

Ask HN: Before there were MOOCs - advice for a startup - thebadplus

Fellow Hackers,<p>I'm a startup founder, and a little over a year ago I set out to build a "Wikipedia for courses".  I ended up building a publishing platform - the idea was to make it extremely easy for anybody to produce highly interactive, online courses (without, and then easy for anybody else to learn from them).<p>Pensieve: www.pensieve.net<p>From an infrastructure standpoint, the platform has been quite mature and powerful - anybody can come to the site, and immediately create interactive courses, and put in assessments, assignments ... etc.  We generally receive solid approval of our product.<p>However, our success at programming has been matched by our inability to gain traction. Users don't come for infrastructure, they come for content or because of your brand name - without either, nobody will come.  Since then, Coursera and EdX rose, and due to their names, academic relationships, excellent funding, and access to a large body of quality content - they are growing at an insane pace.<p>The last thing I would want would be to be a "me too" type of company.  The thing is, that I believe the we <i>still</i> provide a major value which I haven't yet seen replicated.  I've seen lots of content distributors, but I haven't seen a platform which makes it possible (and easy) for you or me to make a course that is more than just a youtube video channel / wiki.<p>I've tried several things (most promisingly targeting the corporate training market), but I'm interested in your opinions - how would you move forward and get traction?
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soneca
clickable: <http://www.pensieve.net>

I am newbie founder, also trying to gain traction, so I am trying to share
guesses here, not knowledge.

Actually, I am trying to deliver value, not gain traction. "Growth hacking"
must be done just after the product/market fit, and I still don't have it. If
yours "solid approval" means prod/mkt fit, than you can start to build some
features to hack growth. But I would keep it at small scale. I would say, work
hard to keep the course creators coming back to create new courses. Use cheap
adwords (that you pay) to attract users to their courses (not to your
platform).

But for this to work, your course creators must have an audience. Something
you can do is attract common people that publish courses on Youtube and
already have small, but regular viewers. If you provide enough value for these
"amateur professors", they will bring on their audience. This will demand a
great effort of research, to cherry pick the right teachers.

Don't try to create a exponential growth from day zero. Don't be Formspring or
BranchOut. Think hard about traction, but a solid, relatively small one. Don't
compare yourself (yet) to these big names.

~~~
orangethirty
_Actually, I am trying to deliver value, not gain traction. "Growth hacking"
must be done just after the product/market fit, and I still don't have it._

Not really. Through "growth hacking" you discover the different markets your
product fits into. Though you started with the wrong step. You dont design a
product and then search for a market. You search for a market and _then_ do
the product.

~~~
soneca
Growth hacking is not searching for a market. You described "customer
development" - which is what I am doing right now - not growth hacking.

~~~
orangethirty
If I had a nickel for every time I heard that. Anyhow, good luck.

~~~
soneca
Don't patronize me. Please, explain me what is wrong with my concept.

Basically, I agree with these guys: [http://jwegan.com/growth-hacking/autopsy-
of-a-failed-growth-...](http://jwegan.com/growth-hacking/autopsy-of-a-failed-
growth-hack/) and [http://www.aginnt.com/post/46854446756/interview-a-growth-
ha...](http://www.aginnt.com/post/46854446756/interview-a-growth-hacker-with-
greg-tseng)

That's where my concepts come from. If you think that me saying "customer
development" is BS and that I should be trying to grow like hell and not
wasting time with delusional customers interviews, or something like that,
please explain why.

~~~
soneca
There is a limit for replying in HN? I can't continue to reply to the last
response. But I will do it here anyway.

I didn't make my mind. That's why I wanted you to explain it. And I quite
agree that growth hacking is very different from customer development. What I
am saying, and you apparently is disagreeing, is that you first do customer
development and only after product/market fit you do growth hacking. I am now
only doing customer development and I think is not a good thing to already
start growth hacking.

I am not "buying into the hype", on the contrary, I am postponing the growth
hacking for me. I think you assume too much of what I think. But it is ok if
we have two different concepts about what growth hacking is - even though I
can't say i KNOW what it is.

~~~
orangethirty
Allow me to apologize. I'm constantly getting bamboozled by wanna by founders
looking for an easy paycheck that it makes me more negative than usual. Why
don't you shoot me an email and we can talk about whatever. Cool?

------
orangethirty
Put some money into the look of the site. It is too ugly to be interesting.
Hire a designer, and re-launch. And stop feeling bad for yourself. Shit
happens, you re-try. If anything, shoot me an email, I participate in a group
that is full of people like you.

~~~
thebadplus
Thanks for the advice. I would be interested in meeting this group - I didn't
develop the company in a place like SF or in hub with active developer /
startup communities, which I think was a big mistake.

~~~
orangethirty
Not being in SF is the best thing you can do for a company. Anyhow, see you
there!

