Skool: Build a Community Around Your Passion

What if you could wake up every morning and spend your entire day doing the thing you're passionate about—and that thing generates enough income to cover your life? That's the promise behind Skool, and after watching Sam Ovens break down exactly how communities are succeeding on the platform, I'm convinced it's one of the most underrated opportunities in the creator economy right now.

This isn't theory. We're talking about people making $238,000 per month from AI automation communities, $5,200 per month from raw vegan recipe groups, and significant growth in niches as specific as circular machine knitting and metal detecting. The kicker? A huge percentage of their members come from Skool's own network—not external marketing.

Click the image above to watch the full Skool News episode

Skool's Evolution: What Changed in 2025-2026

Skool operates on yearly themes, and understanding these gives you context for why the platform is positioned the way it is today.

2024: The Growth Year

2024 was about partnerships and exposure. Skool did the Hormozi partnership and launched the Skool Games, which led to massive growth in platform awareness and user acquisition.

2025: 10x Better, 10x Cheaper

The 2025 theme was making the product dramatically better while lowering costs. This is when Skool added:

• Native video hosting — No more external embeds
• Native live streaming — Built directly into the platform
• Advanced analytics — See exactly where your members come from
• Membership tiers — Free and paid access levels in one community
• The $9/month starter plan — Making it accessible to anyone (actually 11x cheaper than before)

The goal was to make Skool a complete platform for running your online business—courses, community, live content, all in one place.

2026: The Discovery Year

The current focus is on discovery and member growth. Skool wants to help community owners actually get members. This means improvements to:

• Search results and recommendations
• Traffic routing within the Skool network
• Analytics showing exactly where members originate
• Features that help good communities find their audience

The Big Picture: How Successful Communities Work on Skool

At its core, the model is simple:

1. Create a community around your passion — Whatever that is
2. Drive initial traffic yourself — From your existing audience
3. Get free members and build engagement — Figure out what people want
4. Eventually monetize — Charge for premium access
5. The Skool network kicks in — And starts driving traffic for you

That last point is the game-changer.

Real Success Stories (With Numbers)

Nate Herk: AI Automation

Nate runs a community about AI automation. Here's what his numbers look like:

Metric	Value
Free community	226,000 members
Paid community	3,100 members
Price	$94/month
Monthly revenue	$238,000

Here's what's remarkable about his traffic sources: 63% of his members come from the Skool network. His YouTube channel with 500K+ subscribers drives traffic, but Skool itself drives more.

In the last 30 days alone:

• 15,000 members from Skool network
• 7,000 members from YouTube

The platform is now driving more traffic to his community than his massive YouTube channel.

Kim Thompson: Circular Machine Knitting

This is the example that proves niche communities work. Kim runs a community about circular machine knitting—not just knitting, but knitting with a specific type of machine.

Metric	Value
Free community	1,100 members
Traffic from Skool	37%
Traffic from Facebook	63%

Even in a hyper-specific niche, Skool's discovery is contributing over a third of her member growth. In the last 30 days, she got 164 members from Facebook and 138 from Skool.

David Mincy: Metal Detection

David runs "Straight from the Coil," a community for people who walk beaches with metal detectors looking for treasure.

Metric	Value
YouTube subscribers	4,000
Community members	49
Traffic from Skool	36%

Even with a small YouTube channel and a brand new community, the Skool network is already contributing over a third of his growth.

Jillian Berry: Club Raw (Vegan Recipes)

Jillian runs a paid community for raw vegan recipes, launched just a few weeks ago:

Metric	Value
Price	$30/month
Monthly revenue	$5,200
Primary traffic	Instagram & YouTube
Traffic from Skool	9% (and growing)

She went from zero to $5,200/month in weeks, primarily through Instagram and YouTube, with Skool's network already starting to contribute.

The Skool Tailwind Effect

Here's the concept that makes Skool different from other community platforms:

Think of your community like an airplane. Initially, you have to provide all the thrust yourself—your YouTube channel, Instagram, email list, or even just inviting friends. You get the plane moving on your own power.

But then something interesting happens: the Skool network starts to act like a tailwind.

When you have a tailwind in an airplane:

• You move faster with the same effort
• You burn less fuel (marketing spend/energy)
• The wind does work for you

On Skool, the more traffic you drive initially, the more traffic Skool starts to drive for you. It compounds.

This is why you see patterns like Nate's: he has a massive YouTube channel, but Skool drives more members than YouTube does. The tailwind became stronger than his engine.

On average, about 30% of new members across Skool come from the Skool network itself. And that percentage is growing as more people join the platform.

How to Get Started on Skool

Step 1: Find Your Passion

Build a community around something you actually care about. It doesn't have to be business-related. Successful Skool communities exist for:

• AI and automation
• Knitting (specific techniques)
• Metal detecting
• Vegan cooking
• Pickleball
• Fitness
• Business coaching
• Literally anything with passionate followers

The pattern holds across all niches: find your thing, gather your people.

Step 2: Get Your First Members

The first few members have to come from you. Traffic sources people use:

• YouTube — Link in bio and video descriptions
• Instagram — Link in bio
• TikTok — Profile link
• Facebook — Groups, posts, existing audiences
• Email list — If you have one
• Personal contacts — The easiest way to get your first 5-20 members

You don't need a massive audience. Just invite friends who share your interest, post on your existing social profiles, look through your contacts. That's enough to get started.

Step 3: Start Free

Pretty much everyone starts free. Your first challenge is:

1. Get free members
2. Make a place they want to keep coming back to
3. Figure out what they actually want
4. Build engagement and community

This is the experimentation phase where you learn what resonates.

Step 4: Transition to Monetization

Once you have an engaged community, add paid tiers. This creates monthly recurring revenue (MRR).

A simple way to think about it: You know your monthly costs (rent, bills, subscriptions). You probably know what your job provides monthly. If your community income matches that, you can do your passion full-time.

The math is straightforward:

• 100 members at $30/month = $3,000/month
• 500 members at $50/month = $25,000/month
• 3,000 members at $94/month = $282,000/month

Every massive community started as a small community. That's just how it works.

Step 5: Let the Tailwind Build

As you drive traffic and your community grows, Skool's network effect kicks in. Good communities get surfaced to relevant members. The more you put in early, the more the platform gives back later.

Why Skool's Mission Matters

Skool's stated mission is to help 1 billion people find community.

This isn't just marketing speak. When people find their thing in life—whatever that is—and meet other people who share their passion, those people become great friends and life becomes richer. Community around shared passions is genuinely valuable, independent of any business model.

The business model (turning passion into income) is a means to that end. By helping community creators succeed financially, Skool ensures communities get built and maintained, which means more people find their people.

The $9/Month Starter Plan

Skool now offers a $9/month starter plan, making it accessible for anyone to start building.

This is significant because it removes the barrier to experimentation. You can test your community idea for the cost of a fancy coffee without committing to expensive monthly fees.

My Assessment

After watching this breakdown, here's what stands out:

What I Love:

• The Tailwind Effect is real — 30%+ of members coming from the platform itself is remarkable. No other community platform does this at scale.
• Niche communities work — Circular machine knitting and metal detecting are making progress. You don't need a broad topic.
• The progression is clear — Passion → Free members → Engagement → Paid tiers → Income. No mystery about the path.
• $9 entry point — Low risk to test whether your community idea has legs.
• All-in-one platform — Video, courses, community, live streaming, payments in one place.

Things to Consider:

• You still need to drive initial traffic — Skool isn't magic. The tailwind only kicks in after you've got momentum.
• Community building takes consistent effort — This isn't passive income. You need to post, engage, and show up.
• Results vary by niche — Some topics naturally have more demand than others.
• The biggest examples have big external audiences — Nate has 500K YouTube subscribers. That helps.

The bottom line: Skool has genuinely solved a problem that other community platforms haven't—member discovery. The tailwind effect means your marketing efforts compound instead of having to constantly drive all traffic yourself. For anyone serious about building a community around their passion, it's worth the $9 experiment.

Getting Started

1. Sign up for Skool (starts at $9/month)
2. Create your community around your passion
3. Invite your first 5-20 members from your existing network
4. Post consistently and build engagement
5. Let the Skool tailwind amplify your growth over time

See Also

• Skool News — Weekly recaps with platform updates and success stories
• AI SEO Mastery Pro — Example of a successful Skool community for local SEO
• HighLevel — CRM and marketing automation (pairs well with Skool for lead capture)
• content creator tools — Other platforms for creators
• online business — Building income online