Lynda Weinman
Cofounder and Executive Chair, Lynda.com, Inc.
By Douglas Kirkland [Attribution], via Wikimedia Commons
Her venture originated from Lynda’s classroom teaching experience. Before launching the venture with her husband, Lynda taught interactive design, motion graphics and animation at the American Film institute, the Art Center College of Design, UCLA and the San Francisco State Multimedia Studies program. She wrote multiple tutorial books on web design. This venture’s original concept was a free web resource for her students, which evolved into the current online learning company (Lynda.com). In an interview, Lynda said that her focus is on quality of classes and teaching, rather than marketing competition with free video sites. She says, “Let the marketing happen mostly through word of mouth” (MIXERGY, 2009). She has a degree in the Humanities from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.
Among the marketing driven educational technological ventures, Lynda’s teaching driven business policy freshly stands out, in spite of this business principal, which seems quite simple and traditional. Her marketing is happening through “word” not only from mouth, but also from her texts in the books and the design of the online products. High quality instruction across the multiple media with the instructor/founder’s passion seems to be strong enough to successfully compete in the market. Having a membership based financial model creates the foundation for the quality of the instructions.
MIXERGY.com (2009, Oct 6). How Does Lynda.com Have So Many Paid Subscribers If Information Wants To Be Free? – With Lynda Weinman. Retrieved from http://mixergy.com/subscribers-lynda-weinman/
Reading about the founder of Lynda.com, Lynda Weinman seems to have a dynamic portfolio in terms of her previous work experience in the education and technology development field, making her a great asset and resource to build educational resources.
What stood out about Lynda was her business and marketing policy, utilizing various platforms to communicate the utility and relevance of her product. Having a fee-based membership program also seems really smart as there is a guaranteed base income that can be re-circulated to generate further innovation and advances in the programming. Sometimes when programs or services offer a free version, it reflects a cheaper, less stable program with limited offerings and may not be a worthwhile time investment.
I had several reasons I wanted to review Lynda Weinman.
On a personal level I have a subscription and know people who author for Lynda.
On a business level, first and foremost because she is one of the few female faces on our list. There are very few female entrepreneurs and even less in the over 50 category. Also, Lynda was in a similar space (although not really competition) as my company – that of on demand video learning.
I think Lynda is an excellent role model as, not only is she a mature woman but she made a success of her company in a time when “free” information and learning, is the norm. I am also impressed with the fact that Lynda bootstrapped her company for 15+ years, building it without financial investment until January 2013 when she got a first round investment of over $100 million! Insane! This was the “largest U.S. venture financing round on record for an online education company” Equally impressive was the “under the radar” approach to building her company. In a time where social media rules, Lynda found extraordinary success but as Lynda says in the article below “…people don’t know who we are.”
Lynda represents the “in it for the long haul” approach to entrepreneurship. She had the dream and drive to grow her company. In a time when I think many entrepreneurs have a “get in and get out” attitude, Lynda models how to build your dream slowly and rather than sell to the Googles of the world, she held on and maintained control of her dream. Pretty cool.
http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-deals/2013-01-16-lynda-com-lands-103-million-in-biggest-education-financing/
I’m pleased someone wrote about Lynda, as I know many software developers who continually upgrade their skill set using these videos. I notice that in our founder’s parade that there are few women show-cased, and while the numbers are few, we are well represented with such a smart, innovative and professional entrepreneur like Lynda Weinman.