The Online Community Show Episode 2 Is Out Now! 🎙️ In this episode, we sit down with @Matthew Burns, community builder and creator of ProveWorth, to talk about one of the biggest challenges on the internet today. Trust. As AI generated content, fake testimonials, and endless marketing claims flood the internet, it is getting harder for people to know what is actually real. That is where honest reviews and real communities start to matter more than ever. In this conversation, Matt shares his journey building communities, working with monday.com, discovering Skool early, and why he believes independent reviews will become one of the most important trust signals for communities going forward. Here are a few of the things we get into: • Why trust is becoming one of the biggest problems on the internet • Why testimonials alone are not enough anymore • How third party reviews can help communities build credibility • Why many community builders are sitting on powerful proof they are not using • The role honest feedback plays in retention, engagement, and growth • How systems help community builders scale what is working • Why launching before things are perfect often leads to better results One of the most interesting ideas from this episode is that communities are not just places to learn anymore. They are places where trust is built. People join communities because they want real connection, real feedback, and real results. But for someone on the outside looking in, it can still be difficult to know which communities are actually delivering value. That is where reviews and proof begin to play a much bigger role. Matt also shares how ProveWorth was created to help solve this problem by giving communities a place where their reputation can live outside their own platform. In other words, a place where people can see real experiences from real members before they decide to join.

Good Monday Morning! 🌇 We are going LIVE for The Skool Morning Show now to talk about one of the most important things each Skool should have... A Quick Win! 🏆 👇 To Chat with us LIVE comment on this post and we'll pull up some of the comments.

About a week ago, Mark Novikov released a video to help people who are building a Skool community get clear on something that sounds simple but is actually one of the most important parts of the whole process. Your one sentence offer. I wanted to share the video here because even if you watched it, a lot of times we move on without actually doing the exercise. We consume the information and then jump to the next thing. Remember that knowledge without implementation is just entertainment. This is one of those moments where it is worth actually pausing the video and doing the work. When you force yourself to put your community into one clear sentence, it changes how you think about everything you are building. It sharpens the promise. It makes your message clearer. It makes it easier for someone landing on your about page to instantly understand what the community is about. That clarity ends up impacting not only your About page, but also your posts, your classroom content, and even how you talk about your community when someone asks what you do. If people clearly know and understand, then they can make a decision like joining your community. So if you already watched the video, take a minute and actually do the exercise. If you haven't yet, then watch it, subscribe to Mark on Youtube because he puts out helpful Skool videos, and then do the exercise! Once you're done, write the one sentence that explains what your community helps people do below! 👇 Do you have your one sentence yet?

The first episode of The Online Community Show is officially live. This podcast is focused on real conversations about online communities, community building, trust, traffic, and connection. Not just the biggest success stories, but the full range of experiences from people who are actively building communities right now. In this first episode, @Eric Howell and I introduce the show, share how we met through Skool, and talk about why online communities are becoming one of the most important places on the internet in 2026. Here are a few of the things we get into: • Why social media often feels less social today and why communities are filling that gap • How online communities create real human connection in a world full of AI generated content • The difference between traffic tools and nurturing tools when you are growing a community • Why podcasting can become a long term trust builder for your future members • How overthinking and perfectionism stop people from starting communities or creating content • Why testing, experimenting, and learning together is one of the biggest advantages of communities One of the biggest ideas we talk about in this episode is that people are looking for something real again. When most social media feeds are filled with algorithms, ads, and content from strangers, communities create a place where people can actually talk to each other, build relationships, and learn together. We also talk about something that many creators misunderstand about podcasting. A podcast is not mainly a traffic tool. It is a trust builder. Someone might scroll past dozens of short videos and forget them instantly. But when someone spends thirty to sixty minutes listening to you talk, they begin to understand how you think, what you value, and whether they trust you. That is where communities grow. We already have 3 more episodes recorded with upcoming conversations featuring @Matthew Burns, @Victoria Gallagher, @Artin Asghari, & @Ethan Brits, each bringing a different perspective on building, growing, & running online communities.

I’ve been asked this directly and I’ve also seen a lot of people asking it publicly. Why are the Skoolers community rules vague? Some people are totally fine with it. Others really dislike it. Both reactions are okay. Some people prefer things extremely clear with exact limits. Some are used to platforms where everything is spelled out. Others have been part of large communities before and already understand why vague rules exist in the first place. Here’s the part that matters and why I now strongly recommend vague rules… even for smaller communities. Hard rules create loopholes. Vague rules create better communities. The moment you introduce hard limits, people naturally want to reach those limits. Instead of looking at the intention of a post, it turns into “does this technically fit in the guidelines?” It even takes away from something that makes a community really wonderful. If a community like Skoolers spelled out exactly what a good post is and what a bad post is, we might never see some of the creativity that comes from someone trying something out. From experimenting. From sharing something that wasn’t done before that ends up being genuinely good. Vague rules leave room for that. They also mean that as moderators and admins, we end up having a lot of conversations. We look at patterns. We make decisions based on context instead of black and white rules. Sometimes there is a new person who is just trying to fit in. A post might technically be questionable, but the right response is to welcome them and guide them. Other times someone is new and blatantly self promoting, which clearly is not allowed. In that case, we can redirect and still welcome them without letting the behavior continue. Those situations look similar on paper but they are very different in reality. Vague rules allow for that distinction. They also protect against bad actors. An example that Andrew Kirby shared explains this well. If people were told they would not be prosecuted for stealing things under $50, you would immediately see people stealing things up to $49. The clear rule creates the behavior.