How Udemy scaled their instructor community to get their users to upload courses at 4x the success rate

1. 2015
Bigger. Smarter. Faster.
INSTRUCTOR COMMUNITY

2. AGENDA
ENGAGEMENT WITH A PURPOSE
 What is Udemy and who are Udemy Instructors?
 Developing the Udemy Community:
 Collaboration
 Commitment
 Tracking Engagement  The Different Metrics of
Community Interactions

3. Udemy is the Global Marketplace for Education
6,000,000+
Students
190+
Countries
14,000+
Published
Instructors
25,000+
Courses
80+
Languages

4. Who are Udemy Instructors?
“Joe Udemy”
CONTEXT
• Working professional w/ a bachelors degree
• Middle age, mid-level income, DIY mentality
• Earns ~$7K teaching on Udemy
OBJECTIVES
1. Revenue
2. Reach
3. Impact
NEEDS
1. Community Motivation
2. Technical Support
3. Instructional Support

5. MISSION
Create a global community of
instructors helping each other teach
the world
VISION
Engagement with a Purpose
COMMUNITY
14,000+ instructors with a published course, thousands of new
instructors every month
STUDIO
27K+ Instructors working
on their first course
Udemy
Community:
An Overview
FACULTY LOUNGE
2K+ Published + Approved
instructors
HOW-TO COURSE
100K instructors enrolled
(course + discussion board)

6. MISSION
Create a global community of
instructors helping each other teach
the world
VISION
Engagement with a Purpose
COMMUNITY
14,000+ instructors with a published course, ~10,000 new instructors
every month
STUDIO
27K+ Instructors working
on their first course
Udemy
Community:
An Overview
FACULTY LOUNGE
2K+ Approved instructors
(1+ HQ course)
HOW-TO COURSE
100K instructors enrolled
(course + discussion board)

7. Phase #1
In the first phase of the community we
focused on Collaboration

8. INTERACTION DATA TOLD US:
 We bucketed interaction data into groups
 0 interactions
 1 interaction
 2-10 interactions
 10+ interactions
 Smallest group = 1 interaction
 Instructors with > 1 interaction converted at
4x
REVIEW DATA TOLD US:
 #1 reason courses do not get approved =
Audio/Visual Issues
ANECDOTAL INFORMATION TOLD US:
 Creating a course is hard!
 Conversations in the Studio revolved around
A/V help
#1: COLLABORATION FEEDBACK
SOLUTIONS
COMMUNITY INSIGHTS:
 Engagement is important
 1 interaction is all you need
 Instructors need Audio/Video help
WE IMPLEMENTED:
• Instructor Welcome Posts
• @tagging instructor’s names
• Hack that first interaction
• Test Videos
• Test Videos were 10x more likely to
convert
• Eventually added into Udemy
product

9. Phase #2
The second phase of the community we
emphasized Commitment

10. DATA TOLD US:
 Engagement was increasing 10-20% month-
over-month in the Community
 How can we move the Community from
nice-to-have to a need-to-have?
 How can we take what we focused on in
Phase 1 and amplify it?
 active engagement,
 collaboration,
 feedback)
#2: COMMITMENT
SOLUTIONS
COMMUNITY INSIGHTS:
 Instructors want change to happen with
them, not to them
 More types of engagement
WE IMPLEMENTED:
 Instructor Council
 Select group of ~200
 Feedback on policies + products
 Udemy Local
 World wide meet-up program
 Organized by Instructors,
supported by Udemy

11. Engagement
 Must track
Community  Site
 Community
engagement = Site
success
Community = Partners
 Transparency +
Collaboration

12. THANK YOU!