Reshaping Education - Online Education, Cohort-based Courses, Bootcamps, and More: Recent Episodes
Ish Baid & Will Mannon
Reshaping Education is a podcast all about the future of learning including cohort-based courses, online schools, and how the internet is changing how we learn. Guests include top "edupreneuers," including:
- Ali Abdaal (Part-time YouTuber Academy)
- Tiago Forte (Building a Second Brain)
- Khe Hy (Supercharge Your Productivity) ...and so many more
Topics Discussed:
- Greg intro
- Thinkific founding story
- The course creator's journey
- Product vs audience first
- Student Success
- Gamification
- Cohort-based courses
- Community
- Next milestone
- Closing
Relevant Links:
- https://twitter.com/GregThinkific
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Topics Discussed:
- Aly Intro
- Upchieve operations
- Getting to 24/7 tutor availability
- Targeting low income families
- Case Study
- On-demand vs continous tutoring
- Success criteria
- Next milestones
Relevant Links:
- https://twitter.com/impactbyaly
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Topics Discussed:
- Julia Intro
- Online education 1.0 vs online education 2.0
- Why MOOCs failed
- The CBC hype cycle
- Corise student experience
- Building engaging student experiences for B2B
- Student engagement & intervention
Relevant links:
- https://corise.com/
- https://twitter.com/juliastiglitz
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Topics Discussed
- Luyen Intro
- Journey to 2U
- Founding EdTech Startups
- Pearson
- Trilogy
- Understanding the role of technology and education
- How Universities can stay responsive to the market
- The Future of EdTech
- Closing
Relevant links:
- https://twitter.com/luyenchou
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Relevant links:
- https://twitter.com/seanlinehan
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Topics Discussed:
- Dan Intro
- Launch Academy founding
- Flaws in the traditional education model
- “Practice like you play”
- The cost of hiring junior engineers
- Measuring student success
- Systems for progress tracking
- Student Intervention
Relevant links:
- https://twitter.com/dpickett/photo
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
I share my thoughts on educational inefficiency and how new companies in the space are emerging to provide upskilling/reskilling experiences for professionals.
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Brian Balfour joins the podcast to discuss his journey to founding Reforge and designing their program to enable and empower professionals to achieve the next milestone in their career journey.
Topics Discussed:
- Brian Intro
- Reforge founding story
- Problem vs Skill oriented education
- Sourcing instructors for career-oriented skills
- Developing a market-relevant curriculum
- Upskilling vs Reskilling
- The “cohort-based course” trend and terminology
Relevant links:
- https://twitter.com/bbalfour
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Ariel Camus comes on to talk about Microverse’s unique learning model that consists of no classes and no curriculum- but instead, a focus on peer learning and accountability.
Topics Discussed
- Ariel Intro
- Founding story and talent gap
- Moving to Vietnam to create infinite runway
- Creating diverse learning opportunities
- Going through Y Combinator
- Microverse’s unique learning model
- The power of peer-to-peer
- How educators can employ peer-to-peer
Relevant links:
- https://twitter.com/arielcamus
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Jeremy Shaki and Josh Borts come on to talk about how they built Lighthouse labs into a premier coding bootcamp in Canada.
Topics Discussed:
- Jeremy + Josh Intro
- Founding Story
- Going from In-Person → Online during COVID
- Building the student engagement engine
Relevant links:
- https://twitter.com/HouseofShak
- linkedin.com/in/josh-borts
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Loren Cohen and Laura Holden come up to share how Skillful thinks about building a world-class professional development online school and community that is adaptive to the needs of industry.
Topics Discussed
- Skillful intro
- Why CBC hype period is over
- Upskilling vs Reskilling
- How Universities fail to prepare graduates for industry
- Creating an agile educational experience
Relevant links:
- https://twitter.com/lorenabbeyc
- linkedin.com/in/laura-sheridanholden
- joinskillful.com
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Kai Neo comes on to talk about his journey from Silicon Valley to founding a Rocket Academy, a bootcamp serving aspiring engineers in South-East Asia.
Topics Discussed
- Kai Intro
- Rocket Academy’s admissions process
- Building a world-class community
- Charging upfront vs ISA
Linked In:linkedin.com/in/neokaiyuan
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Martin Ramsin talks about how his experience with a poorly built online course inspired him to build one of the first fully online coding bootcamps.
Topics Discussed:
- Martin intro
- Career Foundry founding story
- Making online learning more human
- Managing 4,000+ active students
- Job placement as a service
Twitter:https://twitter.com/martinramsin
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
- Career Foundry
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Anthony Hughes comes on to discuss how he founded Tech Elevator to bring strong engineering talent to the Mid-West.
Topics Discussed:
- Anthony Intro
- Talent Gap in the Mid-West
- Maintaining Student Relationships
- 90%+ Placement Rate
- Academic System & Student Intervention
Linked In:
- linkedin.com/in/anthonykehughes
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
- Tech Elevator
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Topics Discussed:
- Founding MakerSquare
- Leading & selling three major bootcamps
- Going down the web3 rabbit hole
- Founding Macro and supporting web3 founders
Twitter:https://twitter.com/HarshOnInternet
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- State of Cohort-based courses
- Why the hype went away
- What’s next for online education
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- Mike’s Intro + Background
- Cohort-based Communities
- How Pivot differentiates from other cohort-based learning programs
- How Pivot supports students during their transition
- Scaling operations
- Tracking student engagement
Learn more at https://pivot.ws/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/mike_peregudov
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- Ship30 history
- What hypergrowth feels like for a CBC
- Building the “Member Ship”
- Building the Ship30 Automation Engine
- What were the most manual tasks?
- How did you automate them?
- Biggest bottlenecks for ship30 moving forward
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/dbustac
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics discussed:
- A New Era for Online Education
- The History of PTYA
- PTYA’s Tools, Zaps, and Automations
- Leveraging No-Code & Automations
- How Virtually fits into PTYA’s workflow
Learn more about Virtually here.
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/JustBhavs
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- On Deck Growth & Trajectory
- Building a Decentralized Organization
- Leveraging No-Code
- Scaling Cohort-based Courses
- Managing Event Operations
- Tracking Fellow Engagement
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/techdetjoe
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed
- How Billy Broas Met Tiago Forte
- Three Phases of Online Course Growth
- Growth for Building a Second Brain
- Growth for Write of Passage
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/BillyBroas
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- Learnings from Flatiron School
- Future of Online Education
- Emergence of Edupreneurship
- Built for Teachers
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/callmelisaj
https://twitter.com/jmburges
Relevant links:
- Built For Teachers
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed
- BloomTech rebrand
- Outcome-based Loan and tuition refund guarantee
- New ISA terms
- Web3 upskilling program
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/bloomtech
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
A rebroadcast of our live Twitter spaces event with Jay Clouse and August Bradley where we discuss the best community platforms for course creators.
Topics discussed:
- History of Community
- Pillars of Community Platforms
- Forum vs Chat Style Platforms
- Pricing and Feasibility for Course Creators
- Facebook Groups, Circle, Slack, Geneva, Discord, etc...
- Audience Q&A
Twitter:
Jay Clouse: https://twitter.com/jayclouse
August Bradley: https://twitter.com/augustbradley
Relevant links:
Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- Notion Mastery introduction
- Building a self-paced course community
- Scaling an Online Course
- Coming up with course pricing
- Leveraging feedback
- Building a course staff
- The Notion Mastery Tech Stack
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/mariepoulin
Relevant links:
Reshaping Education Podcast Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics discussed:
- Launch School founding
- Mastery-based Learning
- Async vs Live Programs
- Future of Bootcamps
- Job placement vs personalized education
- Building a sustainable business
- Bootstrapping vs VS
Bootcamps are not dying; however, they are adapting. We discuss what it will take for bootcamps to thrive over the next decade.
Twitter:https://twitter.com/cglee
https://twitter.com/jfarmer
Relevant links:
Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
August Bradley discusses how he strategically built and grew Notion Life Design.
Topics Discussed:
- Moving away from a traditional cohort-model
- Iterating on your course
- Community platforms
- Tooling for CBCs
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/augustbradley
Relevant links:
Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid,
Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon,
Course Director of Forte Academy
Victoria Ransom (Co-founder & CEO, Prisma) discusses online education for kids.
Topics Discussed:
- Selling Wildfire to Google for $350M
- How Online Learning is Better
- Remote Learning for Kids
- Prisma Pedagogy
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/victoria_ransom
Relevant links:
Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid,
Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon,
Course Director of Forte Academy
Full Summary
- Andrew's Journey
- Introducing the Edupreneur Community
- Course of Action
- Defining the Modern Teacher
- Getting Started
Relevant links:- Reshaping Education PodcastTwitter:https://twitter.com/BazzarutoKeep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- Online learning communities
- Cohort-based communities
- How to use live events
- How CodePath creates cohort-based experiences at scale
Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/nesquena
Relevant links:- Reshaping Education PodcastKeep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Today, Will and I share our vision for the future of the Reshaping Education podcast.
Apply here: https://edupreneur.community
Relevant links:- Reshaping Education Podcast Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- Imposter syndrome
- Monetization
- The Creator Economy
Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/chrismessina
Summit video: https://youtu.be/lsHTq5mqtlc
Apply to the Edupreneur community: https://www.edupreneur.community/
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Mehak Vohra, Founder & CEO of SkillBank, discusses how to incorporate project-based learning into your curriculum.
Topics discussed:
- SkillBank Curriculum
- Project-based Learning
- Simulating the work environment
Twitter Profile: https://twitter.com/themehakvohra
YouTube video: https://youtu.be/cfJdRGGRy4s
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics discussed:
- Tools for CBCs
- Building a Cohort-based Course
- Community Building
- Mentor Sessions and Alumni
Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/will_mannon
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- Copywriting mistakes
- Expert tricks
- Increasing sales conversions
Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/julia_saxena
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of VirtuallyWill Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- Why Remote Learning is Better
- Improved Accessibility
- Removing Geography as a Barrier
- Increased Diversity
Profile Image:
https://twitter.com/andreasklinger
Relevant links:
Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- Creating Alumni Mentor Session
- Vetting Alumni
- Fostering Your Community
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- Gamified learning
- How to leverage gamified learning to keep learners engaged
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- Nailing the student experience
- Onboarding
- Live programming
- Logistics
- Iterating on feedback
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- The growth trajectory of Forte Labs
- Three-part marketing funnel
- Audience segmentation
- Bridge of Transformation
- Messaging Arc
Relevant links:
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics Discussed:
- Starting a daily writing habit
- Ship30for30 founding
- Managing community
- Thinking about alumni communities
- Iterating cohort-to-cohort
Relevant links:
- Ship30for30
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics discussed:
- Founding the first coding bootcamp
- The coding bootcamp revolution
- Why MOOCs failed
- How Jesse thinks about the student experience
Relevant links:
- Jesse's Twitter
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Topics covered:
- Going from Wallstreet
- Founding RadReads
- Building a high-growth cohort-based course, "Supercharge Your Productivity"
- Notion SEO
Relevant links:
- RadReads
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
In this episode we chat about:
- The founding and history of online education
- Rise of cohort-based courses and Maven/Virtually
- Decentralization and globalization of education
- Bootcamps and job outcomes
Relevant links:
- On Deck
- Reshaping Education Podcast
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Join us for the Reshaping Education summit on June 9th. Register for free here.
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
Join us for the Reshaping Education summit on June 9th. Register for free here.
Keep up with us:
Ish Baid, Founder & CEO of Virtually
Will Mannon, Course Director of Forte Academy
On June 9th, we'll be hosting the reshaping education post featuring our favorite guests from season 1. We'll be discussing trends in online education and hosting a series of workshops to help you build and scale your own online education business. We'll also have prizes, giveaways, and a big update to share about the podcast moving forward. See you then!
Register here
Schedule (June 9, 2021)
12:00 - 12:05 PM (EST): Opening Remarks
12:05 - 12:30 PM (EST): TBA
12:30 PM - 1:00 PM (EST): Julia Saxena (Minimum Viable Video) on "Copywriting for Course creator"
1:00 - 1:30 PM (EST): Will Mannon (Course Manager, Building a Second Brain) on "Nailing the Student Experience"
1:30 PM - 2:00 PM (EST): Mehak Vohra (Founder & CEO, SkillBank) on "Project-based Learning"
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM (EST): TBA
3:00 - 3:45 PM (EST): Laura Marks (Head of Community, Virtually) on "Scaling your Education Business"
3:45 - 4:00 PM (EST): Closing Remarks
… and more!
We'll be discussing trends that we're seeing in the online education space as well as tactical tips for anyone looking to build an online education business.
Marie Schacht joins Will Mannon and me on the Future of Education club to discuss her experience building and scaling AltMBA. We discuss the strategies that AltMBA employs to teach its students critical business and leadership skills in a completely remote environment.
Topics discussed:
Part 1: What is AltMBA
- Advantages over self-paced
- How your course design sets students up for success:
- Curriculum
- Live sessions
- Community
- Examples of transformational outcomes
Part 2: Enabling Project-Based Learning in a Remote Setting
- Leveraging peer learning
- Live group learning
- Specific lessons learned or surprises from scaling AltMBA
Part 3: Future of Business Education
- What is the future of MBAs? Will more programs go remote?
- How does an MBA hold up against Y Combinator or similar startup accelerators?
Learn more about AltMBA, the Future of Education Club, and what we're building at Virtually.
Julia Saxena and I chat about her participation in various cohort-based courses and how that helped kickstart her journey to building her own program, Minimum Viable Video.
Topics we discussed:
- Julia intro & background
- Journey to Teaching Online
- Going Through Keystone and Ship30For30
- Top Learnings from Building a CBC
- Tools for Building CBCs
- Future for CBC
- Who Should Build a CBC
Keep up with Julia on Twitter or check out what we're building at Virtually.
This is a rebroadcast of a live Twitter Spaces conversation that Will Mannon and I hosted last week on the Future of Education club. We sat down with Ryan Craig and Michael B. Horn about bootcamps, ISAs, and the future of job reskilling.
Keep up with what Will and I are working on with Virtually and Forte Labs.
Ali Abdaal is a renowned YouTuber (1.5M+ subscribers), junior doctoring working in the UK, and an online educator. In this rebroadcast of a "Future of Education" clubhouse session, Will Mannon and I sit down with Ali Abdaal and Angus Parker, his course manager, to discuss lessons from launching their most recent cohort-based course, Part-time YouTuber Academy which brought is $294,000 revenue within the first cohort.
Learn more about Virtually and Ali Abdaal.
Jason Wang (Founder & CEO of FreeWorld) and I discuss his journey from leaving prison to founding a bootcamp unlike any other. Free World is an online school that trains individuals who have served time to land stable, well-paying jobs within the trucking industry.
Learn more about FreeWorld and what we're building at Virtually.
This conversation is a rebroadcast of a Clubhouse session that Will Mannon and I hosted on April 12, 2021. This discussion with Sahil Lavingia (CEO of Gumroad) and Tiago Forte (Founder of Forte Labs) is about starting your second brain.
To keep up with upcoming sessions, sign up for our weekly newsletter at futureofeducation.club
Nathan Esquenazi, the Co-founder and CTO of CodePath, and I discuss how his team unlocked the power of cohort-based learning and leveraged that insight to build the CodePath platform.
Learn more about CodePath.org and what we're building at Virtually.
Garrett Smiley and I discuss how Sora Schools, an innovative online high school, is completely rethinking the high school experience and helping students learn the fundamentals while also exploring career paths.
Learn more about Sora Schools and Virtually.
Brian Tobal and I discuss the journey to founding SchoolHouse, learning pods, and how SchoolHouse is building a new category of education when it comes to K-12.
Learn more about SchoolHouse and Virtually.
Ryan Craig is a partner at Achieved Partners (formerly University Ventures) and the author of College Disrupted and A New U. In this conversation, we discuss all the ways in which colleges are failing students today and what the rise of alternative education and COVID could mean for the next generation of students and job-seekers.
Sign up for Ryan's newsletter and learn more about what we're building at Virtually.
Andrew Barry and I chat about the transformation that is happening in the online course industry including a shift to live, cohort-based courses and an increased emphasis on community. Andrew is the founder of Curious Lion where he coaches course creators on how to drive true transformation for their students. He also recently became the program director for On Deck Course Creator where he'll be working with top course creators to develop their live cohort-based courses.
Learn more about Virtually and Andrew Barry.
Michael B. Horn and I chat about the unbundling of higher education, the existential threat that grad schools face, and whether college curriculums can stay relevant to industry needs.
Music: ROASN by Gil Wanders
Learn more about Michael B. Horn and Virtually.
Billy Broas and I discuss his journey to building Keystone Accelerator, the rise of cohort-based courses, and the changing landscape of higher education.
Learn more about Keystone Accelerator or Virtually.
Chrisman Frank (CEO of Synthesis), Ana Fabrega (Chief Evangelist of Synthesis), and I discuss how they founded Synthesis school, a program that creates live, engaging experiences for kids.
We talk about the founding story of Synthesis (that starts with an encounter with Elon Musk) and then dive deep into how Synthesis is reimaging K-12 education through their one-of-a-kind online program.
Music: ROASN by Gil Wanders
Synthesis School
Virtually
David Yang (CEO of Fullstack Academy) talks about the full journey of Fullstack Academy from founding to acquisition. We talk about what it takes to scale a coding bootcamp as well as the four C's of learning when it comes to designing a powerful and lasting educational experience.
Music: ROASN by Gil Wanders
Learn more:
Fullstack Academy
Virtually
Ayush Jaiswal (CEO of Pesto) shares his experience founding Pesto, leveraging Income Share Agreements, and what it takes to create an exceptional remote classroom experience.
Music: ROASN by Gil Wanders
Learn more:
Pesto
Virtually
ClassEdu: https://www.classedu.com/
Virtually: https://www.tryvirtually.com/
Music: ROASN by Gil Wanders
Kadima: https://www.kadima.work/
Virtually: https://www.tryvirtually.com/
Music: ROASN by Gil Wanders
Megan Underwood and I discuss her experience going through the legendary AltMBA program and why project-based learning is so important.
Avion school: https://avionschool.com/
Virtually: https://tryvirtually.com/
Music: ROASN by Gil Wander
Mission Collaborative: https://www.missioncollaborative.com/onlinefellowship
Virtually: https://tryvirtually.com/
Music: ROASN by Gil Wanders
Acadium: https://acadium.com/
Virtually: https://tryvirtually.com/
Music: ROASN by Gil Wanders
Wes Wagner and I discuss his journey going from growth at Microverse to starting Pactero, a platform for issuing Income Share Agreements. In addition, we dive deep into our experiences with higher education and how institutions are failing to properly align incentives between their programs and their students.
Learn more about Parachute Bridge: https://www.parachutebridge.org/
Learn more about Virtually: https://tryvirtually.com/
Music: ROASN by Gil Wanders
Michael Ioffe and I discuss SMS-based courses, the short-comings of current online education, and what it was like for both of us to go through the very first remote batch of YCombinator.
Shift_up: https://www.shiftup.tech/
Virtually: https://tryvirtually.com/
Music: ROASN by Gil Wanders
Ryan Laverty and I discuss the founding story of Arist, an SMS-based learning platform, and the shift happening in higher education due to COVID-19. Specifically, a return to the apprenticeship model and project-based learning.
Music: ROASN by Gil Wanders
Sharpest Minds is building a Data Science mentorship marketplace backed by ISA's. This allows those interested in Data Science to receive personalized career coaching with no upfront cost.
In this episode, Edouard and I discuss the founding of Sharpest Minds, the future of ISA's, and the implications on higher ed as a whole.
You've might have seen some studies or heard of statistics that talk about how low course completion rates are...
It's true the average online course has a 6% completion rate; however, a recently implemented technique in the online learning space is flipping on the model on its head.
With this simple mechanism, online course completion rates can skyrocket to over 90%.
What is this new mechanism? Well, it's actually not new. It's old as civilization:
Community.
Nothing is more important to keep students engaged with course material than learning along-side individuals in a similar stage to themselves.
This simple ingredient has been instrumental in making learning online actually viable for life-changing career education.
And it's not just completion rate, every other metric goes haywire if you can successfully integrate community into your online course: engagement, comprehension, etc...
Recently, Alberto Arenaza and I had an in-depth conversation about the transformation we're seeing in higher education and remote learning.
A big focus of the conversation was about the role of community in online learning environments.
This week's episode of Reshaping Education took place with Billy Bross, a marketing strategist who specializes in working with online course creators.
Billy and I have had a few conversations at this point and with each one, I'm just blown away by how swiftly he's able to get a point across.
This week, he delivers yet again.
Billy and I spoke about what it takes to build and scale an online learning community.
We dive into what it takes to be the "purple cow" of the online course world. It's not good enough to record some videos and throw them up online. You have to deliver value. You have to create a community.
In this episode, Billy sheds light on this topic and how he's helped countless course creators build and scale their business. Not by building an online course, but building an online learning community and internet business.
Main Takeaways
What's the difference between an online course and an online school?
"[An online school] has a bunch of courses inside of it...it's an online university that usually targets a common customer avatar specific type of person and can serve them in, in multiple ways."
How to effectively communicate online?
"Keep people engaged. Give them assessments and community is a huge one that we're seeing emerge."
The best part about running an online school is that students will often come for the course material, but then stay for the community.
Never underestimate the power of the community.
Looking to start your own online school?
Check out Virtually, an online school builder. A tool that brings together payment processing, live conferencing, and student management and makes it easy to build and scale your own online learning community.
Learn more about OnDelta: https://www.ondelta.io/
See what we're building at Virtually: https://tryvirtually.com/
"There were no online courses. Now, you have so many things that you CAN do. Like, think about it. We're doing an interview. This wouldn't have happened in 2006. We wouldn't have even connected. So utilize what you have. Gain skills. Be smart. So that when things do recover, you're okay. "
- Jonaed Iqbal, Founder & CEO of NoDegree.com
Jonaed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonaed
NoDegree: https://www.nodegree.com/
Virtually: https://tryvirtually.com/
NOTE: The following transcript was AI-generated and likely contains many errors.
App Academy (Kush Patel)
Kush: [00:00:00] Five hours on top of that, and you'd be putting in close to a hundred hours a week I mean, I literally dreamed in code. it was wild. I never thought anything like that could happen
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[00:00:08]Ish: [00:00:08] What's up everybody? My name is Ish and I am the founder of virtually, and this is the virtually podcast where we discuss everything online education, including higher ed, online trade schools, bootcamps, ISA, , and so much more. .
[00:00:22]This week's conversation was with kush patel We talked about the founding of app Academy, which may very well go down in history as a major turning point for education. Specifically, we talked about the very first income share agreement that hit the mass markets and kickstarted the coding bootcamp revolution. This conversation was absolutely fascinating and i hope you enjoy it as much as i did
[00:00:46]Hey, everybody. My name is Ish and I'm the founder and CEO of virtually, and I'm joined today by Kush Patel, the founder and CEO of app Academy.
[00:00:55] Kush, would you be able to introduce yourself real quick.
[00:00:59] Kush: [00:00:59] Hey folks. I'm, I'm happy to join the program today. I, I've been running app Academy for the past almost eight years now. And, yeah, I hope to be able to share, some, some insights about the bootcamp marketing software during the market.
[00:01:15] Ish: [00:01:15] Yeah, that sounds exciting. And we're going to get into app Academy a lot more, to actually start us off. I think for helpful context for the audience, today the date is April 9th, and we are very much in the thick of things when it comes to the coronavirus and the quarantine thing.
[00:01:30] And so that is going to be a big kind of focus and kind of topic for us to discuss, especially about higher ed bootcamps and the implications of all these different programs moving forward, especially given the fact that 10 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the month of March alone. and we're all, we're all going to get to that, but right now I would love to go back to June, 2008 so at June, 2008, I believe at this point, you were in Mumbai, India, is that correct?
[00:01:57] Kush: [00:01:57] Yes, correct.
[00:01:58] Ish: [00:01:58] Okay. So could you tell us what you were doing there? Wow.
[00:02:02] Kush: [00:02:02] Yeah, so that was actually, There was an internship that I had a junior year of college. those may, that was a hedge fund job. So I was, I was doing like, multi-strategy value investing. So, investing across all different kinds of asset classes, mostly equities, across a broad, different portfolio of, of, of, industries. I focused on real estate, financial, so banks mostly. but, yeah, well, looked at a lot of different kinds of companies. But, yeah, that was, that was my first, I kind of had edge fund internship and, and, and, got me into the hedge fund industry. So ultimately ended up joining that company after college as well.
[00:02:37] But, 2008 was a very exciting time to be, in the, in the equities markets. the 2008 great recession, was, was kind of unfolding. you know, as, as that internship was, was happening, that, it, you know, to have a front row seat for, you know, to that, to, to, to have that be the, they kind of come back down context for this.
[00:02:55]you know, markets, education for me was, this was pretty exciting.
[00:03:00] Ish: [00:03:00] no, totally. And again, it's interesting to reflect on the 2008 crisis and kind of all the implications that had for education and then also come and look at, you know, the current crisis and what the implications are there. But I'm really quick, curious about, I guess. How did your experience in Mumbai kind of shape you?
[00:03:17] What were the big learnings and how would that ultimately lead you to start app Academy?
[00:03:23] Kush: [00:03:23] Sure. So, I've learned, I learned a ton, at that, at that job. So a lot of it was, I had the chance to sit down with, with CEOs, all day long and ask them questions about how, you know, they, they ran their business, how they saw the future outlook, how, you know, they were positioning themselves, et cetera.
[00:03:38]and, and really getting kind of in the . Into the weeds of it. So, from that angle, you know, I think that was kind of my crash course MBA, to some, to some extent. I also had a chance to sit on the board of some of some public companies there and, and see that kind of in the, the, the, you know, kind of from a firsthand point of view how boards should be run, what could go wrong, how to, all the, all the kind of, Background stuff that you never really read in the business school textbooks, if you will. So, that, that was a great learning opportunity for me. I think also just, being in that, that, you know, fast forwarding a little bit to, to, you know, after college when I was doing that full time, Seeing all the opportunity that was there, both in the emerging markets.
[00:04:17] So it was, I was in India goes mate, this huge opportunity, and this was before the second wave of tech had really taken off there. So before the web, I guess two or 3.0 you can call it really, really took off there. So, so a lot of low home recruits, one of opportunities are there, but, but also got a, got a chance to see, kind of the ways that entrepreneurs would go and tackle booze, tackle those.
[00:04:39]opportunities very differently. and then folks kind of start to build a business in the us, but, still very, realistic to be able to start a company there, which somehow made it real in my mind. So I, I, you know, I think it was always this thing that I thought, Oh, I know, I don't really understand how a person could start a company.
[00:04:56] Like, it seems like this big, this huge undertaking, but, it's certainly become a lot, a lot realer to me. And, and, I think that's where also that pretty excited about starting my own thing.
[00:05:06] Ish: [00:05:06] Yeah. And so while this was going on, were you thinking that, Hey, after this I want to start a company, or do you just kind of stumble across it.
[00:05:13] Kush: [00:05:13] Yeah. So I think I kind of developed that desire, to some extent while I was on the job. So I think, you know, meeting all those CEOs and getting a sense of, you know, what was actually involved in it. You know, company building was a big piece of it. it was that I was lucky enough to be born into a family where my dad, was, was an entrepreneur.
[00:05:31] So he worked as an engineer for a couple of decades and then he went out and kind of, you know, hung up his own shingle, you know, starting a company. So, having that partner center there as a child, also was very helpful and made it, and also, gave me the support of my parents in making this leap, which is a big thing that I, that I don't take for granted.
[00:05:51] Ish: [00:05:51] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I know, I know in our last conversation you said you were feeling homesick, and so I believe the year is 2012 that you decide to return to the United States. Is that correct?
[00:06:02] Kush: [00:06:02] Yeah. I think it was basically ended cause we haven't like just the beginning of 2012. Yeah. So at that point I was starting to, you know, my friends, family, everybody I knew was halfway across the world. I, I definitely made some, some, some really great friends in, in India, but, you know, the folks that I've grown up with, they were all.
[00:06:19] Mostly back in the U S so, at that time, I, you know, I, at that point had been at the hedge fund for, you know, almost three years or so, and on a fair amount of experience there with spree niche, this niche job, which was investing in India, specifically in financials and real estate. So, so I thought I'd felt this expertise here.
[00:06:37] I'd always go back to if I, if I want to, but let me, let me take another risk and, and, and jump. You know, back to back to the U S and specifically into the game, just go Barea and, and specifically into the startup flexing there. So, It's a catalyst for me actually moving back, to, to, the U S was a hacker news post.
[00:06:55] So this was a hacker news post by the founder of dev bootcamp, which, basically kicked off. I'd say that the coding boot camp, revolutions, and this was, you know, guy offering. Note the post on, you know, just, you know, his interest in teaching folks how to code. he was, he was charging a pretty small amount upfront and, and he was also saying, Hey, you know, for the folks that were interested in getting a job, that he would actually refund the money if he was actually able to place people into that job, and, and, and earn the recruitment fee.
[00:07:24] So for myself, I didn't really have an interest in. you know, pursuing a software development job. But I, at my hedge fund job, and actually before college had seen per se, and the power of supply engineering. So, you know, a few computer science classes in college, but then also being able to hook up, you know, BBA scripts that could automate workflows.
[00:07:43]you know. Pull data, analyze it, you know, spit it out again, that kind stuff, you know, pretty easy scripting kind of stuff. showed me how, how, how powerful software could be. So I was pretty excited about checking it at that point. It was, again, it was an eight week course, so it would course, you know, and it was like one guy, that was running the entire company, teaching everything, do everything.
[00:08:03] So, it was, you know, it was a lot cheaper as well. Back then it was about 6,000 bucks, I believe. But, Yeah, no, it was, it was, got me pretty excited. And, I actually took that, with, with my brother as well. once I saw the posting, he was the one that I recommended to first Keene road, and then I thought, Oh wait, wait a second.
[00:08:19] I think this may be a fit for myself as well. So, we both, took the course actually along with
[00:08:24] about 18 other folks.
[00:08:26] Ish: [00:08:26] So, just for, I guess, context, you had never really done, you've maybe taken computer science classes here and there, but you weren't a software engineer.
[00:08:34] Kush: [00:08:34] Yeah, correct. Yeah. No, so I had an experience. I believe actually nobody in that course, had, you know, like any form of software during the experience. So yeah, he was taking folks from all over and, yeah, it, it was a pretty exciting time. It, it was 20 folks, and I think of those 20 about.
[00:08:50] 10 to 15 have started companies that are, you know, fairly successful. So, let me say it was a really interesting group of folks that, that decided to sign up for that course.
[00:08:59] Ish: [00:08:59] Yeah, and it's actually crazy that you mentioned that hacker news post a while preparing for this. I actually found it. I stumbled across
[00:09:05] it and I actually love to read it right now. so the post was actually posted. it looks like November 22nd, 2011. Does that sound about right?
[00:09:14] Kush: [00:09:14] Yes. Yeah.
[00:09:16] Ish: [00:09:16] Okay, well here's, here's what the post says.
[00:09:18] Want to become a web developer? Are you based in the Bay area? Can you take next February and March off? I want to teach six people Ruby on rails from scratch, hands-on in person five days a week for eight weeks. No computer science background required. There is such a high demand for good Ruby devs right now.
[00:09:38] I'm willing to invest my time, money, energy upfront to get you in good enough shape to land a job as a junior rails developer, I will line up several companies that would be very interested in interviewing with you. If you get the job with any of them, they'll pay me your tuition so you get the training for free.
[00:09:54] What do you think now? Is that the post you're referencing.
[00:09:58] Kush: [00:09:58] Yup. No, that's it.
[00:10:00] Ish: [00:10:00] Wow. Yeah, I, you know, it's, it's crazy because I actually do think that like, we're going to look back on this post maybe 20 years from now, maybe 50 years from now. But I think that post was the first time I had ever seen the ISA model leverage in software engineering.
[00:10:14] And in the recent years we've really seen kind of what impact that's have had and it'll continue to have an impact, at least what I think.
[00:10:22]Kush: [00:10:22] just, just a clarification there is that they actually, interestingly enough to use an ISA, they just use a traditional , like most of it's just paid, I think if it was like five or 6,000 bucks, and then, what coding schools used to do back then was that. they will develop partnerships with companies and they would earn recruiting fees by placing those students at those companies.
[00:10:40] And if they were able to under, could you feed them to refund back the student that tuition fee, this, this started to become less and less possible as companies would stop paying recording fees for junior developers as the number of graduates from bootcamps and computer science programs increase. But, this, this actually was not, it was not an ISA, but, it.
[00:11:01] I would say, it is, it is as important as, as, as you're making it out to be, because it did basically kick off the, the coding boot camp revolution.
[00:11:09] Ish: [00:11:09] Yes. That's, that's an excellent point. It had characteristics, but it wasn't quite there. It was just a part of the puzzle. So you go through this program, it must have been, I guess, early 2012 at this point. what was your experience with the program?
[00:11:22] Kush: [00:11:22] Yeah. I had a fantastic time. I mean, this was my first experience with immersive education. So I usually done traditional academia where you have, you know, six or seven different things you're setting and you kind of keeping track of it. Few different streams and it's over multiple years that you ain't gained any sort of level of mastery versus, okay, this is the only thing you're going to do and you're going to do it for, you know, 10 hours a day in class.
[00:11:46] And then plus everybody in that class was very much a self service that you do it on there. Five hours on top of that, and you'd be putting in close to a hundred hours a week and you would start to, I mean, I literally dreamed in code. It was, it was wild. I never thought anything like that could happen, but, but it, you know, my, my, my ability to pick up some trail was.
[00:12:08] Was, it just happened so rapidly that I could see myself progressing from not really knowing much to being able to build kind of full fledged startup MVPs. So not full fledge applications, you know, at the level of a fund in series C company or something. Right. But, but, but if full-fledged, you know, MVP that you could bring to market and have a lot of functionality.
[00:12:28] So, that, that was just, that was, that was really exciting. but the people in the class were awesome. I, yeah, I mean, it, it, I think it does take a certain kind of person to respond to a random post on the internet and say, yeah, sure, let me spend thousands of dollars on this, on something that's totally unproven and, you know, jump in.
[00:12:47] Sure. Why not? And, and, and sacrifice two months of my time. Right. So, . There was definitely some self selection there. The dev bootcamp founder for the first class was fairly selective. so there was some, some, some, you know, kind of combination of factors that were going on there that led to this. But, it was awesome.
[00:13:04] You know, there were people in there that, I've been great friends with since, you know, since that time. So, that was awesome. And then lastly, you know, I, I saw that it worked. Right? So that's, that's kind of crazy. You got to see the gas supply demand. Imbalance in a very visceral way. Right. There was like these people that, you know, there's a Starbucks barista and the opposite software engineer, like after the ethnic course, right?
[00:13:27] I mean, and it was a matter of, I think, less than six months. So, doubling or tripling his, his, his, his, his salary. So, That just for me, the opportunity that existed there and, and it was a large opportunity. I, I, I didn't think it was one that was going to be addressed just by, particular offering.
[00:13:43] so, my kind of sense in a sense, an opening there.
[00:13:48]Ish: [00:13:48] that's absolutely incredible. And so you're going through this program and does something just click inside of you, did something just go off and you think, wow, this is, this is an incredible program. There should be something like this for more people.
[00:14:00] Kush: [00:14:00] Yeah. So that, that happened pretty soon after the course that, you know, I think for me it was actually . The course finishing. And then folks starting to get jobs pretty quickly and seeing that happen so quickly and saying, well, these people, I mean, this can be anybody and any, any, you know, underemployed, hardworking, you know, a student could be, you know, compete this person.
[00:14:21] So, that, that was a thing that, that, that really. Got myself and my co founder really thinking about, Hey, maybe there's opportunity in this space. And, and you know, there's a way for us to do things, pretty differently. As a customer of dev boot camp, I had some pretty strong opinions about what went really well and other things where I got theirs.
[00:14:39] If there was a path to building a different kind of school that, that, that had its own particular set of, advantages.
[00:14:48] Ish: [00:14:48] Yeah. Could you tell me about, also a little bit about your co founder, how you two met and I guess decided to start working on app Academy.
[00:14:54] Kush: [00:14:54] Yeah. So he was, a very good friend of mine from the first year of college. So I had, at that point known him for, you know, at that five years, a little bit more than five years at that point. So, we were great friends. He was a year above me in college, and he was, he was, not only was he kind of just like, you know, Like quantitative. you know, I would say maybe you're going across the board, like basically genius, like certifiable genius. but he was just this awesome person that had this like fire in his belly to actually teach people. He couldn't help but transmit his knowledge to each other folks. And he loved it.
[00:15:27] And, and, you know, I, I. You know in my, you know, kind of desire , to, to grow as a mathematician or computer scientist or whatever I was learning in school. you know, w would have to work on problem sets with him and get his advice and, and, found him to be a very natural teacher, at that, at that time.
[00:15:43] So, we, yeah. Developed this pretty close friendship, at that time and had kind of taken it forward until then. And, you know, for his part after, after he graduated, with a, actually a math degree, not a computer science degree. He went and he taught computer science at the grad school there. we, we both met at the university of Chicago, so that's where he was at.
[00:16:03]then he came over to Silicon Valley. the data scientist was last at Google. working on Google's search index team. So it was a one of their, you know, basically strongest teams, as a, as a data scientist and just wasn't, he, you know, he wasn't too happy with the previous company, kind of culture there, but so, so that's what led us to start to think about, Hey, you know, this startup license seems for an interesting for us.
[00:16:26] And, actually the, the, the funny thing is we, we, we kind of viewed it as, You know, Hey, if we like this performing, of course in this industry, it, you know, here it seems interesting. We think we have some promising ways to enter this market. So, so one wasn't the income share agreement. another was to build a brand around rigor and quality.
[00:16:46] and I selectively, And, and, and we had some ideas there about, about building a specific kind of school and we thought, Hey, worst thing that happens is we achieve some phones, you know, some, some, some software injury. And if it doesn't work out, then Hey, you know, maybe we, we lost some time, but at least we got to work on this idea with one of our closest friends.
[00:17:04] So, that's kind of how we, I was odd and I think, I think that was a big piece of what. main things actually work out quite well was that, both of us really valued our own friendship more than the startup initially. I think that's strangely enough from what kept it, kept the startup together, in that early time when I think co-founder disagreements and frictions and options splinter, they started.
[00:17:24] Ish: [00:17:24] No, that makes total sense. And I guess a question that keeps coming back to my head is, I guess while you have the idea for this program, do you go to the person who ran your program and do you say like, Hey, this is a really awesome idea. I'd love to help you take it to the next level.
[00:17:37] Kush: [00:17:37] Yeah, so the ideas that I had. That's cool. We're so different than the actual vision that he had for his school that that conversation didn't make sense. I did give him a heads up that has, you know, I'm looking to start the school. Maybe there's a way to work together, Henry, but, you know, I think the, the school that he was building, it was kind of a, a mass market school where, you know, he was accepting 50% plus students.
[00:18:01]you know. But he was, you know, weakening his focus on job outcomes. So, so it was more about brand and image, you know, et cetera that he was on versus a specific job outcome, which, which we were really focused on. and then, you know, tuition wise, he was really focused on how do I grow cash tuition, fast revenues, very rapidly, and the income shared with him and his.
[00:18:19] The wrong way to do that. it, it, it really delays those, those, those cash payments until, until later. So, it just taught for various reason, didn't align with his vision or on the school.
[00:18:30] Ish: [00:18:30] Okay. That makes sense. And so, you know, given these differences, you guys decided to kind of part ways you and your co founders started talking. it's now about June, 2012 and this is when I believe app Academy starts. Do you guys raise capital at this point?
[00:18:44] Kush: [00:18:44] No. So we, we actually took a very kind of experimental way or say, lean way of approaching this. So, we, we said, Hey, you know, the way they can campus lunch, was it a hacker news post less launched the same way. So we did, we did a little bit more. We had it, we had a website, but, you know, we, we said, Hey, let's put this in front of folks. let's teach a beta class that there'd been a class which is free for, for folks. There was no Isaiah or anything. There was just no, no fee at all. it was actually in iOS, that, that, that we were teaching it and we want to just see, Hey, are we able to kind of teach folks and train them to be able to get jobs as ILS junior engineers?
[00:19:19] So, that, that was the experiment that we ran. We had ways of keeping the cost very low. So I ran all of the. Yeah. Basically everything outside of the classroom, plus some of the logistical stuff in the classroom. And my cofounder did the degree teaching. So, we, we, you know, ask folks to kind of bring in laptops and whatnot.
[00:19:37] We had, at least since I've just go at that point. It's funny, but it was, the, the rent for that office space was 2000 bucks a month, and we were able to fit 20 students in there. So, you know, we. We didn't, we didn't end up raising money and, and you know, I think all told, we ended up putting together or putting into the business less than about $10,000 of our own savings to kind of get things started.
[00:19:56] But, yeah, we, we, we try to keep it very lean and, and, and, and kind of, internet. So, you know, just having to kind of kick things off that way instead of going the traditional route and looking for that for the Capitol.
[00:20:08] Ish: [00:20:08] Yeah, I love that. And I mean like, it's easy to kind of look back on it and you know, it sounds like it, it was instant product market fit. Did it feel like that?
[00:20:17]Kush: [00:20:17] it did , you know, we did, you know, I'd say towards the end of that year, I ended up to us in 12 when, When w when we were trying to fill the second class, feel, feel some difficulty in terms of getting that, you know, off the ground and, , you know, there was some, there was some pain there, but I think once we were able to really communicate the income share agreement to the market, and they would get that out there on time through acronyms.
[00:20:38] So on the front page for a day, equities was done. you know, quite a bit first. so, so, so that, Once we were able to communicate that, that income share agreement. Yeah. So saw a fair amount of kind of interest there and, and, and even press, you know, excited about this new way of, funding integration.
[00:20:55] Ish: [00:20:55] That's really fascinating. And I know you said that this kind of program that you had gone through had a lot of, like a lot of kind of components of an ISA, but it wasn't quite an ISA. At what point did you kind of piece together and realize that like an ISA was even feasible in terms of like a business model.
[00:21:10] Kush: [00:21:10] Yeah. So we, we saw that even though, so in temple, Kim's model was that we're only going to refund you if we're able to place you in a partner company. Now that only works for like 10 to 20% of students. So, you know, it's only those, that percentage percentage of students that are, that are getting that refund.
[00:21:27] But the, the thing that we thought that, that, that also resonated with students the most was that. 80% 90% of them were getting jobs and that and that. We thought once that student gets that job, then they're going to be happy to pay. So, so we kind of searched out together and say, Hey, you know, if we really believe in this model, if we believe that it can get students jobs, then we should put our money where it mounts are.
[00:21:50] And what better way to do that then then to tie not only to their job success, but literally to, to to the dollar and cents of their specific income. And so, Hey, we will make our tuition exactly aligned to what, what salary you are making. So that, that's kinda how we probably came up with that.
[00:22:06]Ish: [00:22:06] that's incredible. And I imagine you probably face some regulatory hurdles, right? I, you know, in our previous conversation, you talked about that. Could you share more about that here?
[00:22:16] Kush: [00:22:16] Sure. So the, the income share agreement does not fit the specific mold of how tuition, you know. quote, unquote, should be charged, according to the, to the, you know, state regulators in, in, in California, in New York, which are our primary markets, at least for in-person program. But the online program we do, we do serve students across, across the U S actually across the world.
[00:22:38] So, but, but you know, our initial stages when, you know, in 2013 when we only had, you know, the, the afterschool and your campus, we were trying to get these programs approved by the state regulators. And. Unfortunately, the, the, the, they just had outdated, you know, kind of regulations that they were, that they had to enforce that didn't allow for a straight up ISA.
[00:23:00] So we, we spent multiple years kind of working with them to try to get . a traditional straight ISA kind of passed through the, through the, through the regulator, we were unable to do that, you know, in the, kind of the purest form of a, of a traditional kind of percentage, of, of, of income. So, we did come up with a, with a, you know, a, a contract mechanism that does allow us to effectively have, have an income stream for me, but, it's a little bit complicated and it's not, not as straight forward as we'd like it to be, but, The New York state regulator is moving forward and being fairly flexible in that the income share agreement from California, we had some optimism that they were going to be changing their, their lost actually account for the income share agreement. That said, it looks like the. Distress being placed on the state legislature by the current of virus, essentially, it means that they won't get as much of a chance to, you know, look at that law, and that laws for the state and as you come up for renewal every five years or so.
[00:24:00] So, that, yeah, hoping that, that, we can pass something through this time, but if not, then, then we'll pass it then. Yeah. Over the next five years.
[00:24:08] Ish: [00:24:08] No, I do want to stress how impressive all of this is. Because, you know, if we actually think about where we are today, there are a lot of tools, a lot of companies working in this space. And to actually start like an ISA back to bootcamp is a lot easier than back in 2012 so I, I, you know, I am just fascinated by this story, how you guys decided to build from scratch and fight all these regulatory hurdles to get through and kind of get this icing metal up and running.
[00:24:32] And you know, if we actually do kind of fast forward to today, I'm going to list off a bunch of companies that are using ISA as a, as a financing vehicle. And it is really. Astounding how quickly it spread after app Academy launch. So, we, you know, a lot of the audience, vendor members have probably heard of Lambda school.
[00:24:47] There's also blockchain, sharpest minds placement path rise, creator school on Delta, and more and more came to keep seeming to pop up. but one kind of trend that I've noticed is that they seem to be all primarily focused around tech. do you think it'll ever expand beyond that? Yeah.
[00:25:06] Kush: [00:25:06] Yeah, I think that, so actually, the fact that that's not that well known is that about 50 colleges and universities are piloting income share agreement program. So, and they're doing it across all majors. So, and these are, you know, some, some of the biggest names that have announced Purdue is probably the biggest one.
[00:25:24]Other colleges that, you know, haven't formally announced, but it's fairly well known in the market. So ASU, Arizona state, so it was another name. And so you're starting to see very large, you know. Very old institutions move to this, did a pretty exciting tuition model and I think that's going to be a big piece of what, what takes a lot of education and financing onto the income share agreement model.
[00:25:46] The reason that I think you've seen it take off like wildfire is that I'm assuming it is just a superior way of financing their education. There. There are some potential downsides and you are seeing some, some I providers be a little bit exploitative in the how they. They, they set up their ISA. They have very long payback periods.
[00:26:05] They have have, have a high enough percentage of salary that they're essentially assured that they're going to get paid back their entire tuition as opposed to actually whisk sharing with the student. You know, Hey, if I, if you don't get this, you know, significantly better job and what I'm putting quickly, I don't get paid at all.
[00:26:22] They're kind of losing track of that. But if you're talking about a, a country missional, I say in the way that it, quote unquote, should be done. I think you're, you're, you're going to see the students pulling that from, from, education. institutions of all kinds. And, and, we, we saw that in the early days were a lot of our students, you know, potential applicants would go to other schools and say, Hey, why don't you offer the same deal?
[00:26:45] Abogada me, you know, they're, they're offering something, some basically some more pressing, and they're actually willing to stand behind their education, don't you believe in your education. and I think that's a very powerful statement. And, and I think other folks are having to figure out ways to, to kind of make sure that they have a, an answer for them.
[00:27:03] Ish: [00:27:03] Yeah, no, that's, that's really fascinating. And I just love the model where it aligns incentives between institutions and students, where at the end of the day, if you don't deliver, if you say like you're going to deliver these results, you actually don't, and the student doesn't have to pay. And it, to me, I think this is one of the biggest innovations in the last hundred years.
[00:27:22] And. Higher education and we'll have to see how this unfolds. Especially now more than ever, how we're seeing a lot of transformation before I actually do get to Cova 19 because I think that that'll be a really interesting topic. Discussion. I do want to, you mentioned that you had an on-campus kind of experience in San Francisco as well as the on campus program in New York.
[00:27:41] At what point do you introduce the online program?
[00:27:45] Kush: [00:27:45] Yeah. So we sort of work on the online program. Back in 2017 we, we did various kinds of experiments, and, and actually launched the course out of beta, over 2019. So, that, that was when we launched it into the market. And, today. You know, represents a very significant fraction of our, of our enrollments.
[00:28:03]I wouldn't be surprised if that represents the majority of our enrollments, by the end of this year.
[00:28:09] Ish: [00:28:09] Wow. That, yeah, that is really fascinating. And, we definitely have seen kind of a trend towards kind of these online trade schools and it's been really awesome to see app Academy adopt that. so, you know, currently it's 2020. I'd love to hear you talk about. App Academy, reflecting on the last eight years, what can you share about, I guess the number of students who've gone to the program?
[00:28:28]what are the outcomes been? anything you can share would be helpful.
[00:28:32] Kush: [00:28:32] Sure. Yeah. So, since, since we started, I believe it's North of about 3000 students that have been able to graduate from, from African bees full time course. we've had students in our part time courses, et cetera. Those are included. And these numbers of the students that are completing their, their, their job search, these, so I believe it's about, so over those 3000 students, it's really consistently about 95% of students are, are able to find jobs as software engineers, making more than, 50,000, New York, and at least 60,000 in the attempt to scale.
[00:29:05] And this is within 12 months of graduation. So, so we do have a pretty high bar for what counts as a job. Policemen, Make less than that, or if you find a job too late, we don't actually count you as a placement. even though that that may be a meaningful kind of change in your life.
[00:29:20] Ish: [00:29:20] That's incredible. And I do wanna apply to you and your team for kind of building this incredible company. and so I guess this, this is probably a good leeway to kind of now getting to. Modern day as in covert 19. So it looks like we're a month into the quarantine Ang and the self isolation. and there's been a huge spike in interest for ad tech, especially considering one, you know, there's all these school closures and so schools, teachers, professors have to kind of adopt.
[00:29:49] Online learning, but also for the 10 million Americans who have now filed for unemployment. And so what I'm really curious about is what role do you think online boot camps will play in the recovery of the economy?
[00:30:01] Kush: [00:30:01] Yeah. So I think you will see as folks start to look at different retraining auctions, they won't look at bootcamps in non traditional kind of educational providers much more seriously than they have before. I think the content, even before coven 19 happened. Hmm. There's been much more talk about the student loan debt classes than there ever has before.
[00:30:26] I don't think you've ever seen, even if you've tracked that, the democratic presidential debates, this was a point of conversation, even at that level. So, so this is really a part of the national conversation where people are really starting to ask the question, is callers the right fit for everybody? Is it too expensive?
[00:30:40] Is it really meeting the needs of, you know, again, X, Y, Z person that, that, that. That might be enrolling. So, I think that that background context plus this. Yup. Galvanizing force that is called . is going to kind of push a lot of folks into the, these non-educational train providers. I think, this is where, a lot of people are, a lot of schools are going to have the chance to really prove that they are real engines of, of, job creation and job placement.
[00:31:07] So, I think you're going to see large kind of educational institutions get, get built over the next few years.
[00:31:15] Ish: [00:31:15] Yeah, absolutely. And I think at now it's, we're coming to realize it's not even just college students. There's a lot of people in industry like travel, hospitality, retail, local businesses, that I'm not going to have a place to return to after this crisis ends. And so they're going to need to completely retrain.
[00:31:31] For new industries that are preferably prone to global epidemics and can provide remote work. and, and so this brings up the question . A lot of these people, they don't have the time for spending, going back to school, retraining for two to four years, get a holistic education just so they can land a drop, maybe land a job while also racking up hundreds of thousand dollars of debt.
[00:31:52] And so with this, did, do you think that we'll start to see the spawning of a lot of trade schools given that. They're very kind of accessible. If they're online too, if they're, if they're a trade school, there'll be very quick, right? Rather than spending two to four years to train, you'll probably learn an industry skill within six months.
[00:32:12] And the last thing, if they actually use the ISA model it'll be completely risk free.
[00:32:17] Kush: [00:32:17] Yeah. So I, I do think that that you will see, programs even from universities start to start to meet this, this demand for shorter form courses, right? So there's this, there's this question of why I think when you look at the structure of a traditional university, there are a bunch of, if you can think from first principles, there are a bunch of questions that pop in your head.
[00:32:38] One of the questions is why every single degree four years. Like once you take the same amount of time to learn chemical engineering as it does to learn history. I
[00:32:47] Ish: [00:32:47] You hit it on the head. I that that question gets my blood boiling. Like it was, it was posed to me, I think just a couple of months ago, and as soon as it hit me, it hit, it hit me like a brick. I could not get over the fact that it makes no sense that every single degree has the same requirements. And to a degree, it almost seemed like the, you know, as this is a, as a vehicle for universities to create a standardized education and maximize profits.
[00:33:13] Kush: [00:33:13] Yeah, exactly. No, so, and that's exactly the, the incentive, that's a play there. I think I spoke, see fairly large, you know, kind of opportunities to, to, to, In a skill, the students in essence, from, from, from some universities, and as the, as, as folks are more open to those nontraditional educational environment, actors, I think you will see pretty quick shifts.
[00:33:36]universities already have started partnering with external providers to, to, to offer their different bootcamps, interest certificates. I think you'll, you'll see that grow. that's one area that we're tracking pretty closely.
[00:33:49] Ish: [00:33:49] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. another conversation that I've had been having with a lot of other founders of bootcamps is the fact that a big reason that coding boot camps are so appealing is because you can double or triple your salary. And that's kind of why a lot of boot camps in stayed in tech are right now more than ever, people aren't looking to double or triple their salary, they're just looking for a job.
[00:34:09] And so it seems like this could be the imperatives for boot camps to expand beyond just tech. And now we'll see kind of training for all sorts of jobs where it's like, Hey. You know, your industry doesn't exist anymore, but now we can train you to land a job in this new industry. Do you think that will happen.
[00:34:25] Kush: [00:34:25] Yeah. I think there are, there are some things that make software enduring. Much easier, and, and related tech skills, much easier to, to, to kind of form a bootcamp around. So, I think you, and, and let me just quickly enumerate though, so one is that, the industry is much more open to nontraditional folks than other industries.
[00:34:43] So before bootcamps even started, 40% of software jurors were, were self trained. But even though the computer science school exists, almost half of folks in this industry where we're coming from left field essentially, right? So it has a very skills based hiring process. It's still, you know, it's got a bunch of biases that are baked into it, but it's still, compared to many other jobs, it's much more skill based and much less credential based.
[00:35:07]that's not true of many other. professions, you may see that shit. But, so that's one. One is, another is that it is very equipment, like, right? You don't have to, you don't have to have a bunch of equipment, at your home to be able to learn how to become a software engineer. And the same way that to be a healthcare professional order mechanic or, you know, any number of these other fields, You actually need the physical equipment. So, and perhaps we're sure reality they are, can, can help bridge that. I'm not sure. I mean it really depends on the specific field, but, and, and, you know, and then lastly, we probably just be the, the insane demand that there is for software engineers. Would that just scissors a strong second of growth behind it?
[00:35:42] And. Many of the fields that have that strong secular multi decade growth behind it actually do have some component of tech to them. So, I think you will see expansion around the skills that, that, that, that becomes a training folks towards. But I think they will be, I Jason to, to check, at least, at least initially.
[00:36:02] Ish: [00:36:02] Yeah, that does make a lot of sense. And, I know we are running out of time, but I kind of wanted to, you know, wrap up with, thinking beyond bootcamps, thinking beyond ISA and coding schools, what other lasting impact do you think of it 19 will have on education as a whole?
[00:36:20] Kush: [00:36:20] Sure. So I think you will see rapidly a homeschooling accelerate. so I think some that some folks are surprised about is that even before coven, 19 5% of us, K-12 students who were homeschooled. It's already a very high percentage, and most of those students are not being homeschooled because of religious impetus, which, which is the other kind of a bias that folks have against homeschooling.
[00:36:43] So I think you'll see significant growth there. You'll also see significant growth in companies like out school that offer programs that can supplement essentially the deficiencies of homeschooling. I think another area where you will need to see a lot of innovation is. in, in programs, events, you know, products that can connect, connect students, especially K-12 scenes to each other in, in, in the real world because they will be lacking that.
[00:37:10] And that's a very, that's social, emotional learning is a very important component of what you do in K-12 education. So, that's, that's one that I think will be pretty exciting. I think, you know, you will definitely see rapid acceleration growth of, even, you know, asynchronous non-job. Outcome focus, online education, right?
[00:37:29] So you'll see a development of learning management systems. you'll see content creation. You'll see, even just . Even maybe just, just a lie. They synchronis you know, and that kind of course, what we think doesn't have a gun, but outcome guarantee, marketplaces, you know, increased number of courses there.
[00:37:44] I, I, I think you will see kind of explosion there. So, that's, that's pretty exciting. I think, yeah, I think you'll feel a lot of, lot of changes to be in the, in the, in the education space.
[00:37:55] Ish: [00:37:55] Yeah. And it'll be really exciting to kind of unfold and also see all the innovators in the space, the startups that are going to emerge. It seems like every time there's a crisis like this, it definitely accelerates education. I think the last crisis we had, you dummy Coursera, you, Udacity were born.
[00:38:11] It'll be really interesting to see what startups kind of emerge now. But, yeah. With that, I guess that wraps up our conversation. This was really fun. Kush. Thank you so much for coming on. Is there anything that you'd like to share, I guess, with the listeners in terms of where they can learn more about app Academy and or yourself
[00:38:27] Kush: [00:38:27] Sure. Yeah. So, A thanks. Can just go to our website to app Academy. Dot. IO, to, to, to learn more about our school. we actually have our entire curriculum online for free, available@open.app Academy. I also, it's a multi thousand hour curriculum. It will take you from not knowing anything to entry level software engineer and, No worries. If the only reason you're looking at that is to get a flavor of software and journeys even for you, or whether app time is for you, but it's up there. You know it's available. So I just, just, just wanted to make folks aware that
[00:39:00] Ish: [00:39:00] Yeah. Awesome. Well, well, thank you Kush. with that, signing off.
[00:39:04] Kush: [00:39:04] awesome. Thank you.
[00:39:05]Ish: [00:39:05] That was Kush Patel of app Academy. If you're interested in learning more about an app Academy, go to app academy.io. That wraps up this conversation. Thanks for listening. This is ish signing off.
NOTE: The following transcript was generated by robots who don't always understand English so well. I apologize for the grammatical errors.
Students Who Design Interview
Ish: [00:00:00] What's up everybody? My name is Ish and I am the founder of virtually, and this is the virtually podcast where we discuss everything online education, including higher ed, online trade schools, bootcamps, ISA, , and so much more. This week's conversation was with Sahil kosha, the founder of students who design, we talked about the origins of online education going all the way back to 2005 and then walked up our way to modern day.
[00:00:26] It was genuinely fun to reflect on where we've been and think critically about where we're going, especially given the recent outbreak of coven 19 and the sudden spike of unemployment all around the world. This conversation was more relevant than ever, and I had a blast. I hope you enjoy as well.
[00:00:42] hey, everyone! Uh, my name is ish, uh, founder and CEO of virtually, and I am joined by Sahil Khoja, uh, the founder of students who design, uh, so sigh. How would you. Introduce yourself,
[00:00:54] Sahil: [00:00:54] yeah, sure. Uh, yeah, so my name is Sal Hill, like it's pronounced, like I saw a Hill. I'm one of the cofounders of students who designed, we first started off as a podcast just trying to help people break into the design industry. That has now evolved into a, uh, a online course, uh, and a mentorship program.
[00:01:09] So we, we help people get their first internship or job in product design, and we especially help those people who come from underrepresented backgrounds or unconventional backgrounds.
[00:01:19]Ish: [00:01:19] Awesome. And for context, for anybody listening to this in the future, at the time we're recording this, we're amidst, uh, the coronavirus Cova 19 epidemic. We're like in the thick of it right now. Uh, schools all across the country started closing right around mid March. And a lot of universities have let out as well.
[00:01:39] And, uh, it is currently April six. And so we have no idea how much longer kind of, uh, quarantining and social distancing is going to go on for. And gonna talk a lot more about students with design, but real quick right now, I'm curious, how has COVID 19 effected students who design, I guess one, it's virtual.
[00:02:00] It's online. So I imagine in that respect it hasn't impacted too much, but what about in terms of inbound interests? Have you seen a spike in interest lower? What's going on.
[00:02:09] Sahil: [00:02:09] Yeah. Um, I think there's a couple of things. So one is we. In January, I had launched a free three week course, uh, that was virtual online, but it was still instructor led. And you got feedback and as soon as the schools were like canceled and let out to go home, people were like, Hey, I'm going to be late.
[00:02:25] Like I have a lot of like an assignment submissions. I'm gonna, it's gonna be hard for me to participate. And we kinda sense that like this is going to be, this is pretty a pretty crazy time for everyone. And for them to commit to a three week course with deadlines and all that kind of stuff. It just doesn't make sense right now.
[00:02:39] So we decided to do, we were actually going to have a cohort in March and April, so what we decided to do is just give everyone access to the course. Um, the other part of it is that our bandwidth was limited because we all work full time jobs while doing students who design. So now we're also transitioning to working from home and being kind of everywhere.
[00:02:57] So it's hard for us to be devoted to the students, uh, for a free three week course. So what we did is we essentially said, if you submit. The assignments and you've made your whole case study, send it to us and we'll try to get feedback, but like nothing's really promised, given everything that's going on.
[00:03:11] And the other side of it is for our mentees, it's become harder for them to find jobs because now you know people are getting laid off, like there's hiring freezes, and especially for new grads, because like, you know, that's likely who you're not trying to hire for. If you're hiring it all right now. So I think in two ways it's been like that.
[00:03:29] So in terms of us being our bandwidth and then our mentees ability to find jobs has been difficult. Uh, and I mentioned like a spike, and that's definitely happened where I think it was last, uh, last Wednesday we released a, uh. A blog post with FEMA about how to set up an online design classroom and we saw this huge spike in applications.
[00:03:47] I think we're at like 700 something now for our three week course. Um, which is cool, but it's hard cause like we don't know how to support all these people and it makes sense. Like everyone says during a recession, the best thing to do is like go back to school because like, you don't want to get into the job market.
[00:04:01]Um. And it seems like that makes sense. Like everyone wants to like, use this time to like get better at a skill or learn something new. Like I've had friends texting me for some reason, they're like, Hey, do you know, like, where I can learn how to code? Um, and you know, like direct them to different places.
[00:04:13] But I think that's what people are trying to do is just try to upskill themselves in this time. But the issue is, is like the market demand isn't as strong as it used to be, especially for something that like design, which is already a bit more constrained if you're not senior. Um, so that's been kind of what we've seen in the last six to eight weeks.
[00:04:30] Ish: [00:04:30] Got it. Got it. And so it looks like a lot of people given their, you know, now a lot of people have a lot of free time. They're investing in their education and even though they know that they're maybe not going to be able to get work right now, they're hoping that this is going to pay off.
[00:04:44] One's kind of, the quarantine is over and kind of companies start ramping up their hiring again.
[00:04:50] Sahil: [00:04:50] Yeah.
[00:04:51] Ish: [00:04:51] Yeah. Awesome. Well, Hey, I want to dive really deep into students who design, but that's, we can kind of hold off for a little bit real quick. I kind of want to go kind of walk down memory lane and talk about where online education was all the way back in, I think 2005.
[00:05:06] And I think that's when like YouTube was founded, right. And, uh, my earliest kind of memory of
[00:05:13]
[00:05:13] education on YouTube was just like very lightweight. Like people uploading videos, instructional videos, how tos about, you know, just random topics. I know for me it was, I remember the first instructional YouTube video I'd ever watched was how to solve a Rubik's cube.
[00:05:27] And that's, that's how I learned, uh, how to solve a Rubik's cube. And I guess that was, I thought the inception of kind of online education. I know there was blogging before, but in terms of like video education, that's really where it started. Uh, what are your memories of, I guess, YouTube when it was originally, founded and I guess specifically the education side of it.
[00:05:48] Sahil: [00:05:48] Yeah. I think for me, YouTube is really big in high school where like. Uh, things like math and science didn't come natural to me, so I really went to YouTube to figure out what the hell is going on. Uh, especially for chemistry, I remember like everything for Khan Academy, like I would like, he taught me chemistry, everything for IB chemistry.
[00:06:06] So you're familiar with IB and AP IB, like topics, uh, have, sorry. IB courses have. Much more topics than just what's in the books taught in AP. Some of these like advanced, like we would do concentrations in organic chemistry and all this other stuff that I can't remember, but like I remember I would just turn to YouTube and there was a person who like just devoted him, use an IB chemistry teacher, but he also made YouTube videos.
[00:06:30] But the way he taught just clicked way better with me compared to what my teacher was doing. So I think in a way it just allows for access to like the same content, but just being delivered in different ways or in different ways that people can learn. And people eventually attached to one person. I remember this one guy thing, he had Patrick JMT.
[00:06:47] I think that's his
[00:06:48] Ish: [00:06:48] Oh, I loved
[00:06:49] Sahil: [00:06:49] Yeah, yeah,
[00:06:50] Ish: [00:06:50] multivariable
[00:06:51] Sahil: [00:06:51] exactly. Yeah. Like he's fantastic. Like to not make a mistake using a Sharpie doing calculus, like everyone knows. I like, he just knows how to do it with a Sharpie, but yeah, I just learned from him like everything too, just because you want, you can rewatch it to you. Go to the comments and then three, they do multiple different problems.
[00:07:10] Sorry. If they do. Multiple types of problems. Um, so whereas your teacher like explains it doesn't example gives you a worksheet and then you finish it and then you get homework and you can test, right? Like here you kind of have different, you can like read about it. You can read the captions, you can watch multiple videos, multiple people teaching the same concept.
[00:07:26] It's almost like people say the best way to learn is to read, write, and speak it all at the same time. And so you can do that on YouTube and listen, I guess. So in a way it helps a lot.
[00:07:37] Ish: [00:07:37] No, that makes total sense. And I, I have an experience a lot like that. I remember I transferred to a new high school in the 11th grade, and I remember signing up for BC calculus, AP BC calculus, and it was calc one calc two and this was a new school district. And I had had heard that this was a very. Very intense kind of class a, and this teacher was, you know, very strict.
[00:07:58] And I've just remember just being overwhelmed. There were too many changes happening at once, you know, new school, trying to make new friends, trying to fit in, and then also taking this really hard class. And I was just so overwhelmed and I just couldn't keep up. I know for me it's something I struggled with growing up is that a lot of.
[00:08:13] A lot of concepts just seem to come naturally to people. Whereas for me, I was a slow learner. But once I learned something, I like mastered it very quickly. And so YouTube was the way I kinda just learned, cause I didn't, I think one of the powers of the internet, um, that I saw firsthand was it democratizes the spread of information and it allows you to get access to.
[00:08:35] People who are just really great teachers. You know, like a lot of my, I think that's why I really resonated with Khan Academy. Um, you know, he was just an incredible teacher and you wouldn't, no matter you know, who your teacher was, you could have access to him as an additional resource. And, and he explained it in different terms that could really click for some people.
[00:08:54] Who for their, their teacher, the way they was, they were explaining it just didn't click. And so, yeah, and I think, you know, 2005, you know, we saw these kinds of like online education appear its first head. Uh, but then then 2008 you Udemy rolls around and they basically kind of see this niche that's going on at, on YouTube and they're like, Hey, there could be, you know, an entire company dedicated to educational content online.
[00:09:17] And so my question is, did you, did you ever use Udemy, I ever as a student or as an
[00:09:22] Sahil: [00:09:22] yeah. Multiple times. Yeah. I always have bought multiple courses. Uh, I think for you to thank you, to me, it's like a great way to F it's like, um, . I'm trying to think. It's, I think the easiest way to feel like you're improving yourself because it's like 10 bucks. Are you telling me for 10 bucks? I can learn, react like the whole thing and become a react developer for $10 like, yeah, I'm doing that.
[00:09:44] Right? Like you're going to buy it immediately. As for like the amount of like, I've never finished a you to me course probably more than 10% or 20%. Like, I have probably four or five, six courses. Cause like their marketing is great. Like everything's 90% off, 99% off, like whatever they do and like they know it works in itself.
[00:10:02]Um, but I think in a way it helps people make a passive stream of income. I just don't know. One, like the quality control. Um, and I know some people are like, this is the course. Like, you know, they do different rating systems for you, uh, to get it. But. Sometimes I think it's great maybe to learn skills that require more like rote memorization, um, or things that like, you know, like how to use Excel.
[00:10:26] Like just basic stuff. But if you're trying to learn like, uh, you know, complex computer science topics, I feel like YouTube still is better in that way. Cause you can learn from professors. You can sit in on like open course lectures at MIT, like. You know, you, me is not going to go. And I don't know how they would achieve that, but I don't think that's you.
[00:10:44] To me, it's target market. I think their target market is like people who need to learn like basic skills. Um, but the stuff that sells is like, I want to be a software engineer, so let me just buy like three or four courses on Udemy. Um, but I don't know if they actually understand those fundamental topics.
[00:10:56] That's like my personal take. I don't actually know other human users, but that's like from what I've, what I look when I see the product and I've been a user, that's what I assume.
[00:11:06] Ish: [00:11:06] Right, right. And you know, think about the time that you know, me was released 2008 I think due to being a YouTuber was not a thing. People like there were definitely people like uploading on YouTube, but you really couldn't make a living off of it yet. And so I think one of the things that really kind of made sense for you to me is that, Hey, it was one of the first ways to monetize.
[00:11:24] If you were somebody who was creating educational content on YouTube, you know, you, to me, it would come to you and say like, Hey, post a post educational content on here and now you can actually make,
[00:11:33] Sahil: [00:11:33] It's also the same thing as like 2008. Right? Like that's when everyone's probably going to stay in school or try to learn something new because the global financial crisis. So you can say the same thing. Now I feel like masterclass is advertising everywhere cause they're like, you got to upskill right now.
[00:11:48]Um, I haven't seen much from like Lambda school or other programs, but it seems like, you know, everyone's sitting at home and like Codeacademy is now free for three months and you know, everyone's trying to capture that, that sentiment of trying to get better at something while you're at home.
[00:11:59] Ish: [00:11:59] Yeah, totally. And we're about to get to masterclass and Lambda school, but before we get there, one of the things that you really mentioned at that, I think. Really, that is a stat that I've seen over and over is how low the completion rate is for courses. You know, you don't mean great idea, right? And I think the same reason people buy courses is the same reason why people buy books, right?
[00:12:17] It's because they feel like they're investing in themselves and they feel like, you know, I'm not just buying a book. I'm not just buying course. I'm buying a skill.
[00:12:25] Sahil: [00:12:25] yeah.
[00:12:26] Ish: [00:12:26] Uh, but there's no accountability. And what ends up happening is a lot of people don't actually feel pressured to complete these courses.
[00:12:33] Or books. And so we kind of now see an evolution, right? You mentioned the 2008 financial crisis, and they say that financial crisis is often accelerate, uh, education, innovation, education. And so the next kind of, um, companies that kind of emerge are course era and your Udacity, and they kind of emerged it in the 2011 to 2014 time period.
[00:12:56] And they introduced the idea of MOOCs. A massive online courses. And these are, these are live, um, and they're in like a large group setting and it's kind of meant to tackle, there's accountability settings. But turns out MOOCs don't have a great completion rate either. Actually. In fact, uh, some people have a statistic that MOOC completion rate is under 10%.
[00:13:16] So actually worse than kind of you to me courses. So I'm curious, why do you think MOOCs never took off?
[00:13:22]Sahil: [00:13:22] Um, I think they were trying to achieve that like signal parody for universities. Like, you know, your Udacity uses like the word nanodegrees and Coursera I think as certificates where like. I don't necessarily think it mapped to jobs. And that's my personal opinion that you've taken a 3000 or 2000 whatever, four digit number, you Udacity Nanodegree like you're expecting a pretty big outcome afterwards.
[00:13:46] Right. Um, same thing with Coursera. So like, I've never really seen that. If you have like today you see with like general assembly, I think they did it really well at Lambda school to an extent where like if you went here like. Everyone knows you're legit and you're certified in that way, but I've never really heard that with Coursera and you, and you'd ask it, and it could have been that the programs are offering at the time, just like.
[00:14:06] There wasn't that high of a demand for those professions. Maybe software engineering was still there, but software engineering is clearly, you know, gone increased. So as designed, so as data science and all those things. And I think they were trying to do very complex things in a time that like, you can't really do like self driving cars in a movie.
[00:14:22] Like it just doesn't make sense. Um, they seem to me, it doesn't make sense. Um. And the other part of it is like, I think schools quickly realize like general assembly and Lambda school as well. Like, you know, how are we going to help these students get jobs, right? Like, and I think some schools kind of creep into that part where like, they'll also do some stuff at the end for you and your Udacity.
[00:14:44] All it does is it gets you that section on your LinkedIn and maybe, you know, some technical skill. Same with Coursera. Um. And I think, at least for me as like a self taught designer, like I would, that was at least my thinking whenever I was looking into Coursera or Udacity, like, should I really pay $700 for like UI design on your Udacity?
[00:15:01] I'm like, I don't, I don't, I don't know. I'd probably not, I don't have that kind of money. So like that was an easy answer. But I think like, I've never really heard of people being like, Oh yeah, dude, I did you Udacity. And now I'm a designer now, you know? So. I think that, I think it was also a timing, like what they were offering and in the time that they were offering it in and the topic of offering all those things at once.
[00:15:21] Ish: [00:15:21] I mean, it was a cool concept and you can see kind of the problem they were going after, which is, Hey, you know, people aren't really finishing these courses. They need to feel like they're a part of the community. Right? So they, they, they, they were the first ones to really add the community aspect to online learning, which was awesome.
[00:15:35] It was live. But it was actually, these groups were so large that, you know, you don't actually feel still accountable. To
[00:15:42] Sahil: [00:15:42] Yeah. It's like you're like your freshman year science class. Like there's hundreds of students, like you don't have to go to a lecture. Um,
[00:15:48]Ish: [00:15:48] It's not personalized at all. Yeah. And so, you know, we eventually, we'll get to, I guess 2017 when we keep hinting at this one startup that we'll get to. But before, before, I guess we got there in 2015 a masterclass comes out and they're taking a different approach. It kind of like, you don't mean, but they a very curated selection of instructors, like a tier.
[00:16:09] Reputable instructors, celebrities, uh, the best in the world. Uh, these are, these are pre recorded, not live. So kind of get, you know, throwing the Moog model out the window and saying, Hey, you know, there is going to be a community, like we'll have farms and stuff like that. But for the most part, everything here is very curated.
[00:16:26] It's from the best in the world. And uh, yeah, you pay something like, I think it's like $70 and you get access to this one course. Since then, I think they've actually changed the model and now
[00:16:35] Sahil: [00:16:35] It's like a one 80 for two yeah.
[00:16:37] Ish: [00:16:37] Yeah, it's, it's, I think, unlimited one 80
[00:16:40] Sahil: [00:16:40] Oh,
[00:16:40] Ish: [00:16:40] You have access to all, yeah, all of the masterclass, kind of the Netflix model now.
[00:16:44] And it's a, it's a yearly subscription. It's not monthly too. Um, and so masterclass was an interesting concept when it first came out. What did you think about it?
[00:16:55]Sahil: [00:16:55] Um, I mean, I thought it was like a, it was like for one great design. I remember like just the ads were fantastic and very good. He said curated. Um, and two, I think it was a great way to introduce like, um, I think it's like. It's basically a lot of the education, like there's these companies and services we're talking about very much model the fitness industry.
[00:17:16] Like, you know, you could sign up for a gym membership but not go. We're just like, you know, 10 bucks a month. That's your, you to me, like you just get 10 pay, 10 bucks and you don't really do anything with it. And then you have like your, your Udacity where it's like, you pay. I a hundreds of dollars for like an unlimited Barry's bootcamp thing.
[00:17:32] Right? And that's like forces you to go, or maybe the larger cause berries works and you, you'd ask me didn't. And for masterclass I feel like it's more like, you know, like the crew, like the Chris Hemsworth, like workout plan, right? Like I want that. Like. They get these videos of celebrities who prepare for these movie roles and it's like, this was their workout plan.
[00:17:49] And everyone's like, I will pay for that. Cause like, I know this person did it. I see their body, I trust them. They're famous, like, and that has that to it. Right? So when you see Steph Curry teaching shooting, it's like there's like, this has to be good. So there's no like question of quality. Um, there's no question of like content quality either.
[00:18:05] Cause you see like how much masterclass invest in it. The tricky part with all of this, and this is my personal opinion, is the feedback part. Like you can. Watch Steph Curry shoot and does do what he says, but you don't really know if you're doing it right. It's like watching someone trying to teach you like how to bench press off YouTube videos that you can watch all the videos you want and you can try it and keep doing it.
[00:18:24] But if you're doing it wrong, it just kind of compound over time to where you can ever fix it. Like as someone who plays basketball and has been shooting for like, I don't know, 10 years, like there's certain things I just cannot fix there. It'll take me a very long time regardless of how much Steph Curry videos I watch.
[00:18:38]Um, you're, you're saying.
[00:18:39] Ish: [00:18:39] no, that's, yeah. I was going to say, and I, it is a question that I've, you know, had with my investors all the time, which is, do you think that masterclass is more of an education company or more of an entertainment company?
[00:18:53] Sahil: [00:18:53] I think you're just paying for like, and it's like, same thing as a fitness class that's $50 it's entertaining. It's like a, you know, an hour. They give you music, you get really nice water. Like you get customers' shoes, you get nice lotion in the bathrooms. In a way it's an experience. But you also becoming healthier and this way it's like you're paying for an experience to then get a new skill.
[00:19:15]Um. And it's just like anything, like you go to a theme park, you go to the movie theater, right? You're paying for an experience and you get something out of it. In this case, it's nicer because it's education, right? Like who's going to argue about paying for education or paying for fitness? Right? Like everyone you talk to and they're like, do you really think your exercise classes where it's 60 bucks?
[00:19:31] And they're like, well, how much do you value your life or your health? And like, it's priceless, right? So, you know, that's very hard to argue against that and say anything like this. It's like, you know, it's kinda hard to argue that people want to invest in their education. The hard part is actually investing in like discipline and doing something every single day, which is free, but it's just much harder to do because you can't pay for discipline.
[00:19:51] Ish: [00:19:51] Absolutely and masterclass while while the content quality is very high at this point, it's not, it's still not career changing education. You can't expect to take a masterclass and
[00:20:02] Sahil: [00:20:02] no. It's very great. Very great gifts, right? Like, you know, you got gifted a masterclass subscription. It's like a nice to have. Um, yeah.
[00:20:09] Ish: [00:20:09] totally. And so now I think this is, this is the time where we kind of bring it all together. So starting from 2005 you know, we have the YouTube than you to me, than Coursera, Udacity, masterclass all seem to have, you know, headed towards this direction. They were kind of trying to prove that, Hey, you could have life changing career changing education completely online.
[00:20:29] And. Finally in 2017 we get Lambda school, and this is kind of the startup we've been kind of hinting at for a while now, but it seemed like the timing was just perfect. So, um, for, for those that might not know Lambda school, uh, Sahel, do you want to kind of describe what Lambda school is?
[00:20:45] Sahil: [00:20:45] Yeah. It's a, it's an online remote school that you don't pay anything for until you get a job that pays you. Some amount or more, like 50,000, $60,000 or more. Uh, and in return, you pay them a percentage of your salary for two years, and it's kept at a certain amount. And if you don't get a job, you don't pay anything at all, I believe up until five years.
[00:21:06] So you don't pay until you get a job. But essentially the model that they use and it's an income share agreement.
[00:21:12] Ish: [00:21:12] And it completely blew my mind when I first heard about it, but it seemed like it kind of. Everything that all these other previous educational platforms were missing. It finally kind of brought all of it together. It was like online. It was live. It was small groups from reputable instructors, life-changing career education, but then also it's completely risk free it, you know, commission models have been around for a while, but I think this is the first time I saw the commission model brought to education, and I think.
[00:21:40] You know, it, it kind of makes sense. Like a lot of people talk about online trade schools and one of the biggest questions that comes up is accreditation, right? Why would a employer, you know, look at somebody who's coming out of one of these online trade school and say like, Hey, you actually know the scale, right?
[00:21:56] And so there was this kind of this big barrier to entry and then having this ISA remove that barrier. And it allowed trade schools to say like, Hey, you know, trust us. Like it's in our incentive to make sure you actually land a job and we're going to go out, make partnerships with these companies and help you land a job.
[00:22:12] And if we don't, you don't have to pay a cent. And so I thought that was just brilliant. And since then we've seen a slew of companies kind of adapt and kind of like take on this model and use it as their own, including students who design.
[00:22:28] And so at this point, I mean. All right. So the year is, I guess, 2017 at what point?
[00:22:34]Um, the students who design when, when does that born?
[00:22:37]Sahil: [00:22:37] Uh, I think it was also like the, the podcasts, like we were, how we started was also in, I want to say 2017 as well, sophomore year of college, right? Yeah. So 2017 yeah.
[00:22:49] Ish: [00:22:49] Yeah. So the podcast starts and then can you walk me through the history, like everything that happens after the podcast up to, I guess current day.
[00:22:58] Sahil: [00:22:58] Yeah, so we, I mean, we first heard it as a podcast because every design resource, most design resources and podcasts out there were for industry professionals, not for people who don't have a portfolio. I don't know what he's stigma. Um, and everyone at my school, we were all self taught designers and we all would learn from each other.
[00:23:13] We would all. Like, send each other job postings. We would all interview prep each other. Like it was a great community that was, that we all still talk to today. Um, so we started this podcast to kind of open source the knowledge we had, but then also people we knew whenever we interned or went to, uh, you know, did our jobs and we knew that these people also were self-taught designers.
[00:23:30] So. We did a podcast, we interviewed 25, or it's 25 to 30 people. Uh, at the same time, we were teaching a course at school called intro to product design. So it's two credits pass, fail. All student taught, uh, and people from other schools would ask if they could take this course too, but it was only reached and have the bandwidth to put it online.
[00:23:48]Um, as we were doing the podcast, we would put out blogs and resources and things like that, and we all graduated last may and decided to bring the course. We taught at school. She online and to everyone. And it was called introduction to digital product design. And so last fall I taught 40 people, 40 students remotes online for free.
[00:24:08] And it was 10 weeks just to basically work on the case and working and teaching this thing online. Um, and we recently launched a shorter version of that course. It's a three week course and. The people who were in the previous cohorts, we took some of them as mentees, and so they are part of our mentorship program.
[00:24:24] We helped them get their first job, give them feedback whenever they needed, do office hours with them every single week. Uh, and that's our ISA program. Um, so right now we're still working through, given all the coronavirus stuff, how we want to approach our next thing. But, um, it basically, we, our team is all self taught designers.
[00:24:41] Three or four of us taught this class that we used to teach at Cornell. And the fourth person, uh, we all know personally. So, uh, it's been a cool guest journey of us, like how it's grown and shaped throughout the last two years, three years.
[00:24:54] Ish: [00:24:54] That's incredible. And I don't know what, I guess what you can share, but what are, I guess have been the outcomes for the students who have gone through students who design.
[00:25:04] Sahil: [00:25:04] Yeah. Uh, so one of them, uh, it has an internship this summer@build.com. It's our first product design internship. Uh, the other one, he's more interested in PM software and design. So he's leading designer to start up also considering software engineering at Amazon this fall. Also interviewing for PM roles.
[00:25:21] He's kind of everywhere. Um, the other 10 or 11 are currently interviewing at various places. Some of them are a little, uh, either not ready to interview yet, knitting. They're still crafting their portfolio. Um, it might be better signal for the students that we taught at school. Um. Uh, only thing, almost all of them who finished the course were hired.
[00:25:37] And so a good metric for that is for, uh, Facebook had 40 product design interns last summer. 13 out of the 40 came from Cornell and took our class. So it's pretty. That's a, it's a big over-representation for a non design school. Um, so we know, I think we know how it works. And of course there are like extraneous things to work out, like people who are just graduating or people who might be working in retail trying to go to design.
[00:26:00] That's very different cause they can't really apply for internships. But, uh, in a way, we all understand how the process works at the new grad internship level. Um, but then also how to help students who may not have that community. And a lot of people appreciate that, which was surprising that they just have a community of people who are in the same boat as them, and that, you know, their school doesn't have that major, their school doesn't have the community, but they can find that community through the program.
[00:26:22] Ish: [00:26:22] Yeah, totally. And you know, me having now personally worked with students who design my current designer. Is somebody who was involved with students who design, and she's absolutely fantastic.
[00:26:31] Sahil: [00:26:31] That's good to hear.
[00:26:32] Ish: [00:26:32] to the quality of the education. Uh, and so I guess the, now I kind of want to step back and think about ISIS a little bit more and, uh, they seem like such a fantastic kind of idea.
[00:26:43] Obviously there are cons and we'll get to that as well, but I'm curious, why do you think I say it's didn't exist before? Like why, you know, why did some university out there not say like, Hey. We're going to do an income share agreement and, uh, unless you land a job why
[00:26:59] Sahil: [00:26:59] Um, I feel like it's just a huge risk. It's like a big liability for them. Um, and it's also, it's a bigger liability for them because of the scale and the services they provide. Right? So it's to provide all those things. Food room and board, professors, buildings, um, study abroad. Like. All the things that they do, like you can't really pay that back through a two years, 6% ISA.
[00:27:22]Um, and that's why the cost of attendance is like a quarter million dollars, right? So it's a pay that back, even if you're a software engineer would take, you know, 10 plus years, even if you're at a 10%, uh, ISA. Um, the other part is like, I think a lot of people, well not a lot of people. I think there's two schools of thought.
[00:27:37] There's like one where you go to university for an experience and to think. To learn how to think critically and to get an education. There's some people who go to university as like an ROI thing. Like if I go here, I will get this job. I'll take this much money. And you see that class between like schools like that.
[00:27:51] We all make this joke that Cornell, the best majors are all jobs, architecture, engineering, business, uh, and the hotel school, right? They all map to a job. Whereas someplace like Yale, like. It's liberal arts, like you don't really know what you're going to get out of English literature. You might become a banker, you might become a professor, like you don't know.
[00:28:09]Um, and I think that's kind of how people approach it. And the ISA doesn't work for both schools of thought. And almost every university has both, right? They have more pre-professional things, but they also have things that are liberal arts. And those things don't map to like exact salaries. Right? But if you're a software development.
[00:28:28] Like shop basically ERs coding school or design school, but you have a pretty good idea of what the market rate is and then how you should create your ISA based on the market rate and the amount of students you have coming in. But for universities as like public offerings, like public schools for example, they can't really do that.
[00:28:43] Or private schools where, you know, they know that like, why should I do an ISA if I know my students are willing to pay a quarter million dollars over for like, now? You know, what's the point? Um,
[00:28:53]Ish: [00:28:53] that makes, that makes total sense. And so one of the things I think is worth mentioning is that universities often kind of, um, the way they, the advertising terms that they use is like holistic education, right? What they're providing is that more, more than just the core, like job training, but also education when it comes to liberal arts and all these other topics that maybe you wouldn't get to explore.
[00:29:14] And my question for you is, do you think that. One, it's worth to have that holistic education. And second, do you think it's worth the cost that it comes to the students and the burden they take on down the road?
[00:29:26] Sahil: [00:29:26] That's a tricky question. Uh, um,
[00:29:27]
[00:29:27] yeah, I don't, I think it just, I think there's a lot of dependencies, so I think it comes down to what you valued, right? So some people might look at you and be like. You know, why do you need a pen to spend $300 on your headphones? Like the wired ones would work just fine.
[00:29:42] And that's because you value them and you're willing to pay for it, right? And you are willing to take loans for it. Um, I think the tricky part is when, if someone tells you like, in order to do X, in order to be why you need these headphones, right. That's what college is in a way, right? People are like, you need this.
[00:29:57] Like you will not be successful in life without it and not just good college. Just you have to go to college. I think that's the part that is not talked about enough. I mean, worth it or worth not worth did that. That's, that's up to you that you could spend $500 at a Michelin star restaurant and be like, that was worth it for me.
[00:30:13] Food is food. Like, I, we're not spending $500 on that. I don't value food enough for that. Um, but you know, for people to be like, you need to go to college, I think that's a tricky part. So I think a good example is like, one of my good friends, like, he, um. You know, he knows what he values. He says like, I really want a good design education.
[00:30:30] I want to become a product designer. Cause I mean he needs to go to Harvard or Yale. Definitely not. Does that mean he can look at schools like RIT or DePaul that will give him a lot of merit scholarship and provide him the program? For sure. You should go there and do that. Right. But like. I think the harder part is for people who don't know what they want, and that's like very easy for colleges to advertise to where it's like, get a holistic education, find what you want, make your own major, right?
[00:30:51] Like Brown does that. Like everyone wants to go to Brown because you can make your own major. Um, so I think, I'm not really answering your question, but in a way I think it depends on what you value. If you know what you want, then why spend, like if you know, you want. If you know you want that education, why do you need to spend more for the same exact thing, right?
[00:31:08] For the same exact outcome at the end, which is that job. And that's what like these trade schools do really well. Like, why should I go back to do my masters in computer science at Cornell when I can go to the Lambda school? Pay less, not pay anything right now? You know? So I think that's, I think we're going to see a lot of this when it comes to, uh, advanced degrees.
[00:31:24] And you look at MBA admissions or MBA applications, like they're going down. Master's programs, they're all like kind of orienting towards these like two weeks certificates. Cause like you love to see like MIT on someone's LinkedIn, but then you kind of dig in and you see it's a certificate. Um, and colleges know that and it's like free branding for them.
[00:31:39] It's cheaper for you. Everyone wins. So I think when you still get these advanced degrees, like why should you go back and take a $200,000 in loans for an MBA, whenever you could read a couple of books, start a startup, whatever you want to do to learn the same principles. Um. So I think when it comes to the undergrad level, it really depends on what you value.
[00:31:57] But for advanced degrees, like I, you know, I don't, I personally have no idea what the value is. Um, unless you're getting it at a discount. Like, unless it's like a four year program where you get both, that makes sense. Or like four and a half year, whatever it is. But to go back and spend that much money in loans, I have no idea if that's worth it.
[00:32:14] Ish: [00:32:14] Yeah, and we're definitely gonna see it like these online trade school is challenge these universities. Especially now more than ever. Right. And, and you know, one of the things I did want to mention is that, you know, universities are, are good for a lot of things that are personally, it paid a large part of, I guess for me there was a networking aspect.
[00:32:30] There was social development is this transition period where you go from being a kid to being an adult. But if now your purpose is. Job training like you need to land a job, especially considering like now in the month of March, 10 million Americans filed for unemployment, right? They're not looking for a holistic education.
[00:32:47] They need a job like right. And they needed a job without the risk of, you know, tacking on another 50 to a hundred thousand dollars of debt just so they can feed their family. And it needs to be flexible. Needs to be risk-free. It needs to be effective with no fluff. Right. And so given this is the situation we are in with covert 19 what role do you think, I guess online trade schools will play in the months to come?
[00:33:11] The years to come.
[00:33:12] Sahil: [00:33:12] I mean, I think they're going to be, uh, I think like. They'll be able to hold, I hope to at least accommodate some of the capacity or the amount of people or accommodate the amount of people who are not unemployed and have this time and want to scale up like it's a great time. It's a great thing that there are so many trade schools.
[00:33:30] The tricky part I think is whenever you do that promise of like getting you a job at the end, and I think that's why we like for students are designed. We kind of paused any growth, like we're going to try and do our best to get our current mentees jobs. And you know, people have reached out and been like, can I join the mentorship program?
[00:33:46] And we were like, right now, no, because it's unfair for us to say we will do our best to give you a job whenever we're not splitting our time between five people every week. It's not fair to say, I will actually devote. 100% of my attention to you because I won't like, it just won't happen. Um, it's not fair to you.
[00:34:02] It's not fair to the other people in the program. I think that's when you get things that get out of hand really quickly. So for example, like Lambda school recently for all their UX students, what they did is like, they canceled the program and all the students are actually still on the hook for their ISA.
[00:34:16] Which is super messed up because like they had programs over like, why should I pay for this thing? And it's very interesting. It's just not good ethics and not good principle. So if you see this huge market of people who need skills, it's very easy to abuse like the moment and try to spin up all these other programs.
[00:34:33] Like I think Lambda school tried to spin up design and data science and all this other shit and like it gets out of hand very quickly. But you know, you're, you know, if you have. A bunch of capital invested in you and you have these outcomes you need to reach in. The market is there, you're probably gonna, you know, do those things.
[00:34:48] So I think in a way that that's great that there's so many online schools to accommodate the amount of people in need to get skilled up, but I think it's the online school's responsibility to not abuse like this new found privilege that we have. Uh, like don't make false promises and be straight up.
[00:35:02] Like the market sucks. Like you likely will not get hired, but we can teach you the skill and the ISA is five years, meaning like, you know, you, if you don't get a job in the next two years, it's not like you still owe us anything. And I think if we're honest, and it helps people actually trust online school is more, instead of the Lambda school backlash, you know, water falling down to every ISA school where like, you know, if students are design starts up an animation program or a front end development program.
[00:35:26] You know, we don't, you know, it's just bad. It's like bad for the entire industry. Like when Facebook or Google or any of these companies really mess up and get on the news, you know, the public hates all tech. So you can see the same thing happening with ISA programs, like as Lambda school schools, kind of the leader in that and like the golden child.
[00:35:42] And as soon as it messes up, it's like, Oh, like these things are definitely fake news. So like, you know, you want to be aware of that.
[00:35:50] Ish: [00:35:50] Yeah. And you just brought up one of the major disadvantages of online trade schools is just their ability to scale. Like they only really work when it's like small numbers. Uh, beyond that, we haven't seen anything that really works at scale. Lambda school is the closest thing we'll see in the coming years what happens.
[00:36:05] But it seems like the benefit they have going for them is that there can be a lot of them, and it's not just going to be venture back startups. We're starting to see professors. There was this amazing article by Scott Galloway that came out this past week, and he talked about how in every university there's about six to eight ringers, like professors who are really.
[00:36:23] Really good. And as soon as they realize the power of kind of online education and using their own brand, uh, not limited by geography and how much money they can make from that, um, they'll start to leave these universities, right. And they'll start to build their own online trade schools where now they're getting a big, big slice of the pie.
[00:36:42] And, uh, and we'll kind of start to see education move away from institutions and more towards individuals or smaller organizations. Um, you know, it'll be interesting to kind of see this development over the next 12 to 18 months. It's not going to happen overnight, but it's accelerating it. I think. Well before COBIT, it might've taken three to five years.
[00:36:59] Now I think it will happen the next two to three years. Uh, another question, another I guess, disadvantage that I've kind of heard about online trade schools is right now they're only proven in tech, uh, UX design, data science, marketing growth, software engineering. Do you think they'll expand beyond that?
[00:37:18] And if so, why haven't they already.
[00:37:22] Sahil: [00:37:22] Well, I guess the one reason why I think it works really great in tech is because the economics are just really good. So like for the student, it's like I can go from making 30 K to a hundred K for the school. It's like, I know I'm going to make five digits off this ISA. Um, and then the market, like there's a demand, always a demand for software engineers.
[00:37:38] So, you know, when you have those three pieces, there's just such strong incentive alignment. Like that's the best industry to go with. Um, I have seen it done. I think there's a, there's a company, actually you told me about it. Uh, the lobby, uh, and I tried to do it for banking and consulting. The tricky part there is like with tech.
[00:37:53] And this is kind of my, my personal observation is like the less technical any job is, the more bullshit there is involved. So for banking, consulting, like what you wear, your hair, your facial hair, all that stuff matters. In tech, you can wear flip flops and shorts, but you could be like a director. And I think that's the biggest difference.
[00:38:11] Like. So when it comes to banking consulting, you can still use these trade schools to kind of learn modeling and learn how to do a DCF. But if you didn't go to the school that the MD went to, like it puts you at a severe disadvantage for things like tech. When you have stuff like Triplebyte, you have stuff like Lambda school where it's like, just take the quiz.
[00:38:28] If you do well, we will get you an interview. It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, what school you went to, um, you have a lot more opportunity or access to opportunity. And so. I think it's harder to scale to other high paying jobs, right outside of tech. It's really just business. Um, and maybe, maybe some more quantitative things.
[00:38:45]Um, so I could see maybe expanding to like quant firms or hedge funds where like, they don't really care where you went to school or what you did. It's just how smart are you and like how capable are you, um, things like AQR and. Bridgewater and those kinds of things. I could see it scaling there. I haven't seen it done there yet, but, um, you know, the economics work out really well there.
[00:39:03] W when it comes to, or like, or if the economics in terms of the salary don't work, it's also just market demand. So like nursing, um, so you see that with a company called ladder. I don't know if they do ISA, but it's basically like they've helped a lot of people get into nursing or event. . Um, they do as well, and they're, they've been doing it for nursing as well.
[00:39:22] It's just a high demand for nurses, especially now more than ever, but even before, like it's such a hard job, you know, and, and, uh, such a respectable job that like, and there's not that, not that many people that are trained for it. So I think it depends if the, if the job requires very specific skills and the economics work, then I can see it easily transferring over there.
[00:39:40] Ish: [00:39:40] Right, right. And I think a lot of these trade schools, they really thrived on the fact that like, Hey, you know, their marketing was, Hey, we'll help you get a job that pays much higher. But right now, people aren't looking for a job that pays higher. They're looking for jobs. Right. And so if there's an opportunity for this to expand beyond tech, I feel like it has to be right now because there are people who are, I guess maybe not even the highest and demand work, but they're, they're remote.
[00:40:02] They're epidemic prone. All right. And resistance. And so, you know, it could have a pivotal moment right here. And you know, I, I, I think there's been an awesome conversation. I think I could talk about this for hours, but I think we're right about the hit time. So I think, uh, right here, uh, would be, I guess a good stopping point.
[00:40:19]Uh, thank you so much for coming on. This was a really fun conversation. Before we leave, are there any plugs you want to give, uh, anything about students who design or anything else.
[00:40:26] Sahil: [00:40:26] yeah. Uh, well, right now we're not, we're not actively doing our three week course, but if you're interested, feel free to sign up on the wait list that students who got design. Um, check out fig Mazu blog posts. We recently did a blog post with them about how to start your own online design schools. So if that's something you're interested in doing for your own university or people you know, go for it.
[00:40:45]Um, and if you're looking to hire a designer, let me know.
[00:40:49] Ish: [00:40:49] Awesome. Yeah thank, thank you everybody for listening. the for, uh, coming by and, uh, yeah, this was a great conversation.
[00:40:56]
[00:40:56]That was Hill kosha of students who design. If you're interested in learning more about students who design, go to students who.design. Like I said, that was genuinely a fun conversation. I, and I hope you enjoyed listening.
[00:41:09] This is ish and I am signing off.
NOTE: The following is an AI-powered transcription of Justin and I's conversation. It likely contains many errors:
GetChoGrindUp (Justin Nguyen) Interview
Ish-track: [00:00:00] What's up everybody? My name is Ish and I am the founder of virtually, and this is the virtually podcast where we discuss everything online education, including higher ed, online trade schools, bootcamps, ISA, , and so much more.
[00:00:14]This week's conversation is with Justin Nguyen of GetChoGrindUp. We talk about COVID-19 and its effect on teachers, students, and higher ed. Justin gives some great advice on what you should do if you're a student during this crisis. I hope you enjoy.
[00:00:31]Ish: [00:00:31] Hi, everyone. Uh, my name is Ish the founder and CEO of virtually, and today I'm joined by Justin Nguyen of GetChoGrindUp justin, do you want to introduce yourself.
[00:00:41] Justin: [00:00:41] Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me on. So my name is Justin N. I'm the CEO of GetChoGrindUp. And basically our goal I get your grind up is really to share to Chicos to college and we can dive a little bit more about in into that. Cause I know the whole topic of today is going to be about higher ed and everything like that.
[00:00:56] So really looking forward to that. But I guess the other side of thing that I do is lead to consulting as I've built up a huge following on that platform where I'm getting like 200,000 views every single month off of student. Uh, content, basically. So that's sort of what's fueled ghetto grind up and it's, it's been crazy to just to see the reactions of other people around the world, um, when it comes to student voices and everything like that.
[00:01:18] Ish: [00:01:18] awesome. And I definitely want to talk about get your grind up, and I think it's going to have a huge role to play in terms of like. What is the world going to look like after this and for context right now, as we're recording this, it is in the midst of the covert 19 epidemic. And to start us off, the first thing I wanted to go through was a quick timeline.
[00:01:38] Of everything that's kind of happened with COBIT, where we are now, and the implications specifically for education. I know Justin, you're in, you're in the field of education. Myself and my company, we're also in the field of education, so this has a huge kind of impact on our industries, and so I kind of want to discuss those implications, but real quick, let me let, let's start off with the timeline and kind of everything that's happened so far.
[00:02:01] So I was doing some research and New York times has this incredible article where it just goes through. The timeline of everything that's happened with coven 19 all starting with December 31st it's kinda crazy. December 31st is kind of the first milestone that they have, and that is where dozens of cases are discovered.
[00:02:16] And Wu Han, January 11th, first known death of coven, 19 January 20th first confirmed case in the United States, January 30th, uh,
[00:02:27]
[00:02:27] who, who declares a global health emergency.
[00:02:33]
[00:02:33] Yeah. By February 23rd there's a huge surge of cases in Italy. February 29th first U S death March or March 13th is when president Trump declares a national state of emergency for United States, and then March 15th to 30th is quite a blur.
[00:02:48] Like a lot of different things happens. There's mass lockdowns all around the world. Shutdown of nonessential businesses, school closures, layoffs, and this kind of idea of social distancing really takes off. And today, April 6th, we're still not at the peak. Uh, luckily quarantining is, it's shown to be effective.
[00:03:08]Um, you know, schools have been closed. Uh, and you know, everybody's working remotely and it seems like some regions are kind of like flattening out. So there's some of the quarantine efforts are really working, but a lot of places have not reached their peak and still won't for another one to two months.
[00:03:23] So now I kind of want to shift gears. I'm talking about the education side of things, and so my sister, she's, she's a junior at the university of Michigan. She left to go back to school after spring break ended March, March 7th I believe. And just about a week and a half later, she was back. Uh, back home given that schools had closed.
[00:03:43] And so as you being somebody who works very closely with students, especially college age students, what are you hearing from them? What, what is going on from their point of view.
[00:03:55] Justin-: [00:03:55] So with students, they're really scared. Um, because I've seen, I mean, a few students have reached out to me saying, Hey, Justin, uh, how would you go about the whole covert thing that's going on right now?
[00:04:05] Because I had an internship that was set for the summer, but now they just retracted it and I'm not necessarily doing that internship anymore, or they're really in this. Space of, I don't even know my internship is going to happen, and it's been really crazy to look at it from my perspective because I'm not necessarily a student anymore, but I still feel empathy for them because it's like.
[00:04:24] I couldn't imagine that you worked so hard throughout the year, right? To get that internship at this great company, and then all of a sudden because of things that aren't really in your control, you can't go to that internship anymore. It's just been canceled for no reason. So it's been, it's been wild to hear some of the stories.
[00:04:40] I've heard people that just got their internship cut. I've heard. People that are especially like international students are really effected by this whole thing. Um, I know. So I hopped on a call with someone and she's really struggling to find that internship over the summer because of her international status.
[00:04:54] And it's been really interesting. But what I can say is there is a light in this sort of whole coven 19 thing for students, and if you know how to navigate it the right way, it can actually really benefit your career in the long run.
[00:05:10] Ish-: [00:05:10] Yeah. And I totally see the fear as well. Uh, my, my sister, she's kinda been adjusting to online classes. Right. And so everybody's been kind of scrambling, both kind of industry. Uh, same as with higher ed, same with even teachers in universities. And, uh, it's, it's interesting cause there's a scramble happening and people just don't know what to do.
[00:05:29] I'm curious, what you've heard , how are teachers adapting to online teaching.
[00:05:33] Justin-: [00:05:33] So I've, I've got some inside sources at some schools. I reached out to them to see how like their universities are doing, and this is no real bias for me, but UCF surprisingly has been pretty good in their transition, but that's mainly because they've had a lot of online courses previously. So they've done like online degrees as well as my sophomore and junior year of college, we have something called like lecture capture.
[00:05:58] So instead of having to go to class every single day. What they would do for the big lecture classes. So just think of like marketing one Oh one or bio one Oh one or anything like that. But they would do is you can go to class, but there's only 300 seats in the class and there's like 1200 students in the class.
[00:06:15] So what they did was they would record the lecture and put it online so you can either watch it live. Or you could watch it, um, later on in day at anytime that you wanted. So that was great for me because I use it to my advantage of like being able to intern and essentially work. Cause then I can just watch it on two times speed.
[00:06:30] Right. And set and turn an hour and a half course. And so just 45 minutes. So it was great for time management, but they had those systems already in place. What I've heard is from institutions that. If you're thinking of like more prestigious schools that don't necessarily have the capacity to try out online homeschool.
[00:06:48] So think of like the private schools, the smaller schools, et cetera, that they're like, Oh my God, now we have to transfer to online teaching is they're really struggling because a lot of their professors are older and they've, they're more on the research side. So they're like, I don't want to learn zoom.
[00:07:02] I don't want to learn all these different. Programs that I have to do, I just want to teach my class. And teaching on zoom versus teaching in person is completely different in terms of the way that you have to engage an audience and interact with them and everything like that. So it's a really depends on each school situation, but for the most part, if the school has had any sort of online.
[00:07:24] Like strategy previously of like online degrees or courses or anything like that. They're probably transitioning a little bit better, at least from the teaching perspective, but if the school is a smaller private school where they're used to just, they preach about like having small class sizes and everything like that, they're probably struggling a little bit and we've already seen some schools closed down because of this.
[00:07:44] So it's been, it's been pretty crazy.
[00:07:46] Ish-: [00:07:46] That's really fascinating to hear, especially kind of the bit about how these , larger kind of class sizes, they're the ones that are really kind of seamlessly going through this because they've actually leveraged technology and they've had an integrated into their program from day one. And it's actually the smaller classes that are struggling.
[00:08:03] That's really fascinating. so I know, I know zoom is really popular right now, but what other, I guess, tooling our students and teachers relying on right now during this crisis?
[00:08:14] Justin-: [00:08:14] I dunno. I'm really only hearing zoom, to be honest. Um, I haven't heard much about any other platforms. I mean, they're pushing people to like. Do things on the side of like LinkedIn learning or teachable and taking online other online courses, which is weird cause it's like you're already paying for a course.
[00:08:29] Why? Why should you be paying for another course? Um, but if you think about it, at least from the larger university standpoint, what a lot of these schools will do is they don't necessarily even teach in the classes anymore. Like a lot of my homework. That I remember in school was basically online through Pearson or my lab and all of those things.
[00:08:47] So that is still staying the same. That's a, that's why, again, with these smaller universities where they're more focused on. Personalization for lack of better words of like their education and providing worksheets to their students, et cetera. They're struggling with that, with this transportation and transition because they're not used to utilizing a platform like a Pearson or my lab or my stat lab or anything like that.
[00:09:13] Ish-: [00:09:13] Yeah. , totally. So I'm also curious is like, do you think that an online education can be as effective as an offline one? Now it turns out, right now we have no idea when schools are actually going to return to normal. Uh, I read a article by Scott Galloway, a kind of a celebrity marketing professor from NYU Sterns, and he.
[00:09:37] In his article mentions that he personally believes that a lot of schools, uh, hundreds of schools will not actually return in, in the fall. So, you know, right now, we're just looking at this in the short term, but this, imagine this could, could last potentially eight months. Uh, and so a lot of students will have to get used to learning online.
[00:09:54] And so I, I'm curious from your experience and what you've observed in the conversations you've had, do you think, I guess, one, are students adjusting well to this online learning? And is your hypothesis that it's a good medium and it's an effective medium for learning.
[00:10:09] Justin-: [00:10:09] I think it's a good medium, but I don't think we've figured out the execution of it. Um, if you've looked at online courses historically, maybe not necessarily just like over the past, like month or two, but historically, a lot of the times retention rates are really bad. Uh, for instance, I know from like full sail university, it's a university in central Florida.
[00:10:29] They're mainly focused on like music and film and, and that type of things. They have a whole bunch of Grammy women winners, et cetera. And they have a lot of online degrees. They've been doing it for a while cause they're very tech driven. But their retention rate is like below 50% or something like that.
[00:10:45] So what ends up happening is, again, it's very different to teach an online class and retain their engagement and their, um, their attention that way versus trying to maintain someone's attention in class. Cause if you're in class, especially again, these smaller classes, it's like, Hey, if you start paying attention, like we're going over this next thing, but if it's all online, you don't necessarily have.
[00:11:06] That connection, right? You can have on zoom, right? You can game the system, just have some loop playing around the whole time and your professor will never know. Or you don't even have a camera and the professor can't necessarily say, Hey Ash, go buy a camera. Cause it's like, Hey, there are no one, you can't even find a camera right now.
[00:11:22] They've been bought up like crazy. But also too, it's like. So you're saying I have to pay more. Right? So it's, it's really this tricky situation where I think it is the future, but I don't think anyone has really mastered the execution of online education just yet.
[00:11:39] Ish-: [00:11:39] Yeah, that's a really good point. And, uh, I, I kind of want to real quickly hop over to this LinkedIn post that you had recently and I think, uh, you had some really interesting insights that resonated with me. And, uh, I'm going to read that LinkedIn post real quick because I think, um. It might be valuable for the audience in terms of context.
[00:11:56] So in it, you say here is where I think the biggest disruption in higher ed will come from once everything returns to quote unquote normal. It won't be majors, income share agreements, or even recruiting, not at least yet. I believe it will be the professors, especially the non tenured professors, the ones that are innovative will see the power of freelancing and higher ed.
[00:12:19] Think about it. If you're a non tenure professor, on average, you make about $5,400 each month according to ZipRecruiter. Example, you're an economics professor. You want to teach micro and macro to students because . The traditional higher ed, you were able to teach 150 students a year. Now with the internet, you've made a quarter such that it's automated.
[00:12:36] You set 10 hours a week for office hours to help students that need the help. You spend another 10 hours answering emails. You enroll a hundred students a month in each course, and it takes 40 hours to complete at your own pace. You priced the course at $300 a hundred students, two classes, $300 that's $60,000 a month.
[00:12:55] Before expenses. So it's overall cheaper for students, more pay for teachers. Yeah.
[00:13:01]
[00:13:01] And you're basically, you then kind of point to Khan Academy and show kind of the scale that it's been able to achieve. And so one of the things you're kind of implying is that a lot of professors are going to see a bigger opportunity because of this crisis.
[00:13:14] Can you talk about that a little bit?
[00:13:16] Justin-: [00:13:16] Yeah. I mean, if you just think about it, right? If you're. I think you have to first look at it from the student perspective. Um, the whole thing right now is student debt and how that's such a big problem. And so I think the average, I think, what did I say the average, uh, course credit was, it was like 500, $600.
[00:13:34] Right now, national average is $600 per credit hour. So you have to multiply that by three. So you're paying about $1,800 per course for the most part. So instead of paying $1,800 imagine a professor who was a micro economics professor, he just does his micro economics one Oh one class for $150 you've just cut that price by 95%.
[00:13:58] And you're saving 95% of your regular tuition costs and you're doing it from your home and you don't have to drive to campus, pay for parking or anything like that. So in the long run, it makes sense. And again, it all really comes down to the creative, which a lot of the, which a lot of things in the world really end up coming down to have is to professor good enough.
[00:14:16] Can you keep the students' attention because the cost is extremely low compared to what it would cost to go on onto campus. But the other thing, which I didn't mention in the post, because a, you don't have enough characters in the pose, but also, um, you don't, I didn't bring up the whole topic of, um, what's the word.
[00:14:34]
[00:14:34]Uh, accreditation. So what I mean by accreditation is a lot of universities, at least the ones that you should be going to, they're supposed to be accredited by some list of accreditation agency. And without that accreditation, then your degree is essentially worthless. And that's what's happening with a lot of students because they don't necessarily know to look that up when they're in high school and they're going to these.
[00:14:55] Private for profit universities and their degrees aren't accredited. So when they graduate and go to look for a job, they're like, Oh, wait, your degree actually doesn't mean anything because there's no one to back up what you actually learned. So that's sort of the biggest hump that a lot of these professors have to overcome.
[00:15:11] But I think if. The business professors start to do it, then everything will start to fall from there. Uh, the business professors probably have the most Ackerman when it comes to creating an online course and learning how to market it and getting brands behind it. But for instance, let's just say you're a marketing professional.
[00:15:27] Let's just say Gary V. Right? Creates a course and he, it's the marketing one Oh one course. And what you'll learn is social media marketing, you'll learn, um, traditional marketing, a little bit about everything and creative, et cetera. And a costs you $500 to do it as a student. You go through it. And what Gary's done is he's worked with the brands that he already already works for with a Vayner media.
[00:15:50] So just think of like Pepsi, mr peanut, et cetera, all of these other brands. And he's partnered with them saying, Hey, if someone gets this degree from Gary V. Then you have been accredited by that company essentially. So I think that might be a way that professors can kind of work around that by leveraging some of the relationships that they already have in these industries.
[00:16:11] And I dunno if it becomes a thing, like I said, $60,000 seems a lot better than $5,400 a month. So that, I mean, that's pretty crazy. If the professor starts making 60 grand a month, that'd be insane. But I mean, it's, it's crazy what the possibilities are with it.
[00:16:29] Ish-: [00:16:29] Absolutely. And that really resonates with me with the teachers. I think to a degree they become their own brands. Right. I think it will be kind of two pronged. One, I think like it seems like we're headed in a direction where, um, you know. That the teachers they're very reputable sources in terms of they have an online presence, like Scott Galloway
[00:16:46] he's very reputable online. Um, he has a large LinkedIn following people. People trust him, right? He has a brand. And by being one of his students, he would get his stamp of approval, right? And so I think companies would see that. And that could be the thing that gets your foot in the door. On the other side.
[00:17:02] I also feel like we're seeing companies kind of move more towards being merit based than rather than just, uh. Looking for a stamp of approval. And at least from where I've seen this in my, in my personal experiences, uh, I, when I was an intern at, uh, at Facebook, I was a software engineering intern in 2015 at Facebook.
[00:17:19] And I remember after finishing my internship, uh, my recruiter came and spoke with me and she's like, Hey. Here's a full time offer. And I was like, what do you mean full time offer? I'm, I have another two years of school left. And she's like, yes, yes, you, uh, you know, you can choose to go finish school and then after you finish school, you can come work for us.
[00:17:38] Or you could come work for us starting next week. And that just blew my mind. But the reason that they said that is because they had seen what I had done through the three months. They had seen that I met the bar, the hiring bar, that they had set for full time employees. They, they knew that I had the capability to succeed at this job.
[00:17:56] And so having a degree at the end of the day did not matter. Right. It was more about like evidence-based kind of decision where it's like, Hey, based on kind of what you've been able to achieve, that's what we care about more than a diploma. Do you feel like companies are headed in this trend? Where, where more than the brand of the university that based on what projects and what achievements you have, that's what's most important.
[00:18:21]Justin-: [00:18:21] Uh, I definitely think it's headed that way. But the problem comes that the students don't know how to navigate those waters, for instance, right? Facebook and all those companies say, Oh, we've taken off the degree off of our requirements. And yes, that might be true, but I guarantee you that the ATS system that your resume goes through, they're looking to see where you're graduating from, what school you have, and what GPA, et cetera.
[00:18:45] So what I mean by. The students don't necessarily know how to navigate it is, I do think that the, the requirement has been dropped, but until you can get some face time with the actual recruiter or the person that is looking to hire for that position, then you need that degree. So the way to work around is how do you actually get in front of that person when you don't necessarily have a degree?
[00:19:06] And that's what they don't teach in school. I actually just had Austin Bell CAC on the declassify college podcast, and we talked exactly about how he's been able to do it. Um. Again, these students do have degrees, but he doesn't go through the traditional ATS, uh, path of just applying. I think according to him, he says, like only 2% of people who apply online get an interview.
[00:19:26] So if you're playing that game, you're just, you're just hitchhiking essentially just hoping for something to happen. But the way to work around it is building, finding a way to create a champion on the inside. And Austin calls this, you create a relationship and then you create a. The VVP of value validation project, and that's essentially what you did with your internship is you validated your value that you provide to Facebook.
[00:19:50] You want to do this with a value added validation project before you even work for a company, and that's how you can get it in. Interview by not necessarily having all of the credentials on your, your resume. So for instance, what's it that would look like is, let's just say, get your grind up as a huge company in the future, right?
[00:20:08] And you're looking to apply for, get your grind up. A VVP might look like, Oh, have your marketing student going through our marketing campaigns that we've run in the past. Looking at our, going through our Facebook and looking and analyzing our page and seeing what ads we've run previously, and seeing the engagement on that and saying, Oh, okay.
[00:20:25] If I were to do this, this is what I would do, X, Y, and Z. And this is why, because I talked to this customer, this student, this other student, et cetera, to come up with this idea. And you might be saying, Justin, that's a lot of work. That's something I don't really want to do. And I'm like, yeah, but if you're going down the route of the person that doesn't necessarily have the credentials upfront of graduating from a Stanford, uh.
[00:20:44]A Harvard, et cetera. You have to find a way to prove that you actually have those skills to pay the bills. So that's the only way to do that is through hard work and finding a way to showcase the skills that you actually have.
[00:20:56] Ish-: [00:20:56] Yeah, , absolutely. And I, I guess I left out . The part that I, at the end of the day, I did go to a top tier university at the university of Michigan. The reason I was even able to get that internship was because , Facebook recruits at the university of Michigan, they don't recruit at every university, and so already I had a leg up on computer science students who were going to these small liberal arts universities where they don't even get the chance to get FaceTime with these recruiters.
[00:21:19]Uh, and so you, you bring up a really good point. And, uh, one of the things that's been on my mind as well is that I guess as we start to see these kind of like smaller private institutions emerge where it's more, it's more like a trade school than it is like a university. uh, and we've kind of seen a large kind of emergence of these types of online trade schools and the way they've been kind of able to.
[00:21:40] Overcome this hurdle of accreditation is by leveraging the income share agreement, which you actually mentioned in your post. Uh, and it seems like income share agreements, that's, you know, the idea of like commission based services. They've been around for a while, but for the first time, I think right around 2011, 2012, we started seeing the emergence of them in education and the big innovation here.
[00:22:02],so people in industry claim is that it aligns the incentives of institutions and students and it reduces the barrier to entry. Because again, for those who don't know what income share agreements are, essentially they allow students to go through a program and then not pay for any upfront costs.
[00:22:18] Essentially, how they pay back the institution for the education is once they've actually landed a job and it is over some. Threshold decided by the institution, they pay a percentage of their salary back to the institution for a number of years. So for an example of this is Lambda school, I'm not sure if you're familiar of Lambda school, Justin.
[00:22:36] They're, they're the big one. Uh, who led the charge here. And what they do is they do a 17% income share for 24 months. So once you've gone to their program, right, and you've graduated and landed a job in software engineering. For over $50,000 a year in terms of income. You pay back 17% of your income over 24 months.
[00:22:57] And I remember first hearing about this and it blew my mind and I realized like, Oh my God, like this is life changing for people. People are going from the service jobs, waiters, waitresses, uh, working at movie theaters, making minimum wage to making six figures and under a year. it seems game changing.
[00:23:15] one thing I'm curious about is what are your thoughts on income share agreements? Are they the future or is it, is it a very niche kind of financing mechanism that is not going to see mainstream.
[00:23:26] Justin-: [00:23:26] I think in theory it makes a ton of sense, right? Cause why would you pay for something that you don't necessarily know the value of? And if you have the ability to not necessarily pay upfront and only pay if you see value from it, then it makes complete sense. And like you said earlier, it aligned sort of the mission of the university with the mission of the student as well as the mission from the company that's looking to hire these students to now the problem for me is.
[00:23:52] Like you said, we've seen this for since like 2011, 2012 but nothing has really popped off, so to say, in terms of mainstream, right? It's, it started off by having niche, um, companies of just basically focusing on software engineering for the most part. And it's relatively stayed the same. Uh, for that, I haven't really seen much of like a finance, um, Lambda school or a psychology land school or anything like that.
[00:24:16] And it's been interesting to see like, why, why is that the case? I haven't done too much research into why, but like, why hasn't it picked up again? I'm not sure if you have any more insight onto why you think it hasn't been picked up by other industries. It might just not be as profitable.
[00:24:32] Ish-: [00:24:32] Yeah, I, and I actually do have a lot of thoughts about this, and I think you're right. Lambda school is where it's been most successful. And I think one of the big reasons it's been successful is because there's just such a high demand for software engineering, especially now. Uh, and the pay is just so is so high too
[00:24:47] so you can like double, triple your salary in under a year. So the value proposition is very high. I think it's partly just because the companies that are most equipped to kind of run these kind of, um, income share agreement, educational institutions, they have to be venture backed and all the venture backed companies are in San Francisco right now.
[00:25:07]Uh, that's, that's my hypothesis. I, it's, it's unclear if this is going to change, but I think if there was a time for it to change, it would be now more than ever, according to the Washington post, 10 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the month of March. and so the, the problem that I see, and this is going to be, I think the.
[00:25:27] The bigger implication of covert 19 more than I think just immediately the economy crashing because of, you know, people not being able to work, but this drastic, drastic rise in unemployment. And you have all these employees who are, you know, in the short term, they're going to get by on unemployment and working for these on demand services.
[00:25:44] But when, you know, things start to go back to normal. These kind of grocery stores and delivery services aren't going to need these employees. And so they're going to have to let them go and they won't be able to return to their previous industries like travel or hospitality, these local businesses. So where are they going to go?
[00:25:59] and so I think if there's a time for these, risk-free online trade schools to take off, it would be nap.
[00:26:06] Justin-: [00:26:06] I agree, but it's, I think, I think the scale model of. Of the income share agreement. I think that's where you might start running into problems of can you hit other verticals other than software engineering? Like, what is another vertical that really produces high, high, high end salary, um, positions upon graduation.
[00:26:28] There's not many out there. If you really think about it, like just to say general business degree, right? Whether it's finance, marketing, et cetera. Most of those students that are graduating are maybe making $50,000. And if they're making more, it's probably because they're, they've got a consulting gig at a big four company right?
[00:26:47] So it's, is it really economical for the other industries other than just software engineering and like maybe regular engineering and like oil and mechanical or oil and chemical engineering? I don't know. Again, I'm not, have you done research into that?
[00:27:01]Ish-: [00:27:01] Uh, so I haven't, but I, you know, one of the things I'm really thinking about right now is people aren't looking for high paying jobs. They're just looking for jobs and so the, the industries that were, that they were trained to be in those industries may not exist after coven 19 is over.
[00:27:13] And so what they need to do is they need to retrain. And what are they going to do? Are they going to go back to school? I think I've spent two to four years getting another degree. Oh, absolutely not. want, it's time consuming and there's no guarantee they'd even land a job once it's over. And so that's why I'm thinking like these online trade schools could be a game changer is because one, they're not long.
[00:27:33] they're focused very specifically on one trade. within six to nine months, you learn all the skills you need to succeed in this industry. Second, they're online. They're accessible from anywhere. so it doesn't matter where you are in the country, you can still be learning from an expert.
[00:27:48] And the last thing is this income share agreement where it's risk free. Right? Now, people are losing their jobs. They cannot afford to kind of pile on 50 to a hundred thousand dollars of debt given that we're headed for a rough recession, and so if somebody can go through one of these programs, but then six months learn the skills that it takes to jump industries and land a job. Maybe, maybe not six figures, but like a solid, like 50 K a year job. Right. And then only pay back if they've actually succeeded in landing a job and without any risk of taking on student debt. That seems like a really high value proposition.
[00:28:22] And you know, and. It hasn't right now. It really has stuck to tech, but it could be like this could be the push. We needed to get online educators to go out there and start these trade schools and other industries.
[00:28:35] Justin-: [00:28:35] Yeah. I mean, if, if it's going to work, it's going to work now. Right. This is their chance to really make an impact on higher ed. I'm definitely keeping my eye on it, but for me, I just don't think it's scalable out of other verticals other than like maybe five or 10 and yeah, I mean, if that's your one business, great at worldly works out for you.
[00:28:55] But I think for general, like higher ed. Um, like for a psych major, how many psych majors are graduating making more than $50,000. There's not many out there, and there's not even that many jobs that a psych major could even get to make more than $50,000 a year. So I think that's when that business model starts to run into problems.
[00:29:13] And that's probably why you haven't seen a be picked up by higher ed either, because they don't want to be held liable for all this free education that they be giving out, essentially for that. But I don't know. We'll see. I'm excited to see where it goes in the future.
[00:29:25] Ish-: [00:29:25] Yeah, absolutely, and you've got a really good point, and obviously these trade schools can only work when there's a high demand for the jobs that they're training for. and so one thing a lot of people are saying is like, it's a disaster. All these, like local businesses are going out of business and what's going to happen.
[00:29:41] And I always feel like there's like, there's this law of conservation when it comes to the economy and jobs where yes, you know, a lot of these kind of like, um, brick and mortar businesses are going, going bankrupt, but those jobs aren't disappearing. They're just going elsewhere. They're going online.
[00:29:57] They're going to e-commerce, they're going to be content creators or online educators or gig economy. They're going to become drivers and delivery workers and so I think that that's the only way, you know, a program like this succeeds, if it specifically is focused on helping training people for jobs of the future, jobs that can, can survive an epidemic like this and can be completely online if they need to be.
[00:30:23] Justin-: [00:30:23] No, I agree. I think, I think there is an Avenue for it to play and I just wonder if it's ever going to encapsulate higher ed. Like everyone says it's going to, I'm not sure if it ever, if it gets there or anytime soon, but it'll be really interesting to see what happens over the next two to three years because of everything that's happened with a Corona virus.
[00:30:43] Ish-: [00:30:43] Yeah, totally. We'll, we'll have to see a one, one last kind of point I wanted to cover, which is not just, I guess the people who are losing their jobs, but what about now these like college seniors who this was supposed to be, you know, their second semester of college. It was supposed to be really fun.
[00:30:57] They were going to look forward to graduation. Now they might not even get the chance to walk the stage, let alone find a job. How do you think, I guess COBIT 19 is going to affect their future.
[00:31:07] Justin-: [00:31:07] Yeah, man. I mean it's, it's actually like, it hurts my heart. Right. Cause it's, it's, they'll never get the chance to walk across the stage, really. I mean, yes, they might do it maybe in the, in the fall or the winter or whatever it is. But it's not the same, right? If you've had to wait six to eight months after you've actually graduated.
[00:31:25] So I feel really bad for those seniors that are in college as well as the seniors that are in high school too. The other thing with it is you can actually use this time to navigate your career really well. And what I mean by that is yes, you maybe. You're the student that didn't have a job offer coming for you, um, after you've graduated, now is your time to shine because everyone doesn't, everyone doesn't have a job coming for them upon graduation.
[00:31:50] So what I mean by that is you don't have a Scarlet letter on you anymore because you don't have a job. You kind of have a Mulligan and you can use that to your advantage by being able to figure out ways to network because everyone is online. Everyone is paying attention to their LinkedIn. Everyone is paying attention to their email way more than they were before because they have nothing better to do.
[00:32:10] And if you're a student and you, you learn the email marketing and you learn how to cold message people, you will be able to get in touch with people that you never would have thought that you would have just because they see a random email of you saying, looking to connect with alumni and they're like.
[00:32:25] Oh, cool. I want to connect with some UCF students because I've got nothing better to do and I want to find a break from doing all this work that I'm doing for, for Disney or whatever it is. And so they'll hop on a 10 or 15 minute call with you and then you can build on that relationship. Maybe it becomes a referral for you when everything starts to shift back to normal.
[00:32:44] But if I'm a student, what I'm doing right now is putting in all the groundwork for when it does shift back to normal and I can get back into the job. Search, so to say, and I'll be top of mind for a lot of people. So that's what I would do if I'm in in a lot of students' shoes. But I mean, the last thing that I wanted, I would talk about for seniors is, this is something that I didn't even think about until I started talking to some people in higher ed, is that most universities are moving more into like a pass or fail system because the students didn't sign up for online courses, so they don't necessarily want to be put on their GPA or whatever it is. But how does that affect grad school? How does that affect medical school is a past the same thing as an a. So if you're an a student, do you like, do you get dumbed down? Because these people that with CS, they got a pass on their, on their transcript. Like how does that all play out over the next five or 10 years?
[00:33:37] Who gets into medicine. Medical school, who D who doesn't get into medical school because of all of these things that are happening, and we won't know until another 10 years or so to see what the real effects are. But it's going to be really crazy, especially for the gen Z generation that you and I are in of like we've lived through Oh eight Oh nine now we've lived through this.
[00:33:59] Who knows what the heck is going forward, but it's kind of crazy to already see what we've been through in our lifestyle.
[00:34:07] Ish-: [00:34:07] Absolutely. This is a once in a generation event, right. We
[00:34:10] Justin-: [00:34:10] Well that was, that was supposed to be Oh eight Oh nine two so we've already had two once in a generation of events in what, 15 years? So.
[00:34:18] Ish-: [00:34:18] What a time to be alive. it is absolutely insane. And I, you know, I love the weight, the framing you had there, which is, you know, yes, this is affecting all of us. But seeing this as an opportunity, , I, I'm sure you saw this over social media, but a lot of people are kind of reflecting on the past and the history.
[00:34:34] And one of the, one of my favorite tweets is that sir Isaac Newton, he discovered calculus while he was quarantined. Uh, um, among this was a midst another. Epidemic at the time. And so, you know, the, the end of the, the social media post is like, how are you going to spend your time? Right. And so I guess to summarize for all the listeners, how would you say like, Hey, you know, we could be now quarantine for the next two months minimum.
[00:34:58] What is your advice to students right now who are kind of lost and trying to figuring out what's next? How should they invest their time.
[00:35:06] Justin-: [00:35:06] Yeah. I mean, let's just say you're running Instacart or Uber eats or something like that for like five or six hours a day cause you're trying to make some money to survive and you've got plenty of, you still got plenty of time throughout the day. I'm not asking you to be on LinkedIn for 10 hours every day.
[00:35:21] You literally just take one hour. Go on LinkedIn for an hour every single day. Optimize your profile, make it look nice so that when you're reaching out to these people, they look, they have something nice to see, and they kind of give you that reputation of like, Oh, this student actually takes himself serious or herself serious.
[00:35:37] So create your LinkedIn page, make it look nice. Spend an hour a day on LinkedIn of just messaging new people that are alumni from your schools at companies that you want to work for in the future. Learn about their journey, et cetera. And then from that hour, what you're going to want to do is like spend another 30 minutes sending emails.
[00:35:53] So it's an hour and a half a day. That's one Netflix special. That's all it takes. An hour and a half a day. You do that for two months, for the next two months. I guarantee. I can almost guarantee you that if you do it correctly, you'll probably have a job once this whole thing starts to start to like turn back to normal, essentially, because if you.
[00:36:11] Genuinely spend an hour and a half every single day on just networking. You'll probably meet anywhere between 20 to 30 people every single week, and if you do that every single week for the next eight weeks, your network has just gone from zero to over 200 people and those 200 people, someone is still going to have a job out of that, hopefully, if you've done it correctly, and one of them will be looking to hire a young person, a young, motivated person, and they'll appreciate you reaching out and putting in the work.
[00:36:37] During all this rough time that's going on, so just do that an hour and a half. That's all I'm asking. An hour and
[00:36:42] Ish-: [00:36:42] Yeah. And with, and with compound interest, that 200 quickly becomes 600 1,002 thousand and so the, the opportunities will start pouring your way instead of you hunting them down. I think that's one of the, one of the most powerful things about, you know, building an audience and building up a network is that over time it kind of flips, it goes from you kind of chasing to you basically having opportunities to just hand it to you.
[00:37:06] But it doesn't happen without making that investment every single day and consistently over a long period of time.
[00:37:13] Justin-: [00:37:13] Dude compound interest. It's something that not a lot of people understand, but I, I'm sure, I'm sure, and I hope people wholly understand it after what they've seen with the Corona virus. Like it's a force to be reckoned with if you'd know how to use it in the right way.
[00:37:27] Ish-: [00:37:27] Yeah, absolutely. Well, Justin, this was, this was an awesome conversation. Any, uh, last second plugs you want to give to the audience.
[00:37:33] Justin-: [00:37:33] I mean, if you're a student out there looking to learn the cheat codes to college, check out our podcast, declassified college on any podcasting network out there. And if you want, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. Just. Do LinkedIn, slash I,N slash Justin, G, CGU, and that should be my profile. So just check me out there.
[00:37:51] Send me a message at the, send you to me essentially, and I would love to connect and learn a little bit more about what you're doing right now.
[00:37:58] Ish-: [00:37:58] Yeah. Awesome. this was a really fun conversation. Uh, thank you, Justin, for coming on .
[00:38:02] Justin-: [00:38:02] Thank you.
[00:38:04]That was Justin Nguyen of GetChoGrindUp. If you're interested in learning more about Justin or GetChoGrindUp, feel free to connect with him on LinkedIn or going to getchogrindup.com this is Ish signing off.