“In the future, entrepreneurs will sell knowledge over products.” – Ankur Nagpal
Teachable is a company that provides a platform to create and sell online courses and coaching services. The platform provides a whole system, from the hosting and design of the online courses to the payment processing. Its original value proposition was to provide a platform for people to be able to provide courses that provide customization tools and a more profitable payment system, the original proposition was called Fedora. After two years Fedora grew into teachable valued at 8 million dollars at that time.
Ankur is a native of Bombay who grew up in Oman and moved to the U.S. to study computer science and economics at U.C. Berkeley. Nagpal launched his first business in his dorm room during his sophomore year by building Facebook apps. This venture at its peak brought in $50,000 a day in advertising revenue. When Facebook changed its algorithms to de-prioritize apps. Ankur moved from San Francisco to New York. In New York he started teaching marketing courses. He took his course online using Udemy. Ankur was not happy with Udemy and decided to build his own teaching platform, Fedora. He moved back to the Bay area to find investors. He raised a seed round of $1 million in July 2014 at an $8 million valuation in 2105 changed the name to Teachable. Teachable currently has a team of over 150 makers, doers, designers, chefs, coders, marketers, writers, and learning devotees. Their values are to continue to learn from the world and one another – united by curiosity and a quest for knowledge.
Ankur mentioned that when he started his idea to create a new platform he didn’t know if the business will last more than 6 months, that’s why he didn’t spend too much time thinking about the name, and just picked one out of a hat. He decided to focus on building the platform features instead. This inspires me to just go and try an idea, it doesn’t have to be perfect just to give it a try, and see where it takes you.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankurnagpal
https://angel.co/company/teachable
https://www.forbes.com/profile/ankur-nagpal/?sh=4a425f75630a
Ankur Nagpal is a good role model for would-be entrepreneurs. His experiences from teaching online courses and writing apps allow him to have a good perspective of what is needed to create his ideal teaching platform. He has the confidence, dedication, and ability to be the CEO of his company. He values collaboration, encourages curiosity, and supports ongoing learning to gain knowledge. Nagpal demonstrates through this venture that you have to be willing to take chances and make mistakes if you want to learn, grow, and be successful. I
Ankur Nagpal ability to create an edu-ecosphere is his best talent. Teachable, whilst similar to products such as Masterclass or Skillshare has a more welcoming atmosphere. It has a more “anyone can learn” style approach, as opposed to the others which have such a high price point. Ankur Nagpal dedication to the product over appearance is a trait that will support his longevity in this field.