A Token Microschool: Currency for Your Existing Community

Thank you for listening to this series on tokenizing your microschool. We are going to answer the question you are all thinking about but are afraid to ask. What if I don't want to or can't focus on building a community right now?

It's possible to use your existing community to help with tokenization. While it's ideal to build a community from scratch, you can also use the community you already have. This will help reduce the time it takes to get started and get your tokens into circulation.

You may have immediate needs and are unable to focus on building a community for your micsoschool. However, you can still use the community you have to help with tokenization. In this episode, we will discuss how to do this. Listen below.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Why you may not be able to build the community you desire before you create an NFT or social token?
• Steps you need to take when you need to raise capital for your microschool or course academy.
• Things you should consider when you are ready to move forward with creating an NFT for your existing community.

With the rise of blockchain technology, a new era of event fundraising has begun. Known as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, these offer a more secure and user-friendly experience than traditional fundraising. For one, NFTs are stored on a blockchain network, which means that they are encrypted and stored as immutable blocks. This makes it virtually impossible for fraudsters to duplicate or tamper with them. NFTs can be easily transferred and sold, making it easy for supporters to resell their NFTs if they can no longer attend a class or event. Because NFTs are stored on a decentralized network, there is no need for a third-party company. With ‌these benefits, it’s no wonder that NFT as a fundraising tool is quickly becoming the preferred choice for microschools and online academies.

Valerie was having a hard time deciding how to tokenize her upcoming event. She wanted to make sure that everything ran as smoothly as possible, but she wasn't sure how to go about it. Luckily, she knew just who to call for help: Contessa!

Contessa was more than happy to help Valerie out. She had a lot of experience with tokenizing events and was confident that she could help Valerie get everything set up perfectly. Valerie was relieved and grateful for Contessa's help.

The day of the event finally arrived, and Valerie was excited to see how things went. Thankfully, everything went off without a hitch thanks to Contessa's expertise! Valerie was very pleased with the results and thanked Contessa for making the entire process easy.  

Contact Contessa to schedule a chat about tokenizing your event or microschool at hello@neuroversecollective.com

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Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello and welcome to the coaches who build a worlds of podcast. We are on episode 3. The final episode of this series. We're talking about tokenizing a micro school's out. I am one of your co-host, the missed, the, the lovely and Tesla we Cooper. And I enjoyed by the one and the only dr. Kimberly Douglas who is also a come true bills were so happy to be here and just ecstatic that. It's Tuesday, and we made it ye-yes another week. Another week. We made it another week, and so is let's do a brief recap. Great. Okay, and so our first episode, we were talking about. What are we talking about? We're talking about tokenizing microscope. So we talked about what a microscope is MHM. And we talked about why you might want to tokenize your microscope. We're not going to go into it here because we want you to listen right then, right? Because in this market, is going to, here's the one piece out there. And so, and we talk about this, like, K-12 micro schools but microscopes, but also micro schools or micro academies for adults who want to get micro credentials. So go, yes, and then in the second episode, we About building community. And to be quite honest with you. The second episode is my favorite. Because I as, you know, of course, I'm a coach who builds worlds and when you're getting communities and making those connections and that's one of the things that I absolutely positively love to do is to build community. So we talked about why you want to build community in your micro school. We talked about some of the challenges that you might face in a Building these communities and again, micro schools may not be traditional schools. As you may know them as many online coaches have Micro schools and it doesn't even occur to them. That, that's what they have built is a micro school. Right? Right, right. And so in this episode, we are going to kind of be adapt and week. Ended last episode with the question. Well, what if I don't want to build a community? What now? Yes. Yeah, and that's a good question because there are people. It's wonderful. Talk about building a community or building a micro School building a structure. But some needs are just more pressing than that. People need the in the biggest. So people need to do fundraising. They need to chop chop. Make it happen right now. And so even if they wanted to build a community or microscope, or some kind of structure, they may not have the mental and emotional in the financial bandwidth to make that happen. It right? And so, you know, as being a black woman, right? I know how to make it, do what it do. I don't know how to use what I have and make it work. And so the answer to that question is you already have a community, right? We have already decided to come together for a cause and a purpose. So there. Or you can already use what it is that you have. Exactly, exactly Community could be defined a number of ways and Community, from people who are get, are brought together by hashtag up to the point where you're talking about an institution, like a college or university. So it just depends on what the definition is, but at some point you start to hang out and you share values and you sure. Goals, then you have a community and more than likely you're going to want to move that Community to the next place. Because the thing about Community is not only sharing you, share the that you shared the benefits. And so just do it being like a ragtag band of people hanging out, maybe pitching in money. You start to want to put some, put a fence around that try to make things, clearer, make expectations, clear manage the situation. A little bit more to make sure that everybody's getting the benefit that they need from the community. So one of the things that really stick to my head is like, okay, we want to tokenize, my microscope. What is the first thing I should do? And this isn't my area of expertise, when I kind of throw the ball back over to dr. Kimberly, who is really good at this thing. And my question is, what is your what are your goals? What is it that you want to do? What is the purpose? Community and so that Kimberly Douglas, can you break this down for us just a little bit? Sure. So when you talk about it, this is related to something. I say when I work with people on projects, the technology should never drive the conversation. Your needs should drive the conversation. So starting a conversation and we're talking about tokenizing communities. There are some places you have to start to even know what value that is for you and your community. So number one. What are your shared values? What is holding you together? Number two? What are your particular needs as a group and as individuals, what do you need to walk away with? So then what are your goals? So there needs to To be a shared set of goals. And then you can start thinking about, okay? Tokenization or you have a token or a coin or that matches up with your goals. But the first part of this is the people part and the people giving clear about in this moment. I need to raise money to get my child in school or I need to raise money to make sure we're feeding. A community or I need to raise money to support an artist. You have to be clear about what your goals are as an individual and also a I also want to make this really, really clear. It is. Okay. Say, for instance. You're not renewing. You have an online course, right? It is okay to say you, to make money because I need to pay my damn bills, right? That is a good reason to want to tokenize your community, because you still have to live out here in these streets. Yes. Absolutely. It's all it may not be. I'm doing this to serve somebody else. You may need Serve Yourself and that is Earthly, okay, and I really want to normalize right? Raising money so that you can take care of yourself. Absolutely. I'm so glad you say that because the way we been raised in this Society we have a lot of shame that comes with asking for things because it is assumed that you're supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and I've even heard people online recently. Tell people feel content creators to get offline begging for money. And with the content creator was asking for was compensation in exchange for something service. They were providing. And the person was saying, you know, if line get off Tick, Tock it off the internet begging for money and go get a job. Whoo. I recently read a thread about, especially for black women, how we are taught that. If you're going to create a business, you have to have some sort of social impact. You have to be doing something for somebody else. Other than yourself or you Named as a greedy that is not enough. Just to, I want to have a business because I want to make money. I want to have a, I want to have a better life. You have to be in business in order to serve somebody else and I don't know how it is with other races of people but as a black woman looking out into the business World, it doesn't seem like that's true for other races, right? I tell you what, I see. I think a collectivist mindset that each one of those helps the other present and I see it like in Vietnamese communities and Korean Community other community. Lots of Nigerian communities. I see it in a lot of other communities, but the thing is, it's not a one-way transaction where you are, just expected to give, give give and be available to other people. They actually pour into each other and I think that mandate is there for black women and we can I'm not going to go down my road about black women, and our bodies and our minds, and our labor being consumed. I'll just put a pin. In it right there, but I actually posted on Tick-Tock probably about two or three weeks ago. Opposed to said that your business does not have to have a social justice goal or responsibility. It doesn't, or I think social impact is what I said. Your business does not social impact. We should be free to go form a business. Do what we need to do is extract will be want to extract. From it without having to get back together and I know that sounds selfish. But here's the thing. We should not walk away just to expectation on our head. Does that sound selfish or don't sound like the definition of a business did that is the definition of business, right? And so and I'm glad because this is going to give a black woman permission to go. Do what you need to do if you want to go start a finance company. And you need the startup money for a finance company. Go do it. You don't have to make a non-profit some that you don't have to have a social impact mandate or responsibility or goal. You don't have to have that. You can start a business free and clear. One of the reasons why I put that post up is most of the people I work with are nerds emergent. So they have ADHD. See, they are on the autism spectrum. They may have complex trauma. They may have a learning disability and that community of people really thinks. At. It's a socially Justice focused community. But it's not really that Community. Is this patterning of people who have been mistreated by systems. And so they there a lot of people who can talk about what's wrong, what needs, you know, what, what rights we had what needs to be done, but it doesn't necessarily mean that everybody's there for social impact. And one of the reasons I posted that was too kind of The pot a little bit and get people to think about that. And especially think just because these people get online and they talk about all this stuff and they talk about what needs to be done. Sometimes. Most of the time, they're not talking about for the community. They're talking about Board of themselves. They want the pathway cleared for themselves. And that is what it is. But let's be clear about what's happening. Here it is. It is so recap. Cap on his business, it is okay to pull, it is. Okay to want to raise funds because you want more money because you're in a business and businesses make profits. You do not have a non-profit. You not have to have social justice. You don't have to impact, you do not have to reach back in your community if you want to, that's great. But Brad is that Should not be the main a purpose. Why you're doing what it is that you are doing. And we just want to normalize being in business to make money, right? Want to add one thing today. All right, and even the language around starting businesses, we are taught to not even say the word entrepreneur and I actually have posted about this recently on LinkedIn and on Twitter 3s. This context has got me on Twitter three. It's now and we're comfortable is Makers as creators, but we're not comfortable talking about ourselves as entrepreneurs and we're in business. And so yeah, that sells a lot of subscriptions for the DIY industry because we all think we're makers and creators and we have to monetize everything but it doesn't do anything for us. If we don't get involved in our business communities. We don't see ourselves as Open the doors. We don't carve out an entrepreneurial space. And if we see the need to do things like giving their team, raise money for ourselves. We deserve that for sales. It is not our mission to stay involved in these one-way. Where we were doing doing doing for sacrificing. We are existing for other people, but we say we're in business and we wouldn't dare think of raising money for ourselves. It's such a privilege to be in business and not have to worry about making money. Exactly. Yes, and I think it does a disservice to marginalized communities to tell them that you're in business, but don't worry about making money. And I'm just going to leave it like that. And about that more. Let us know and I will tell you how I really feel about that seems like another another Community coming in and telling us that and giving us a permission to hold ourselves back. Mhm. Yes. Yes, and this is a type of gatekeeping. Right? Right, right. So we talked about having goals another, we want to consider when we're Tokenizing our community. When we're using what it is that we have. We're not building. We're using the community that we have. We're going to tokenize. We're going to create this in of T. Is we need to figure out who are supporters are like, who's going to buy this? Absolutely. Because, and this goes hand in hand. If you don't know who's gonna buy it, that you don't know how to package it up, in a way that they can see the benefits of it, right? Like me. So you need to know who your supporters are and you need this marketing plan and they go hand-in-hand and many times when we go to create these fundraisers, or these crowd funding opportunities, or tokenizing. Something we forget who it is that we're talking to. We're not talking to ourselves. Mhm. Mhm. That was going to benefit us. We're not marketing to ourselves. We're marking. It's very particular people. And Meet them here as we did a, an episode whoo in the very very, very beginning talking about the people that you're trying to reach. Do they even hear you and the words and the language that you use in order to try to reach them? And many times we come up with these great plans. But are we talking to the people? We want to talk to? I think that's a great point. In one of the steps in, and I'm learning to sound so Contessa, and I both, I'm pretty sure contested and I've talked about this each one of us or both of us. We get coaching ourselves because they, we and, you can look at that, in many different forms, many different ways. And we are constantly learning and growing, and that's why we're able to bring so many different things to the table. And one of the things that I'm learning now in, My process is. The value of doing your research before jumping in. So, if you're if you start out with the assumption that you are supposed to give back and these things, clouding your vision. And you think that in order to ask for something, you have to provide these, you have to provide that you have to do this. Then you may not really know or understand who your supporters are. Are so one of the first things you have to do is take time to do the research to understand who they are and what they want. And the best way to do that is to ask them. Absolutely, you have your community. It's really easy to pull is really easy to say, it's really easy to hold a meeting, a zoom couple, whatever it takes and directly ask them to meet with rather ask someone and give them time to kind of think because usually my first answer is going to be the answer that I think you want. And then my answer is going to be the real answer, right? Absolutely. Absolutely to give their real answer to really put some thought into it so I can really get the data that I need. But if you're not pulling your people begin to do so now because I promise you who you think you're talking to you're probably not end. We have a tendency to see the world where you can own as you had and you can try to be empathetic. You could try to understand other people's perspective, but you're also looking at it through your eyes. And I actually did a poll recently through Tick Tock, and it wasn't anything, elaborate, and just a few people answer, but it gave me remarkable Insight. Because as I am building out things and trying to Think about how to monetize things and get people to buy into my system. I Need to Know Myself and I did this poll and I thought it was one thing, but the people who answered the pulse that me in a totally different direction. And when I took what they told me, and I put that in my language, I've gotten so many more responses. And I probably would have had I gone and actually the language or the thing that I was the safer route, right? So how to not people who are upset them or whatever, but they told me exactly what it is and I use their language and I am getting responses. Yes, because now they're able to see themselves in your marketing. They're able to see your themselves and their products and services. And one of the things that they teach you is to talk to a very particular person. One of the mistakes that I see a lot and this is a mistake and I will continue to say it's a mistake and this is from someone who's a multi-hyphenate, right? So I hunt bad this and it hurts me to my core, right? Right, if you're talking about that, you were serving women between the ages of 24 and 65. You're not serving anyone. Right? What is that? You don't talk to a 25 year old the same way you talk to US 60 year old and so you have realized marketing plan and no one can relate to it because it is very genetic. Generic. Sure, right. Yes. A very particular person most of the time. Booth. I'm just gonna put this out there. Most of the time your audience looks like you. Mhm, right. Most of the something natural language. So therefore you're speaking to Someone Like You. Mhm. Unless for some reason something happens if and And you're not, like, most of the time you're speaking to most of the time, I was speaking to a 50 year old woman. However, about me is most people tell you that, I don't act like a 50 year old woman. No problem. Somebody a little bit younger so you don't act like me. Which is, which is really a great thing because I'm dying to meet us a very specific type of brain or with a designed to reach a very specific type of person. And so, when we are doing our plans together, as we're working on our things separately, but together, we're bringing in all these different types of people who are coming together now, for a very particular thing. So your onions, My audience is coming in a, why are they coming in? Because they want to tokenize their micro Community. That's why I that's right. And and you know, and I want people to not lose sight of the fact that there are people who believe in you. Hey, you could be selling acorns and they still might buy from you because you are compelling enough. It is really A about the packaging. Well, for most people, you're going to need a compelling message that is separate from you. So if you are a solo preneur, then you absolutely are going to be targeting more than likely targeting. People who look or behave. Have interest similar to yours. Now, as you start to Branch out and you have you can do more things than that, might change, but for the most part, that's where you'll be. But people to go into this thinking that there's somebody out there who is interested in supporting you. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. And, and that goes back to building your community and knowing it, who's in your community, and things like that. And, you know, maybe we will do a whole thing about Community Building, not just for micro schools, but just community building in general. Since that's something that we both, you know, I believe we're pretty good at what I do. Actually, you know, what? Something you just said, spark of thought because We have overlapping, but sometimes different demographics. It would be interesting to talk about how you talk to your community. And I talked to my community. That would be really, yes, because it is two very different ways. Mhm. Mhm, because we are very different, but very similar and the similarity out when we're together. You can definitely tell the similarities and as always, Funny when people who know you come unto the podcast and see how we tracked the other and when people know be and they come on here and see how we interact each. I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't know that about you. Like, you know, we bring out we bring out different parts of ourselves in the podcast. That's it right there. Yes. Is are the notes that people leave. Yes. Yes. Yes, that's great. But yeah, so really I'm going into this with the intention of understanding your supporters and knowing that there's somebody out there who is interested in supporting you. It is about Crafting a message, creating a message. It's like, Batman, the Batman signal that, this is what you're doing. So once they see the bat in the sky, they know that you're talking to them. Right? And all this stuff, most of the information should already be out there because you create a division or yours for your school. You have your value systems in place. You have your pillows. You have all of these things that explain who you are so long to do is take that information craft a message and send it out to the people. That you want supporting you in this Mission, it Mission and in this Vision to help you. Bro, you're my personal so that you can serve more students so you can pay your bills. So you start a new program or or whatever it is that you want to do and to do it with pride in what confidence knowing that some people are going to say. No, of course, right? But there are people who are going to say. Yes, absolutely. So I think it would be helpful to scale. Well, the conversation back a little bit. So, most people even before they get to the micro school or to try to do micro-credentialing, or whatever. Most people are going to start with a single course. And so the conversation that direction just a little bit to talk about what this looks like. So I think if people can imagine what it's like to tokenize a single course, then it's easier to scale that. In their minds about what this looks like as a micro school. So if you have a single fundraiser and this is contested area. If you have a single fundraiser, if you have a single scholarship, if you have a single course, what what does that look like? Can you give us the overview? Let's just start with a course, for example, right? So that because I know those things are a little different, but if you have a single course and you're on your way to building a school, what are some of the things that? People need to be thinking about I wouldn't even start with the single course, I would start with a workshop or a real a single loan debt. Because okay, what what are the things I like to do is to get people used to interacting with an mft. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. Going to start with something. That is not intimidating. Yes, that. Yes, exactly. So, if you have a course, Course means that I'm going to have to spend more time. Of course, could be more interaction, of course weeks is funny. So I'm going to start with, you know, a ninety nine dollar Workshop or 35 dollar Workshop. Something that is trainer that I don't mind taking out my credit card and buying without having to put a lot of thought into. I don't mind, you know, two hours on a Saturday with you to learn then, So how do you get people to attend this workshop and who is going to attend? Hmm. For this class is. So you start to say, who is this for? Mhm. So if your microscope is the workshop, going to be for the students, is it? The parents? Is it going to be? Are you inviting people from outside your community in? Or is it just for people in your community, right? So, Your purpose for having this class. And if you're thinking long, right, I'm going to do this. And from here, from this one Workshop. I'm going to do a course. And from this course, I'm going to do this Academy, right? This Then your purpose. Maybe I want people from the outside to come in. Mhm. Mhm, but writers to know that we exist and I'm going to be able to upsell them along the way. Yes. Yeah, right. That's, that's really helpful. Right? So that's how I look at it. We're going to start small that people don't have to give a lot of thought about, you know, most people, if it's under $25 because under$30, they don't think twice about buying it. Right? Right, right. And it's it's a small risk for them. I don't know what it is. But I really want to do this and they're going to walk me through how to buy it. I'm reading the FAQ so I don't have to have cryptocurrency. I can just get it card in order to do this. This is an automatic. Yes. Yes. Good. No, I think that's really helpful because I think when we talk about communities People will time scaling that in their minds. Like that seems very big for a lot of people, but if we can bring it down to even Lord, you know, less complex, then of course, and talk about a single event or a single item, but something to just get people started and get them used to operating in this web 3.0 world, then that's how you spread. This out the different, the ones people get comfortable with the technology in. You can start to imagine how it can show up in your community. Yes, that is it. And so, you know, starting off with selling an e-book starting off with a small little class started. Hey, you know what? I'm not even going to sell you anything. We're just going to give this nft. So that I can show you how to have a crypto wallet, right? We're gonna walk, you step by step on how to do this. Maybe you might even have an after-school program on how to interact, you know, you know. And if that's something you're interested in, let me know, that's right. And I was going to say, you know what? I'm gonna throw down a challenge right now. I want people listening to this. I want you to think about the Polite, mm, event that you could tokenize. So build it, or maybe it's already built, and, you know, piece it together and call Contessa, or we don't call people anymore message. Have fun and talk about. What would this Contessa? What would this look? Like? If I were to tokenize? This help me go through the steps. I already had it built out, or I'm going to build it out. Let's do this. Start, because we have to start this, we can't get left behind on this. No. No, it's definitely something that is going to eventually be something that we interact with every day. It is really low risk to go and start doing these things. Now, to start interacting oaken's, social tokens and ft's crypto, having your own cryptocurrency, which I don't suggest for someone. Who's that, you're going to be seeing these things as people talk about, learning the web, three terminology and how to reach you. And your micro school, so I will have information of where you can book your call. After you have decided. This is the one event. This is the one product. This is what I'm going to, what, I call token gate, which means have access to this and less. You have this nft. Okay? Okay, so I'm sitting here now and I'm thinking about my one item that I'm going to need your help with. Absolutely. Absolutely. I got it in mind and this is my call. This is my message. This is my text to Contessa. Then I'm going to need help with this so that we can move this to the next step. Because as I'm sitting here and it's not tokenized. I'm getting further and further behind and it's something that I'm missing. I have products and they're sitting in Gum Road. Why not tokenize them and have more control over my products. It is easier than you think it. Yeah, about how the language around crypto is, you know, confusing on purpose and I do is I make get digestible. I make it super easy. You don't have to know how a smart contract Works in order to you. Just like that's right. Electricity gets to your house in order to turn on your light switch. You just turn it on. And so what? We're going to do this. We're just going to turn it on and we're going to toe. Can I this one event? This run product. This one service in order to get your audience. Your supporters used to interacting with the token right now. I think this is great. I think I'll step that people can take that. I'm taking is a huge step towards thinking about the value of of all your products and services. Can about the value that you can bring to your community that you had no idea about. Then you cannot completely estimate sitting here right now and just knowing that you have supporters out there and you have people who are interested, once you tokenize because it gives them a different kind of outlook on what you're doing because it looks like you have stepped into 2022. Yeah, it looks really cool to talk. About. I have a token, you know, my school has it have t, my program has ended him and then, how did you get that? And then you can be like, well, Contessa, and dr. Kimberly said, that's right, all about this episode. And so I'm excited to see. I do 2 XP weeks. I have this experience often where people be like remember that time told me Back in 1978. When the first of all, why are you always telling me that's the first thing? But I know where y'all listen to me and when I think about tokenizing and if she's I think about Legacy issues or Legacy benefit. This is the conversation that we start today. This is a conversation. Once you get things set up, get an item or an event set up on the entropy. This is something we're going to be talking about 30 years from now. That on this podcast Contessa. Dr. Kimberly suggested that I believe a blah and it changed everything for me. So this is going to be part of your conversation going forward. So start the conversation now. Oh, I love that. I love that so much. I think I am spent. I think me to say about this again, super excited. Think about your one thing. You'll want event, contact your one service that you can tokenize that you can toking gate contact. We'll sit down and we'll talk about what this will actually look like for you. Come up with the plan and yeah, just Loosely. Give it some thought. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so you get so your community can start interacting with with these tokens. So that when you are ready, ready to tokenize, complete tokenize, your micro school for you to completely decide that. Web 30 is the right path for me when you're ready to crowdfund, when you're ready to create, a fundraiser for your micro school. It won't be such a difficult thing to do, right? It will. Natural, because it will be the next step. That's right. That's right. Any last words? Dr. Kimberly, before we end the wonderful episode. So this is really exciting conversation and it is about lowering barriers. So once you get a new tribe with low risk, you can see what it is. You can look around, you can decide. Oh, wait a minute. This is not so bad and when in doubt, you know, go ask your kids. So there's they are less afraid of it, but I just want to invite, don't run away from the conversation. This is a conversation that we have to have. If anybody's talking to you about building a legacy in your business and they're not talking to you. They're not talking to you about tokenizing your community. You're not really having a legacy conversation now and they're keeping you in the past, because They are afraid themselves and Dicky next steps and there's nothing wrong with that. Right? But if you are, someone who is looking to say, how can I prepare for the business? How can I prepare to compete to be competitive and my business? And the next, you know, three years, you really have to look at web 30 and to get started. Today today today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. This has been an amazing episode of the coaches who build world's. Again. I am Contessa Louise Cooper, and I was joined by dr. Kimberly Douglas, and we will see you next time. Goodbye now and take care. Bye.