online-learning
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Trailhead makes the first step small.
Salesforce turned software training into a trail of small wins. The clever part is what happens between reading the lesson and earning the badge.
Lynda.com made the classroom optional.
A web-design teacher and an illustrator built a business around the replay button. Then LinkedIn paid $1.5 billion for the library they had spent twenty years making.
SV Academy opens tech’s other door.
You don’t have to build software to build a career in tech. SV Academy trains people to sell it, then supports them through their first months on the job.
Damian Creamer and the phone call that became a company
A parent’s complaint helped send Damian Creamer into building his own learning tools. Twenty-five years after starting Primavera, the StrongMind founder is betting on AI while answering harder questions about the school behind the software.
Michael Vilardo and the education of a second act
He rearranged his education to chase professional baseball. After the draft never came, Michael Vilardo began building a different route through school - and a company called Subject.
Rob Kuo and the business of a second helping
A video can win an audience. A cup of tea has to win it again. PressPlay co-founder Rob Kuo has built his career around the distance between the two.
Dennis Lin and the customer who could leave
Dennis Lin (林鼎鈞) helped turn creator subscriptions into PressPlay Academy. Along the way, the customer with a cancel button taught him to rethink what a learning business owes its audience.
StrongMind wants to fix the work before the lesson.
The K-12 curriculum maker is opening its course-building machinery to educators. A school contract in Omaha shows why the machinery matters.
Subject gives school a better script.
Cinematic lessons get the attention. Credit recovery, language support, and certified teachers give schools a reason to buy.
SkillPath teaches the boss. Then helps pay for college.
A workplace training bill can have a second life. At SkillPath, the surplus helps fund Graceland University students - while the lessons tackle the everyday business of getting better at work.
Good intentions need a skill set.
Nonprofit Leadership Alliance turns the work of doing good into something people can study, practice, and prove. Its next classroom may already be inside your organization.
School is more than a screen.
Learning Network bundles online lessons with the people and processes that keep school moving. Its most revealing product may be everything that happens before and after a student logs in.
Jared Falk and the lesson that outgrew the farm
Before Drumeo, Jared Falk sold ducks and taught forty students a week. His next problem was finding a way to keep teaching after the lesson ended.
Derik Mills and the distance between wanting and doing
A missed yoga class gave Derik Mills an idea. Building Glo meant working out how much of a room, a teacher, and a human connection could travel through a screen.
Eren Bali’s big idea started with a used computer
A boy in a Turkish apricot-farming village found his way to the world’s mathematics teachers online. The Udemy co-founder is still working on the question that followed: how do you make useful knowledge easier to reach?
Talent Stacker and the missing step between certified and hired
A Salesforce certificate can prove what you know. Talent Stacker builds a business around the harder question: can you persuade someone to let you do the work?
LinkedIn made being findable a business.
A public résumé looks simple. Put 1.3 billion professionals behind it, and you get a market for hiring, selling, learning, and being discovered.
Nobel Learning PBC: Your next teacher could be you
Nobel Navigators turns students into facilitators, then asks them to help the next group learn. Its free global internship makes teamwork something you practise, with people you have actually met.
The classroom that checks your work.
Salesforce turned learning its software into a trail of small, testable victories. Trailhead’s bigger lesson is how to make a complicated product feel approachable - and keep people coming back.
Sameer Bhatia and the customers who wanted to pay
A free quiz tool brought teachers to Sameer Bhatia’s door. The companies that followed helped turn his interest in sharing knowledge into ProProfs - and a plan to build a business that lasts a century.
Greg Smith and the classroom that wouldn’t stay small
A $29 LSAT course gave Greg Smith a way out of billing by the hour. Building Thinkific meant learning a second lesson: helping other people teach is a business of its own.
Sabda PS and the trouble with knowing the answer
The Zenius co-founder built a teaching business around a stubborn question: what if passing the test leaves you unable to think? From classroom fees and CDs to an operational pause and a return, his work keeps coming back to the foundations.
Mark Levy and the things a computer cannot teach
Mark Levy helped take South African shopping online. With Playbox, the Digital Planet co-founder turned to a different kind of access: the experience, judgment and hard-won lessons inside other people’s lives.
Robert Barakat and the case against “thus”
Before Atomi became a platform for schools, Robert Barakat had a theory about the words students wanted to hear. His career has been a long exercise in making a difficult lesson feel within reach.
Panos Siozos and the lesson that wouldn’t pay
Three researchers built a learning platform and waited for customers to applaud. Panos Siozos’s education as a founder began when the applause failed to become a sale.
Andrew Grauer and the education of a study group
A Cornell student wanted a better way to find help with his coursework. Two decades later, Andrew Grauer is running Learneo and QuillBot, still working on the distance between a question and a useful answer.
Martijn Theuwissen and the price of an open classroom
DataCamp’s co-founder helped turn a paid student plan into free classroom access. From Leuven to the AI tutor, his work keeps returning to one question: who gets to learn?
PressPlay makes influence pay.
A loyal audience can buy a lesson, a cookie, or a cup of tea. PressPlay built a business around helping creators earn the next purchase.
Key Institute and the art of showing up
Online training is easy to enrol in and easier to abandon. Key Institute builds its offer around the calls, coaching and practical placements that keep a learner moving.
DennisTC Lin and the price of paying attention
A fan can applaud once. A learner needs a reason to return. PressPlay co-founder DennisTC Lin built his business around that difference, from creator subscriptions in Taiwan to a new chapter with KKCompany.