SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders 785: He Makes $500k+ From Udemy Helping You Code
Sep 17, 2017
17:37
Evan Leong. He's the VP of Product at Devslopes, a learn-to-code platform focused on taking beginners to paid professionals to curated project-based videos. He's always been involved with startups since 2015, when he took the leap from a corporate job to join the startup world full-time.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – Good to Great
- What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
- Favorite online tool? — Trello
- How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Follow your instincts, follow your gut, and don't let age stop you from what you want to do
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 02:05 – Nathan introduces Evan to the show
- 02:31 – Devslopes is a learn-to-code platform for iOs, MacOS and TvOs
- 02:39 – A version for Windows will be available soon too
- 02:48 – Devslopes is similar to Treehouse
- 03:00 – Devslopes has been around for a year and a half
- 03:10 – Devslopes has just converted to SaaS
- 03:22 – They garnered 130 subscriptions just after the launch
- 03:33 – Average pay per customer is a little over $20 a month
- 04:05 – Devslopes was funded through Kickstarter and an investor
- 04:15 – They raised $190K in Kickstarter
- 04:35 – Devslopes' CEO is a good salesperson and they had a strong community even before Kickstarter
- 05:04 – The Kickstarter campaign was blasted around
- 05:11 – The community size is around 10K
- 05:22 – Devslopes has raised an additional of $300K from Redfoo of LMFAO
- 05:42 – Devslopes was launched in March 2016
- 05:53 – First year revenue was $600K
- 06:04 – 2017 goal is to reach a million
- 06:39 – Devslopes has large courses that will take people more time to stick with them
- 06:48 – Devslopes is pumping out target topics which are 2-3 hour courses
- 07:13 – Team size is 8
- 07:48 – The CEO started in e-learning marketplaces
- 08:05 – By the time Devslopes started, the CEO already had 40K students on Udemy
- 08:33 – Devslopes gets students from affiliates too
- 09:12 – Devslopes want to fully dive into the learning experience
- 09:32 – They liked the idea of having everything in one program so they created the SaaS model
- 10:17 – Devslopes publishes to affiliates the content that the affiliates want to promote
- 10:26 – Udemy likes to promote 30-60 hour courses
- 10:43 – Devslopes is also on Skillshare, Learnability and Inkydeals
- 10:58 – 90% of the content goes to Udemy and the rest are spread out to the rest
- 11:08 – 90% of the revenue is from Udemy, too
- 11:30 – Devslopes is just starting to use Facebook ads which is their only paid marketing
- 12:05 – CAC
- 12:11 – Most of what Devslopes gets from Facebook ads is social presence but no paid leads yet
- 12:44 – The charge of Udemy fluctuates depending on how they promote their content
- 13:21 – Evan focuses on the product and handles the team
- 13:37 – Devslopes currently have 5K iOs downloads and a couple of thousand from Mac
- 15:30 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- With the advancement in technology, more people are opting to learn from the comfort of their own home.
- Target your market so it will be easier for the company to adapt a new business model.
- Customers will stick with your product if it is of value to them.
Resources Mentioned:
- Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost.
- The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
- GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more
- Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
- Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
- Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
- Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
- Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives