Latest / The Jasmine Star Show / Building Your Dream Business Using What You Have Right Now with Wes Kao

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Building Your Dream Business Using What You Have Right Now with Wes Kao · The Jasmine Star Show

• 0:13
  Hi there, and welcome to another episode of the Jasmine Star Show.
• 0:17
  My guest today is WesKao.
• 0:19
  Now we have been going back and forth communicating, and it has been a long time in the making.
• 0:25
  And the reason why I have been so insanely paint is because she is the co-founder of Alt mba, and this is a way for entrepreneurs, creators, and creatives to create cohorts based education.
• 0:37
  And she's doing this alongside of Seth Godin.
• 0:40
  Now, for those of you who've been around the podcast for a minute, Seth has been a guest on the podcast.
• 0:44
  I'm absolutely obsessed.
• 0:46
  So anyone who's gonna have a business venture with Seth Godin has to be grade A Supreme hidden outta the ballpark all day, every day.
• 0:53
  And I could not be more excited because she's led over 150 launches.
• 0:57
  And this is a person who has worked with everything from like Fortune 500 brands and startups, and she is a leading expert in B2C marketing.
• 1:07
  And she's here to share her insight and advice and what it means in the business world, how we can create cohorts, education things.
• 1:13
  Just thinking outside of the box, and I just would like to say, hi, Elle, welcome to Wes Kao.
• 1:18
  Thank you for being here.
• 1:19
  Thanks, Jasmine.
• 1:20
  Really excited to chat today.
• 1:22
  Ah, this is fantastic.
• 1:24
  Now I'm gonna start a little bit, a little bit with your history, but peeling it back farther from all of the success you've had as a creative, as a business idea maker, as a taste maker.
• 1:35
  Now, you started a nonprofit when you were 16.
• 1:37
  Can you tell us more about that and how that experience really shaped your thoughts around leadership?
• 1:42
  Now I know we're gonna get into cohort based education, but let's first start here about leadership, because I think it's gonna set the frame for the rest of the conversation.
• 1:49
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:50
  So I was 16 and at that time I had not planned anything bigger than a birthday party before.
• 1:56
  So I had this grand idea that I wanted to, to give back, to do something interesting, to, to be able to, to contribute to my community.
• 2:05
  And once I had the idea, I quickly realized that turning it into reality was much harder than than I had envisioned.
• 2:12
  So basically I went around to a bunch of different retailers, Walmart, target, long's Drugs, asking for donations, and my idea was I wanted to donate backpacks and school supplies to underprivileged kids who, you know, in new school year might not have the supplies that they needed, you know?
• 2:31
  And for me, having those supplies, having a fresh backpack, you know, a fresh outfit, it always felt so inspiring that, you know, this was the year I was going to be cool like this, you know, new year, new you.
• 2:41
  And so it was, it was more about what, what the, the new backpack and a new school supplies embodied.
• 2:48
  And so I wanted to, can We peel back a little bit here?
• 2:50
  So I am just a born and bred storyteller.
• 2:53
  So take me back to the West two 16.
• 2:55
  Where does this idea come from?
• 2:56
  Like, oh, a new backpack just, just doesn't represent like a physical item.
• 3:00
  It represents a fresh beginning and it, it represents equality with your fellow students and classmates.
• 3:06
  So what, what, what sparked that idea?
• 3:08
  Like where did that start?
• 3:10
  Yeah. Well, one day I was cleaning my room and I had, I had poured out all my notebooks, pencils, tons of Lisa Frank, tons of Hello Kitty pencils, pens, pencil cases, erasers. And I was kinda organizing it all.
• 3:27
  And my dad, you know, walked in and he started to lecture me about how lucky I was that I had all these things that we'd spent so much money and all these, you know, supplies and all my, you know, pencils and whatnot, and stationary.
• 3:39
  And normally when he gave this lecture about how lucky I was, I just kind of nodded and smiled and waited for him to go away.
• 3:47
  And, you know, this time, you know, after he left, I started, you know, I, I continued organizing and I realized that I had way too many supplies, pencils, pens, notebooks, notepads that I, that I was ever going to be able to use.
• 3:58
  And they brought me so much joy, you know, in every single, you know, fresh pencil, fresh notebook to symbolize a new beginning for me.
• 4:05
  And I thought, well, if some kids don't have this, you know, what if I donated some of these supplies to them so that they could also feel that, that sense of, of fresh beginning.
• 4:16
  And so that's, that's what really sparked this idea.
• 4:20
  And, you know, I had mentioned turning it into a reality was much harder.
• 4:24
  I basically went around to all these different stores and got rejected by these different store managers who, you know, if I called or if I, if I showed up their store, you know, I, I had this little folder where I printed out, you know, here's my, my vision for this, my mission, here's what I'm trying to do.
• 4:40
  And they basically said, you are a free kid trying to get, or you are a kid trying to get free stuff.
• 4:45
  Like this is, you know, you're not gonna pull a fast one on me kid.
• 4:49
  Like, you have no backing.
• 4:51
  Like you, you know, you're not part of any organization, you have no history of doing anything like this.
• 4:55
  Like you're asking me to sign a check or give you boxes of boxes of backpacks, boxes of notebooks.
• 5:01
  Like why would I as a store manager do that?
• 5:03
  And at the time, I remember just being shocked that like, people didn't trust me, you know?
• 5:07
  And now looking back, it's like, of course, like I gave them no reason to trust me.
• 5:11
  You know?
• 5:12
  Like they had no idea what I was gonna do with that stuff.
• 5:13
  Like sell it on the black mark or something.
• 5:15
  I don't know.
• 5:16
  And, and so, you know, it, that first year I was not able to get any donations, but I'd already promised a, a couple foster care centers, family resource centers, domestic violence shelters that I was going to give them backpacks.
• 5:33
  Oh. And so I was in a little bit of a quandary. I ended up using my own savings, my own money to buy the backpacks and fill them.
• 5:39
  The school flies.
• 5:40
  Cause I felt so bad about, you know, having promised that.
• 5:43
  But one thing that I did do that, that was pretty clever, that helped set me up for the following year was when I was donating the backpacks, I called local reporters and said like, Hey, look, I'm doing this thing I'm giving back to the community.
• 5:56
  This is local, you know, interesting news.
• 5:58
  And a couple reporters were interested.
• 6:00
  And I ended up being on the front page of the local newspaper.
• 6:04
  And I then bought 50 copies of this paper.
• 6:08
  And then the following year when I was going around, good for you, get donations, I went to all the same stores to show them this.
• 6:14
  And they kind dangle the look, if you wanna donate, I'm gonna mention that the Walmart on Driscoll Avenue donated, or the manager at Walgreens, like really cares about giving back.
• 6:25
  Like, you know, they're part of the community.
• 6:27
  And so I basically leveled up every year that I ran this, I ran it through, through middle of college at all the same organization that reject me, either in person or, you know, writing letters to, you know, Jan Sport Pentel, these are stationary companies, backpack companies, ended up donating like Jan Sport, sent boxes of boxes of backpacks, Pentel sent pens, papers, click erasers, highlighters. And, and it was this amazing lesson for me in being, being resourceful, first of all.
• 7:01
  And really it sparked my lifelong.
• 7:06
  And, and, you know, to this day, interest in marketing, it really taught me the importance of not just thinking that your idea is going to sell itself, that just because you are excited about something, that other people are gonna feel it and have a reason to wanna participate, to wanna join you, to wanna be a part of anything.
• 7:21
  You know, it's really up to us as the creator, the entrepreneur, the, you know, the nonprofit founder, whatever, whatever you're doing, it's up to you to paint that picture for someone and make it juicy so that they want to be a part of it.
• 7:35
  Like, no one owes us anything.
• 7:37
  No one owed me their attention, you know, donations or anything.
• 7:41
  And it was just this great lesson that I'm so glad that I learned really early on because it's really, it's, it's been a huge part of, of, you know, other entrepre entrepreneurial endeavors since then.
• 7:51
  Starting the Al Seth Godin now being co-founder of Maven Marketplace and platform for core based course creators that I started two years ago, you know, in every one of these entrepreneurial ventures, you know, you really have to think about what makes it interesting and, and what's in it, what's in it for me for, for that other person, right? We have to answer that question for other people, for them to want to be involved.
• 8:15
  And one thing I wanna point out, well, there's actually two things I wanna point out.
• 8:18
  Number one, anyone who references Lisa, Frank and Hello Kitty, I mean just, you just go up in cool points.
• 8:24
  Wes like you, I cool points, bonus points for you.
• 8:27
  And then secondly, one thing that I don't want anybody to gloss over is, yes, it's about marketing, but one key component was everybody said no.
• 8:35
  So for all intents and purposes, your non-profit didn't work the first year.
• 8:40
  And this is where a lot of times people quit.
• 8:42
  But instead West stayed true to her word, walked in integrity, documented the process, even though everyone said no.
• 8:51
  So that the following year there were people on board.
• 8:55
  And so I just kind wanna point there that like, there's this thing that we as entrepreneurs have to have a stomach for people saying no.
• 9:01
  And then we have to have the grit to continue pushing on, even though people have already said no.
• 9:06
  So we go from like that non-profit, that 16 year old West, and then what happens thereafter that continues to foster that entrepreneurial spirit. So I went to uc, Berkeley for college, studied business focused on marketing.
• 9:19
  Afterwards I went to work for Gap Inc.
• 9:21
  So I did a rotational program that was absolutely amazing.
• 9:25
  GAP is this, this great program where they pick about 15 different rising leaders that are young, you know, college graduates who are, who are entering gap.
• 9:36
  And they rotate you through Banana, public, old Navy, and Gap.
• 9:40
  So you can really learn about all the different, you know, three different brands under gaps, umbrella in core retail functions, ranging from merchandising to business analysis, to supply chain management.
• 9:53
  So it's this amazing foundation in business fundamentals that, you know, coming outta school, you know, I think a lot of people think about, do I wanna go to a startup or a smaller organization and there's a lot of learnings to be had there, or do my own thing, right? Or do I wanna go to a bigger company and kind of learn the ropes?
• 10:11
  So I, you know, kind of, I did a latter and I'm really glad for it because, you know, in my subsequent roles, the, the companies that I've, that I've gone to since then got smaller and smaller until I started my own.
• 10:24
  And so, kind of, it was great being in a place where there were many people doing the same thing that I was doing that I could learn from.
• 10:30
  So a lot of times you're, you're the only marketer, right? Or you're the only sales person, or you're the only designer.
• 10:36
  And you know, it's, it's great experience cuz you, you get a huge range of projects that you get to work on, but it can also be a little bit lonely and you're kind of piecing together knowledge on your own.
• 10:47
  Whereas for me, at Gap, there were dozens of other inventory planners, business analysts, merchandisers, who were working on different brands at different levels, working on different parts of the business.
• 11:00
  And so it was, it was awesome just seeing, you know, for the same function of business analysis that, you know, the, the seven other people on my team who were doing this for various segments ranging from, you know, knits, wovens, denim, outerwear, all kind of approached their craft a little bit differently.
• 11:19
  And the way that they presented their ideas, the way that they got by in from senior management, the way that they had, you know, certain people were a little bit more aggressive in their forecast, certain people were more conservative.
• 11:29
  Like just seeing the range of different people doing kind of the same thing really, but with a bunch of different approaches was so, so fascinating for me and so informative.
• 11:40
  And you know, to this day I, I care a lot about craft, and when I say craft, I mean really understanding believers of your function and kinda the underlying principles.
• 11:50
  You know, I feel like a lot of people get really excited and swept up by wanting to get promoted, right? Wanting to advance and up the ladder, you know, move up in your career.
• 12:00
  Like it's all about advancement as the end goal.
• 12:03
  But I really, I believe in falling in love with, with the actual work, with getting really good at the actual work and being able to see nuances that other people just miss.
• 12:14
  Cuz they're just, they're either not, you know, looking as carefully as you are, or they don't, they don't care or they haven't trained their eye to notice patterns that you see that that other people don't.
• 12:23
  So starting in a place where there were so many other people, you know, doing the same thing was, was really, really informative for me.
• 12:31
  And then as I mentioned, you know, every year thereafter or every role they're after was small and smaller. This is what I find interesting.
• 12:37
  Okay, so there, most of the people who are gonna be listening to this podcast, most of them are going to have a very small team or do everything on their own.
• 12:47
  So you had said, I started wide, and then you narrow down to each role, the, the team got smaller because then you were entirely on your own.
• 12:54
  And then subsequently then build out a team.
• 12:57
  What have you like going through that full gamut, what have you learned?
• 13:00
  Like what were the key takeaways that you learned in like that larger type sphere and then all of a sudden then doing it on your own?
• 13:05
  What were some key takeaways to be like, I learned this from this particular person, group of people that have applied immediately when I was starting out my new business.
• 13:13
  So think of yourself in the first three to five years of your business.
• 13:16
  You're like, I learned that key takeaway that I'm applying here.
• 13:19
  Yeah. Is this for a takeaway that I learned when I was in a bigger company that I applied to a smaller org or just when I was, I'm on Maven now, let's say last years.
• 13:29
  Some things that I, Well actually we can apply that in both of them because every time we start something new, I always feel like I'm going back anytime I've pivoted, it's just like, oh, well you have to have the humility.
• 13:37
  Like, we're starting all over, we're like babies in this.
• 13:39
  So when I think of like, a lot of times people are listening, they didn't have the opportunity to go through a leadership kind of sequence through Gap Inc.
• 13:46
  And people hear that and they're like, wow, you had an opportunity to go through a leadership type thing. You went through rotations and then what you quickly realized was like, despite the advancements, when you fell in love with what you did, it then empowered you to see things and do things differently.
• 13:59
  Fine, great.
• 14:00
  But a lot of people have never had that.
• 14:02
  So what were some key things, takeaways? Like, so all the say you're saying fall into the work, but let's put this down.
• 14:07
  Yes. Starting Maven, starting new projects in your business career, what were some of those key things to be like, oh, got that learn that I'm applying that immediately in my newish business?
• 14:17
  Yeah, yeah, great question.
• 14:20
  Yeah, I think that one, one really big lesson that I learned that I continue to apply, you know, daily even now is thinking about the next step.
• 14:32
  Like what does this mean for the business?
• 14:34
  Now I think a lot of times there's a disconnect between strategy, you know, with a capital S on paper makes a lot of sense, looks good, it's well articulated.
• 14:44
  And then once that strategy meets a reality and kind of hits the ground, like there's this great once, this great quote by by Mike Tyson who said, everyone, it's something like everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth, you know?
• 14:56
  And it's like, yes, like that is so true.
• 14:58
  Like there's, you lay these amazing plans and great forecasts or you know, strategies of what you wanna do for your business, but the minute that it hits reality things, things change, you know, and, and you get your first set of data points, you now have primary data that you are interacting with and, and trying to understand and how to interpret.
• 15:16
  And so for me, a big, a big, you know, insight and and principle that I always keep in mind is being ruthlessly practical.
• 15:27
  Like, I don't wanna spend too much time putting together pie in the pie in the sky's strategies that, that seem like they make sense and are, you know, overly complex and, and require, you know, us to do these 10 other things before this thing can work. Like, it should work like now.
• 15:44
  Like we need it to work now.
• 15:46
  You know, like especially now running, running a startup and you know, before starting Maven and after leaving Ls mba, I was consulting for two years, so I was a solopreneur.
• 15:54
  It was just me, you know, running a consulting practice, being contact creator, and there's just not a lot of space for, for pontificating about strategies.
• 16:07
  There's, there's like, there's just very little room for that.
• 16:10
  You know, you really need to think about what is the practical thing that I can do with the levers that I have today with the assets that I have today and with the constraints that I have today.
• 16:19
  You know, like, great, like if you were like, oh, you know, if this weren't the case and we had access to these people and we had this amount of money, we could do all these great things.
• 16:27
  It's like, that doesn't really help us right now.
• 16:30
  Right? Like, that's, that's all that's not relevant.
• 16:33
  Like, that's like really useless actually, you know?
• 16:35
  And so, so this idea of being ruthlessly practical of thinking about what are, what are my current assets, my current constraints, the levers that I currently have access to, those are things that I think about every day.
• 16:48
  And I think, you know, especially as a solo business owner, a solopreneur, it's so important to start there because otherwise it's really easy to get carried away with, you know, plans that, that require too many other steps to ever work and to get discouraged too that, you know, you wish you had a bigger budget or you wish you had a bigger team to help you produce this or that.
• 17:10
  Like, if only I had, you know, this or that, you know, the best entrepreneurs that I know start with what they have and then they, they gradually, you know, they level up to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.
• 17:21
  And actually that's, that's really what I did with Packs of Love, the nonprofit that I started, you know, the backpacks is, you know, starting something small and then leveraging that, like sticking a wedge in there somewhere, like leveraging that and then trading up every year to get bigger and bigger brands to work with more donations, you know, bigger goals, right? But like, it's always about working with what you currently have.
• 17:46
  Okay, so Number one, I just wanna pause there and I'm just gonna like repeat back what I've heard.
• 17:52
  It's tempting to look at all the things we don't have and then wish and plan as if that was the case.
• 17:59
  And so then it leaves us in a space of want and lack instead of what you're saying is have a strategy, but use what you have today, use the constraints U like using the lack, using the, not having and figuring out a way, what can I do with what I have today and what can I do with what I have today?
• 18:20
  Now, did I hear that correctly?
• 18:22
  Yes, exactly.
• 18:23
  Okay. And so when, when we take it like that and then we apply it, no, we've gone through a lot of iterations, but kind of like as fast forwards, we start off with young Wes doing this big mission upleveling every year, learning principles, going to uc, Berkeley, getting a part of Gap Inc.
• 18:38
  Learning, learning, learning. So let's fast forward to how did you get involved with Alt mba?
• 18:44
  Then go into consulting as a solo business entrepreneur and then start Maven that's kind of like conceptualize that journey so that any entrepreneur who's listening can self-identify with that part of the narrative. And then we're gonna move into like cohort-based education, because that's where I love, love, love to dwell.
• 19:00
  So I just wanna give like the background and then give everybody a taste of who you are in like your foundational beliefs. Yeah.
• 19:07
  So at the time when I started working with Seth, it was 2014, I was living in San Francisco and I was wanting to move to New York.
• 19:15
  And on a whim I saw that Seth Godin had posted a blog post saying that he was looking for a special projects lead for a six month role to help him figure out what to do next.
• 19:25
  I think at that time he had sold off his previous company that he had worked on for, you know, for about a decade and was kinda at a crossroads and wanted to figure out what's the next big project that I should really invest in?
• 19:35
  And I saw this blog post and I thought, well, I wanna move to New York anyway, so even if, you know, this is a six month thing and I happen to get it, you know, afterwards I'll, I'll, you know, find a full-time role in New York and if I don't get it, you know, I'm, I'm trying to move to Newark.
• 19:50
  Anyway, so I submitted my application and he had, he had asked for a video, a short video, talking about what you wanna build, what you wanna contribute and what you wanna learn.
• 20:02
  And I did my video in one take because I thought the chances of me getting this role were so slim that I didn't wanna invest the emotional effort in falling in love and dreaming about like getting this, this, this job that I probably wasn't gonna get.
• 20:15
  And so, you know, I was shocked when a couple days later I see Seth go in my inbox saying, you know, Hey, I loved your application, let's hop a call for an interview.
• 20:24
  We did a couple rounds of interviews and I, and I get the role, so I pack my life into six of cases, get an apartment site unseen, moved to New York to this little town where sets offices in called Hastings on Hudson.
• 20:34
  It's about 45 minutes outside of New York.
• 20:38
  And what was supposed to be a six month role ended up being three years of working together.
• 20:43
  And it was absolutely amazing the beginning six months were kind of figuring out what kind of projects could we do for Seth to maximize his impact.
• 20:52
  So we looked at everything from certain interest that he had over the years, you know, he's really into artisanal chocolate, for example.
• 20:59
  So we thought, you know, do you wanna start, you know, bean to bar chocolate company, do you wanna start an, an ad agency that promotes causes that usually fall into the tragedy of commons?
• 21:09
  So climate change and, and other issues where people kind of think like, oh, like that's not personally my responsibility.
• 21:13
  What if we started an ad agency that promoted positive messages, we thought about, you know, wanna start, you know, something in tech, like a mobile gaming app or something like that.
• 21:23
  And we, we landed on education and the, the reason for that was, was, you know, pretty simple in that Seth had, has been a teacher for the past 30 years.
• 21:33
  He's written over 18 bestselling books, he's done, you know, more talks and workshops, you know, than he can count.
• 21:40
  He writes his daily blogs.
• 21:41
  So he's made such a big impact for millions of people around the world by teaching his principles on creativity, marketing, getting started, right? And so we thought, right, what if we lean deeper into this?
• 21:53
  And one of the insights that we had was that people are reading fewer and fewer books than they, than they were, you know, 5, 10, 20 years ago.
• 22:02
  I forget what the the actual number is, but, but that the number has steadily been trending downwards.
• 22:08
  And so for someone like Seth who's, you know, bread and Butter's core is being an author, it's kinda upsetting, right? It's like people, I'm an author, like people aren't reading anymore.
• 22:16
  So what are ways that we can update the, the medium that, that Seth's teaching in to be more resonant with the way that people are consuming media now?
• 22:28
  So we, we started looking into online courses and what was happening with people with, with learning online and, and the trends that are happening there.
• 22:36
  So one of my first projects for Seth was creating a Udemy course for him.
• 22:40
  It ended up being one of the best selling Udemy courses of that year was, it was all about being a bootstrapper how to bootstrap your business. And in the process of creating course, I realized that, you know, I was doing some research on, on stats, on completion rates and whatnot.
• 22:55
  I realized that the completion rate for video driven courses was incredibly low, that six 10% of people, that's What I was gonna say.
• 23:03
  I heard it was 10% of people, 10% of people will finish a course.
• 23:07
  Yes. There was a recent MIT study that said that that number might be even lower three to 6%.
• 23:13
  So a bunch of people sign up for courses with high hopes, lots of, you know, optimism and, and, and hope for learning.
• 23:20
  And then a tiny sliver of people actually finish.
• 23:22
  And it just felt like such a shame because here we were putting so much work into this, you know, course and trying to make amazing, and then just thinking about the fact that so few people were actually even gonna watch these videos just felt like, like why are we even doing this?
• 23:35
  And it really made us question, you know, is this supposed to be the pinnacle of, of what the future of education was supposed to be like, right? Like, is this it?
• 23:41
  Like you put out great content and then you know, a tiny percentage people actually do it.
• 23:45
  And so we started kicking around some ideas for, you know, what could an alternative model look like?
• 23:50
  And so that's when we thought, well what if we literally did the opposite of what online courses do.
• 23:55
  So what if instead of it being mainly a solo activity, it were group driven and community driven, what if instead of it being mainly passive content consumption in terms of someone, you know, watching videos by themselves, what if it were about active hands on learning where people are putting things into practice?
• 24:13
  Or actually, you know, if you're taking a writing class, you're not just watching videos about writing, you're actually writing, right? And what if instead of it being affordable, you know, the average course on me is 10 to $20 per course.
• 24:26
  What if it were price enough that students felt like they had skin in the game?
• 24:29
  Yeah. Like kind of like, you know, paying a personal trainer and wanting to show up cause you've already paid that person, right? And so what if we leverage these different elements of social pressure, peer pressure in a really positive way so that, you know, we, we put that all together and created this one month course that we named the sba and, and that was, that was how the SBA was born.
• 24:55
  And I have to say in the beginning I was pretty skeptical of whether this could work.
• 24:58
  You know, this is, this is 2015 when we launched in the spring May, June, 2015 and Slack wasn't, you know, that as big as it is today, zoom was not nearly as big as it is today.
• 25:10
  And I remember people thinking like, is it safe to turn on my webcam and like talk to people and learn with them?
• 25:16
  Like there's a hundred other people here.
• 25:18
  Like, is that weird?
• 25:19
  Like privacy issues, whatever, you know?
• 25:21
  And now, you know, it's so funny cuz like, you know, especially at the pandemic, like everyone is just like, yes, fine.
• 25:26
  Like let's hop on Zoom.
• 25:27
  But I remember back then writing documentation like how to, how to like use Slack, how to use Zoom, how does this work?
• 25:34
  Cause there wasn't even that much, you know, ation at that time from, from these companies and how to use your product.
• 25:40
  And you know, and and from from that first cohort that we ran, we had 75 or so people in that first cohort.
• 25:48
  You know, the first couple of days I was completely blown away.
• 25:51
  All my skepticism just went out, went out the door, you know, I was, I was not sure if you could bring people together and and recreate the sense of closeness and vulnerability that you often have when you bring people together in person, right? When you bring people together and you're talking, you're breeding the same air in the same room, there's a sense of aliveness and just like a spirit of energy that's, that happens in live events that I just thought like, I don't know if, if we can recreate that online.
• 26:17
  And, and we absolutely did.
• 26:19
  And so Before we from there, one of the things that I'm so interested, okay, so the Udemy courses were attended $20 at the time, and you said if people have more skin in the game the way that a trainer would be, so how did you, oh, excuse me.
• 26:32
  Oh, sorry, I'm like flinging my hands around.
• 26:34
  How did you price anchor, what was the alt mba like how, how were you able to differentiate the cost when you said 75, was it a price barrier at what, what was the price and then what, how do you think that that played into the completion and Show up rates?
• 26:48
  Yeah, so there were about 75 people in that first cohort, and the price was $3,000 usd and we since increased, it's different.
• 26:59
  500 is the price now per student.
• 27:03
  So even today, like fast forward seven years, like even today, the average price of online courses, you know, the 10 to $20 for you to me, yeah. You know, even now some are 50 to $60, some might be $200, but 4,500 is still, you know, very much on the premium end.
• 27:19
  So we can imagine at that time, you know, years ago that, you know, when we released this price point, there was, there was some shock, you know, there's definitely some shock that people saying like, wow, like first of all, this is, this is, this is nuts that, that, you know, we're in the, the couple thousands range here.
• 27:36
  And what's more was that set himself didn't personally teach the s b he was live, he was never there alive.
• 27:44
  This was all about hands on learning with your fellow peers, with a group of other leaders, innovators, founders, creators who we would curate with a strict application process and there would be short readings about Seth's work or you know, a very short video, but otherwise it was 13 different projects over the course of a month.
• 28:03
  So three projects per week.
• 28:06
  And you know, and, and a lot of people just thought, well, you know, I might be willing to pay few thousand dollars if, if I could ask that some questions.
• 28:13
  I mean like, do I get to Or Something, right? So like, but you're telling me that I'm gonna pay this amount and not and set themselves isn't even going to be there alive.
• 28:24
  Like, how does this work?
• 28:26
  And so there was a lot of education that we had to do to to, to help people understand, here's why we're structuring this way.
• 28:33
  You know, I think a, a really, really big part of that was a lot of people come to Seth thinking that he'll have a silver, a silver bullet solution to their problems.
• 28:43
  We just think like, if I could only ask, don't, don't we all, all to ask him this question, like he would just know the answer.
• 28:52
  He would tell me something and I'd be able to solve this and be able to move on from this thing that I've been struggling with for, you know, for forever.
• 28:59
  And, and Seth is, you know, one of the things that he, one of the messages he really, really wanted to get out and has been trying to, to kind of share with everyone is that he doesn't have the right answer.
• 29:11
  That a conversation with him will not solve your problems that, you know, even if, even if he talks to you and gives you some advice, he will even admit that there's a strong placebo effect happening or some kind of effect where the fact that you are putting so much weight into his words because you admire him so much, you know, whatever he says, like, you're gonna take that and do something with it and you're gonna take action and it's gonna be amazing.
• 29:36
  But like, if you just took that, so like he, he really doesn't want people to feel like they, they need to depend on him or, or, you know, that he has some secret sauce.
• 29:48
  And so it's really important for us from a philosophical perspective, not to dangle, you know, conversations with Seth as, as, you know, as something that you would get from doing this program.
• 29:58
  Like the whole point of us doing the Lt b a was to help people realize that they don't need Seth, they don't need some guru, you know, telling them some secret that there is no secret, the secret is actually doing the work is going out there, trying something, iterating, learning, looking for an advantage that you might have in a situation that you can, that you can, you know, really roll with and like really getting out there, getting your hands already and, and getting in it, you know?
• 30:24
  And so that's why we had, we structured the course that way and, you know, when you look at core based courses now ultimately was one of the first, if not the first mainstream core based courses that hit the market. And since then, a bunch of other, other folks were inspired by this format and created, you know, a bunch of different core based courses.
• 30:42
  And now I have a company that, that is a platform and marketplace for helping people create core based courses and, you know, Okay, so I wanna pause here.
• 30:51
  I wanna bring, I wanna pause, I wanna pause here.
• 30:52
  So I wanna make sure that we're hearing it very clearly cohort based courses.
• 30:57
  So explain it to me like I'm vibe because I do think that there's something here for a business owner who has yes, possibly created a course or sometimes dabbles with the idea of creating a course.
• 31:09
  Now I wanted to talk to you specifically because there's a different angle that you're taking, that you're looking in, that you're facilitating.
• 31:15
  And I'm like, okay, Wes, let's tap here, let's speak to the business owner who has maybe invested in a course and completed or maybe not completed, somebody who has created a course and for somebody who's considering creating a course.
• 31:31
  So when we talk about cohort based courses, explain it to me like I'm five.
• 31:35
  Yeah. Okay.
• 31:36
  So most people, when we think of online courses, we think of a set of pre-recorded videos.
• 31:42
  Yes. So that this is the kind of course on you to me, on LinkedIn learning, you buy this course might be 10 $50 and you have like 13, 15 videos that you're watching, right? Yes.
• 31:52
  And you do it all by yourself.
• 31:53
  So there's no community, it's a static experience.
• 31:56
  So core based courses are the opposite.
• 31:58
  They are online courses, but there's a live component.
• 32:04
  So you are meeting with fellow students and with your instructor, the course might be a week long, it might be three weeks, it might be, you know, six weeks.
• 32:13
  We have c courses ranging from three days to, you know, three weeks being really, really common.
• 32:17
  But during this period of time, let's say it's two weeks, you are logging on and the instructor is actually live, and there are breakout rooms, there are different exercises that you might be doing.
• 32:28
  You might be logging on with your fellow classmates, the instructor's not even there, and you're working on a certain project together or giving each other feedback.
• 32:36
  It's much more interactive.
• 32:38
  So it's basically an online course that has a live and interactive component to it with a set start and end date.
• 32:44
  So that's kind of the, the very rough kind of nugget of what a core based course is.
• 32:48
  Now on top of that many instructors, depending on the style of the course, they wanna run, tailor their courses to, to what works for them.
• 32:56
  So I think this is one of the, the most interesting things about a core based course is that business owners can really tailor it around their style and, and what they wanna do.
• 33:08
  So we have some business owners who create courses and they love teaching live.
• 33:13
  So there's a ton of live interaction with that Instructors, there's a lot of q and as their, you know, they're screen sharing, they're walking their students through different material.
• 33:21
  And then we have other instructors who, you know, want to prioritize being more highly leveraged.
• 33:27
  So they might have two Q and As during their course, but otherwise it's pre-recorded videos that then students watch or read and practice, put, put the example practice.
• 33:42
  Give us an example of a course that just killed it.
• 33:46
  Like got the whole, like embodied the spirit of Maven.
• 33:49
  What did they teach?
• 33:50
  How did they show up?
• 33:51
  What was like the time investment?
• 33:54
  Yeah. So one course that's been really successful is Sean Paris's power writing course.
• 34:00
  So Sean per, he was a founder before, you know, now I think he works at, at a tech company of some sort.
• 34:06
  But he has this course on the side, and his course has had hundreds of students, a single cohort had about 250 students in it, and he's run multiple now.
• 34:17
  And Sean's course is all about writing in the digital age as a modern professional, how do you write to stand out?
• 34:24
  Whether you're writing for social, for email to your customers, you know, in the workplace, the modern principles of writing.
• 34:33
  And so Sean's course is two weeks long.
• 34:36
  And the the thing that that so many students comment on is the live tear downs that Sean will do in his course. So he will teach you like, here's how to write a great headline, right? If you're a business owner, you are, you know, writing an article or you're writing a hook for a tweet or the subject line for an email, let's just say subject line from you, here are five principles, think about, right? So for a video driven course, it would end there, it'd be Sean maybe telling you that, and then you'd move on to learn the next scene, right? But for court based course, because it's so interactive and, and the, the practice and active learning is a key part of it.
• 35:07
  You know, you're there with Sean live, he just taught you these five ways to write subject lines.
• 35:12
  And then he will pause for five minutes and say, all right, everyone works silently to write five subject lines.
• 35:20
  Okay, I'm gonna set a timer.
• 35:23
  He sets a timer and then everyone shares their subject lines in the Zoom chat or in within the Maven platform, you share, you know, hear my subject lines, and then he will scroll through and pick a few and do live tear downs, or we'll give you a live critique of, okay, here's, this is good because of this, I would move this thing, I'd move this to the beginning, I'd, you know, cut this out.
• 35:45
  So freaking good.
• 35:47
  Wait, is this Sean Par from The Hustle?
• 35:50
  Who, that's Sam Par, who's actually Sean's podcast cohost.
• 35:55
  Sam Par also has a course, which is amazing.
• 35:57
  Wait, wait, Wait. So wait, okay. One, I, I mean I have, I'm geeking out because I love my first million podcast.
• 36:03
  Like, I, I feel embarrassed that I like it as much.
• 36:05
  My husband's like, why, why are you attracted to a podcast?
• 36:08
  Like where guys talk about business?
• 36:10
  Like they're 12 years old and I'm like, I'm here for it.
• 36:11
  I love it.
• 36:12
  I think it's hilarious.
• 36:13
  They're so talented.
• 36:14
  Oh, you're right, man. Those live tear downs are probably petrifying and amazing.
• 36:22
  Yes. Oh, I love it.
• 36:24
  So he's actually teaching and work shopping.
• 36:28
  So is there, is there a prerecorded, is there a pre-recorded component?
• 36:31
  All of his sessions are live.
• 36:33
  He started adding something recorded component to people to, if you wanna watch and stuff before the live session, but he'll still do the live stuff, right? There's still the live tear downs.
• 36:41
  Yes. Sam Par does the same.
• 36:43
  Sam has a course on startup ideation, business ideation.
• 36:48
  So if you wanna create a company and you are not sure like, where should I start?
• 36:52
  Or you're debating between a couple ideas, his course is all about ideation.
• 36:54
  And so again, like ton of, ton of chances for Sam to give feedback for, for students to give feedback to each other, to share ideas.
• 37:03
  So good.
• 37:04
  It's so much you leave with so, so much richer of an experience and so many takeaways that you wouldn't get if you were just kind of watching this on your own.
• 37:12
  Okay, so I'm gonna pause here because I want to address like a different emotions that a lot of listeners might be going through.
• 37:18
  Some are excitement, some are doubt, some are questioning.
• 37:21
  And a lot of times when I talk to business owners about cocreation, it's something that I've done, it's something that I've loved.
• 37:26
  I know that there is a demand and a market for it. And beyond just like the monetary value, the fact that you can impact somebody so distinctly by way of education is actually like life giving in a way that people underestimate.
• 37:37
  But the thing that people often get caught up in is, well, I need to create fancy slides and I need to have a videographer and I need to know the upload process.
• 37:48
  So what I just heard right now is that an option would be, listen, if you're a gangster and you know your stuff, you could teach a live class, have time for breakdowns, have time for homework, have time for ideation, have a dime for what Sean or Sam would call a tear down, whatever it is, that this is the possibility that can be facilitated by way of a platform like Maven.
• 38:09
  Did I hear that correctly?
• 38:10
  Exactly, yes.
• 38:12
  Got it.
• 38:12
  So doing a live course is often a better way to start your course creation journey than doing a prerecord course.
• 38:19
  You know, there's a lot of pressure with doing a prerecorded course in that, you know, you want your background to look great.
• 38:24
  The audio, the script, like if you've ever s scripted anything, you know, it takes a freaking long time.
• 38:29
  It takes way And it's terrible.
• 38:31
  Cause it, you're writing it and then when you say it, you're like, why do I speak like a robot?
• 38:35
  Nobody talks like this.
• 38:36
  You know, like, it's hard.
• 38:37
  Its very Hard.
• 38:38
  I prompter there's the lighting, it's there's, there's the editing and cutting together.
• 38:42
  There's so much effort that goes into it.
• 38:44
  And if you wanna change any part of it, it's, you're just like, ugh. Like it's too much work to go back and change it, right?
• 38:50
  Like, so the, it's not, it's not, it doesn't lend itself to being very iterative.
• 38:55
  It's like, it's very much like you make it perfect, yes. You try your best to make it perfect and you put it out there, right? Yes.
• 39:00
  So there's just a lot of pressure there.
• 39:01
  And for a lot of course creators, if you're starting out, you might benefit from seeing what parts of your curriculum your students actually think is most helpful, right? Which parts that you thought were, are actually not helpful that you could just trim out, right? Right.
• 39:16
  And so when you do a course live, there's, there's ironically more leeway, it's more forgiving of a format because you are there live with people, right? And, and you know, that interaction that, that carries a lot and, and gives a lot to your student.
• 39:30
  And so we actually see, see instructors who start off doing a core based course and they love it.
• 39:36
  They continue to run it.
• 39:37
  Sometimes they add a prerecorded version of that course.
• 39:40
  So they sell it for a, for a, you know, a more affordable price point.
• 39:43
  If you only want the videos, fine, you know, here it is.
• 39:47
  And, and they're able to do a video course that is tighter and feel more confident with what they're doing because they ran multiple iterations of a cohort based live version of the course where they get, you know, tons of feedback from real students who are interacting with that material. And they can see the students reaction.
• 40:05
  Like, are people confused when I explain this thing?
• 40:07
  Oh, I should explain a little bit differently or spend a little bit more time on this.
• 40:10
  Or, you know, people look bored when I talk about this.
• 40:12
  They already get it.
• 40:13
  Let me just maybe trim this out.
• 40:14
  Maybe this is actually a little bit too beginner for what my stu you know, what my target student really wants.
• 40:20
  So it gives a ton of data and feedback to instructors.
• 40:25
  So why Maven?
• 40:27
  What, what called you?
• 40:28
  Like, so you, you're building upon experiences, you're building on data, you're building an analytics, you're building on personal experience.
• 40:35
  And so then one day you wake up and say, I want to create Maven because, Yes. So after leaving the alls mba, I spent two years working with a bunch of different course creators. So Professor Scott Galloway from section four in nyu, the co-founders of Morning Brew, William Urie, the bestselling author of, you know, different negotiation books.
• 41:01
  And I realized I feel like I, because it's podcast and I have to be like very judicious with what I say on audio, oh my God.
• 41:08
  Like the fact that you're consulting for all of these, like, like for people who don't know the names, she just dropped.
• 41:14
  Like, I'm just gonna geek out cause I'm just not a professional podcaster.
• 41:17
  I'm just like, me. Dang girl.
• 41:20
  Dang, that's huge.
• 41:22
  Okay, so you're doing consulting for like the gangsters of the gangsters. And then you see what I noticed that all of them had tech stacks and tech setups that were very janky, super complicated, convoluted, tacking things together, stringing it with, you know, super glue.
• 41:44
  And, and I realized it was because there wasn't, there wasn't tooling, there wasn't software that could help someone run a product like a core based course.
• 41:53
  There were a lot of tools for running static courses where you could, you know, CMS systems where you could host videos, but there wasn't anything that was geared around the, the additional complexity that a live component had.
• 42:06
  And, and all of these, all of my clients had teams, they had teams, they had budget, and it was still janky.
• 42:13
  And I just thought like, wow, you know, if, if even people who have, you know, made it have such janky text acts and it's so hard to, to string together and cobble together all these different tools, how is anyone who's, who's, you know, an expert but doesn't have a huge following or a huge budget, you know, how does that solopreneur, how do these, you know, subject matter experts who, who aren't already huge, how are they supposed to teach their expertise online?
• 42:38
  And it just felt like such a shame that that, that someone who had amazing expertise wouldn't have the access to be able to teach simply because there wasn't, because the technical aspect was a blocker was a, was a, a barrier to entry.
• 42:52
  And so, you know, I thought, well how is it possible that, that no one has has tackled this problem yet?
• 42:59
  And around the same time, this was, you know, summer of, of 2020, I got back in touch with a, a high school and college friend of mine, Gogan Bian, who was co-founder of Udemy about 10 years before that.
• 43:11
  And she had reached out to me so serendipitous, he had just gone back from a, you know, two year sabbatical traveling the world.
• 43:19
  You know, he had another company that, you know, he raised a bunch of money for, you know, it shut down, you know, it failed.
• 43:25
  And so he kind of went on this, this, this soul finding journey around the world.
• 43:29
  He just gotten back from that and he was itching to start another company and to get back into ed tech.
• 43:35
  And, and he, he, you know, reached out one day and was like, Hey, you know, I've been talking to a bunch of people about education, what's happening now, you know, trying to immerse myself back in it.
• 43:46
  And everyone who I talked to mentioned you and I told them, I already know Wes, I went to high school with her, I went to college, I'm just gonna text her and be like, we should just hop on a call and chat.
• 43:57
  And so, you know, we, we did a couple calls where we were, we were brainstorming, sharing ideas, I was sharing about core based courses.
• 44:03
  He was, he was really, really fascinated about, about core based courses, what we were doing at the Alba, what I was doing with, you know, different clients.
• 44:09
  And he was giving me advice on how I could grow my consulting practice.
• 44:13
  And after a couple of these calls we were like, our skill sets are a pretty good match and we're both really bullish on this idea of core based courses being a game changer for online education.
• 44:25
  Do we wanna start something together?
• 44:30
  Started And did you guys decide to bootstrap?
• 44:33
  Are you guys fundraised?
• 44:34
  What does that look like For you?
• 44:36
  Yes. So we raised from first round capital for seed, seed round and then from interest inwitz for our series A.
• 44:43
  Okay, so just out here, just dropping names, dropping names, girl dropping names, like dropping bumps.
• 44:49
  Incredible west.
• 44:50
  This is freaking mind blowing to me.
• 44:53
  Dang. Job well done.
• 44:55
  That is incredible.
• 44:57
  So this is a cohort based course platform that gives latitude to creators, to thinkers to choose the path that is best for them.
• 45:06
  That gives them the flexibility with a text deck that they're not really responsible for.
• 45:10
  So, okay, so Wes, when you look back at your career and where you are now, so you've gone through many different iterations.
• 45:17
  So you think about the 16 year old version of yourself and then the person who packed up after working in Gap Inc. To New York through the ideation, through building, through the doubt, through the starting.
• 45:28
  So you've know how to bootstrap then you've decided to get through funding.
• 45:32
  If you can go back and collect all of those versions of yourself, like pick the person who's starting something new cause you started multiple things new, what advice would you give to that version of yourself at every iteration?
• 45:46
  What would you say to that person?
• 45:50
  I would say to that person to worry less, I'm a worrier by nature and it's something that I've been working on for, you know, decades. And I think especially when you are starting new, there are so many doubts.
• 46:08
  And especially if you're, if you're someone who's a little bit of an overthinker, which I am too, you know, you can kind of play out like, oh well if this happens and this and this and this.
• 46:15
  And you can kinda look at all the different ways that something might play out.
• 46:18
  And it's so easy to get, to get stuck with not taking action because something could go wrong. And you know, I think that that over the years working on Worrying Less has been incredibly helpful for starting new ventures, for working on different projects, for putting myself out there.
• 46:38
  You know, I think just reminding yourself that people are not judging you or thinking about you as much as you are thinking about yourself. So when you're doing something, you're self-conscious about it.
• 46:47
  Whether you're reaching out, you know, you're doing a cold email, a cold pitch, or you know, you're, you're trying to sell customers whatever, like no one is, you're putting out a tweet.
• 46:55
  You know, used to be so self-conscious, if I were drafting a tweet like I, I deleted immediately, like five seconds after I would delete it and then retweet it, changing one word.
• 47:03
  I go, ok, ok, whew. Right?
• 47:06
  But like all the self-consciousness, like wording less will really give you so much energy back and remove kind of the, the swirling just like, just worries.
• 47:17
  You know, take all that energy and just try to try to reintegrate it into working on things that you can control.
• 47:23
  Doing your best, doing your best, right? Even your situational best.
• 47:26
  You know, I say situational best as in you're not not always able to do your absolute best in everything, but try, right? Like try put yourself out there, worry less about all the things that could go wrong, right? And I think that motto, it's, it's really been my newest resolution for multiple years now is, is to worry less.
• 47:44
  And I feel like it's given me just so much of my mental energy back in whatever it's I'm working on.
• 47:49
  So, So as we tie this down, cause I feel like I could talk to you for like 18 hours, what are, what are two things?
• 47:55
  Like let's get practical cuz it's one thing to say worry less and it's kind of like, well saying this guy is blue, great, we agree, but what's the, how, what does West do?
• 48:03
  Two things that you do to worry less an actionable item that we could take away.
• 48:08
  Yes. Okay, great. I love this.
• 48:10
  So one thing is, if I feel myself starting a spiral, I think about what am I going to do in reality?
• 48:19
  What decision am I going to make in like the physical world? If I'm not going to make a decision on this, then it does not matter if in my own head I'm spending so many cycles thinking about something, worrying about it, fretting about it.
• 48:33
  So I think about am I gonna make a decision anytime soon on this?
• 48:36
  And what is that decision going to be?
• 48:38
  And if not, then I put I put that aside.
• 48:41
  So I will come back to it when there's a real decision in the physical world that will change things besides in my own head.
• 48:46
  That's one thing.
• 48:48
  So the other thing is something that I learned from Susie bat who was founder and CEO of Pari, who's one of my clients.
• 48:56
  Also, I had some non course clients.
• 48:58
  She's absolutely amazing.
• 48:59
  I highly recommend you check out her course.
• 49:01
  It's called Live Os.
• 49:02
  It's not a Maven, but it's so amazing.
• 49:04
  And Susie talks about choosing to live in easy world.
• 49:10
  So she talks about easy world and the idea of this is that a lot of times, you know, we wanna make things more complicated or we, you know, we think about all the factors involved, everything gets really complicated and, and things can get harder than they have to be.
• 49:25
  And choosing to live an easy world is choosing to live in a world where things come easily for you.
• 49:31
  That decisions are easy, that life comes easy, that works, come work comes easy.
• 49:36
  And it doesn't mean being lazy or not pushing yourself.
• 49:39
  It just means to think about is there a way, this is how I interpret it, to simplify things, to simplify things first and, and go with something that that is, is right in front of you and works.
• 49:53
  And so I actually have a little post-it on my desk that, that says, I choose to live in easy world, you know, I'm gonna do the thing that, that feels easy.
• 50:02
  And, and that's been, that's been amazing.
• 50:05
  You know, when I start thinking about complex decisions with and, and problems that I'm trying to solve, it helps me recenter and re just refocus on, you know, what's, what's the simplest way that I could solve this?
• 50:18
  Like, do I have to make this this huge complicated thing?
• 50:22
  Or is there just a really simple way that I can solve this?
• 50:25
  And it's so weird, but half the time, literally just asking yourself this question, you will come up with an answer that is way simpler than what you were gonna do before.
• 50:34
  So those are two ways where that I worry less.
• 50:38
  Doing those two things really helps me to, to simplify things.
• 50:40
  I call it simplify first, and it's just been an amazing way to kind of cut through the clutter of when your mind kind of gets too far ahead of itself to just recenter back and just do the thing that seems the the easiest possible thing that you could do to solve your problem.
• 50:54
  So good.
• 50:55
  I could not love this conversation anymore than I do.
• 50:59
  Thank you, thank you.
• 51:00
  Thank you for being on this podcast and sharing so generously.
• 51:05
  For people who want to connect with you more and learn more about Maven, where do they Go?
• 51:09
  You can learn more about Maven at Maven HQ on Twitter and maven.com, and you can learn more about me@westko.com and at Wests k on Twitter.
• 51:20
  I also wanna give a quick shout out to our Maven course, accelerator course.
• 51:25
  So it's a free two week course for creators, solopreneurs, consultants, coaches who wanna turn their expertise into an online course.
• 51:34
  So I've worked on hundreds of different courses and I know that it can be a pretty complicated process if you're starting from scratch.
• 51:40
  So we teach you everything you need to know about how to put together a curriculum, how to download all the ideas from your head and organize it, how to write a course, landing page, how to market your course, how to create breakout rooms, and make sure that the, the live interactivity within your course is great for your students.
• 51:59
  So the end to end process, of course creation, it's completely free.
• 52:01
  There is an application over 900 craters consultants, experts have gone through it, and we have one coming up in a couple months.
• 52:10
  We have one, you know, running every couple of months.
• 52:11
  So that's something that anyone is interested in.
• 52:14
  Please feel free to@maven.com.
• 52:16
  That's such a juicy offer.
• 52:18
  I wouldn't expect anything less.
• 52:20
  Thank you a thousand times over.