What’s the first thing you think about when you hear the words “financial freedom?” There’s a good chance you start imagining trading stocks, keeping an eye on your 401K, or following the Dow. But financial advisors Russ Morgan and Joey Mure want to change that.

It all started in 2017. The pair started thinking about how they could teach people to become their own bankers. They believed that generating passive income was the key to gaining financial freedom and decided to start a coaching initiative, Wealth Without Wall Street, to prove it.

They knew that once people understood how their money could work for them, they could control their own investments, instead of leaving them in the hands of the financial market. And according to the brand’s Director of Marketing, Thomas Coiner, they knew they could do it without touching Wall Street:

Around the same time, Russ and Joey also started a podcast to accompany the concepts they were sharing through their coaching. When their podcast audience skyrocketed, they started to consider how they could grow their brand as well.

First, they went with the most familiar option: Facebook Groups. But it didn’t take long for the pair to see how and where the platform wasn’t serving them:

The team started searching for a place where they could spark deeper engagement and bring a greater value to their growing audience.

Russ and Joey also wanted to be able to spend less time running a community. They figured if they could put a robust membership in place, they would be able to build a community that basically ran itself:

Eventually, they found Mighty Networks and a brand new vision. Mighty Networks offered them cultural software. This was more than just a tool to build a digital community. It allowed Wealth Without Wall Street to be more than a basic coaching venture.

It could be a place where their followers could create deep, lasting connections around their passion for the topic of developing financial freedom. And Russ and Joey’s team would have a dedicated space to teach the key concepts.

Plus, because they were choosing Mighty Pro, their branded native apps would give Russ and Joey a sense that Wealth Without Wall Street belonged to them, not another app:

Their decision made, the Wealth Without Wall Street team got to work.

Their first action item? To figure out what their members looked like. They knew they had a lot of potential members, based on the number of people listening to the Wealth Without Wall Street podcast. And fortunately, that helped them get a pretty good idea of their ideal members fairly quickly:

Next step? Laying out the structure and pricing of their community. Russ, Joey, and their team started with a paid model, charging $39.99 per month or $400 a year for membership access.

But a month in, they started thinking bigger. Was there a way that they could offer educational materials for free and more premium content at a paid level, and still beef up their numbers?

They decided the answer was to shift to a freemium model. That way, the Wealth Without Wall Street team wasn’t just committing to giving their community members a high-value experience. They were also committing to the membership’s future impact.

To pump up the added value, the team put paywalls in place. That way, members that wanted to go deeper and get more information could pay for access to a group or course within the Wealth Without Wall Street community.

The team also made sure that the handful of people who had already paid for membership would be taken care of. Those paid members instantly got free access to the All Things Infinite Banking Concept bundle—which included access to the IBC Inner Circle mastermind, plus two courses—which was priced at $39.99 per month for new members on the free plan:

With their initial members onboard, the burgeoning community moved forward.

Fast forward to present day: The Wealth Without Wall Street community has over 4,500 members. And that number is growing:

Thomas, who runs day-to-day operations in the membership, says his main focus is to bring two things into the community: inspiration and education. The inspirational side, he says, comes from the engagement within the community. Meanwhile, the education side comes from the membership’s courses and groups:

Each of the community’s courses is bundled with access to a corresponding group. Courses that cover basic concepts, like Financial Freedom 101 and IBC 101: Understanding Infinite Banking, are typically free for members to access. If community members are looking to dive deeper, Wealth Without Wall Street also offers paid access to a variety of courses, groups, or the community’s mastermind group:

In addition to courses and groups, here’s what else the Wealth Without Wall Street community offers:

Topics. The team uses the Topics feature to organize posts on different financial concepts, like Real Estate, Lending, Personal Growth and more.

Weekly live Q&As. Every Thursday, Wealth Without Wall Street launches an episode of their podcast, both to the community and the world at large. Then every Tuesday, they use the Events feature to host an exclusive Q&A within the community with the prior week’s podcast guest:

Weekly session with Russ or Joey. While Thomas runs the day-to-day operations of the community, Russ and Joey check in too. Once a week, they’ll host a live or pre-recorded session where they talk about a certain topic that relates to financial freedom and infinite banking.

Guest instructors. Wealth Without Wall Street also invites guests to teach their community about different passive income paths, from land flipping to short-term rentals.

One thing that makes these resources resonate big time with members? Native mobile access. Thomas says that the app has been crucial in terms of encouraging engagement:

So what is this community’s plan for the future? To grow, grow and keep on growing:

Meanwhile, Wealth Without Wall Street will continue to guide members on the path to financial freedom—and prove that it’s a lot easier than most people think:

1. Memberships are a great way to monetize your expertise without taking up all of your time. One of Russ and Joey’s motivations with the Wealth Without Wall Street community was to find a way to share their knowledge, while not having it take up all of their time. If you structure your community right, it can essentially run itself.

2. A freemium model can be extremely valuable. By switching to a freemium model early on, Wealth Without Wall Street has been able to bring in a greater number of people who they can nurture as paying members (many later buy one of the community’s premium offerings).

3. Native mobile apps can be a huge boon to your business. The truth is, we’re always on our phones. And that’s why native mobile apps can be a huge win for your business: They keep your community at the forefront of your member’s minds (and bring them back them when you have cool events and conversations are happening).