Jack of All Skills

šŸ’» Status

Failed

ā± Launched on

Jul 1, 2015

šŸ’µ Revenue

$1300

The problem:

It's easier than ever to learn online, but overwhelming to pick what content to consume. Between Udemy and Youtube, there is way too much course content and the ad-hoc approach to learning usually leaves you stuck with significant gaps in your education.

The idea:

Build a community that curates the best online courses, and then collaborates to learn new skills together.

Building:

This idea was one of my first solo projects, comprised of a Wordpress site and a whole bunch of plugins to make membership functionality work. I had a few people interested in the early product, all who fit the ā€œlifelong learnerā€ category. So with a small pool, we collected the first series of courses to send out to subscribers. I tested a membership first with a physical box, where I sent mail out with a few products related to the courses and links to access the course material.

Launching:

When I launched on Product Hunt, the initial response was encouraging. The site made over $1000 in sales on the first day, and it seems like the problem resonated with others. As word spread and a few more people signed up, I realized the problem with sending a physical good: I had to send boxes to all of these people. For the first round, I boxed them and shipped them myself. The launch round/first batch went well. I sent over about 25 boxes, and all 25 recipients loved the experience (this was back when subscription boxes were a hot commodity).

Why it failed:

This project was destined to succeed. Customers were happy, willing to pay up to $150 for boxes filled with learning content, and the model had decent margins. So why did it ultimately fail? Two factors: physical shipments and lack of community.

Thereā€™s a reason why drop-shipping, or the ability to manufacture a product/store it in a warehouse and send it out upon order, is a favorite way to start a physical-good business (be wary of scams and get-rich-quick schemes). Because otherwise, itā€™s a nightmare. Dealing with buying physical goods, designing packaging, and the mail system was complicated at best. I noticed by the second shipment I started to get burnt out, and the project wasnā€™t enjoyable anymore.

The second aspect was the community angle, which was supposed to solve the problem of ā€œhow do you learn together?ā€ Since this is before Slack was a thing, Facebook Groups was the only option besides building out a custom forum (something Iā€™d have to hire out for, since my programming skills were pretty weak at the time).

So I invited users, but nobody posted. I polled a few members and discovered that the courses we sent out had a self-contained ā€œcommunityā€ in the comments section, where the instructors answered questions about content. When it came to socializing and discussing learning outside of those systems, people didnā€™t care that much.

So before the second round (quarterly shipments), I decided to pull the plug. Iā€™ve always thought about bringing this idea back, and a year later updated the landing page copy (whatā€™s currently there) with an updated concept about group learning without the physical shipments. Thereā€™s still something there, but this was one of my first lessons that even if you have a good idea and some traction, the 'founder-product' fit is as important as product-market fit. This project brought more stress and less enjoyment than any other project.