. However, some groups may be very active but the activity isn’t always helpful to us. An example of this are groups where most of the members are trying to sell their services.
Get a 14-day free trial of skool. Create a community and see what it's all about without spending a penny!
Creating a group on skool is super easy. I even managed to do it. Perhaps you would consider joining my group…. You do eventually have to pay to be a group owner. And the cost is currently $99/month. You can get a 14 day free trial however. So it is worth signing up to see if it is a good fit for you. If you don’t get on well with it, simply cancel and you don’t have to pay.
The first thing you need to do is create an account. Simply enter your first name, last name, email address and a password.
Skool.com will now send you an email with a code. Enter this code on the next view to verify your account.
Now your account is verified, all you need to do is enter your group name (which can be changed later) and card details. Click “Start Free Trial” and you are all set! Congratulations, you are now the owner of your very own skool group!
The benefits of creating a group on skool.com could be huge. If you are willing to build your community and put in work, its clear to see how you could make some serious money. The platform is designed to have all the tools to help you build a community, in one place! This is great.
So as my may have guessed by now, seeing as I’ve spoken so much about skool.com – I have created my own group! You are free to join if you wish, it doesn’t cost anything. Or if you don’t want to, then don’t. But please do, I need this. But no pressure. I do need this though so you probably should. Do whatever you want… But you know what to do. JOIN THE GROUP!!! Or don’t, I’m totally fine either way.
So I can tell by now that you are intrigued by my group on skool. And I can see why to be honest, its pretty great (well it’s going to be once the ball starts rolling). So what’s it all about? Well as you may or may not know, I am a web developer. And as many web developers may or may not know, it is easy to fall into the trap of having 738 unfinished websites. Or more likely – 738 started websites that never made it within 100 metres of a live server.
This is a real problem. The aim of my skool group is to prevent this from happening. Over the years I have adapted a philosophy that I call “Live on day one”. Now as my can probably guess by the name, this is a philosophy that means I have to get some form of the website live on the first day of building it. This mental shift has helped me to stop wasting time, and has taught me to focus on what is important. If you or someone you know suffers from the same problem I did, then join my free group.
So the big question, is skool worth the money? At the time of writing this, skool is offering a 14-day free trial before charging $99 per month to be a group owner. Now the short answer to whether skool is worth $99/month is yes. Skool is definitely worth the money. It has all the tools you could ask for to build a solid community group. And for the price of just $99 per month you are able to use it to make way more than that. Whether that is through monetising your group by charging for membership or for using your community as a separate part of your business.
There are sooo many pros to using skool. Here are a couple:
You have all the tools you could possibly need to build a community, all in one place. Obviously this is great, and means you don’t have to stretch yourself all over the place using tools from different websites. It keeps things very simple.
The gamification aspect of skool.com makes building a community much easier. By having leaderboards, users are incentivised to take action and be an active part of the community.
Here is a list of the cons of skool:
At this moment in time you cannot host your videos on skool. This means you need to use YouTube, Vimeo or another video hosting provider. This is not a major issue as this is easy to do. I personally do not see this as a problem as I would rather a specialist video hosting provider handled this anyway.
You do have to pay to run a group. At $99 per month this may be expensive for some users who aren’t going to dive in fully. However I believe that pricing it at $99 per month is actually a good incentive to make sure you put the effort into your community and make it work.
In my opinion the mobile app on android is not the best. I find it quite slow. The nav menu also seems to have an issue. If you are a member of a lot of groups, you need to scroll down to see them all in the nav menu. However I am unable to scroll down. The web app is absolutely fine however. I have had no problems with the web app at all.
Everyone is talking about skool. So you think you should be using it. So you create a group. But you’re still unsure why you should be using it. Well let’s take a look at how skool can help you.
Growing your own community is what skool is for. So this one is obvious. But the question is, why would you want to grow your own community? For those that already have some sort of audience. Whether that’s on YouTube, Instagram or whatever, you will already be aware of this. For those just starting out, imagine this situation. You have a group of people, let’s say 1000 people for the sake of an argument. 1000 people who view the information you put out. 1000 people who like you and engage with you. 1000 people who are interested in the same specific thing as you. The same thing that you make content about. These followers like you, trust you and take what you say seriously.
Now imagine if you had a product you were selling. Selling it to strangers is difficult. You would need to seek out potential buyers. Then make contact with them. You would need to nurture the whole sales process. However if you have an audience… You already have trust, you already know they are interested in your product, they like you. And you have direct contact with them through your platform. By now I hope you are starting to see the benefits of using skool to grow a community.
Coming soon. I’m still busy, give me a break.
How long will it take to start making money on skool? Well that really depends on the individual and how you use it to make money. If you are a group owner, you can make money as soon as you have paying members. It would help if you already have a following on a different platform. And it would really help if this following are loyal to you and be willing to pay to join your group!
The Skool Games is a competition created by Alex Hormozi. The goal is to make as much money as possible. There is a running leaderboard with the top 10 on the leader board each month winning a day with the main man himself.
This is an amazing incentive. As if making a load of money wasn’t enough already. You now have the opportunity to hang out and network with some highly influential entrepreneurs. If you can’t tell by now. Hormozi is big on incentivising individuals to take action. He has seen in his own businesses the power of this and knows the phychology behind it.
I have videos too!
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