248: Inside the HobbyScool Growth Flywheel: What’s Working, What’s Changing

Foreign. Welcome to the Creators MBA Podcast, your go to resource for mastering the art and science of Digital Product entrepreneurship. My name is Dr. Destiny Kopp and I help business owners generate consistent revenue from their digital product business without the need to be glued to their desks, constantly live launching or worrying about the social media algorithms. I hope you enjoy our episode today. Hi there and welcome back to the Creators MBA podcast. I am Dr. Destiny Kopp and today we're doing things a little different. We have been deep inside the Creators Growth Flywheel series, breaking down what has changed in 2025, why your business feels slower this year, and what each stage of the Growth Flywheel actually means for your business. And today I want to take you behind the scenes of one of my brands, Hobby School. Hobby School has grown faster than I expected. This year we added tens of thousands of subscribers. We built an incredible, incredibly engaged community on school. We've ran a lot of different summits this well and watch thousands of makers join our workshops. And yet, even as I move into 2026, it became clear that it was time for a shift. So today I'm walking you through the Hobby School Growth Flywheel. What is working, what feels a little heavy for me, what is changing and what we are focusing on in 2026 and going forward. My hope is that you hearing how I diagnose and restructure my own business will help you see your business more clear clearly. So let's start with the attraction stage for Hobby School and I would say that this stage for us is super strong. We run paid ads on meta for every single one of our events and they convert very well. Also, speakers bring in their audiences and affiliates promote the events. So the reach for our events is huge. We easily bring in thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of new people with each summit. But here is what I noticed. Attract is working, but it's also a little narrow. It is heavily dependent on the event model. It spikes and then it settles down and then it spikes again. Our events are incredible and we will absolutely continue them. But I wanted the Attract stage to become a little bit more stable, more predictable and more diversified. So in 2026 we are exploring new attract channels. Not just B2C ones but B2B. And this includes a corporate wellness program, loyalty programs through organizations like maybe RP or senior centers, Parks and recs departments, and really focusing on those HR leaders who want creative engagement activities for their employees. I would say this is a huge big shift, but it was a necessary one for our long term growth. Now let's Move into the engage stage again. It's one of the strongest stages in our hobby. Stool growth, flywheel. People come into our events, they're super excited. They jump into the school community, they might grab the VIP pass, they take the workshops, they poke their post their projects. I would say the energy is incredible. They are definitely purchasing our VIP passes now. We will continue to look at the data for those tripwire type funnels and see if there's anything that we need to tweak there going forward. But it's not a major focus for us next year. It doesn't really need a lot of changes there. Looking at it, looking at the data and seeing if anything needs to change there now moving into the nurture stage, I would say that stage is also very strong. I send out the Sunday newsletter every single week without fail. Our school community is active. People interact with each other, they share projects, they ask questions, they celebrate each other. This particular stage doesn't feel broken to me. I do want to deepen the nurture stage a bit more by making the newsletter a true creative companion with more community spotlights, more behind the scenes, a little bit more like creative challenges. So experts who are participating in our hobby school, craft and Create club, a lot of them are volunteering to do a challenge, a free kind of challenge in our community next year. So that's, you know, a win win for the community. It's a win win for the speaker or the expert. And it's certainly a win win for us because it does help us improve that personal connection. And I would say the nurture stage is where relationships grow and I want to keep that momentum going. Okay, so now let's move into the retain stage. And I would say that this is a very important stage for us to focus on in 2026. So retention is good. People come into our world, they buy multiple VIP passes, they come to multiple summits. Some of them may join the Craft and Create club. We definitely have some room for improvement there. They're sticking around. But it, this particular stage does feel a little heavy to me. Not because people aren't buying again, it's because the offers that we have are all low cost and low ticket and low ticket ticket requires volume and volume requires constant audience expansion. And that constant expansion takes a toll. It is hard. So in 2026, I want to change the revenue mix. I want more mid tier and higher tier opportunities and new revenue streams that are not dependent on on bringing 10,000 people in every single month and registering for a summit. And that's where our B2B expansion comes in our corporate wellness workshops, our loyalty program partnerships. We can get into any L and D departments, learning and development partners in senior centers, maybe wanting creative programming. All of those retain and revenue expansion pathways that aren't going to rely always on that low price, high volume sales is definitely something I would say that is probably the biggest strategic shift for hobby school in 2026. Now, moving on into the advocacy stage, I would say again, this is a real strength for us. We get hundreds of testimonials for every single event. Speakers are sharing our events, affiliates are promoting our events, our attendees are inviting friends. People are posting in the school community without being asked. They're sharing projects on social media, they're tagging us. I would say that advocacy is definitely happening naturally and it is also embedded into the brand itself. So this is not necessarily an area that needs fixing. It is something that we need to continue to support our speakers and our affiliates. And we will continue to basically nurture this stage and making sure that they have really good shareable assets and easier ways for people to spread that word. But it's not a growth bottleneck for us today, I would say is one of our biggest advantages. Okay, so after reviewing all of these five stages, here's my conclusion and kind of what I'm going to be focused on in 2026. The core of the business model works. I think we have a very simple business model, but it is a strong business model. This growth flywheel is definitely turning right? People are discovering us. They're engaging with our offers and our events. We are nurturing them very strongly. They are returning, so we're retaining them and they are sharing. So what needs to expand for us is not the model. It really comes down to the revenue mix and the type of customer that we serve. And B2C will always be the heart of Hobby school, right? The makers and the crafters and the creative people. But 2026 is also the year that I would love to step into new verticals like the corporate wellness, the loyalty programs, senior communities, parks and rec, HR teams, all of that. More large scale partners who want creative engagement for the people that they serve. I would say that is the next evolution of the growth flywheel for Hobby School. So I'm not necessarily changing the system. I am really just expanding it. If you would. So let me just walk you through why I wanted to share this with you. I want you to know that this growth flywheel in this series is not something that is just theory. I am using it in my own businesses in my personal brand. I'm using it in my hobby school brand. I use it day in and day out. I look at the stages, I diagnose the stuff stages. I study what is working, I study what isn't working so well and I make decisions based on what the system is telling me. And I want you to know that if your business feels heavy or confusing or inconsistent, it's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with your business. There's nothing wrong with your niche. You may be simply relying on pieces that aren't connected together. Here is your next step. I want to do the same for your business. Take the free five minute diagnostic with Sloan. She will show you the stage of the creator's Growth flywheel that is slowing you down and and she will point you towards one of your biggest opportunities for your next step once you take it. Reply back to any of the emails that I have sent to you with your stage and I will send you an excerpt from my creator's MBA playbook to walk you through and help you understand what your result means and what to focus on next. Thank you so much for spending time with me in this series. I know that this Growth Flywheel concept is new to a lot of you, so I hope that this was helpful and thank you for also for being someone who cares about building a business with intention and a business that will grow predictably and serve people so very deeply. Thank you so much for spending this time with me and thank you for being part of this series series. I know that the creators Growth Flywheel was a new concept for many of you, so I hope you enjoyed digging into all of this and I cannot wait to help you diagnose your own business and figure out what is the best next step for you. Now stay tuned. Come on. Come Monday, I'm going to have some some really strong Black Friday offers for you that's going to help you look at the various stages of your Growth flywheel and improve them. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now. Thanks for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode today. If you love the show, I'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.