Cohort-Based Courses: How Entrepreneurs & Creators Are Fast-Tracking Their Way To Lucrative Teaching Gigs

Photo source: airschool.com

Curious about the hype around “cohort-based courses” and how to use them to capitalize on your expertise? 

You’re not alone.

It seems everyone and their mother is champing at the bit to launch a CBC or enrol in a course on how to create one.

Why the sudden craze?

Disruptive platforms like Zoom, Maven, Virtually, Disco, Explority, and more are making it possible to replicate live, interactive teaching online. But it’s not just the platforms themselves — it’s their affiliated courses (at least for Maven and Disco) on how to create CBCs that’s fast-tracking entrepreneurs and creators to paid teaching.

Let’s break down what this means and how you can get on a pathway to a lucrative teaching gig:

(spoiler alert: you’ll need to defy the law of supply and demand) 

The landscape: a shift from one (online course) era to the next 

Moving on from the first era of online courses: “Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)”

Online courses made their debut in the form of self-paced e-learning known as “Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)”. But their lack of interactivity (with teachers and fellow peers) translated to a lack of accountability and quality feedback. Which equates to an average 5% completion rate worldwide. 

But now new platforms are propelling a second era of online courses that replicates traditional in-person courses online.

Moving into the second era of online courses: “Cohort-Based Courses (CBCs)”

Cohort-based courses are new to online learning but the concept is as old as the school system itself. CBCs are what you experienced in elementary, high school, and university. It’s the confinement of a learning experience to a specific time period with a fixed start date and end date. During which time, a group of students moves through a course together. Live sessions are scheduled at regular intervals, while homework and peer study groups can be scheduled flexibly based on student needs and preferences.

Now that we have the capabilities to run cohort-based courses online, “CBC” has become the hallmark of a course in which accountability and feedback propel students toward desired outcomes. CBCs have an average 95% completion rate.

Case study illustrating the shift from one era to the next: Building a Second Brain

Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain is one of the first examples of a course making the shift from e-learning to CBC. Using a combination of platforms (such as Teachable, Zoom and Circle), BASB has been a trailblazer for the second era of online learning. The course — which is said to be one of the most transformational online courses — just kicked off Cohort 13 with a whopping 1,000+ participants.

The good news is aspiring course creators don’t need to fret about “missing” out on the first era of online learning. You can skip e-learning altogether and jump straight into CBCs. The trade-off is CBCs are far more complex and time-consuming — but they’re also far more engaging, effective and fun. Plus they generate a lot more revenue given they’re a lot more valuable to students.

So let’s run through a couple of options to get you on the CBC track.

The pathways: two routes to a lucrative teaching gig 

Not all paths lead to Rome. So if you’re serious about creating a lucrative teaching gig, consider pursuing one of two routes:

Building and leveraging public audiences through “Teaching in public”

“Teaching in public” has spawned from the concept of “building in public”, in which entrepreneurs and creators use Twitter, YouTube, etc. to share their progress as they navigate everything from how to build a startup to how to build an audience. Teaching in public is the metacognitive equivalent of building in public, meaning it goes beyond building in public to distill lessons learned and communicate them with the intention of educating others. 

Put another way, the intention of building in public is to learn from others based on the feedback you generate, whereas the intention of teaching in public is to help others learn from your experience. Though ironically you learn a lot yourself from the very process of reflecting on your experiences and explaining your lessons learned to others.

Teaching in public defies the law of supply and demand. Because the more free information you share, the more eager your followers are to pay to learn from you in a more structured setting, like an online CBC. 

Writer Nicolas Cole’s philosophy is:

“Give away 99% [of what you know] for free. Monetize the last 1%.” 

He adds, “When people pay for the last 1%, what they’re really buying is the organization, implementation, and community surrounding all your ideas.” 

Cole and his cofounder Dickie Bush run Ship 30 for 30, a CBC aimed at helping people build an online writing habit in 30 days. I took their course in July and can attest to the 1% making all the difference in terms of providing a simple system to implement what would otherwise be an avalanche of information. Not to mention opportunities to connect with like-minded peers for help along the (learning) journey.  

Cole was once the top writer on Quora and has amassed significant followings across platforms like medium (84K) and Twitter (24K). And Bush has over 73K followers on Twitter since he joined in July 2020. Based on their rapidly growing cohort sizes (the latest of which was a staggering 786), it’s safe to say Cole’s philosophy is on point.

This CBC trend shows teachers are the chief selling point of a course. But you don’t necessarily need a massive following to make this work for you. 

Which brings us to the second route to a lucrative teaching gig:

Building and leveraging private networks

In the same way lots of social media followers don’t guarantee paid conversions for a product or service, you don’t necessarily need thousands of followers to launch a profitable course. The thread below from Maven cofounder Gagan Biyani breaks down how Ascend CEO & course creator Shivani Berry complemented a more modest Twitter following (~2,000) with her credibility in private networks to substantially grow her cohort size across her first four cohorts.

Biyani’s Maven cofounder Wes Kao also shared the thread below detailing how Berry strategically plugged into a community that would benefit from her course. By connecting with said audience and offering free workshops and information sessions, Berry was able to drive interest in her course without the need to amass an enormous Twitter following. Again, it’s a counterintuitive notion which defies the law of supply and demand. The more quality teaching you provide for free, the more people are inclined to take your CBC.

The common denominator across pathways

The common denominator in attracting students to your course is to establish yourself as a teacher outside the (virtual) classroom. People are eager to invest in courses taught by those with credibility for not only having “skin in the game” but those they’re already learning from. Which means your goal is to position your CBC as the obvious next step for those eager to continue learning from you in a more structured way.

So if you’re keen to get on a pathway to a lucrative teaching gig, ask yourself, which route is best for you and what steps must you take to get moving?

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