The New Way To Launch Online Education & Communities

Hey, what's happening? It's Joe Fear with you today in this episode. And this one's another solo episode, this time with me. And I'm gonna piggyback up on what Matt was talking about last week. And in this episode specifically, I want to talk about some things we've been seeing from really smart folks in the business marketing community. And this is how online communities and also online education is being launched these days. And it's leveraging Web 3.0 technology. And if you're not aware of what that is, I'm going to explain a part, you know, a bit of that here. Also, going back to Matt's episode, his snackable episode from last Tuesday is definitely helpful. So go check that out as well. But I'm going to show you exactly how things are changing in terms of product launches, in terms of community launches and why you should be aware of this. Because it's coming, it's coming fast. And, and we want to report this to you. So I want to also make sure that you grab the notes. We have them all ready for you. I'm actually kind of using them right now. So you can get access to those notes for free@hustleandflowchart.com notes it's hustleandflowchart.com notes. So head over there, go grab those. And I'm just going to dive into this right now. This is an intro. Intro, intro, intro. Hustle and Float Shark with your boy, my boy, Matt Wolf and Joe Fear. Hey, we're seeing some wacky stuff right now. Some really, really fun things pop up in this web 3.0 space. And what I mean by that is essentially these are the different technologies built on the blockchains. You know, this is the Ethereum blockchain and all these other ones out there. But you know, Bitcoin and Ethereum, you've definitely heard of them, or you probably should do some research because it's really becoming a lot more mainstream. But really in terms of business and marketing, we're now seeing some really interest use cases for communities and actually creating these communities in a way where everyone benefits, everyone is an investor. Everyone has the ability to potentially profit in a variety of ways if they're accessed or if they are members of these communities. So I want to break down what this means and why you should really be paying attention. Maybe not for yourself to launch. I mean, you could definitely do this, but. But definitely leveraging some other communities, getting involved, partnering. This is a very collaborative time. So Matt and I are pumped up on this to share these types of topics with you, because this is where we see our company going. And I'll actually end the episode with a little bit more on that. But for now, the reason why this is changing right now is that Web 3.0 allows us to collaborate in a way that we've never done before. There's a lot of limitations with social media platforms and ways that we cultivate a community, how we engage with the community and then how we really can incentivize people along the way. So we're seeing that change with things like Web 3.0 and using NFTs. And no, NFTs are not just selling JPEGs or gifts. There's a lot more to it, that's just a part of it. But when you actually understand what's happening behind there, there's some really fascinating utilities you can, you can apply to communities and online education and giving access to cool things like events and special perks and all that kind of stuff. So with this new model, what's really nice is that.

Everyone involved in these communities actually can become investors. So there's abilities where royalties can be split in terms of different things that happen in the community, like different product launches, different NFTs that can be these kind of community art and utility type things can actually be lumped up in a way where everyone benefits. In the terms of, you know, there's sometimes these tokens that are given within communities. Well, that's kind of like a community currency and I'm not going to go deep on that now. But just know that as being a part of these communities, there's ways that can be built by the founders of these, the developers where everyone benefits and, and there's a lot of ways to profit. So in this sense, when you're joining these communities, it's not a transaction. It's not like you're paying for one time access or a monthly access or whatever it is to a community. Typically you're paying one time and using something like Ethereum to pay for that access. But in doing that, you're now becoming an investor or a partner of these communities. And I'll break down some of the different ways that these are being launched right now, so we could see specifics. It's not just kind of this airy fairy concept right here I'm talking about. So by doing this you're actually creating a really super engaged community too. So you know, it's not a transactional community. If you think about this, you're getting everyone involved on a partner level. At the end of the day, you know, you're creating these evangelists for your company or your brand or, you know, or you could be a part of another brand and see how that feels, see how you can kind of play that role. Because like I said, you don't really have to launch your own. But as long as you know this is happening, you can be a part of this stuff and actually benefit in your own way. So there's a lot of, there's really endless ways to develop these types of communities on the back of Web 3.0 technology. Matt and I have been just nerding out and understanding the obvious stuff, which are NFTs and all that stuff that you kind of hear more of the hype around. But the really interesting stuff we're seeing are like, hey, what's the technology behind all of that? And how can we actually use that to grow amazing communities and then also create all these cool utilities for everyone involved so we all benefit and get a lot more collaborative here. So I want to break down also a couple folks that have launched some communities like this on the back of Web 3.0 and this NFT and blockchain technology. Gary Vaynerchuk just launched Veefriends a few months back and Tom Bilyeu from Impact Theory launched something just this week as of recording. So these are already, you know, they're sold out. I think Veefriends sold out super fast. Tom Bilyeu is one of his tiers are already sold out. So I'll break down what those look like just so you're aware of what's actually happening currently right now and definitely what's to come. So in terms of you want to get involved and what this is basically is this is, like I said, online communities are changing. When Web 3.0 and the use of NFTs and all these utilities, things are changing in the background. So it's not just images and brands are actually leveraging this Web 3.0 and NFT technology in creative ways to really give access in ways that haven't been done before now. You know, there's, you can argue that membership sites and paying for access, you know, has always given you the ability to get exclusive things like, you know, giveaways, access to conferences or meetups or, you know, one on one time with people or just access to different communities or masterminds. But when it's wrapped up in the form of this NFT or Web 3.0 space, like I was saying, you become more of an investor. And what I mean by that, and Matt kind of explained this last week is the idea is when someone joins one of these newer communities on Web 3.0, essentially you buy in using something like Ethereum, but there's other blockchains out there, we're not going to get into that. But once you purchase, you're essentially purchasing an nft. But what that is, and that means non fungible token, we're not going to go down what that means now, but there's definitely helpful links and last week's episode helps you out. Matt's episode. But what that is is essentially an access pass. It gives you an access pass to this community and as long as you're holding that access pass, you have the ability to cash in on whatever utilities or rewards that are associated with that pass.

I don't know if this is a perfect example, but think of Costco, you know, if you're familiar with the Costco membership model. Well, if you buy the Costco membership and they're not on the blockchain, but let's say they were, you pay a one time fee and as you're holding that card, as long as you're invested in that and you haven't sold it, resold it, I'll get to that in a second. You have the ability to cash in on a bunch of different perks. Now with Costco, you basically have the ability to enter their store and have access to these products and deals and packages that you wouldn't find anywhere else. You know, Costco curates different products and different specials and vendors that pass on their savings or their value or these special promos to you. So, you know, Costco and all these other membership models like Sam's Club and all that stuff are, you know, buyers clubs, people literally buy in to get deals. So that's one example of how, you know, you can kind of look at NFTs or these new communities is that as long as someone holds this card or this nft, this access pass, there's a lot of interchangeable names, but essentially it's an nft. As long as you hold that and not sell it to someone else, which you can do that and you could do that for a profit because the value of these things can rise depending on the community and how, you know, if it's sold out and if there's a lot of utilities that people want, let's say from a greater community, like with Gary Vaynerchuk. Yeah, he probably, I don't know what the number is, but you can limit it to like a Thousand people. So let's say a thousand people sold out. You know, this thousand people grab their access pass, they purchase the vee friends and again, I'm just making up the numbers now. Any of those, a thousand holders of the NFT or those access passes have the ability to either hold on to them or they can go sell them on the, on the secondary market for more potentially if the, if the value has risen. So they're essentially investors. So you can't do that with Costco, obviously, you just stop payment essentially and then your access goes away. So with this you're actually now creating an incentive for community members to really get involved and to become promoters and raise the value of everything. Because there's a lot of reasons why you'd want to. So I'm gonna go through a few examples right now of different perks and things that we're seeing people give away when someone purchases these access passes or these NFTs to these communities. And there's a, you know, there's endless amounts of things. Literally that's what you could, you know, let your mind run with this and you could think of different things and perks that would interest your community. But I'm just gonna list a few that I see that are starting to be a little bit more common and used in multiple communities. So you can have access to exclusive content. You know, it could be interviews, it could be in depth research or whatever. It might be content that people want, just exclusive content. That can be something. It could be invites to invitations to special events, to conferences, to virtual events, masterminds, things like that, exclusive interviews, maybe livestreams, that's something that can happen. You can also get exclusive giveaways, maybe to physical merch, online merch. It could be new NFTs that come out that can actually be given for free, or they say they're airdropped, where essentially if you're a member, you then get given a new NFT that could potentially hold value. A lot of these will rise in value so as just by being a member you might have the ability to get some more NFTs that get launched in the future and then profit from those. You can either hold on to those for whatever reason because those might have other utilities, or you might want to go just cash in and sell it on the secondary market and then maybe that covers your investment into this thing. There's a lot of creative ways you could do this. A couple other examples is you can have access to the founders, access to different parts or people of the community, access is a big thing. You know, consultations, meetups, calls, things like that. I see that with Gary Vee and Tom Billy. You both have those types of accesses to certain types of cardholders. You can have access to different chat rooms or exclusive channels. You know, in Discord, that's, that's kind of the, it's kind of like Slack. But Discord is typically used for these communities to, for your chat room. So you know, bye bye Facebook groups and all these other things. But if you go to Discord, it's kind of this whole decentralized community that you have the power to run. You're not really governed by all these outside influences. So that is a perk of all this. You can maybe have the ability to partner with some of these founders or people in the community. You know, sometimes there's the ability to go on, maybe get featured on a podcast or featured on YouTube channel if you're a member or card holding member of these things and these utilities. Other things it could be access to new products, new NFTs, new communities, other things that are coming. Basically point I'm meaning is you can have endless amount of perks and things that you can offer to folks. And that is essentially your mind is your own limitation here. It's just what you want to write into essentially the contract or what people receive as a utility once they're members and creating that roadmap. So what's interesting is that members actually in these communities can profit. Like I mentioned before. And I just wanted to reiterate that it's not a transactional thing with these communities in Web3. It's very collaborative. So the idea is that we're all invested in this thing together. So that's why you see people like Gary Vee, you know, they're testing the waters. He's a guy that's always pushed the new technology and wants to get involved. So he launched Veefriends and I urge you to go check that out. I think it's just veefriends.com and I'm going to link that inside the show notes and of course in the notes@hustleandflowchart.com notes if you go check out Veefriends. The way that he describes it is essentially he created Veefriends to bring to life his, his ambitions of building a community around his creative and business passions using the NFT technology and their smart contract capabilities. And what I mean by smart contract capabilities is those are the utilities that you can essentially write into the code or have someone Else write into the code. If someone purchases an access pass, well there's going to be these things attached to that pass. You could do it in, you know, maybe different tiers or you could do it like Gary Vee did. I think he had all sorts of different passes that had different unique abilities. So that means that they're all different values. There's a bunch of different structures. But the idea is that you can write all of these utilities on the back of these NFTs depending on how you want to do it. So essentially he said by owning a V friend nft you immediately become part of the Veefriends community and you get access to Vcon, which is one of his new conferences that are only going to, it's only going to be accessible by these people that hold Gary V's NFT called Veefriends. So that's one example. So I'd urge you to go check out how he presents this, how he's talking about it and you can see his roadmap as well to see the different perks that are associated with it. Now another one, Tom Bilyeu, I urge you to check his out. He's from Impact Theory and his is called founderskey. So if you go to, let's see, it's called founderskey IO if you go there you can. The way that he describes it, I'll just read it right now is it's staffed with world class talent. We are developing and empowering, are developing empowering content across the most popular forms of media from comics, animation, gaming, the, the metaverse and YouTube to traditional unscripted and scripted television and film. The next two years of Impact Theory promise to deliver unparalleled value to our key holders. And just wait until you see our 10 year roadmap now with Tom Bilyeu, you know his Impact Theory, he has quite a media platform built on YouTube so just check him out. But what he's looking to do is build a bigger media empire on the back of the this technology and he's kind of kicking it off by creating these, this founder's key and he's calling the key holders as long as you own one of. He has three different tiers and he's actually sold out of his first one I think I mentioned earlier is as long as you're holding an access key or one of his keys you get to cash in or benefit from all of the different things that he's roadmap for the next 10 years. And of course that's a long time you, you know, he's one I would actually trust to execute on this and so would Gary Vee. But you know, this is where you want to study and always be cautious with because you are investing in something and honestly the vision of someone or their brand. Whereas, you know, Tom Bilyeu and Gary Vee, they're very established and they're very upfront, they're showing their face, they're doing all this. So, you know, when we're looking at these roadmaps and investing in communities, it's just like anything else. You want to make sure that you trust the people that you are maybe a part of the community already or the brand from somewhere else. In the case of Gary and Tom, they already had existing brands, so what they're doing is bringing more over and then probably getting way more attention because of the model and the hype and excitement from everyone talking about it, that you're going to get more people there. But the whole thing is that not everyone's going to have a perfect roadmap and this vision and thing to join. So I always say, not always, but we're learning that Matt and I is like, do your research and really understand what you're investing in. It's just like if you were to invest in a product, in a new community with time or money, you're going to want to make sure you're in the right place and then putting your funds or your time and all that stuff into the right place. So the idea here is to understand what's happening. So that's why I urge you to go check out Veefriends. Go check out Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory Founders key launch just to see what they're doing. It's gonna look different than something you've seen before. It's not a typical sales page. You know, you're gonna see how things are presented with this new technology and the utilities. That's the biggest thing. So I guess the point I want to make here to round everything off is that I would love you to study these models and just start to think about what's possible with online communities, with selling access to content, to different perks and things that your customers, your fans would Enjoy. Because leveraging NFTs and Web 3.0, it's coming and it's coming fast. So as long as you're aware of, of what kind of stuff is being launched right now and the tech that's behind it and kind of understanding, okay, what does it mean when I actually buy an nft, okay, that's like an access pass. It's not just a jpeg. Oh. But it actually could have utilities that can benefit me in a variety of ways and also other people. And I can become an investor and still get the benefit of the community or product and then feel like when I'm done with it, if ever you have the ability to then resell that for potentially more money and then throughout that whole thing, maybe cash in or benefit in a variety of ways from the utilities that are gained through all the things I mentioned before. So I urge you to really study this technology and not discount things like NFTs, but really embrace this technology that's coming. And you know, crypto is not a, A dirty word. Even though, like, a lot of folks just don't understand it. It's very valuable right now. And marketing is changing. Business is changing really fast. So I want you to make sure to keep an eye on more of these snackable episodes, the shorter ones. Matt and I are gonna keep diving deeper and kind of show you where the puck is going. Cause this is exactly where we're angling our business. And I told you I was gonna hint that we're changing some stuff in our business. And we are because we see where this is headed and there's parts of our business that just don't feel. Feel like it aligns with where the puck is going and where we want to go with technology and bringing you along with us on the ride, doing this together. So keep a lookout because we are changing some stuff in our business, but you're gonna see us talk a lot more about this technology and some of these other specific things around the technology, like NFTs. I mean, we are doing some trading and stuff like that, but also building communities. We're going to be building a community on Discord. So that's one place. And that's not sure if it's going to be totally live yet. Matt, you can edit this out if so, but hustleandflowchart.com discord or flowchartgroup.com one of those should take you to our Discord. And if not, you can edit that out, Matt, if it's not live and ready, but we're going to be over there creating a community on Discord. We are going to launch something on the blockchain that's going to involve you and our Hustle and Flow Flowchart community. So keep a lookout for that. We're in the early stages, but we want to be quick on this and then also report back what we're learning to you because this is Web three. You know, we've been in Web two with the social media networks and all that stuff. And there was of course web one back in what, 96 or something like that, early days of the Internet. This is a whole new phase that's coming on strong right now. And, and the way that you're seeing it talked about mainly are in the form of NFTs and, you know, buying JPEGs and selling them and people cashing out and like, oh my God, I'm so rich. Well, that's great now. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more utility in these communities and online access to, you know, to courses and just all these cool perks. This is the way that things are going to be going and you're going to see a lot more influencers and brands use this style of model and in some way, but it's going to be roughly kind of like this. So we're just putting the flag in the sand right now to say this is something you got to pay attention to. We're super excited. So we're going to keep talking about it, keep a lookout and also we're going to dive deeper into some of the beginner stuff because there's a lot of questions around this. So if you're lost, don't worry, just stick with us. We'll keep kind of spoon feeding you what we learn and also tell you the exact ways to get into this environment. Even on a very basic level. On YouTube at hustleandflowchart tv, we will definitely be breaking this down outside of podcast episodes. So you understand what the Web 3.0 NFT World and the defi. There's some really cool finance stuff you can do and earn off of the different currency, you know, the Bitcoin, Ethereum and all these different coins out there. It's a crazy world, but it's exciting and it's something you definitely should be aware of as a business owner and entrepreneur. So follow along with us at hustleandfluechart TV and I want to give a shout out to our friends over@easywebinar.com they are, but don't go there. Go to easywebinar.com hustle because they're hooking you up with a fat discount if you're doing anything webinar based. I mean, that stuff will work in web 3.0 as well. So it's talking to the masses. It's all community based and, you know, easy webinar basically does every type of webinar you can think of, live automated, all these different hybrid types and does all the analytics, the pages and reporting all that stuff for you. And they're hooking you up with a cool discount@easywebinar.com hustle. So go grab that. Thank you guys for sponsoring the show. And again, grab the notes. Hustleandflowchart.com notes and I think that is all. Go share this around. If someone has been thinking about NFTs or maybe discounting NFTs, kind of ignoring them, tell them that there's more to it than just NFTs or selling JPEGs, because I think that's the thing. We wanna just tell you there's more to it. So go share this around. Go head over to YouTube or iTunes or wherever you can leave a review and let us know. One thing that you picked up from this conversation. Hopefully it landed. You got some nuggets, so share those around and we'd love to read from them. Read from you, that is. And we'll see you next time on the next episode. Bye.