No. 40: Are emerging cohort-based courses the tipping point of unbundling college?
Learning what you need when you need it is becoming easier
Every week, we explore the new world of work and learning in an automated AI world.
First, some numbers…
:30 seconds - Two-time Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge beat his own world record in the Berlin Marathon by 30 seconds to finish at 2:01:09
$3 million - AlphaFold AI system wins 3 million dollar Breakthrough prize in science for creating the tool that’s predicted the 3D structures for almost every known protein on the planet
8 billion - Before the end of 2022, the world’s population will pass the 8 billion people milestone. See it visualized here.
New places to learn and upskill
If funding and growing revenue are signs of life, then cohort-based courses (CBC) are emerging as compelling new models for learning. Untethered from traditional school, people are finding new places to build skills that uplevel their value.
Here’s a selection of CBC’s from the Micro SaaS Idea newsletter:
100DaysofNoCode: Bring your ideas to life in 100 days. No coding is required. 100DaysOfNoCode is an online community connecting you with the people, content, and habit-fueled system to build great things. Received 7 figure acquisition offers.
Ship30For30: Ship 30 for 30 is a cohort-based course teaching you the fundamentals of writing on the internet. But unlike other writing courses, you will put your learnings into practice by writing and publishing online every day for 30 days. Crossed $500,000 in total revenue in under 12 months.
A Portfolio Of Small Bets: Cohort based course on designing your own lifestyle and make it risk-free with small bets and improve the overall outcome. Made more than $60K in sales (estimated).
Maven: Where top creators teach cohort-based courses. Cohort-based courses are the perfect combination of high scalability with a premium price. Cohort-based courses are the next opportunity for thought-leaders to emerge and build a personal brand in education. Raised $20 million in funding.
GrowthSchool: Learn from Top 1% Live. GrowthSchool partners with the top 1% of instructors to create high-impact CBCs on personal and professional growth for learners all over the world. Received $5M in funding.
Shadowing: Connect with employees and mentors in any company. Expand your network. Join cohorts. Ask questions and share knowledge.
CryptoAcademy: Fundamentals of Bitcoin & Crypto with Anthony Pompliano. Learn in a cohort. Join a community. Invest in your career. Made thousands of dollars by teaching crypto fundamentals in cohort-based courses.
TheMinimalistEntrepreneur: Join the live, six-week online course for founders who want to learn to do more with less. The estimated revenue is $100K in less than a year.
AscendLeadershipProgram: Ascend's Leadership Program is a 6-week online program for women to empower them with the skills, frameworks, and tools required to influence at all levels, accelerate their career, and have a voice at the table.
WriteOfPassage: Cohort-based course to learn a step-by-step method for publishing quality content and distributing your ideas to your professional network, leading to unexpected opportunities and increased serendipity in your work and life. Made thousands in revenue with cohort course costing $4000 per person.
YoutuberAcademy: Cohort-based training on how to grow your YouTube channel from 0 to 100,000+ subscribers and transform it into a sustainable, income-generating machine without quitting your day job. Makes more than $30K per month with Youtube and related cohort-based courses.
Enlight: Enlight is the educational platform for cohort-based courses focused on development. Provide the best-in-class education paired with a supportive community and accountability.
PathwrightCohorts: Invite online learners to learn together with Cohorts. Because the best learning happens when people are exchanging ideas, asking questions, and interacting with people.
UpCoach: The professional coaching platform to help you deliver transformational results for cohorts. With the click of one button, you can clone an entire, one-on-one program, a group coaching program for a new cohort, or set up a new mastermind in seconds.
CourseNest: Finding the perfect Cohort Based Course has never been easier. Browse through handpicked CBCs from across the web, for free.
Fruitly: Build and grow your cohort-based course and an event-based community from one place.
Read more about cohort-based learning at Micro Saas Idea
Make yourself an API
Digital commerce is an ever-intensifying competition.
Those that find an advantage press on it hard and scale to serve huge audiences — those that don't, fight for nonspecific scraps.
Such is the world of software and media.
Since this trend isn't reversing any time soon, I'd like to offer a frame for thinking about how to maintain autonomy, while capturing the upside on offer.
It's this….
Continue reading Jack Butcher’s Make yourself an API
Will DALL-E the AI Artist Take My Job?
As someone working in a creative field, I’ve never been concerned about a computer taking my job. I always felt confident that the tasks required of me as a photo editor for New York Magazine are too complex and messy — too human — for an artificial intelligence to perform. That is, until DALL-E 2, a sophisticated AI that generates original artwork based only on text input, opened to public beta last June.
…
Like other forms of artificial intelligence, DALL-E stirs up deep existential and ethical questions about imagery, art, and reality. Who is the artist behind these creations: DALL-E or its human user? What happens when fake photorealistic images are unleashed on a public that already struggles with deciphering fact from fiction? Will DALL-E ever be self-aware? How would we know?
These are all important ideas that I’m not interested in exploring. I just wanted to see if I need to add “robot takes my job” to the long list of things that make me anxious about the future. So I decided to put my AI competition to the test.
See the results of the AI competition at NY Mag
Till next time…
“The world rewards the people who are best at communicating ideas, not the people with the best ideas.”
— David Perell
Image: JPL Visions of the Future