89 - Online Education Surfaces

How to build an online learning product that sticks 🔨

July 19, 2021

The Connection | 2021.07.19 | Issue 89

This year, online education startups are raising funding left, right, and center: 

  • February 2021 - Reforge ($20 million Series A)

  • March 2021 - OnDeck ($20 million Series A)

  • May 2021 - Maven ($20 million Series A)

How ambitious people learn continues to shift from “let me Google ALL the things” to “just give me one place where I can learn it all.”

Three recent examples in my own life:

  • I paid $25 for an hour-long video course on Decentralized Finance instead of patching together a dozen blog posts

  • I hate shopping for clothes, so for

  • I’ve been toying with taking Cantonese lessons. Rather than research weekend classes, I’d signup for private tutoring from a language learning marketplace

The pop in investment in online education raises the question:

It’s generally accepted in the online course world that completion rates are in the single digits. Based on my experience, this sounds both correct and abysmal, at the same time.

But what are we benchmarking it against? Is a traditional school much better? How do the numbers change with better material? With better instructors or students?

Or a better product? 

Online education products break down into a few standard components: 

  • Methods (how the user learns)

  • Value promises (what the user gets)

  • Surfaces (where they get it) 

By mixing and matching these components, we’re able to strategically build a “stickier” learning experience. 

I wrote about how you can break down these components (and build them back up) in this article. 

Someone else you think should read this? Please share with them.

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