Thread by @gaganbiyani

A new online education revolution is happening.

I've been taking dozens of online courses recently that are 10x better than what was possible in 2008 when we started @udemy.

Educators, Influencers, Bootstrappers and Startups:
A thread about the future:

*Read On*

Some background:
In 2008, everyone thought "live education" was the future. We @udemy did too, but eventually pivoted into recorded content.

For 10 years most online courses were:
A) Recorded (watch when you want, like Netflix)
B) Low cost
C) Low engagement or completion rate

I worked @udemy for <4 years and took 6 years off from the sector.

In 2019, I started looking at it again.

WOW the changes are incredible. Now the best courses are:
1) Live (mostly on @zoom_us)
2) Varied costs ($1 to $15,000)
3) Community driven (consumers comfort online 📈)

For creatives, influencers or bootstrappers:
- You can build an ed business w/out capital; don't spend until you get paid
- Curriculum is key: there's lots of online videos, but putting it together is worth $

Startups:
- Help enable these people above and the prize is huge.

Now to break down 3 pillars (Live, Price, Community)

Live:
- @Zoom_us is low-cost. Don't pay until you have signups!
- Use the Q&A and Breakout room features to engage
- 8-12 min of talking, then 5-10 min of activity, back and forth
- Need 2 ppl: 1 monitoring and 1 teaching

Price:
- Low-cost courses are still possible! You can get 500+ students on one Zoom
- For high-end coaches, don't be afraid to price the same as your in-person content

*Reduce your prices during recession, so you can test/iterate until you get the offering right

Community:
This is the hardest part. Ppl are afraid to engage. Force them to engage early and often by:
- Breakout rooms during talk
- Live Q&A
- Force almost all questions to happen in Slack groups (use thread feature to manage)
- Encourage peer review/feedback

Add'l thoughts:
- Expect signup dip after COVID ends, but still higher than before COVID
- Add in-person events to help ppl engage w/ each other
- Start with live, get content right, then move to recorded
- Get feedback after almost every session (both survey and direct 1:1)

Final thoughts:
- Please reply to this thread for further questions
- If there is demand (DM me or @-reply), I'll put together a few webinars with my fave course creators

Also, thanks to @david_perell, @matthlerner, @theSamParr. Their courses inspired this thread!