Udemy Strategy 2016-2018: Going from a few million to hundreds of millions

Strategy 2016 - 2018
Going from a few million to hundreds of millions

Objectives
• Take Udemy to >100 Million users.
• Enhance the student experience.
• Provide better tools and services for instructors.
• Increase revenue for instructors and Udemy.
• Develop strategic markets.
• Get Udemy on the global map and radar.
• Make Udemy an edtech Unicorn, valued at > $1 Billion.

The What
• A strategy to drive growth for Udemy and instructors that will provide
the best online educational experience for students all over the world
• The strategy presented is three fold, simple and effective and is
focused on three key principles:
 Start Doing
 Stop Doing
 Continue Doing

The Why
• At the current growth rate and with the current strategy Udemy will
take years to reach >100 Million users.
• Udemy needs to shift from the mentality of an “American” company
to the mentality of a Global company.
• Udemy needs to leverage on its current strengths but needs to
correct its weaknesses quickly.
• Udemy must invest in its platform, tools, processes, people and
instructors to drive growth and an enhanced learning experience.

The How
• Apply the recommended 3 fold strategy (Start, Stop, Continue)
• Follow the KIS principle: Keep It Simple.
• Go Agile. Deliver quickly and deliver often.
• Upscale for growth.
• Invest now to capitalize in the future.
• Take advantage of low hanging fruits.
• Focus on key priorities and key markets.

Start Doing
• Improve service and responsiveness. Go from Good to Great.
• 1-2 business days to reply is unacceptable and far from global standards.
• Udemy needs more support channels for both students and instructors (e.g. a
call center and live chat).
• Everyone at Udemy, needs to read these 3 books (especially its
leadership team):
• The Viral Loop.
• The Google Way.
• The Startup of You.

Start Doing
• Take Udemy to the NYSE or WeFunder: Allow instructors, employees
and students to invest in the company.
• Invest in VR or partner with a VR expert (e.g. Nearpod).
• Give international markets the importance they deserve:
• Conference calls accessible from different time zones and countries.
• Live events outside the U.S.
• Comms, events and conference calls in local languages (not just Eng.)
• Promote Udemy heavily in BRIC countries.

Start Doing
• Partner with Universities, Schools, Online Training providers and
Educational Centers from all over the world (e.g. Open Universities
Australia).
• Offer verified courses (e.g. a course from a verified University or
Institution and maybe verified instructors):
• A verified Uni should have a blue verified icon (like on twitter) to guarantee
that is actually the account of that University.
• If the decision is made to verify instructors it should be kept simple, for
example, validating their email, a mobile and maybe getting a copy of their
passport.

Start Doing
• Leverage on SMEs from Udemy’s community:
• Schedule focus groups with experts on Marketing and ask them how you
should market Udemy and what they would do differently.
• Schedule Hackathons and competitions for developers to develop
new functionalities for Udemy.
• Put them in Udemy’s “Hall of Fame” or Pay Them (give them a prize $$$).
• There are many developers that are part of Udemy, leverage on them.
• Raise global awareness about Udemy (e.g. TV Ads) – when I travel the
world and ask people about Udemy 80% haven’t even heard of it.

Start Doing
• Become a thought leader, early adopter and disruptive company.
• Schedule industry events such as the one’s from Apple and Google to bring
the best of edtech together.
• Give the homepage of Udemy a fresh and modern look every single
time. Tumblr is great at this.
• People get bored of the same page with the same courses displayed.
• Improve the discovery process:
• Finding a course should be easy and quick.
• I tested searching for a key word that was part of a course title and
description and the course didn’t come up in results :S.
• Instructors should be able to add tags to courses to help students with search.

Start Doing
• Provide advanced filtering (e.g. by course type: audio, video, mix).
• Allow more control of privacy (e.g. people should be able to make
their Wish List private).
• Launch an instructor app (you should do this quickly!)
• Instructors should be able to create courses on the go (mobile).
• Instructors should be able to reply to students and their reviews on the go.
• Instructors should be able to have the option to chat with students live (if
they choose to do so).
• Acquire innovative companies such as spoonfeedme.com.au

Start Doing
• Be more flexible and consider different learning needs:
• Allow slide lectures (just slides, no audio, no video). A lot of people love this
and a lot of people learn this way. Slideshare is an example of how successful
this is.
• Allow audio only lectures (just audio). People like this since they can learn on
the go or while doing something else (e.g. traveling, in the subway, train, car,
cooking, etc.) Podcasts are a perfect example of how successful this is.
• Lectures in Virtual Reality.
• Live lectures. Snapchap and Periscope are rapidly growing. What can you
learn from them? Apply it. Enable Live Lectures.

Start Doing
• Be more flexible and consider different learning needs:
• People like having the option of learning in different ways and in different
formats. But you’re right, slides are not for everyone. Nor is audio or video so
courses should include as part of their display icons and or words that allow
people to identify whether the course is only video, only audio, only slides or
a mix (mashup).

Start Doing
• Listen to people. Listen to your instructors. If a lot of them are telling
you the same thing, what are you waiting for?
• Foster a culture of innovation, customer focus, quality and excellence.
• Black Friday specials (one time huge discount).
• Local promotions for special occasions that apply to a country:
• E.g. Boxing Day in Australia (it’s like a black Friday)
• Give users discounts on the independence day of their country (only the day
of the independence day, only to those in that country).
• The discount option should display only in that location based on their IP
address.

Stop Doing
• Taking 1-2 days to provide a response to students or instructors
(support).
• Saying that you have limited engineering resources, please stop!
• Re-inventing the wheel e.g. doing tests and research to verify things
which have already been proven:
• Whether Audio lectures are valuable to students. Of course they are! Have
you heard of Podcasts?

Stop Doing
• Providing students that complete a course a lame certificate:
• Current design does not meet best design practices.
• The certificate should be provided to students via pdf and a link.
• Students should be able to print their certificate and feel proud of it.
• Students should be able to choose from different certificate templates.
• Certificates should be created by the best designers in Udemy. The best.
• Having a different experience in the mobile apps vs. desktop:
• Desktop is better, they should be the same or mobile better.
• Students need to be able to review a course from the mobile apps.
• Students should be able to easily contact instructors and Udemy.

Stop Doing
• Communicating releases to production only in Udemy’s blog or
Facebook group (no, a lot of people don’t check them regularly)
• Behaving like an “American” company that thinks “America” is the
center of the world:
• Scheduling conference calls at times which only suit the U.S. or countries in
the same time zone.
• Live events only in the U.S.
• Comms and notifications only in English.
• And on a side note, no “America” is not a country, it is actually a continent.
• Promotions every single day of the year. This does more harm than
good and it’s not strategic.

Stop Doing
• Forcing prices on the market.
• Instructors should be able to set the price they want, whatever it is.
• You can recommend the price range, but don’t force it.
• If an instructor decides to price a course at $400 and doesn’t sell much, he
will naturally change the price on his own. Let him make that decision.
• In the capitalist world (which is governed by demand and supply) market
forces set prices, not companies. So don’t behave like a communist country.
• Why are you afraid of opening prices? If an instructor wants to sell at $10 and
another one at $400, that’s ok. Having round numbers and increments helps
though (e.g. $5, $10, $15, $25 and so on…).

Stop Doing
• Forcing prices on the market.
• Having all courses priced in approx. the “same range” $20-$50 gives me and consumers the
impression that courses are relatively the same. And they are not!
• Prices reflect quality. For that reason a cheap smartphone can cost $100 but an Iphone
>$1000 and yes, people pay for that. And yes, people are willing to invest in their education
(trust me).
• If a $20 course is discounted 50% = $10, but for a $100 that would be $50. As a consumer, a
$10 saving is not much but $50 makes me think about it. Understand that all consumers are
different, you are working under the assumption they all behave equally. They don’t.
• Edx charges $70 for a verified certificate. And many people buy them. So STOP saying that
students are not willing to pay more than $50 for a course. That is not true! Not even in
emerging markets or third world countries.

Stop Doing
• Stop thinking that you are right because you had an “internal” debate
or discussion.
• Stop thinking you have nothing to learn because you are “big” and
have >15 Million users.
• Hindering creativity, openness and innovation:
• Let people create audio lectures (e.g. of why people love this: Podcasts).
• Let people create slide lectures (e.g. of why people love this: Slideshare).
• Understand that people learn differently and like having options.

Stop Doing
• Stop Thinking and Start Doing.
• Stop Complaining and Start Doing (no more, “we have limited
engineering resources”).
• Stop re-directing users to “Udemy for Business” every time they log
out. No, I’m not a business!
• Stop releasing to production without properly testing in UAT.
• Stop dictating what you release to production and what you think are
the priorities. Be transparent, show your backlog to Instructors and
allow them to vote (thumbs up) on real priorities for the community.

Stop Doing
• Stop vetting a Facebook posts because you don’t agree with them (as
long as they are written in a respectful manner, allow a constructive
debate).

Continue Doing
• Continue (keep) the reasons people love Udemy:
• Anyone can create a course.
• Anyone can make money.
• Anyone can learn.
• Lifetime access to courses.
• Money back guarantee.
• Learn at your own pace on any device.
• The business model (revenue sharing and fairness).
• Not having to pay recurring monthly fees (yes people hate monthly recurring
fees).
• Courses at fixed prices (a one time cost for a student, that is their preference).

Continue Doing
• Keep raising money and awareness.
• Continue Global Expansion, but focus on BRIC countries.
• If it’s not broken don’t fix it.
• Innovating, A|B testing, Live events, conference calls, etc.
• Making sure courses meet minimum quality standards (without going
to extremes).
• Providing training to instructors. Especially new instructors.
• Nurturing the Knowledge Base (support articles). Yes we love those!

Continue Doing
• Capping promotions so instructors don’t abuse them.
• Limiting comms from instructors to students so instructors don’t
spam students.
• Keep listening to your students.
• Keep listeting to your instructors.
• Pay attention to the market and competitors (benchmark all the
time).

The Man Behind This Strategy
And Why You Should Listen

Mauricio Rubio
• Decades of experience with technology and education.
• An expert PM and serial entrepreneur.
• A world traveler who has lived in 4 countries USA, Mexico, Colombia
and Australia (his home). He also speaks 3 languages.
• A man who works for a prestigious University ranked in the Top 1% in
the world and has direct contact with education and students.
• An Udemy instructor who wants to contribute and give back to the
community. Your success is our success.
“I´m not an ideal man, but a man of ideas.” -Khodorkovsky
MauricioRubio.com
Udemy.com/user/_mauriciorubio

Udemy Strategy 2016-2018: Going from a few million to hundreds of millions

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Udemy Strategy 2016-2018: Going from a few million to hundreds of millions