I Built a 215-Member Community in 5 Months (No Website Needed)

If you’re struggling with tech complexity, landing pages, and CRMs while trying to build an audience, this guide will show you how to use a free community as your lead magnet—no website required. I explain exactly how I built multiple communities, ran successful ad campaigns, and turned simple engagement into revenue streams.

In my video, I walk through the complete strategy for building and monetizing a community from scratch using real examples from my own groups.

I recorded this live session to share the tactical steps I’ve used across three different communities.

My Journey Through Three Communities

I’ve started three different Skool communities, and I currently run two of them. The first community I opened was my mastermind group, and before that I was actually on Mighty Networks coaching people one-to-one. A couple of my one-to-one clients told me they loved our calls but wanted to know there were other people going through the same challenges—the same doubts and fears about starting a business. That feedback was enough for me to open a group that same day.

After hearing Alex Hormozi talk about his investment in Skool, I decided to check it out and moved my mastermind over to the platform. The platform looked very different back then—I’ve been on Skool for about a year now. At that time, people winning the Skool games were all using a free-to-paid model. You’d have a free group as a nurture ground to convert people into your paid group.

I implemented exactly that strategy. I had a free version of the mastermind called White Collar Prison Break Nation Free—I called them the yellow group and the blue group. I did one-to-one onboarding calls with everyone and would pitch them into the paid mastermind, which at its lowest was $24 per month or $215 per year. Many members are still on that plan, though it looked different then since I didn’t do one-to-one coaching inside the group at that time.

Eventually, I shut the free group down because it became too difficult to manage and nobody engaged. That was also my fault—I didn’t do a good job engaging inside the free group. The biggest engagers had already moved to the paid group, so maintaining two communities became unsustainable.

Building Mindset School From Zero to 215 Members

Then I had the idea for my current group, Mindset School, which is a low-ticket group—not free, but affordable. In my video, I share my screen to show you exactly what Mindset School looks like. I currently have 216 members, with about 213 or 214 being paid members (a few accounts are mine for testing purposes). I built this group from zero to 215 members in under five months.

When somebody clicks on Mindset School, they land on the about page. This is the first thing people see, and if it’s not compelling, they’ll click off immediately. I spent a lot of time on these slides, and they’ve remained the same for a long time because they work. The headline reads: “Where fear, overthinking, and doubt go to die.” This speaks directly to the pain point my audience faces.

The about page functions as your landing page—it’s essentially your sales page. You don’t need a website, landing page software, or a CRM. You can literally just take people right to this page. I use a simple structure: a strong headline, clear benefits, social proof through testimonials, a bit about me, what to do next, and finally a video. This might be the last thing they watch before making their decision to join or leave.

Running Facebook Ads That Actually Convert

In my video, I show you my actual Facebook ads account—something I don’t take lightly. I’ve spent over $25,000 on Facebook ads in the last two years, and I’ve learned what works. One of the coolest things about running Facebook ads is that Facebook knows when people visit your about page. This allows me to retarget people who visited but didn’t join.

My retargeting ads literally say: “Hey, I saw you were checking out Mindset School but you didn’t join. Let me help you.” Sometimes people buy on the retargeting ad, and while it reaches a very small group, if you don’t have this set up, you miss that opportunity entirely. I get a lot of members from running ads, and I’m transparent about the numbers.

Looking at my ads account from June 27th when I started running ads to Mindset School through the present, I’ve gotten 51 purchases from my best campaign. I spent almost $3,000 to get those 51 purchases, plus two more from retargeting. Now, you might look at the purchase return on ad spend (ROAS) of 28 cents per dollar and think I’m losing money. But I look at this differently—this is a monthly subscription, so Facebook only records the first purchase, not the lifetime value.

It costs me $58 to acquire a customer, and I have four-figure products that I sell. Would you pay $58 to get a customer knowing you could sell them a $1,000, $2,000, or $6,000 product? That’s the trade I’m making. I don’t obsess over ROAS—I focus on customer acquisition cost because I know my lifetime value.

Understanding Ad Fatigue

Ad fatigue is absolutely real. My best-performing ad was one where I recorded myself walking down the street, literally crossing a highway while filming. This authentic, raw approach resonated with people. The lifetime click-through rate was 4.67%, but in the last 14 days it dropped to 2.75%, and in the last seven days it fell to 2.4%. I’ve changed nothing about the ad—it’s just been running for a long time and it’s getting harder to convert colder audiences.

I’m about to create new ads, and I’ll probably do all video this time. Here’s an important lesson: my best-performing ad initially said the group was $5 per month, but I raised it to $9. Some people called me out in the comments, but I never changed the ad. Why? Because if I modified anything, all the social proof would disappear. When people read the ad and see dozens of positive comments from community members saying how great it is, that helps them make the buying decision. The social proof was worth more than updating the price.

My Targeting Strategy That Actually Works

I’ve learned that trying to outsmart Facebook with detailed targeting and lookalike audiences is like trying to beat the stock market—you’re not going to win. Facebook is way smarter than me at finding my audience. In my ad set, I only changed two things: the countries and the age range (35 to 65+). The countries I targeted came directly from my YouTube analytics—Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, New Zealand, United States, and South Africa. These are the top countries watching my videos and opting into my list.

Everything else is wide open. I let Facebook do its thing. I was spending $80 per day at peak, but I’ve reduced it to $40 as the ads fatigue. Many ad agencies will tell you that you need complex lookalike audiences and detailed targeting, but I’m telling you—just give Facebook the keys to the car and let them drive. Make good ads with compelling copy, and let the platform find your people.

Getting Community Feedback on Your Ads

When I launched my ads, I did something smart that I learned from another Skool group. I told my community I was launching ads and asked them to vote on which one they liked best. I gave them links to each ad and made a very subtle ask: if they felt like I’d earned it, they could leave a comment on the ad. I explained that the more real humans commenting, the more new people would join.

The ad they voted for as the best performer ended up actually being the best performer. They knew which one would work. I’ll do this again with my next campaign—I’ll probably record four or five ads, load them into the group, have members vote on their favorite, and then ask them to rank the next two in the comments. This is powerful market research, and you don’t need hundreds of people to do it effectively.

Building Your Community With Market Research

In my video, I walk through the “Start Here” course inside Mindset School. None of this content existed when I opened the group—it’s all been built based on member feedback. On April 1st when I launched, I had maybe four lessons total. The first was a welcome video that’s still pinned today with 271 comments. It simply says: “Leave a comment and welcome yourself.”

Then I asked how people found me, and 70% said YouTube. That told me where to focus my lead generation efforts. I asked what roadblock they were facing in their business, giving options like research phase, launched but no sales, and so on. 71% of 100 people who voted said they were in research phase—everyone’s researching what they should be doing instead of taking action.

The most important poll I ran asked about their biggest mental hurdle. I gave five options: impostor syndrome, analysis paralysis, overthinking, fear of failure, and perfectionism. Out of 106 votes, 51 people—more than half—chose overthinking. A lot of people said they wanted to vote for all of them. This is how I know that overthinking is the thing blocking people, which is why it’s in all my messaging: “Where overthinking ends and your first wins begin.”

I didn’t know this in the beginning. I discovered it by asking my community. You can do this with a free community right now. You don’t need to charge money immediately—you can keep it free for a long time while you gather data and build trust.

Starting Your Free Community From Scratch

If I could start over, I would open a free Skool community and keep it free for a long time, maybe forever. I’d start talking about a topic I’m interested in or know something about. I was a sales guy for a long time, so I could start something on cold calling. I essentially did this with Mindset School because the reason my 27th side hustle worked and the other 26 failed was because I fixed what was between my ears—I fixed my mindset.

People get nervous thinking they need to have all this content and courses built out before launching. You don’t. When I started Mindset School, I had just a few videos, a welcome post, and I scheduled calls. I told everybody in the group: “You’re going to help me build this thing. Your participation in the polls is really important. Go through the start-here course, answer everything, and you’re going to shape this.” That’s exactly how I built it.

If you don’t have an email list or followers, grab your phone and go through your contacts. Look through all your social media contacts and start inviting people you know to your free group. You can DM them, post on social, or text: “Hey, I started this free community for people who want to fix their mindset and finally launch a business. Do you know anyone who would want to join?” You’re not directly asking them to join—you’re asking if they know anybody. People always want to help, so they’ll introduce you to others. If you do this with 10 people and they each know three to five people, suddenly you have 30 or 50 potential members instead of 10.

Creating and Monetizing Without Overthinking

The other hang-up people have is thinking they need courses and content built out before launching. When I started Mindset School, I had a crooked image that ChatGPT generated, and I don’t even remember what was on the about page. It wasn’t super awesome—it was very bare bones. I just hit the go button because I refused to overthink launching a group about curing overthinking. I was doing it to prove a point.

As I continued to engage with the group, I found out what was really challenging them, and I built solutions I could charge money for. Even though Mindset School started as a $5 community and is now $9 per month (soon going to $17), I sell additional products inside the classroom. I make offers for people to upgrade to annual memberships. For example, I’m doing a workshop this Saturday that walks through how I built Mindset School from zero to 215 members in under five months.

I asked my members if they’d want this workshop, along with all my assets, about-page slides, classroom slides, and ChatGPT prompts. I said I needed about 15 to 20 people to say yes. Everyone responded enthusiastically, so I launched it. Anyone who upgrades to annual gets the workshop, all assets, the course, and a Loom video where I critique their Skool group.

Selling One Thing Multiple Ways

Here’s something powerful I teach: you can create something once and sell it multiple ways. I did a live workshop on breaking down my entire YouTube channel and sold it for $50. About 30 people purchased it for two hours of my time—I made about $1,500. Then I made the replays available inside Mindset School for annual members, which got people to upgrade from monthly, reducing my churn.

Then I had another idea: I’d do six workshops total covering lead generation, sales, creating a lead magnet, writing emails, Skool, and how I put it all together. I sold the package for $250, which included a one-to-one call. Anyone who joined my mastermind (which was $1,000 at the time, now $2,000) got the workshops for free. Several people who were considering the $250 workshop package decided to join the mastermind instead to get the workshops included plus higher-level coaching.

Then when my son had a birthday, I did a birthday sale and sold the workshop replays for $50 (normally $97). I sold several of those. Now I’m selling just the Skool workshop by offering it to people who upgrade to annual. That’s four or five different ways I’ve sold the same content I created one time. You don’t have to constantly create new things—you can repurpose and sell them in different formats to different segments.

The Power of Showing Up Consistently

I built Mindset School to 215 paid members using Facebook ads, YouTube, and a bit of Instagram. But mostly ads and my email list, which comes from YouTube. Do I have the best offer or the best community on Skool? Probably not. But I show up a lot. I make three to four YouTube videos per week, I go live frequently, I’m very active in the group, and I run ads consistently. My offer is being told all the time.

Too many people get caught up in stuff that doesn’t move the needle—making sure graphics look perfect, text is perfect, everything is polished. When I started Mindset School, it looked terrible. I’m not kidding. But I launched it anyway because I refused to overthink it. Overthinking has never helped me, and research to the moon has never helped me. It probably hasn’t helped you either.

On May 1st of this year, I made a commitment to get serious about YouTube. I said if I made three videos per week, I’d create 100 YouTube videos by the end of the year. Let me tell you right now: there is no way I’m not doing that. I will make 100 videos because the worst thing that could happen is I’ll be that much better at making YouTube videos. The best case scenario is I monetize my channel, grow my subscriber count, make more money, grow my communities, and get more clients.

That has already happened. Within nine days of launching my new strategy on May 7th or 9th, I launched a video called “The Last Side Hustle Video Ever” that got 169,000 views and added 5,600 subscribers. It added several thousand people to my email list, literally blew up my business overnight, quadrupled the size of Mindset School, and brought people into my network from all over the world. If I hadn’t made that video, I’d still be beating my head against the wall trying to figure out how to get more people into my groups.

Decide, Commit, Focus

There are three words I live by: decide, commit, focus. I made a decision to take YouTube seriously and go all in, largely ignoring other platforms. I let ads handle Facebook while I focus on YouTube. I committed to three videos per week, and some weeks I do four or five. The focus means I’m saying no to Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and all these other platforms where people think they need to be everywhere. I could build my entire business on YouTube by simply showing up consistently.

I once heard Alex Hormozi say in an interview that the amount of energy and time you should spend deciding to do something should be zero. Zero. While you’re waiting to decide, your competition is already doing it. You’re losing money for every day you don’t act. People think they’ll lose money if they get into business, and they’re right—they’ll lose the money they don’t make. Not the money they invest in themselves or a coaching program, but the money they don’t make by sitting on their ass.

I worked in the W2 world for over 20 years and made multiple six figures. Yet I thought I could replace that salary in six months or 90 days doing half the work while juggling two or three different side hustles with limited time and a family. That’s just egotistical. When I joined a real estate mastermind, the guy told me I needed to commit for three years. No one had ever told me that before. Everyone else promised fast results with minimal effort. But the reality is this stuff takes time.

The best advice I received was from someone who said, “When you reach 80%, go ahead and execute your plan.” You can’t plan your way to a perfect business. You’re going to have stuff happen that you can’t possibly see. You might as well embrace that now and understand it’s okay. Every business has challenges. The longer you delay your decision, the more it hurts, the more money you lose, the more life passes you by.