You can get your answer in about 10 min if you just follow the 5 steps in this post.
Ex: I help people new to skool figure out what to make their community about in under 10 minutes. (and avoid months of wasted time and stress)
A big part of the pressure comes from this idea that you have to ‘get it right the first time.’ It’s the fallacy of the ‘perfect pick.’ In reality, it’s never like this. Your original idea is guaranteed to suck and be wrong and not the thing you do a year or two from now - when you've refined it 6 more times.
So get your wrong idea out as fast as you can. And simply make it less wrong over time. Until eventually it’s so little wrong that it’s actually right.
So let’s just rip the bandaid off and get your first version out there.
STEP 1: PICK WHAT YOU WANT THE COMMUNITY TO BE ABOUT
Communities typically form around of the 3 Ps:
- Profession: Some skill you learned from a job or gig. Think “accounting”
- Pain: Some problem you’ve overcome personally or helped someone else overcome. Think “overcoming food allergy”
- Passion: Something that interests you whether you like doing it or like learning about it. Think “building model cars”
So pick your profession, pain you’ve overcome, passion you're into.
What are my 3 P’s?
- Profession: I currently do not have a profession. I am a student and always have been. I am an aspiring creator. Creator of anything; if I have a good idea I want to build it. No matter its medium. The problem is, often to create something great you have to learn many skills in order to be able to do it. Therefore, I’ve always wanted to make my job title “Self-Educator.” This sounds crazy to many people, but I really do feel that with the rise of the Internet becoming a “self-educator” really could become your job title and you really can become a “decentralized professor,” another thing that i set my goal as. Those were two extremely bold things that I wrote down in my journal years ago, when I was really trying hard to discover what I wanted to do with my life. I want to be an artist, I want to be a teacher, I want to constantly be learning difficult things that I find useful. The artist or creator is the main role this is what motivates me to learn and this is what gives my learning meaning and focus. Then, I go down the path of trying to learn the skills needed to build my vision. This is when I am a self-educator. Finally, I love to share what I have learned and this is how I will fulfill my role as a decentralized professor. Also to be a specialist generalist.
- Pain: The biggest problem I have is that of designing and sticking to my curriculums. With so many things to do it is hard to know what I need to learn to do it all. A lot of my time is allocated to finding the best resources to learn difficult skills. I spend the majority of my time crafting curriculums and gathering resources for the many things that I want to learn well. Another pain point for me is gaining the work-ethic to learn all the things I need to learn and getting the work ethic to do all the things I want to do. You really do have to build character before you can ever build vision. So in this way it will also be a self-improvement community because it is very difficult to build character and that is the most important step. Getting the mindset and becoming the kind of persona that can be a disciplined artist and self-educator.
- Passion: The community will be about everything that I am interested in and learning at the current moment. The beautiful thing is that I can crowd source this to the community to so it can also become more powerful for everyone else who is in the community. My passion is self-education, creativity, growth, and relationships with other virtuous people. This is what I want my community to be about and help facilitate.
STEP 2: PICK WHO DO YOU WANT THE COMMUNITY TO BE FOR
WHO will either be:
- People like you
- People like you’ve helped before
- People you think are underserved
Or a combination of all three.
STEP 3: DESCRIBE THEM AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES
→In a way they can say “this is for me.”
For example, if I wanted to help people like me, I’d say: 30 to 45 year old businessmen.
So you want to think through the following variables: pick 3 (ish)
- Age
- Gender
- Profession
- Problem
- Interest
The age or gender does not matter, although I am a man who is very concerned with developing masculine virtue so that will come through in my speech. Hopefully, it does not alienate though, because I am equally, if not more passionate, about cultivating feminine virtue because I love women so much and struggle to find a good one, which is my biggest hope in life to meet and love a woman I respect. The profession doesn’t necessarily matter either, but it is for those who want to fulfill the archetypes of creator and teacher. And for those who want to fulfill, the archetype of king too. It’s for all of those motivated individuals who are oriented towards growth and excellence in life most generally, and it whatever specializations they choose to pursue. The problem is that there are many great resources to learn specific things, but it is hard to find a place where all the resources to learn anything that you may want to know are made available. This community will be for the aspiring Polymaths, for the aspiring specialists generalists, who want to learn many things, even some seemingly unrelated things, but since both are interesting to them are unified by them. This is a place to gather and create the best curriculums to learn any skill and then be supported and in your journey.
The interest will be broad. But with me at the center, with me talking about things I know the most, it will be about books, creativity, and self-improvement most generally. It will be about my journey to becoming a person who creates online and makes money do to his valuable creation.
STEP 4: GOOD STUFF YOU HELP THEM GET + BAD STUFF YOU HELP THEM AVOID. BY JOINING YOUR COMMUNITY.
This is where you show them how much easier, faster, and risk free it is to get what they want with you versus how slow, painful, and risky it is to do it on their own.
List out a 1 good things you help them achieve:________________
List out a 1 bad things you help them avoid:______________
I will help them reach their unique potential by helping them develop the necessary character and skills that are required to do so. I will help them avoid spending countless hours looking for the best tools, resources, information, and most importantly, the wisdom needed to embark on this journey of becoming bountiful.
STEP 5: PUT IT TOGETHER
I help WHO (Step 2) 30-45 year old business men solve their WHAT (step 1) food allergy problem and get (STEP 4 good stuff) WITHOUT Step 5 Bad stuff).
Now, I know what you’re thinking - the pain and profession one are pretty straightforward. But, what about passion/interests?
It actually works the same way…let me show you:
I help WHO (Step 2) 30-45 year old business men solve their WHAT (step 1) watching friends reruns problem WITHOUT the judgment of this pure form of clean enjoyment or trolls on the internet.
The idea is - if someone has a passion thats the same as yours, then you probably found ways to enjoy your passion more efficiently. And there's also things you learned to avoid. You just want to have 1 or 2 strong ones people who share that passion will resonate with. And it’s okay if they’re funny.
That’s it. Don’t need to overcomplicate it. Now, everything you do has a clear person with a clear problem that you are equipped to solve.
Autodidact is a movement of motivated men and women of any age. This community exists to help each of its members reach their unique potential by helping them develop the necessary character and skills for such an important task. Autodidact is for aspiring polymaths or specialist-generalists. It is for people whose sole orientation is the growth and bounty of their Self. Autodidact is for those who have a creative and unique vision they are trying to build.
Autodidact exists to help them find the best resources and methods for learning the skills needed for their venture.
Autodidact, most importantly, helps develop the necessary character and virtues for doing the Work: learning the skills and building the vision.
BONUS STEP 6: UNIQUE METHOD
Over time, you’ll start to put together a process. It'll become your process. Like - a genius one is to take people who are new and help them find their niche. If that’s what I did, my sentence would look like this:
“I help young guys joining skool pick what to make their first community about in under 30 minutes using my 6-step MOZI process.” and if you’re curious what the 6 step mozi process is…you just went through it.
ALSO NOTE - these are all elements. You’ll massage them. I have a tight enough avatar and promise that I don't need to talk about the negatives they avoid. I can include those in the bullets in my community description.
There are no rules. Get it done.