Product Case Study: Product Development Lifecycle | Cohort Based Courses (Part-1)

8 min readJan 17, 2022

In this series of posts on a product development journey, we are going to look at, and experience the different stages a product goes through in its lifecycle. Our objective is to try to solve users' problems and address the pain points as we progress further.

This is the first part of the journey and the tasks are -

Part 1

Define the problem statement
Target customers and market
Competitor Research
Feature table analysis

Part 2

Customer Discovery
User pain points Identification
Identify possible solutions

This case study is a part of ProductHood’s APM fellowship program and I’ve had the pleasure of working with an amazing team — Kopal Jaiswal, Pavan Preetham Immandi, Sambhaji Sawant, and Dheeraj Tiwari. Thanks guys! 😀🥂

The Product: Cohort based courses platform for experts and students

Problem Statement: Develop an easy-to-use learning platform for educators and learners that helps educators create and launch learner-centric courses quickly and provide learners an environment of social and active learning.

Product Vision: For educators who are looking for tools, assistance, and on-demand support to achieve their goal of a seamless teaching and mentoring experience, we envision the platform to be a one-stop solution.

For students who are looking to boost their learning experience by connecting to instructors and building a community of fellow enthusiasts, we envision the platform to provide all the necessary means to achieve their goals.

Market Analysis 📊:

(Demography: India)

E-learning, or electronic learning, refers to a modern education solution used to gain knowledge through digital technologies and devices. It helps in delivering various courses, programs, and degrees through online media.

Indian E-learning market is one of the fastest-growing ones in the world 📈

The Indian e-learning market is primarily driven by the favorable initiatives undertaken by the Government of India to initiate distance education programs to provide easy access to education. It has adopted integrated e-learning solutions in the education system and developed internet infrastructure. With the ongoing spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), various e-learning schemes have been introduced for balancing the education sector.

The e-learning market that stood at $247 million in 2016 is now expected to reach $1.96 billion by the end of 2021 with a CAGR of 52%

The key trends in the market are:

What are Cohort-Based Courses (CBC)?

A cohort-based course in its basic form is an online course where a group of students (the cohort) starts learning at the same time and progresses through the course with a mix of live classes from the mentor, peer-based learning and collaboration, projects, and assignments.

Cohort-based courses are also known for creating a network of graduated students who help the upcoming students learn, progress, and ultimately grow together to achieve their individual and collective goals.

The success of CBCs is attributed mainly to:

Target Customers 🎯:

Based on market research and industry trends, we have been able to group our target segments as follows:

Competitor Research 🏬:

The soaring number of ed-tech startups has brought healthy competition to a market that currently is too big a pie. We have divided our competitors into two distinct segments viz. ‘same offerings as ours’ (Direct competitors) and ‘different offerings to reach the same goal’ (Indirect competitors)

Direct Competitors (DC):

GrowthScool
Maven

Indirect Competitors (IC):

Upraised
Teachfloor

DC1 — GrowthSchool: Overview

About — GrowthSchool is an ed-tech startup that partners with the top 1% of instructors to create high-impact cohort-based courses on personal and professional growth for learners all over the world.

Goal — To partner with the top 1% of instructors to create high-impact cohort-based courses on personal and professional growth for learners all over the world.

Founder — Vaibhav Sisinty

Funding — Pre-seeded

Business Model — Marketplace for Cohort-based courses. Currently, Revenue is generated from course Buyers only and 3rd party vendors who partner with GS to promote their products.

Management team — 10 members

Mentors including the likes of Sarvesh Shashi (Founder — Sarva), Ajeet Khurana (Founder — ZebPay), Raj Shamani (Digital Content creator & Investor), and Devaiah Bopanna (Co-Founder All Things Small)

Revenue — Out of 1.8 lakh learners, 75k is paid, customers. Estimated revenue — FY22 — $4.5million

Total no. of students — 180000 || Total no. of Mentors -50 || Average Rating — 9.1

DC2 — Maven: Overview

Product Description: Maven’s vision is to build a “ university of the future” that will empower creators to offer cohort-based courses directly to their audiences focusing on community-driven active learning that can be availed from anywhere around the world.

Business Model: Maven meets the demands of both creators and learners by offering a suite of services to assist creators in developing and managing cohort-based courses, as well as providing learners with high-quality courses and social ways to learn and stay motivated. Maven charges a 10% fee from the creator’s revenue

Revenue & Market Share: Jan-May 2020 revenue ~1M$ in revenue

Founders: Maven is a cohort-based learning platform founded in Jan 2020 by Gagan Biyani (Co-founder Udemy), Wes Kao (Co-founder altMBA), and Shreyans Bhansali (co-founder Socratic).

Investors: Maven has raised $25million from incredible investors including Andreessen Horowitz, First Round, Naval, and Arlan Hamilton and has launched sold-out courses with instructors like Li Jin, Anthony Pompliano, Lenny Rachitsky, and Sahil Lavingia.

Team: 51 (as per LinkedIn)

IC1 — Upraised: Overview

About — Upraised is a full-stack candidate-oriented job platform that facilitates job searching, upskilling, application, and interview preparations.

Goal — To partner with the top instructors to create high-impact courses on product management for learners all over the world.

Founder — Mona Gandhi

Funding —In June 2019, the startup raised funding of $1.3 million from these founders, along with venture capitalists like Lightspeed and South Park Commons.

Business Model — Marketplace for Cohort-based courses. Currently, Revenue is generated from course Buyers.

Team — 63 members

Revenue — $ 100 million in past18 months

70 + colleges partnered in 2020

300 + Companies

95% + Placement rate

IC2 — Teachfloor: Overview

Product Description: Teachfloor is the software infrastructure to build the school of the future. With Teachfloor organizations and individual instructions can build and scale their cohort-based courses. Starting in early 2021 it is providing services in 50+ countries & 3k+ customers

Business Model: Currently offers two plans( Pro and business) on a monthly and yearly basis.

Prices for monthly and yearly subscriptions for the Pro version are $99 and $79 respectively. The pricing for a business subscription is customized. Teachfloor also offers a 15-day free trial for all plans.

Revenue & Market Share: $155.0K in 2021

Founders: Filippo Schiano di Pepe, Federico Schiano di Pepe

Investors: Recently got accepted into On Deck Accelerator(ODX) program in partnership with Village Global.

Team: 5 (as per LinkedIn)

Customer Discovery 🔍:

As part of the customer discovery, we conducted surveys and interviews for 3 user groups:

Students
Instructors
Organizations

The survey for students (find it here) was quantitative with anonymous responses to gather required data points and determine user pain points

The instructors were subject to in-depth interviews to gauge their preferences and issues with online course creation and delivery

For organizational level pain points and needs, we reached out to business managers of small and medium scale companies

Student Survey Insights:

We surveyed a total of 28 people across different age brackets viz. qualification, work experience, and industry makeup to study their online learning behavior and identify pain points

~90% responded favorably to E-Learning as their preferred mode of learning
MOOCs came out to be the preferred mode of learning while cohort-based platforms found few users (a vast majority is unaware of cohort-based platforms)
A majority uses e-learning platforms as tools for career acceleration followed by in-depth learning
Although close to 60% of people spend between 5 and 15 hrs per month, the completion rate of courses above 60% is a paltry 28%
The prime reason for this low completion rate has been an inability to connect with instructors/peers in self-paced courses coupled with dwindling motivation and distractions
More than 90% of people are open to the idea of cohort-based courses though for interactive group-based learning
People are willing to pay for cohort-based courses for a better standard of learning
The propensity to pay is also good with more than 50% of people willing to spend more than INR 5000 at a chance to upskill

Instructors Interview Insights:

Motivations

Giving back to others/satisfaction of teaching
To make a living
Developing a Personal brand

Preferred mode of delivery

The majority of instructors would be most comfortable with taking 1–2 hr sessions over pre-recorded content
More than 50% of instructors are willing to adopt a cohort-based approach if given the right service

Mode of Creation