How Coursera Has Accelerated Growth While Helping 65 Million Learners Gain New Skills

With more than 4000 course offerings on its online education platform, over 65 million people have found opportunities to learn new skills and improve their lives through Coursera. That demand is growing rapidly as Covid-19 changes how we work and interact with the world around us. In this episode of The Breakout Growth Podcast, Sean Ellis interviews Shwetabh Mittal, Coursera’s Senior Director of Product Management to learn how the company has built a 3-sided platform in its mission to provide universal access to the world’s best education.

Coursera offers learners access to high-quality classes from top universities at no cost, as well as more structured fee-based learning programs. At the same time, businesses can use the platform to re-skill and upskill their workforces (4:37), and university partners provide full degree programs to extend their reach beyond their campus footprint. To support these solutions, Coursera has developed a pedagogy designed to help learners stay engaged and retain knowledge in an online format (6:49). And powering growth is an obsession with creating learner value and driving successful learner outcomes (22:45).

As Sean digs into the business with Shwetabh we learn how the company’s B2B growth engine taps into the strategic agenda of companies looking to develop the skills their workforces will need to compete into the future, and how Coursera’s Global Skills Index Report helps in that process (40:27). In addition, we will gain insight into the team structures that facilitate collaboration and experimentation in the growth process, and we will find out more about how the company has met the challenges of Covid-19 for its University partners.

We discussed: 

• The learner-focused pedagogy Coursera has developed to create more value for users (6:49)


• How Coursera makes money working with consumers, businesses, universities and governments (9:46)


• Why  tapping CEO level agendas has driven B2B growth, and the process the company uses to engage the right decision-makers (25:02)


• The team structure and organizational processes helping Coursera sustain growth (33:51)


• How the company brings prospects into the pipeline, identifies their needs, and looks to engage them effectively to drive sales (39:23)

Learn more about Shwetabh Mittal, Coursera’s Senior Director of Product Management at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mittalshwetabh/

Learn more about Sean Ellis at www.SeanEllis.me

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