Lessons - The Brutal Truth About Why Most Online Courses Are Dying | Wes Kao - Marketing Executive, Entrepreneur, and Advisor

Today's success story podcast is brought to you by Van to now listen up this matters for your business and today's digital landscape security isn't optional it's essential without it deal stall sales cycle stretch out and scaling becomes really difficult why because investors customers partners they all expect businesses to demonstrate strong security practices before they commit to anything and if you can't prove trust you lose opportunity so whether you're a startup founder trying to lend that first big client or an established company scaling your security program vanta helps businesses of all sizes prove their trust worthy by automating compliance across 35 frameworks like sock 2 ISO 2701 and hipa the exact certifications your prospects your customers are demanding and here's why you need to pay attention vanta gives you back precious time you're currently wasting on compliance their platform automates up to 90% of the tedious compliance work and it helps you respond to those endless security questionnaires up to five times faster and they also connect you with experts to get your security program running immediately in the results they speak for themselves a recent IDC report found that vanta customers achieve over 535 thousand dollars per year in benefits and the platform pays for itself in just three months so join over 10,000 global companies like Atlassian, Kora and factory who use vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time and don't miss this for a limited time only my listeners can get a thousand dollars off vanta that's real money back in your pocket visit vanta dot com slash scott now before this offer expires that's v-a-n-t-a dot com slash scott for thousand dollars off in this lessons episode explore cohort based learning an interactive model combining accountability hands on practice and expert led instruction discover how it helps professionals up skill offering practical industry relevant skills beyond traditional education and MOOCs just to tee it up for cohort based learning I just want to understand from your perspective and for people that are listening to this who don't know what cohort based learning is because that's going to that's what maven is what is it replacing is it replacing like MOOCs is it replacing university what is who who would benefit from this and who have you found to be the target audience for a cohort based learning front core based courses are really simple it's learning online with a group of people with a set start and end date so you might do a course with 30 other people on UX design over a two week period that's core based course you might do a course with a thousand people section four with professor galloway has a thousand people in their course but either way there's a lot more interactivity there's a lot more hands-on doing and it's not passively consuming content you're not just reading by yourself watching videos you're actually putting the lessons that you learned in practice so with this design course for example instead of reading about white space and color and balance and proportions you're actually designing a flyer using these principles and then maybe sharing a figment link in Slack where the other classmates and your instructor can critique your design and then everyone talks about it learns here's what this person dwell here's what could be where you could fix and it's much more about that hands-on doing so with core based courses what does it replace I like thinking about learning experiences not necessarily as as replacing something but adding another option for learners so there are times when you might want something that's pre-recorded you might want the flexibility to watch videos and and kind of get that information download from something especially through a beginner but then there are other times when you want to learn with a group of people and you want to actually put those lessons into practice and you want someone to keep your accountable you want that community and in that case a core based course is an amazing option same with you know does do core based courses replace higher education you know I get that I get that question a lot and I don't think especially in the short term it's going to replace higher education I think higher education is is no less so for the information that you're learning more so for the credential you know we still live in a society where a lot of jobs say four-year degree required right like bachelor's degree required and and it's kind of a gatekeeping tool to keep people out and so I totally get if people still want to do college because like that makes sense like in our current society I think more and more the beauty of the internet is that the internet allows you to show proof of work proof points of your ability so instead of saying I went to advertising school got you know they know what that is like an MFA or something whatever whether it's masters or not on a grad degree in advertising if I post it in ad every day on Instagram that's pretty cool like if if future employer sees thousands of re hundreds of ads that I've traded or mocked up or you know edited that's a great proof of work I'd much rather hire someone who has proof of work with either podcasts that they've created a blog that they've written articles in strand Twitter following that they've grown all of the shows their ability to build and their ability to ship much more than hey I studied mass comm in college so I think I think the the beauty of the internet is that it does open up much more opportunities for people to show their work and it also opens up opportunities to read a learn from amazing operators so with core based courses you know instead of learning from a professor of product management who hasn't been in industry for 25 years you can learn from Lenny or Jitski who was an early product manager at Airbnb now makes a living writing his sub sack newsletter and he has a product management course on maven and you can learn directly from him on what it took to be a successful product manager for him and and you know all the learnings that he's gathered along the way so it's much more practical it's much more concrete it's much more relevant and timely you know instead of learning about investing from professor again who you know is rooted in academia you can learn from Lee Jin who is a former VC at Andreessen Horowitz who now is her own firm she coined the term passion economy and is known for for investing in passion economy companies supporting passion economy founders so if you're if you're a fellow VC and you want to get in the in the creator economy game and start investing in that kind of company or if you're a founder of a creator economy type company like maven is who better to learn from than someone like Lee right and so I think that the exciting thing about core based courses is that it provides opportunities to supplement your your learning and to allow working professionals to continue retooling upscaling and deepening their craft I just want to take a second and thank cornbread ham for supporting today's episode now cornbread ham CBD gummies have been this really nice addition to my wellness toolkit I don't use them every day just when I want to win wine after those extra busy weeks but they're perfect for those moments when you want to take the edge off and just find your balance really just shut off from work or make some special is how cornbread ham perhaps them they only use a flower of USDA organic hamplants that's the best part for the purest most potent experience no fillers no artificial fluff just clean full spectrum goodness in delicious watermelon berry and peach flavor I keep them in my night stand for those moments when I just need a little extra help relaxing and I love how transparent they are to every batch is third party lab tests it's a you know exactly what you're getting and they put together a special offer for all success story podcast listeners all listeners can save 30% off their first order just head to cornbread ham dot com slash success and use code success at checkout that's cornbread ham dot com slash success code success for 30% off your first order of these amazing dummies from people who are actually doing an act that's actually bringing a full circle to actually the first point you made about that ideal employee who is somebody who can execute and if you want to be that ideal employee if you want to be the employee like you know of the future who can be creative to take on challenges and to not just ideate on them but to actually execute on them well this is a great way to start turning yourself into one of those people because now you're letting people that have actually done those things so if you want to for if you're a marketer and you want to for example did to go back to your your example to run videos on LinkedIn well maybe you should be learning from somebody who's actually executed on that successfully so that you can now figure out step by step how to execute on that successfully and learn every single piece that could eventually do that and to even put it in front of a manager or a leader versus taking a more academic lens to that topic that you want to learn about and then you're like learning theoretical about how to optimize for conversions or how to you know how to set up a campaign like you can actually work with somebody who's done it before and I think that that also that that the person who is that kind of employee who does take action and who does not just ideate on things with builds builds things that could also be the ideal consumer of a cohort based course realistically that's I just I'm just trying to think about like the the personality that would also enjoy this and find it useful be somebody who is a doer who wants to learn the practical step by step yeah absolutely I think if you if you want to sit back and you know kick your feet up cross your arms and wait for someone to entertain you a core base course isn't right for you if you're ready to dive in and do the work and you want to learn by doing hands-on whether it's with exercises projects breakouts shipping actual copy that you're writing that's that's what a court base course is great for it provides that is a lot of availability exactly yeah I was going to say because every like there is so with the core big cohort based course excuse me there's accountability for everything that you're putting out and and you have peers you have your instructor and you're working one-on-one every step of the way everything that you're learning everything you have to ship things you have to create things in a cohort based course usually and then that's part of the the accountability piece to yeah I think the other part of accountability is that just by virtue of you having paid a premium for a course you're way more likely to take it seriously so I personally signed up for you know $10 or $15 you to me courses I think I have one on classical music appreciation and one on hand lettering calligraphy where I watched maybe 15 minutes of the first lecture and then said oh I'm going to come back to this later and five years later it's still gathering digital dust so yeah right like that's there's no accountability there there's no there's no skin off my back if if I don't go back it's only you know ten fifteen bucks whereas most core based courses are in the the several hundred dollar range or a few thousand dollar range so if you're paying let's say seven hundred fifty dollars to learn this topic there's a certain there's there's way more commitment on you the learner even if even if you know the instructor isn't bringing down your neck or coaches aren't bringing down your neck it's it's something that you already feel committed to that's why you're even even paying this not doing this course in the first place so it's it's kind of like a personal trainer at the gym right like theoretically we could all work out in our living room from YouTube videos why don't we all do that because life gets in the way we get distracted no one's holding us accountable no one notices if we don't do it right whereas if if I've paid a personal trainer you know seven bucks an hour hundred bucks an hour um you bet I'm going to show thanks for tuning in if you found this valuable don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and if you want to dive deeper into this conversation check out the links in the description to watch the full episode see you in the next one