I want to take a minute this morning to tell you something I’ve been sitting with. Yesterday was incredible. The bake at the end of the day. The thread that ran 1,700 comments deep in 21 hours. The way you all showed up for each other. I sat back last night just reflecting on what this place actually is. I spend time in other corners of Skool where community owners hang out. I listen to what they’re working on, the challenges they have, the strategies they use. I’m usually the quietest one in the room. I hear them talk about something called engagement mining. They build artificial scenarios inside their groups to bait comments and likes, because that’s how you climb the rankings on this platform. There are over 191,000 communities on Skool. The ones in the top 10% typically have thousands of paying members, big advertising budgets, and full-time staff working to keep the numbers up. I look at what we’re doing and I just feel grateful. Because we’re a unicorn. Most of the big communities on this platform are some version of: “Join my group and I’ll show you how to make a million dollars by Thursday.” We’re a collection of home bread bakers. That’s it. And here’s what that’s built: 📊 Skool tells community owners that 3% engagement is a healthy group. Ours is running around 56%. We don’t mine engagement. We don’t run paid ads. We don’t pay people to comment. We don’t gamify the thread. And you’re in the top 0.5% of every community on this platform. 🏆 #67 overall 🎯 #8 in Hobbies 🍞 #1 in sourdough and bread baking ⭐ #1 among ProveWorth 5-star certified communities on the entire platform And we’re surrounded by groups with tens of thousands of members charging anywhere from $25 to $2,000 a month. We’re free. I don’t know how to say it any way other than thank you. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for sharing what you know. Thank you for helping each other. Thank you for helping me keep this place clean and productive. When I spoke at Skool Magazine a month ago, I told them what I call the bathroom principle.

Hey friends, I want to take a moment to talk about safety in this community and how we talk to each other here. My goal is simple: keep Crust & Crumb Academy a safe place to learn, share, and grow without anyone feeling pressured, cornered, or pulled into something they didn't sign up for. Lately I've seen some behavior that raises red flags for me, and I want you to know what I'm looking at so you can recognize it too. 🔒 Our Clear Rule All coaching, support, and conversation should stay inside this community or on the official channels I clearly label and link. No member should be asking you to move the conversation to WhatsApp, Telegram, or any other private messaging app "because they're not active here." If someone you don't really know tries to do that, especially early in the conversation, treat it as a warning sign. 🚩 Specific Patterns to Watch For Here are some patterns I'm seeing that I consider suspicious and not okay here: A member starting out warm and friendly, responding to your baking story or post, and then dropping a line like: 🔹 "am not usually active on skool easier to chat on telegram @[long string of random characters] and i will be expecting your message" 🔹 Or: "this massive wow i will love us to continue this conversation am not usually active on skool easier to chat on telegram @[long string of random characters] and i will be expecting your message." Notice the broken grammar, the urgency ("I will be expecting your message"), and the immediate push to a private app. That's the pattern. Then there are the probing questions. The kind designed to keep the conversation going and personal: 🔹 "What part stood out to you more first, the look of the food or the branding?" 🔹 "What's been the best part of your day so far?" 🔹 "What do you usually like putting them on the most?" 🔹 "What part made it feel perfect to you?" These questions, on their own, are normal. People in this community ask warm, curious questions all the time. The red flag is when they're paired with repeated attempts to move you to a private app or a DM.