Thought Leaders in Online Education: Greg Smith, CEO of Thinkific (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How much of this is pure content subscription versus interactive tutoring or teaching? In 1M1M, we have a digital curriculum. Our basic program is a monthly subscription. In the premium, it’s an all-you-can-eat annual subscription. Additionally, in the premium program, we have online mentoring that goes with the asynchronous curriculum.

Greg Smith: It varies from course creator to course creator. We recently launched a feature called Communities where you can create a community in your site. You can have multiple communities. You can put people into different communities and engage with them there. It’s like having your own Facebook group except on your own site. Some people are engaging at that level.

We have another thing where clients can submit assignments. You can grade the assignments and return it to them. That’s another lower level of engagement. The next level up is the live online group coaching. I see people doing that. Usually it’s a value-add or maybe that’s part of why you’re paying for the recurring subscription.

I also see people adding in one-on-one coaching calls. There are even people going further who meet in person. People are doing the full gamut. The trend I’m seeing though is that the people who are charging more or making more are starting to introduce some level of engagement with their students.

It creates a much better experience. It creates better results. It creates a more sustainable business for you because you have something where people are getting more value and more results, which means they’re more likely to come back.

Sramana Mitra: Very interesting. Given what’s going on in the space, a lot of it talks to similar desires on the part of the consumers to both consume asynchronous content as well as engage live with the person who’s teaching.

What do you see in the various platforms and how are they evolving? How is Udemy evolving along those vectors? How is Pluralsight along those vectors? How are they similar or different in their evolution to where you are going?

Greg Smith: There are a few big market trends that we’re seeing. One is this idea that any individual or small business with a passion or knowledge base can go build a course or membership and make a difference. That is an amazing trend. That is fuelled by a few other big market forces out there.

One of them is this concept of just-in-time versus just-in-case education. Some of the data is suggesting that over 70% of adults consider themselves lifelong learners. You see people looking for education when they need it which is just-in-time as opposed to just-in-case which is college or university.

In careers, we are switching so often. We are looking for promotions and raises. We are looking to do self-improvement. We are looking to acquire a new skill or hobby. That’s where we look for that just-in-time education. It’s interesting to see the shift in this.

Even if you’re a 65 empty nester who’s looking to pick up a new skill, you would have to look up the community college night course and wait a few months. Now you just go straight to Google or YouTube. Next thing you know, you’re on an online course. You learn the skill that weekend instead of waiting a month to start. That’s a really interesting trend.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in Online Education: Greg Smith, CEO of Thinkific
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