Wealth Nation Deleted 900 Members, Then Made Six Figures

Carmen and Darius run Wealth Nation Money School. They’re financial educators with a YouTube channel, a ton of free content, and a deep desire to build something real. They wanted courses. They wanted community. They wanted to actually connect with their people.

But every platform they tried was a compromise. Courses here, community there, membership as an afterthought. They felt like they were piecing together a jigsaw puzzle where half the pieces were from different boxes.

Then they met me. I told them, “Look, I’m building something. Be patient. It’ll be the place where all that stuff lives together.”

They waited until their ribs were showing.

When GroupApp launched, they jumped in. And then they proceeded to make every mistake in the book before accidentally stumbling into a six‑figure business in less than a year.

This is their story. It’s messy, it’s hilarious, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever been part of.

The Beginning: “Let’s Build the Biggest Financial Education Community Ever”

Wealth Nation had a solid foundation: a YouTube channel with hundreds of free videos. People also loved Carmen and Darius, and they showed up for the energy, the banter, the real talk about money.

So when they decided to launch a community, their first instinct was pure, beautiful ego.

“Let’s make it free,” they said. “Let’s get as many people as possible. Let’s build the biggest financial education community the internet has ever seen.”

I loved the energy. I also knew what was coming.

They mentioned it a few times in their videos. Two months later, 900 people had joined.

“You were expecting almost a thousand people in two months?” I asked.

“No,” Darius admitted. “But the numbers were realistic. People love free content.”

Carmen was quietly proud. “There are very few times when you have an expectation, and it’s actually met. Then you’re like, oh, I don’t know if this was a good idea.”

It wasn’t.

The Free Fall: 900 People, Zero Engagement

Here’s what they didn’t anticipate: those 900 people had a different level of investment. They’d clicked a link from YouTube, a place where they already got everything for free, and landed in a new space. What did they do?

Nothing.

“There was no engagement,” Darius said. “No commitment. No true investment.”

Carmen added, “We’ve always heard that people who pay attention. And that’s exactly what we saw. Free people? They don’t pay attention.”

They’d post something. Crickets. They’d ask questions. Silence. The community was a ghost town with 900 tombstones.

I watched from the back end and saw zero activity. I saw Carmen’s excitement drain.

One day I called them up.

“I think we should delete everybody and start over.”

Carmen’s face went white. “That’s rude! How are you just going to delete people?”

Darius was quieter. He was already doing the math in his head.

The Hard Conversation: “What’s the Problem?”

I had to be the black‑and‑white guy. “Look at the community,” I said. “When’s the last time somebody posted? When’s the last time somebody responded to anything?”

We opened the community together. Scrolled through weeks of silence.

“They probably don’t even remember their passwords,” I said. “We’re not hurting anyone.”

Carmen took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

But inside, she was hurting. She’d poured effort into those 900 people. They’d come because of her. Deleting them felt like erasing a piece of her work.

Darius, though, was already looking forward. “At the end of the day,” he said, “I’d rather have 20 people who pay attention to what we’re teaching and get massive value, than 900 people who don’t.”

“If you can get 20 people to join something, you can get 100. You can get 2,000.”

That was the pivot.

The Relaunch: No Videos, No Slides, Just an Outline

We decided to start over, but this time, we’d do it differently.

“Don’t build anything,” I told them. “Just launch with an outline, a syllabus, and ask people what they want.”

They looked at me like I had three heads.

“We have all these courses we could upload.”

“No. You’re going to do a live workshop. Four weeks. Zoom. You’re going to show up, teach, and let them tell you what they need.”

They were terrified. “What if nobody signs up?”

“Then we only wasted four emails.”

I remember the look they gave me, but they trusted me.

We sent an email to their list; nothing big, just a quiet invitation, saying, “We’re building something new. Come be a founding member. Tell us what you want to learn.”

We didn’t have a price yet. We’d figure that out later.

Forty‑seven people signed up.

The Live Launch: Zoom, Sweat, and Magic

We started the first live workshop. Four weeks, once a week, just them and their founding members. No prerecorded videos. No fancy slides. Just Carmen and Darius being themselves, teaching, asking questions, listening.

The engagement exploded.

“People were having so much fun,” Carmen said. “They were sharing, they were connecting, they were asking for more.”

They extended the workshop by two weeks. Then two more. What was supposed to be a four‑week onboarding became a six‑week love fest.

“We didn’t want to overcommit,” Darius admitted. “But we recognized what our members needed. We had to be flexible.”

I watched from the side, grinning. This was the good stuff.

The Price Jump: From $10 to $119 (Yes, Really)

While the founding members were falling in love with each other, we had to figure out the business side.

Wealth Nation had been on Patreon, charging $10 a month. It was fine, but it wasn’t the community they wanted.

One day, I called them. “We’re going to charge $119 a month. Or $997 a year.”

Silence.

“Don’t be scared. People who pay attention. And you’re going to invest your time in them. You want the highest level of engagement you can get.”

They were thinking $25.99. Maybe $30.

“No. You’re going to charge what you’re worth. Trust me.”

They took a breath. They said yes.

Some of their old $10 Patreon members moved over. Some of the founding members didn’t blink.

“We weren’t really assessing our value as well as we thought,” Carmen said later. “We were like, we can only charge $10. But people were like, yeah, I’ll pay $100 for it.”

The Engagement That Became Marketing

Within months, the community was humming. People weren’t just showing up for Carmen and Darius; they were showing up for each other.

“The level of engagement has been so outstanding,” Carmen said, “that people join now because they want to see Donna Berry in the classes. He has really thoughtful questions.”

I laughed. “That’s not why they join.”

“It is!” she insisted. “They see the discussions, the support, the energy. They want to be part of that.”

Darius put it simply: “It’s allowing us to step back from the Darius and Carmen show and let our members stand up, level up, and share their visions for themselves.”

The community became self‑sustaining. People recruited people. Members brought their friends. The engagement was the marketing.

The Value Ladder: From One‑Time Courses to Live Coaching

Now they have two offerings:

• The Self‑Paced Path: $129 one‑time. All the recorded courses from the first year, plus a library of resources. Perfect for people who want to learn on their own schedule.
• The Live Coaching Program: $119/month or $997/year. The ongoing live workshops, coaching calls, and deep engagement. The thing that turns students into a community.

“We wanted to monetize our initial YouTube traffic,” Darius explained. “Give them a ridiculous offer like all our courses for one price. Then, if they want the live experience, they upgrade.”

Carmen added, “We did surveys. We asked people what they wanted. And we just built what they said.”

The result was a six‑figure business in less than a year. (And yes, they’re on track to double it this year.)

The Playbook (So You Can Steal It)

I asked Carmen and Darius to share their biggest takeaways. They didn’t hold back.

1. Start small, grow big.

“People don’t join a community because it’s big,” Darius said. “They join because it’s good. If you can get 20 people, you can get 100, then 2,000. Launch small. Grow big.”

2. Ask what people want. Stop assuming.

Carmen’s lesson: “Those surveys were amazing. Asking at the end of a class, ‘What do you want?’ people will tell you. Build an environment where they feel comfortable saying how they really feel. Then you’re on the fast track.”

3. Don’t build everything at once.

“Launch a minimum viable community,” Darius said. “Just an outline. Just a Zoom call. Focus your energy on marketing and selling, not on pre‑recording 15 videos that nobody might watch.”

4. Commit for a year.

“If you’re not committed for at least a year of testing and iterating,” Darius said, “don’t build a community at all. You’re going to make mistakes. You might have to start over. That’s normal.”

5. Attach value to the membership.

“When we launched for free, we were like, ‘Hey, this is a place to have discussions.’ Nobody cared,” Darius said. “Launch with something valuable like a workshop, a coaching program, a clear reason to be there.”

6. Price for engagement, not just affordability.

“The price point changes the audience, the conversation, the commitment,” Carmen said. “We wanted to be challenged. We wanted people who would challenge us. That meant pricing up.”

7. Don’t be afraid of burning it all down.

“We were scared to delete 900 people,” Carmen admitted. “But sometimes you have to let go of what isn’t working to make room for what will.”

The Part That Made Me Laugh (and Cry a Little)

After we finished the interview, Darius looked at me and said, “Our goal is to keep breaking GroupApp so it can be better for everybody.”

I laughed. “You’re welcome,” he added.

But the truth is, they didn’t break anything. They showed me what a community could be when you let people show up, engage, and own the space. They taught me as much as I taught them.

And the 900 people we deleted? Most of them probably don’t even know. But the 47 founding members? They built something that’s still growing.

Build Your Community Today

If you’re sitting on a YouTube channel, a course idea, or just a group of people who love what you do, stop waiting. Start small. Launch with an outline. Ask what they want. Charge what you’re worth. Be ready to burn it down and start over if you have to.

And when you’re ready to put it all in one place (courses, community, coaching, the whole messy, beautiful thing), see what GroupApp can do for you.