“The internet will save higher education, but it may kill your alma mater.” — John Katzman
❓ What You’ll Learn
- How to validate demand?
- What are 8 examples of gamification in education?
- What are product ladders?
- What’s the Superstar Effect?
- How to help students learn faster?
- What are EDUpreneurs?
- How to build expertise in a vertical?
💎 Why It Matters
Students are learning from the best teachers around the world.
🔍 Problem
Teaching online requires you to sell, distribute, operate and teach.
You need to build these functions. Or get help.
💡 Solution
Education platforms help you focus on what you’re best at and outsource the rest.
🏁 Players
Instructors
- Sal Khan • Founder of Khan Academy
- Janelle Allen • Instructional Designer
- Andrew Ng • Co-Founder of Google Brain
- Ran Segall • Founder of Flux Academy
- Sam Julien • Instructor at Egghead
- Chris Do • Founder of The Futur
- Quincy Larson • Founder of FreeCodeCamp
- Zaire Allen • Founder of Love Circular
- Ali Abdaal • Youtuber/Author
Education Platforms
- Codecademy • Self-Paced Learning Platform for Technical Skills
- Flux Academy • Web Design Education Platform
- The School of Life • Online Education Organization and Marketplace
- Egghead • Software Engineering Education
- FreeCodeCamp • Non-Profit Software Engineering Platform
- Khan Academy • Non-Profit Education Platform
- Buildspace • Learn to Build on Ethereum with Solidity and Smart Contracts
- Replit • Collaborative, In-Browser IDE for Software Development
- Earn Your Leisure • Sports, Entertainment & Business Education
- Stoa School • MBA Alternative in India
- OnDeck • Online Career and Learning Community
- Kaggle • Machine Learning/Data Science Community
- Data Camp • Learn Data Science and Analytics
Courses
- The 6 Figure Freelance Designer • Become a six figure designer with Ran Segall
- Online Course Essentials • A primer on online courses with Janelle Allen
- Positioning and Lead Generation • Lead Generation course with Chris Do
- Build a Fullstack App from Scratch • Build a Next.js app with Scott Moss
- The Part-Time YouTuber Academy • Become a youtuber with Ali Abdaal
- Writing The Truth • Write a Memoir with Mary Karr
- AI For Everyone • Learn Artificial Intelligence with Andrew Ng
- Quality Assurance • Learn Quality Assurance Testing via FreeCodeCamp
- Introduction to SQL • The basics of SQL from Data Camp
🔮 Predictions
- The Superstar Effect will lead to asymmetric rewards for the best teachers.
- Andrew Ng teaches Machine Learning and AI via Coursera.
- Seth Godin writes, speaks and teaches across several mediums.
- Wes Bos creates courses and speaks on all things web development.
- Ali Abdaal found his voice on Youtube and teaches others to do the same.
- Chris Do teaches at the intersection of design and business through The Futur.
- More educators will become EDUpreneurs.
- Sarah Settanni became an online course creator after 5 years of teaching.
- Quincy Larson was a school director before launching FreeCodeCamp.
- Chris Do taught design at the college level before starting The Futur.
- Gamification will become a common strategy in education.
- Uxcel makes lessons interactive.
- Class Dojo helps kids learn through play.
- Boddle adapts their curriculum to students’ capabilities.
- Zogo Partners helps people earn while learning finance.
- DuoLingo tracks daily streaks to keep students engaged.
- SoloLearn offers a game development course using Javascript.
- MinecraftEdu offers coding courses in the form of interactive games.
- Kaggle hosts competitions with themes such as Titanic and basketball.
☁️ Opportunities
- Presell to validate demand and frontload market risk. Janelle Allen shows you how to do this.
- Ran Segall pre-sold his first course to gauge the demand.
- Janelle Allen pre-sold an email marketing course due to direct requests.
- Build expertise in a vertical.
- Ali Abdaal creates content on productivity and entrepreneurship.
- Lenny Rachitsky writes about and teaches product management.
- Seth Godin focuses on creativity and self improvement.
- Build tight feedback loops to help students learn faster.
- Replit helps developers solve problems immediately with their in browser IDE.
- FreeCodeCamp provides real time previews to help students learn to code.
- Uxcel shares corrections immediately.
- Build product ladders.
- Janelle Allen sells her Pricing Playbook for $29, an Essentials course for $97 and her Online Course program for $1,997.
- Wes Bos offers a Javascript course for free, Node.js course for $82 and master package JS course for $97.
- Chris Do offers a Carousel Template kit for $19, a Legal kit for $99, and a Brand Messaging kit for $299.
- Build an education platform.
- Chris Do started The Futur after 15 years of teaching.
- Joel Hooks built Egghead to help a friend sell courses online.
- Ran Segall started Flux Academy after making $9,000 on a single course.
- Quincy Larson built FreeCodeCamp as a side project to teach programming.
- Clément Mihailescu built AlgoExpert after a period of interview preparation.
- Sal Khan created Khan Academy on the side of his analyst job for public good.
- Farza Majeed started Buildspace after starting and building multiple companies.
🏔️ Risks
- Format Risk • Self-paced courses may have lower completion rates. Cohort-based courses are more expensive and less accessible.
- Certification Hell • Some certifications don’t help students secure jobs. Perform thorough research on certificates to save time and money.
🔑 Key Lessons
- Choose a meaningful niche. Several instructors can teach the same topic and succeed. Different students connect with different teachers.
- Give students agency. Let them choose what and how they learn.
- Learning how to learn is just as important as what you learn.
🔥 Hot Takes
- Being the best teacher in your school, town, city or state will become less valuable as rewards flow to the best teachers in the world.
- Theory will be learned through practice. See applied education institutions such as the Bloom Institute of Technology.
😠 Haters
“Online education is not the same as in-person education.”
You’re right. It’s not the same. In-person education may have higher engagement due to physical presence. Online education offers access to the best instructors in the world.
“What does ‘best’ in the world mean? Isn’t this subjective?”
Yes, however, greatness has common threads. Instead of students being forced to learn from millions of mediocre teachers, they’ll learn from hundreds of world-class instructors. This is the end of average.
🔗 Links
- Who should I talk to about education platforms?• The tweet behind this report.
- 1 Man, 1 Computer, 10M Students • An overview with Khan Academy’s Sal Khan.
- Education for Everyone • A speech by Andrew Ng at Stanford School of Business.
📁 Related Reports
- Online Courses • Distribution and tooling are key to online education.
- The Creator Economy • Education platforms help instructors become creators.
- Personal Brands • Teachers are becoming rock stars.
- Paid Communities • Connect and grow with other lifelong learners.
- Ecosystems • Education platforms are aggregators at their core.
🙏 Thanks
Thanks Shubham Agarwal, Breno Ferreira, Sari Azout, Yarty Kim, Ashwin, Kevin Galang, Ab Advany, Maciej Cupial, Prabhjot Singh Lamba and Tom Arbuthnot. We had a great time jamming on this report.
✏️ Devin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.
📈 What else?
Trends PRO #0086 — Education Platforms has more insights.
What you’ll get:
- 22 Instructors (144% More)
- 51 Education Platforms (292% More)
- 33 Courses (266% More)
- 9 Predictions (200% More)
- 10 Opportunities (100% More)
- 4 Hot Takes (100% More)
- 10 Links (233% More)
With Trends Pro you’ll learn:
- (📈 Pro) Which platform has helped 40,000+ people become developers?
- (📈 Pro) Which 2 education platforms help students find high-paying jobs?
- (📈 Pro) How are 7 instructors collaborating and cross promoting?
- (📈 Pro) What are 5 examples of superstar instructors and the platforms recruiting them?
- (📈 Pro) What are 3 examples of edutainment platforms?
- (📈 Pro) What are 6 examples of companies launching their own education institutions and certifications?
- (📈 Pro) How to take an iterative approach to teaching?
- (📈 Pro) How to build an education funnel?
- And much more…
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