I worked on designing an online learning solution for LinkedIn. Feel free to ping me your feedback at ajiteshleo@gmail.com

1. LinkedIn Grow
Ajitesh

2. Introduction
1
Key Assumptions
 LinkedIn will focus on customer experience in the short term and aim for profit in the long term
 LinkedIn isn’t using this product as an opportunity to break into new segments such as schools in the short term
where it has not been traditionally strong
 This is the first LinkedIn product in learning space, and Lynda.com isn’t a part of LinkedIn. Assuming otherwise would
have contradicted the problem statement
Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and
successful.
LinkedIn
Mission
Problem
Statement
How might we use online learning services to make world’s
professionals more productive and successful?

3. Target customer segment will be 20-35 years age-group based on our strength,
willingness-to-invest in learning, and satisfaction level with the current solutions.
2
Segment Current learning solutions
LinkedIn
Captive
Base
Willingness to
invest in
learning
Dissatisfaction
with current
solutions
Competitive
Intensity
Primary Research
Small business
and startups
• Certifications
• Guest lecture
Telephonic Interview
Mid and large
businesses
• In house LMS
• Online courses
Telephonic Interview
School and Early
College
• Formal: Schools, Colleges,
• After school learning program
• Coaching App, Exam Prep App
56 Mn*
20-35 Years
(Going to
graduate to
rising stars)
• Formal: Masters or PHDs, Executive
Training
• Online Courses - Coursera, Udemy
• Company Training Courses
• Bootcamps
310 Mn*
Survey and
Telephonic Interview
35-55 Years (In
prime of their
career)
• Formal – Executive Training
• Company Training Courses
• Online courses (rare)
157 Mn*
Survey and
Telephonic Interview
55+ Years • Company Training Courses 39 Mn* Telephonic interview
Parent driven
Talent Solution Users
Talent Solution Users
$
Target
Segment
*Source: Pew Research, Statista, LinkedIn

4. Basis this analysis, I developed two key personas based on quantitative and qualitative
data – Diligent Dan and Achiever Amelia.
3
“Getting a job that I enjoy is my top priority, but it’s
tough to stay motivated and devote time to learning new
skills while working. Therefore, I need a hassle free
product that keeps me engaged. ”
Diligent Dan
Age 22 Years
Education Bachelor's
Job Web Developer
Income $40,000
Age 32 Years
Education BS and MS
Job Program Manager
Income $80,000
• He works for long hours but isn’t satisfied with his role
• He is an avid technology user whether gaming on his
iPhone or keeping up with social media
• He enjoys spending time with friends and family
• He has limited savings to invest in his future
Achiever Amelia
“I am happy with where I am in life, but I want to keep
growing. I love spending time with my kids and family. That
leaves me with less time for working on my personal and
professional growth.”
• Taking care of kids takes up a lot of her time
• She has high disposable income, but she also wants
to save for her kids and future
• She is worried that skills required on the job are
changing rapidly, and hard to keep up with her busy
life
Target User Segment

5. Afterwards, I plotted empathy map for our target user segment based on user interviews
and qualitative survey to understand their attributes and behaviors
4
Says Thinks
Does Feels
Duration of
video’s are long.
Why can’t I
concentrate?
Skips some parts
of videos.
Over whelmed.
It’s hard to get
time for
learning.
Is it worth my
time?
Registers
without
engaging much.
Demotivated.
Forums are
deserted.
Why can’t I
figure this?
Searches on web
randomly for
answer.
Feels exhausted
and unsure what
to do.
Most reminders
and emails are
close to spam.
Did I ask for
email or
notifications?
Blocks the
notifications and
emails.
Neglected.

6. Next, I plotted the user journey for Diligent Dan to understand what he wants to
accomplish and his concerns around course recommendation and reviews.
5
What’s next?
Pain Point
*Source: Sandford Research
“Help me learn skills that will get me my dream job.”
Diligent Dan
• Struggles in finding
right courses, which
are good quality and
which recruiters
value
• Authenticity of
reviews are
questionable
• He feels disengaged with
non-personalized
communication and ad
hoc reminders
• Long duration of video
creates fatigue
• Often the quality of
content is poor
• Deserted forums a big
source of dissatisfaction
• Struggle in getting his
questions answered
• Minimal interaction with
peers to discuss doubts
• Minimal personalized
interaction with faculty
• Recruiters don’t value
the online courses
• Certificates aren’t
recognized in higher
education
• Completion doesn’t
signal excellence
• No easy way to find
courses right for his
career path
• Soft skills courses
aren’t effective
• Courses don’t keep
with recruitment trend
Find right courses Stay Motivated Get help when stuck Impress the recruiters
Course completion isn’t a big step – only 4%
finish popular courses*

7. Likewise, I plotted the user journey for Achiever Amelia, who is not happy with lack of
networking and soft-skill courses in online learning
6
“Help me learn to enjoy successful career and contribute to the success of my firm.”
Achiever Amelia
Finding right courses Staying Motivated Get help when stuck Get recognized by
seniors or recruiters
• Lack of high quality soft
skill courses*
• No networking benefit
• Courses generally
targeted for sub-30 year
age-group
• Hardly any time to spare
after personal and
professional commitment
• Not optimized for spaces
learning
• Long duration of videos
• Non-personalized
communication and ad hoc
reminders doesn’t motivate
to restart
• Deserted forums a big
source of
dissatisfaction
• Minimal interaction
with faculty
• Large turnaround time
for doubt clarification
• No follow up from
platform or faculty
• “Signaling” is
especially tough for
soft skilled courses
• Interaction with peers
and faculty, a key part
of soft skill training is
missing
Pain Points
*The Most Popular soft skill course on Udemy has ~400 reviews

8. Next, I measured needs against two dimensions - value to customer and dissatisfaction
with current solution, to shortlist the top underserved needs
7
Valuetocustomer
Dissatisfaction with current
solution
User Needs
Finding right courses
Authentic reviews
Low engagement
Long duration of video
Good content quality
Deserted forums
Networking and interaction with peer group
Struggle in getting questions answered
Minimal interaction with faculty
Recruiter’s don’t value
Certificates aren’t recognized
Completion doesn’t signal excellence
Career path specific course selection
Soft skills courses
No follow-up from platform or faculty
Courses for 30+ age groups
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10
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14
15
16
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2
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Opportunity
Social learning with a focus
on micro lessons,
personalized curriculum, and
engagement to prepare you
for tomorrow, today.
Value Proposition

9. Next, I designed the product vision based on my understanding of user segments and
goals of the project
8
Product Vision
 Value proposition: Social learning with a focus on
micro lessons, personalized curriculum, and
engagement to prepare for tomorrow, today.
 Marketplace approach:
 In online learning content quality isn’t a big
problem. Instead, the problem is delivering
right content to right user
 Marketplace approach will provide us data and
resource to figure right courses
 Start with consumer segment:
 Time to experiment the perfect the delivery
before launching to unforgiving enterprise
customer
 Enterprise often have complex needs and high
barrier to entry (Changing LMS takes 6-12
months)
 Start with Web app: Easy to manage release cycles
and development effort would help in iterating and
experiment
Beta
Launch
Consumer
focused
Expand to
enterprise
Mid 2019 Late 2019 2020
Web App
Web + Mobile
Apps
Beta Launch
for Enterprise

10. Subsequently, I came up with list of features corresponding to the needs focused on
delivering the value proposition
9
“How will we deliver social learning experience with a focus on micro lessons, personalized curriculum, and engagement?“
User Needs Features
Finding right courses
1. Manager's recommended courses
2. Integration with organization
skill-gap
3. Recommendation based on personal
profile and profile of professionals on
similar career path
4. Recruiter's recommended
courses
Authentic reviews 5. Link review with personal profile 6. Chat with Alum
Low engagement
7. Networking Groups 8. Cloud-based Notes Sharing
9. AI Chatbots 10. Instant feedback
11. Gamification
Optimum length and
engaging video
12. Micro lesson based on analytics
around video length
13. Launch Course Design
Guidelines
14. VR based lesson 15. Live Lecture
16. Offline access to video
Interaction with peer
group
7. Networking Groups 6. Chat with Alum
Getting questions
answered
7. Ask peers in Networking Groups 9. AI Chatbots
17. Message to Instructor 8. Cloud-based Notes Sharing
Recruiter’s don’t value
courses
4. Recruiter's recommended courses
18. Recommendation based on
organizational skill-gap insights
19. Content authenticated by Recruiters
Soft skills courses 20. Role specific soft skill courses
No follow-up from
platform or faculty
21. Commitment based follow-ups
22. Data-based insights about
progress
Valuetocustomer
Solution complexity
2
3
5
4
6
7
1
9
10
12
14
15
16
17
High Low
Low
High
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20
21
22
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13
19
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11. While we will keep iterating and experimenting, this product roadmap inline with long-term
strategy and product vision will help us in communicating our product strategy
10
 The most crucial problem in
online learning is matching
student to right content
 It’s imperative to start getting the
data and perfecting the model
 A healthy acquisition and
retention number achieved from
this feature would help in
convincing portals and
independent content creators to
contribute to LinkedIn’s
marketplace
Note: Versions here aren’t release cycle. Instead, they mark the significant changes in app.
Version 1 (Web App)
Version 2 (Web and Mobile
Apps)
In Future
Strategic
Focus
Web and Customer Experience Mobile Apps and Growth
Immersive experience
and monetization
Feature
List
Recommendation Engine Offline video access* VR-based learning
Link course review with
personal profile
Manager’s and recruiter’s
recommended courses
AI Chatbots
Networking Groups Chat with Alum
Launch Course Design
Guideline
Cloud-based notes sharing Role specific soft skill courses
Enterprise Version -
Integration with
Microsoft HoloLens and
Cortana to provide AR-
based, just-in time,
social learning.
Micro lesson based on analytics
around video length
Content authenticated by
Recruiters
Commitment Based Follow-ups Instant Feedback
Data-based Insights about
Progress
Gamification
*Offline Video access although crucial is only possible after the launch of mobile app
First Feature -
Recommendation Engine

12. Next, I’ll launch a closed group MVP to test the key product hypothesis and accordingly
decide whether it’s reasonable to move forward.
11
*Offline Video access although crucial is only possible after the launch of mobile app
** As discussed earlier, course completion isn’t a right metric. Customers have different goals and often just a minority complete the course.
Recommendation engine would recommend
right course despite stale and inaccurate
nature of profile data
1
Collaboration among peers would lead to
greater engagement and aid in clarifying
questions.
2
Leap of Faith Assumptions Excepted Result
Note: Our MVP might be inferior to competitor, as our data model will take time to perfect. That’s why an open MVP
testing might lead bad PR and word of mouth
Related Feature
Recommendation
Engine
LinkedIn Groups
Office 365 based
notes sharing
Impression to
purchase conversion
Purchase frequency
per customer
Net Promoter Score
% Answered post in
LinkedIn Groups
Above a certain
cutoff

13. Here is how I envision the high-level product architecture in future. Our user Diligent Dan
will enjoy personalized, micro-architecture based curriculum and engagement with peers.
12
Inputs to Recommendation Engine
Recommendation
Feedback
Reinforcement
Learning
Skills listed
on profile
Jobs applied in
past
Aggregate skill
data for a career
path
Skill listed by
achievers
LinkedIn Talent
Solution
LinkedIn Job
Search
Skill searched
by top
recruiters
Recommendation
by network
Past job
roles
Engagement
with the feed
Data from content
partners
Courses endorsement by
people in his network
Connect
with faculty
Interact with peers
in LinkedIn group
The power of
network
Hi Dan
Udemy
Coursera

14. Product – Design Iterations (1/4)
13
Initial sketches
Version - 1 Version - 2
Version - 3

15. Product – Design Iterations (2/4)
14
First Sketch for Discussion with Users Testing Process
- Types: Focused
group discussion
- Participants: 3
Method 1:
- Open word choice
Method 2
- What’s stopping you
to move to the next
step?
- What could have
made you more
comfortable?
Result
Method 1 Response:
- Word choice: Doubtful,
Experimenting, Inviting
Method 2 Response:
- Is it worth my time? Will
recruiters value this?
- What parts of the flow have I
completed?
- Will I be master, beginner, or
advanced level?
- Do recruiters search for this
skill?
- What are some other benefits of
doing the course with LinkedIn?
- Where’s is the pricing?

16. Product – Design Iterations (3/4)
15
First Sketch for Discussion with Users Testing Process
- Types: 1-1 interview
- Number of
interviews: 2
Method 1:
- What do you have to
say, in just 1
sentence?
Method 2
- What’s stopping you
to move to the next
step?
- What could have
made you more
comfortable?
Result
Method 1 Response:
- One sentence:
- It’s simple and the flow feels familiar
- Not sure whether it’s for him
Method 2 Response:
- How many I have to click to move to the
next screen?
- Can I just pick first two, which seems
attractive? Or I could get better option at
bottom? I am confused with choices
- Can I have the lesson whenever I want? I
want to worry about the timing later.
- Where is the pricing? Will there be trial?
- What will I achieve from all this?
- How much time I have to devote?
Note: I also showed this sketch to 2 McKinsey Consultants, who downright said they wouldn’t buy. They would probably do some in
house learning, as this doesn’t show that it’s more relevant than their in-house learning solution.

17. Product – Design Iterations (4/4)
16

18. I did business opportunity assessment evaluating monetization value of both consumer
and enterprise product in the long-run.
17
Annual Revenue
$ 37.5 Billion
Annual Revenue
$ 1.5 Billion
Annual Revenue
$ 36 Billion
*Source: Learn Analytics Book | **Source: SAAS Learning Portal Treehouse charger $25
Out of 250 Mn monthly active users on LinkedIn
close to 2%* will subscribe to courses $25**
Note: This a conservative estimate as LinkedIn MAU is
expected to grow at 18% year-over-year for the next 5 years.
Size Employee Training Expense (annual)
Big Business – 10K+ employees $13 Mn
Mid Business: 1000+ employees $3.7 Mn
Assumptions: LinkedIn will be able to capture 10% of employee training
market

19. After the MVP stage, we would have different metrics: North Star metrics and multiple
secondary metrics for different phases based on strategic focus during that phase
18
Strategic Focus
Phase -1
Web and Customer Experience
Phase -2
Mobile Apps and Growth
Phase - 3
Immersive experience and monetization
Goal
Use online learning services to make world’s professionals more productive and successful
Iterate and learn to provide
customer delight
Post product-market fit:
acquisition, activation, and referral
Focus on monetization and customer
experience
Metrics for
Phase-1
Intended User Actions
• Achieves success by doing
courses (Tough to measure in
short-term)
• Selects the right courses
• Delighted by the course
experience
• Interacts with peers
• Progresses through the course
Metrics
• North Star: Net Promoter Score (It’s the best measure for goal of this
phase – customer delight) – Asked at the end of every lessons.
• Secondary Metrics:
• % of users selecting the courses suggested in their LinkedIn feed
• % of posts responded on Networking Groups on a weekly basis
• % of daily active users using cloud-based notes
• Average micro-lessons completed per users
• Weekly searches by recruiters to find students who registered for a
particular course
*Note: Course completion is a flawed metric in this case. In general, just 15% people complete courses, and
completion isn’t the end goal for users.

20. However, there are some clear risks with our strategy in a rapidly changing online learning
industry
19
Risk and concerns Potential solution and mitigation strategy
Mismatches resulting from inaccurate
profile data or faulty recommendation
engine model could erode customer
confidence
• This would be tested in MVP stage, and given the
Microsoft Azure’s strength in machine learning,
LinkedIn has high probability to get satisfactory result.
• We could also test this out manually by recommending
courses that we get after performing a simple data
analysis and then assess the experience of user.
Intense competition in our target
consumer segment could lead to price
war and lower revenue.
Our key revenue stream would be enterprise customers.
While that segment is competitive as well, the market is
big enough to satisfy multiple players.
What if the LinkedIn groups and cloud-
based notes sharing aren’t effective in
answering queries?
Our long-term solution for answering queries is AI
Chatbots, which will be trained based on LinkedIn Group
and Notes data.
Why shouldn’t we just acquire a player
to get started?
The real durable advantage for LinkedIn is
recommendation engine based on our data, and the fact
that we could make it social. Acquisition wouldn’t provide
either of the two, and owning the assets doesn’t matter, as
content quality isn’t a big issue for consumers.
Durable Advantage
(LinkedIn Flywheel)

21. Let’s Grow!
Thank You 

22. Appendix

23. User Journey Maps with emotions
22
Find relevant
courses
Stay motivated Sell the skills to
recruiters
Get help when stuck What’s next?
Pain Point
Excitement
Confusion
FrustrationStruggle Happiness Confusion
Course completion isn’t a big step – only 4%
finish popular courses*
*Source: Sandford Research
“Help me learn skills that will be get me the job I deserve.”
Diligent Dan
Emotions
• Struggles in finding
right courses which
is quality and which
recruiters value
• Authenticity of
reviews are
questionable
• Students feels disengaged
with non-personalized
communication and ad
hoc reminders
• Long duration of video
creates fatigue
• Poor quality content
• Deserted forums a big
source of dissatisfaction
• Struggle in clarifying doubts
• Minimal interaction with
peers to discuss doubts
• Minimal personalized
interaction with faculty
• Recruiters don’t value
the online courses
• Certificates aren’t
recognized in higher
education
• Completion doesn’t
signal excellence
• No clear courses
selection for a career
path
• Soft skills courses
aren’t effective
• Courses don’t keep
with recruitment trend

24. Next, I developed three key personas based on quantitative and qualitative data – Diligent
Dan, Achiever Amelia, CEO Chester
23
“Getting a job that I enjoy is my top priority, but it’s
tough to stay motivated and devote time to
learning new skills while working. Therefore, I need
a hassle free product that keeps me engaged. ”
Diligent Dan
Age 22 Years
Education Bachelor's
Job Sales Rep
Income $40,000
Age 32 Years
Education BS and MS
Job Program Manager
Income $80,000
• He works for long hours but isn’t satisfied with
his role
• He is an avid technology user whether gaming on
his iPhone or keeping up with social media
• He enjoys spending time with friends and family
• He has limited savings to invest in his future
Achiever Amelia
“I am happy with where I am in life, but I want to
keep growing. I love spending time with my kids and
family. That leaves me with less time for working on
my personal and professional growth.”
• Taking care of kids takes a lot of her time
• She has high disposable income, but she
also wants to save for her kids and future
• She is worried that skills required on job are
changing rapidly, and hard to keep up in her
busy life
CEO Chester
Position CEO
Company
profile
10K employees
Annual
Turnover
$ 1 Bn
“I am constantly looking for ways to grow
my business. Therefore, I am committed to
investing for growth of my employees
while controlling for the cost”
• I love new technology, but I want it to be
customer-friendly
• I like to see proof of concept before
making purchases, as doing so helps me
getting buy-in from the board
• I am worried that if employees don’t see
their growth it would lead to increase in
attrition and hiring cost
Target User Segment Enterprise Customer

25. User Journey Maps (3/3)
24*Source: Sandford Research
Predict skill-gap in
organization
Conduct training for
employees
Ensure training is effective Hire candidate with
relevant skill
In case, employees can’t be
trained for work
“Help me ensure learning of employee and skill-gap balance in my firm in hassle-free, cost-effective way.””
• Current skill-gap assessment
tools aren’t effective and
based on narrow set of data
• Predicting future trend isn’t
possible in most tools
• Limited option to conduct “just-
in-time” online training
• Long duration of video creates
fatigue, leading to low
engagement and completion
• Poor quality content
• Real time analytics is
difficult
• Keeping courses updated
is a challenge
• As training if often done
individually, it’s less fun
• Difficult to find candidates
with right skill sets
• Disconnect between hiring
strategy and internal
training leads to
inefficiency and wastage
Pain Points

26. Survey Result
25