“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

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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