Online Learning Is The Future

This past month, I just created my third online course.

I created my first one, Dream Job Resume & Storytelling, several years ago because I was both intrigued by the developments in digital learning and wanted to stop helping people with resumes.

I created a few versions of that initial course and experimented with different pricing and positioning on Udemy. One lessons I learned was that Udemy is hard place to build a course because you have to put a lot of energy into standing out from a massive pack of submissions. It's hard to build trust outside of your own platform.

The experience was not a complete loss. I decided to make the course free and over the past couple of years, I've had a couple hundred people enroll in the course each month. What is even more surprising is how global this group of students is. Check out this map:

How cool is that?

I decided to spent 100 hours pulling together some PowerPoint slides and lessons on resumes together and over the next few years, thousands of people from around the world have sat in front of a computer, watched my monotone voice and taken my course.

"LIVE" Course Experience

Intrigued by how I could take online courses to the next level, I created an experiment for myself in the summer of 2018. I decided I was going to take a lot of the materials I developed as part of my coaching and writing work and turn it into a course called "Solopreneur Shift."

Eight brave souls joined me as part of the course and we had a short-lasting, but engaged community around launching side businesses or taking the leap to self-employment. One of our participants used the "creation challenge" to test a conference idea for her now launched "EconoMe Conference."

I knew I wanted to turn this course into an even better version, but that would be put on hold for at least a year as I decided to move across the world.

Going Deeper

After the positive feedback from both the resume course and the solopreneur shift course, I knew this was something I wanted to keep experimenting with.

Instead of improving the solopreneur shift course, I ended up creating a strategy consulting skills course. This emerged organically based on feedback from in-person workshops I had ran, conversations with friends and feedback from business leaders I ran mini online workshops with.

The way I was teaching these skills seemed to be a little simpler and more fun than they could find elsewhere.

So last November, I spent the entire month building the course. which took me about 250 hours of work. It was the most intense period of flow I've ever experienced.

While my initial "launch" was a flop, I ended up meeting someone who had some wisdom about digital marketing and he gave me a few different suggestions that helped me re-launch the business via a separate platform what is now StrategyU

Since this re-launch, we've had almost 100 students enroll in the course, have hosted our first Live Cohort (next one kicks off on October 1st) and have built a website that has grown from a few visitors per day to over 10,000 per month.

My Last 30 Days

Over the last 30 days and after three months of earning enough from StrategyU to support my living costs, I decided I should double down and build the course I really wanted to build: Reinvent.

For some reason, I decided that announcing to everyone that I knew that I would finish the course in 30 days was a good idea.

Similar to the consulting course, I finished this one again and experience another month of flowing ideas, creation and energy. I'm writing this as I am finishing the course and am about to fall over in a long nap, but that's besides the point.

In my first "cohort" of Reinvent (which also launches October 1st - I know I am crazy), we have people from the following countries:

• England
• Australia
• Romania
• US (Boston, NY & SF)
• Taiwan
• Vietnam
• Indonesia

We have former professional athletes, current solopreneurs, strength training coaches, full-time employees and other curious humans.

All of them are curious about the same thing I am: How do you reinvent and stay agile in our modern world without losing your mind.

How cool is this new emerging space?

People In "Rich Countries" Don't Get Online Learning Yet

I offer all my courses with a "gift economy" option where you can pay-what-feels-right. I offer this mostly for people in lower-wage countries who are motivated to learn.

When I first launched Think Like A Strategy Consultant, I received a lengthy e-mail from a young Malaysian man named Mustafa who detailed extensive reasons why he wanted to take the course, how it was going to help him and what it was worth to him.

He shared that the fee for the course would be a good portion of his monthly salary and wondered if I would offer a discount. Pumped by his motivation, I gladly sent the course to him as a gift, but that's not the point.

For Mustafa, self-learning is his default mode.  

Two years ago, I signed up for a course called "Learning How To Learn." It changed almost everything for how I think about learning, how I consume information and what I thought about the future of online learning.

The creator, Barbara Oakley, brought together information in a way that was fun, memorable and easy to implement. I realized that there would be an enormous opportunity for thousands of Barara Oakleys that can synthesize complex ideas that people want to learn.

Many people are scared of this shift and rightly so. Our job markets are demanding higher levels of skills than ever before which puts more pressure on the individual to continuously learn. For many, that can be terrifying.

But for people like Mustafa, online learning is the default mode for how they think about personal growth and development in today's world. I'm just hoping the "developed" countries don't get left behind.

Are you interested in joining one of these courses?

?? Think Like A Strategy Consultant Kicks Off October 1st with a meet & greet and your first assignment

?? Reinvent kicks-off October 1st and our first call is on Sunday October 6th with special guest - freelancer & meditation coach, Nita Baum