What happens when you get the engagement you thought you wanted... and realize it isn't actually what you were building for? That was one of the turns I didn't expect when we went Behind the Build with Lisa Vanderveen, creator of Kingdom Identity Network. Lisa has built across Facebook, Coach Accountable, Telegram, and Skool. She's run multiple communities at once. She's experimented with free and paid. She learned how to earn the coveted Skool star. She actually earned it in 25 days. And then came the lesson she couldn't have learned from a course: A highly active community isn't necessarily a healthy community. Before I tell you what happened, listen to Lisa explain what she believes about building a REAL community now: 🎥 Build REAL Communities: No Ranking, Just Authentic Connections That right there is the heart of Lisa's Behind the Build story. Because she didn't arrive at that conclusion from theory. She lived the other side of it. ⭐ SHE GOT THE STAR. THEN CAME THE REAL LESSON. At one point in her Skool journey, Lisa became determined to understand what it took to earn star status. She learned. She experimented. She built a new community. And in just 25 days, she did it. ⭐ Star achieved. Except some of the activity was later flagged as possible engagement farming, and the community's ranking was affected. Ouch. But this is where Lisa's story gets interesting. She could have kept trying to figure out how to win the platform game. Instead, she started questioning the game. Was more activity really what she wanted? More comments? More members? A better ranking? Or did she want women actually to experience something because they were there? For Lisa, the answer became much clearer. Transformation over activity. 👻 BECAUSE AN ACTIVE FEED ISN'T ALWAYS A COMMUNITY Lisa said something else during our conversation that stuck with me. We've all seen communities where the owner keeps posting...

Of course I had to go peek inside The Baddie Collective when I saw you join us. 😂 @Lauren Auteri has already grown her community to more than 80 women, with a focus on personal growth, building businesses and, most importantly, real connection between members. One line on her About page especially caught my attention... “We’re not a hype group. We’re not a toxic positivity space.” Instead, she’s creating a place where women can be honest about the messy middle, celebrate wins, ask for help, and genuinely show up for one another. Sounds like we might have a few things to talk about around here. 😊 Lauren, you’re coming into Skoolology with plenty of your own building experience, and I have a feeling we’re going to learn from you, too. We’re really glad you found us. Everyone, help us give Lauren a warm Skoolology welcome! ❤️

@Jen Ps opened the door before she had all the answers. When Jen P. launched The Room to Breathe, she didn't have every piece figured out. And that was kind of the point. Jen had been sitting on the idea for a while. She knew the problem she wanted to help solve: the invisible mental load carried by high-functioning women who may look like they have everything together while carrying an awful lot underneath. She'd researched. She'd prepared. She'd thought. And there was still that nagging question... What if I build it and nobody comes? Eventually, Jen decided there were some things she couldn't learn by thinking about them longer. She needed to open the door. And then something pretty wonderful happened. Women she hadn't personally invited started joining. Jen remembers thinking: "Okay, wow. There really are women who want this space." That didn't give her every answer. It gave her something better. Real people to learn from. Now Jen is paying attention to what they respond to, what they talk about, what they need, and what they value. As she put it: "It's becoming our room." I love that. And I especially love that Jen isn't pretending she has the rest of the build figured out. She has a free Mental Load Pattern quiz. She has a paid 7-Day Guided Mental Load Reset. She can see possibilities for how The Room to Breathe could evolve. But exactly what comes next? She doesn't know yet. And she's becoming comfortable with that. Some answers aren't supposed to come before your members arrive. Your members help you discover them. That's what makes Jen's Behind the Build story so valuable. We're not looking back at a finished build and making everything sound obvious in hindsight. We're meeting Jen near the beginning. There are still experiments to run. Questions to answer. Things that will work. Things that probably won't. 😂 And people who may change what she builds next. Jen said something in her written Q&A that I think every builder should hear:

We’ve spent the last two months digging into: 🎯 Outcomes: Are members making meaningful progress? 💰 Money: How does your community create and support value? (We'll be sharing our Behind the Build sessions all next week. Yahoo!) Special thanks to builders @Jen Ps @Michael Wacht @Jenny Rader-Bakos @Lisa Vanderveen and more to come! Yay! September is almost here, which means it’s time to point our magnifying glass at another part of SkoolMe. 🔍 But here's the thing... None of these pillars stand alone. Better onboarding can improve engagement. Stronger kinship can support outcomes. Clearer substance can make monetization easier. Leadership influences all of it. We separate the pillars so we can study them more closely, but we're always looking at how they work together. So, where would digging deeper help YOUR community most right now? 📚 Substance Is what you offer clear, useful, and worth coming back for? 🤝 Kinship Are members building meaningful relationships with each other? 🚪 Onboarding Do new members know where to start and experience an early win? 🧭 Leadership Are you leading in a way that supports the community you want to create? 💬 Engagement Are members participating in ways that actually matter? 👇 Cast your vote! Whichever area rises to the top, we'll spend September observing what's happening in our communities, testing small changes, comparing notes, and seeing what we discover together. Not sure what to vote for? This might be a great time to retake your free SkoolMe Snapshot. And if you've taken it before, compare the two. Has your priority changed? Has your community changed? Or are you simply seeing it differently because of what you've learned? Now I'm curious... 🔬 Where should we investigate next?

@Joyce Assogba 😊 Welcome to Skoolology! I was especially happy to see that @Jen Ps sent you our way. Grateful for her trust in us. 💛 I saw that you’re just getting started and that defining your structure would make the next 30 days feel like a win. You’re actually joining us at a great point in your journey because you don’t have to undo a bunch of things first. 😂 We can help you think through what you want to build and why before you start filling it with all the things. For now, come in, look around, and don’t feel like you have to figure everything out at once. We’re glad you’re here! 😊