“People are burned out of courses and no one really enjoys them. So like notice what people like, people like masterminds - they like hanging out with other people and interacting. It's more about the people. It's less about the content.”

— Sam Ovens

This week Sachit (@sachitgupta) chats with Sam Ovens (@samovens), CEO and Founder of Skool — a community platform for creators.

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(02:37) - Balancing family and business

(03:28) - How his mental models about business changed since having a child

(04:51) - The process he went through to find his tech co-founder

(11:11) - His approach to building a great team, so he can get his time back

(14:25) - When Sam was working 15-20 hours a day - Would he do it again?

(15:51) - When they downsized the company to make ensure it’s fun end enjoyable

(17:55) - Example of how he turned non-fun tasks into fun tasks

(20:28)- Tasks that he got rid of during the process of downsizing

(25:09) - Lessons learned on building great products/courses in the online education world

(29:01) - How the product evolved over time

(30:08) - Thoughts on cohort-based courses and their future

(33:44) - Non-intuitive lessons he has learned over the last decade

(39:44) - The switch from trying to pull things from the market, to listening to what the market wants

(41:27) - Importance of communities in courses and education

(43:17) - How to create more engaging communities

(46:41) - Transitioning from a creator with an audience, to a seven-figure zen style business

(50:26) - Sam’s unique approach to launches and selling

(53:37)- How Sam sells using Loom videos

(54:54) - Core mechanics of an offer

(56:24) - How to create rush and scarcity at the launch of a course

(58:55) - How he goes from beta testing a course to the next step

(59:57) - Getting good at pre-empting things in business

(01:01:42) - Why he decided to go fully-in on Skool

(01:07:17) - The convergence of info marketing, creators, and tech

(01:11:01) - The pseudo-abundance of content on the internet

(01:17:44) - The gamification of communities 

(01:20:27) - Creative trade-off decisions they made in Skool

(01:21:53) - How he thinks about the community's success and KPIs

(01:23:34) - How he keeps the quality of the community high since it’s gotten big

(01:29:59) - The importance of mindset as a creator

(01:32:36) - How a community can create unsaid rules based on members personalities and how to deal with that

(01:35:54)- Personal ideas that he changed his mind about after learning about them from a community

(01:36:53) - Books that have been most impactful to him

(01:37:16) - One piece of wisdom that changed the game for him

(01:37:44) - One person he is grateful to

(01:38:11) - What it means to be a conscious creator

(01:38:47) - Things he is most excited for in the next 5-10 years