SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

777: Will Masterclass Win Online Course Wars?

09 Sep 2017

27 min

4902 words

2 speakers

09 Sep 2017

Audio

Description

David Rogier. He's the CEO of MasterClass where he leads the company's vision of redefining digital learning by leveraging the expertise of world-class experts with the cutting-edge technology platform. David created MasterClass after seeing how the online education space was offering low-quality content and an unfair advantage of students. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Science of Shopping What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos Favorite online tool? — Doodle How many hours of sleep do you get?— Average 6 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – David would tell himself that entrepreneurship will be the hardest thing he'll ever do Time Stamped Show Notes: 02:05 – Nathan introduces David to the show 03:05 – MasterClass offers classes from the absolute best in the world 03:14 – Online classes are offered both pre-recorded and live, both price at $90 03:31 – Students can study anytime they want and they have access forever 04:04 – Prior to MasterClass, David worked for a VC fund in the Bay area 04:21 – David worked for Michael Dearing of Harrison Metal 04:50 – Michael wrote David a check for $500K to start his idea for his business 05:03 – David tried almost everything to get an idea until he remembered his grandmother's story 05:49 – His grandmother applied for medical school while working in a factory 05:55 – She was rejected by almost 50 medical schools 06:20 – The reason she was rejected was because she was a woman, foreigner and Jewish 06:27 – One school accepted her and she became a doctor 06:53 – She told David that education is the only thing that people can't take away from him 07:04 – David thought of getting into the education space and studied it 07:53 – MasterClass was launched in May of 2015 08:00 – Total capital raised was around $50M 08:35 – The fund goes to expanding the team as well as production so they can shoot more classes 08:42 – Team size is currently 68 and will be 100 at the end of 2017 09:04 – Year One: number of students 10:13 – When they started, David was expecting a 10X increase in sales daily 10:38 – David cried after their first day of sales 11:18 – Reid Benson who is part of David's sales team and was formerly with Netflix, wasn't even scared after the launch 11:58 – Reid told David that their CAC was amazingly low 12:34 – The first 3 classes were led by Dustin Hoffman, James Patterson and Serena Williams 13:06 – The CAC for different subjects was actually close to each other 13:43 – Paid ads spent on Day 1 were less than $100K 14:14 – Paid advertising on different channels works well for MasterClass 14:22 – Instructors are also promoting their classes 15:00 – David can't disclose the deal they have with the instructors 15:13 – Most instructors teach because they really want to teach and not just to earn from it 15:51 – David shares how they handle instructors who don't want to teach, but want to share their knowledge 16:10 – Classes are designed by how instructors want to share their own craft 16:14 – Instructors have complete control over their class 16:28 – David shares what a class looks like for Serena Williams 17:24 – MasterClass partners with the instructors in their classes 18:17 – David shares why he won't share the deal with the instructors 18:38 – James Patterson teaches with MasterClass because of his own reasons 21:00 – David shares why instructors pick MasterClass over LinkedIn, which is more popular 21:50 – There are now 20 classes in MasterClass 22:07 – The number of classes should double, year over year 22:52 – Half to 80% of their first students haven't taken any online classes before 23:10 – Not all students are fans of the instructors 23:43 – David won't sell MasterClass for $300M 25:15 – The Famous Five 3 Key Points: Never miss an opportunity being offered to you, it was offered to you for a reason; so trust yourself and go for it. Most successful people in their field want to share their craft through any way possible. Education is one thing that people can't take away from you. Resources Mentioned: Simplero – The easiest way to launch your own membership course like the big influencers do but at 1/10th the cost. The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences GetLatka - Database of all B2B SaaS companies who have been on my show including their revenue, CAC, churn, ARPU and more Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you're doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Host Gator– The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible Audible– Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

Chapters

1. What is the main topic discussed in this episode? 2. What is MasterClass and how does it operate? 3. What inspired David Rogier to start MasterClass? 4. What challenges did MasterClass face during its launch? 5. What marketing strategies does MasterClass use? 6. How does MasterClass attract and retain instructors? 7. What types of students enroll in MasterClass courses? 8. How does MasterClass ensure high-quality content?

Featured

Nathan Latka

David Rogier

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 3.176 Nathan Latka

Founder of Masterclass. Again, a lot of success. Day one, super nervous.

Chapter 2: What is MasterClass and how does it operate?

3.196 - 5.22 Nathan Latka

Spent under $100,000 on acquiring new customers.

Chapter 3: What inspired David Rogier to start MasterClass?

5.24 - 24.874 Nathan Latka

And he's going, oh my gosh, if this is 10 times what our average is going to be, we're screwed. But it turns out day two was the same as day one. Turned out to be that's the average per day, not 10 times what the average would be. So worked out really, really well. Team of 64, $53 million raised. Focused on finding the world's top professionals in any really industry, producing them currently.

Chapter 4: What challenges did MasterClass face during its launch?

24.854 - 38.735 Nathan Latka

new releases this year on track to do 16. They're about doubling class production year over year. Again, focused on helping the masses learn, all going back to his grandmother's story and being denied from all these locations when she was trying to get a great education.

38.755 - 47.648 Nathan Latka

This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base.

Chapter 5: What marketing strategies does MasterClass use?

48.128 - 54.658 Nathan Latka

You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have.

Chapter 6: How does MasterClass attract and retain instructors?

54.638 - 72.597 Nathan Latka

I'm now at $20,000 per talk. Five and six million. He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000 unit sold mark. And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Many of you listening right now don't have time to listen to every B2B SaaS CEO that I've interviewed. If you want to get access to the database I

Chapter 7: What types of students enroll in MasterClass courses?

72.577 - 92.286 Nathan Latka

created with year-over-year growth rates, customer accounts, margins, and many, many other data metrics and data points, you can go to getlatka.com. Here's the thing, though. This database, I keep it to myself. It's so freaking valuable. to preserve the quality of the data and make sure that the people that have access to it have a true advantage.

Chapter 8: How does MasterClass ensure high-quality content?

92.547 - 108.634 Nathan Latka

I'm only letting 10 companies on each month. So we're full this month, but you can go to get latke.com to get on the waiting list for next month. And look, there's big people on the waiting list. I mean, the biggest VCs you've ever heard of, you've probably heard of them. They're big private equity, billions and billions under management. So it's an impressive waiting list.

108.674 - 128.285 Nathan Latka

Go get on now at get latke.com. This is episode 777 coming up to Tomorrow morning, you'll learn from Dave Kellogg. His SaaS company has raised $80 million, and he left Salesforce to bring finance departments to the cloud with his company, Host Analytics. Hello, everyone. My guest today is David Rogier.

128.325 - 149.803 Nathan Latka

He's the CEO of Masterclass, where he leads the company's vision of redefining digital learning by leveraging the expertise of world-class experts with a cutting-edge technology platform. David created Masterclass after seeing how the online education space was offering low quality content and taking unfair advantage of students. David, are you ready to take us to the top? I'm ready.

149.823 - 160.043 Nathan Latka

I have one question for you. I'm going through my Facebook feed this morning and I see Christina Aguilera killing it. She's teaching us how I can sing like her and be a diva. Can you sing like Christina Aguilera?

166.874 - 183.752 Nathan Latka

her a whole lot more now yep yep so this is obviously guys an ad I saw for masterclass promoting the recent Christina Aguilera deal they did why well David let me take a step back because I've already studied this so I take it I take for granted that other people might not know what masterclass does what is masterclass and how do you make money

185.42 - 205.042 David Rogier

We offer classes from the absolute best in the world. They are online classes with a bunch of it is pre-recorded, and then there also is a live portion of it. Every class costs the exact same at $90.

205.583 - 213.992 Nathan Latka

Got it. Okay, so every class is the same no matter what, and it's not subscription, right? It's kind of pay-as-you-go. As the student wants to learn, they just choose what they want.

214.698 - 217.663 David Rogier

they choose what they want and they have access forever to it.

218.224 - 236.895 Nathan Latka

Okay. Very cool. So walk me through, walk me through kind of like why you did this because this space is crowded, right? And we've got like Udemy, like Udemy, Udemy, I don't know how you say the name, whatever Udemy creative live. I'm sure there's others LinkedIn bot, the platform, they're kind of getting into this now. Why do this? Yeah. Linda. Yeah.

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

777: Will Masterclass Win Online Course Wars?

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

Chapter 2: What is MasterClass and how does it operate?

Chapter 3: What inspired David Rogier to start MasterClass?

Chapter 4: What challenges did MasterClass face during its launch?

Chapter 5: What marketing strategies does MasterClass use?

Chapter 6: How does MasterClass attract and retain instructors?

Chapter 7: What types of students enroll in MasterClass courses?

Chapter 8: How does MasterClass ensure high-quality content?

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SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

777: Will Masterclass Win Online Course Wars?

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

Chapter 2: What is MasterClass and how does it operate?

Chapter 3: What inspired David Rogier to start MasterClass?

Chapter 4: What challenges did MasterClass face during its launch?

Chapter 5: What marketing strategies does MasterClass use?

Chapter 6: How does MasterClass attract and retain instructors?

Chapter 7: What types of students enroll in MasterClass courses?

Chapter 8: How does MasterClass ensure high-quality content?

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