785: He Makes $500k+ From Udemy Helping You Code

Evan Leong. He’s the VP of Product at Devslopes, a learn-to-code platform focused on taking beginners to paid professionals to curated project-based videos. He’s always been involved with startups since 2015, when he took the leap from a corporate job to join the startup world full-time.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Good to Great
• What CEO do you follow? – Jeff Bezos
• Favorite online tool? — Trello
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 5
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Follow your instincts, follow your gut, and don’t let age stop you from what you want to do

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 02:05 – Nathan introduces Evan to the show
• 02:31 – Devslopes is a learn-to-code platform for iOs, MacOS and TvOs
  • 02:39 – A version for Windows will be available soon too
• 02:48 – Devslopes is similar to Treehouse
• 03:00 – Devslopes has been around for a year and a half
• 03:10 – Devslopes has just converted to SaaS
  • 03:22 – They garnered 130 subscriptions just after the launch
• 03:33 – Average pay per customer is a little over $20 a month
• 04:05 – Devslopes was funded through Kickstarter and an investor
  • 04:15 – They raised $190K in Kickstarter
• 04:35 – Devslopes’ CEO is a good salesperson and they had a strong community even before Kickstarter
• 05:04 – The Kickstarter campaign was blasted around
• 05:11 – The community size is around 10K
• 05:22 – Devslopes has raised an additional of $300K from Redfoo of LMFAO
• 05:42 – Devslopes was launched in March 2016
• 05:53 – First year revenue was $600K
• 06:04 – 2017 goal is to reach a million
• 06:39 – Devslopes has large courses that will take people more time to stick with them
• 06:48 – Devslopes is pumping out target topics which are 2-3 hour courses
• 07:13 – Team size is 8
• 07:48 – The CEO started in e-learning marketplaces
• 08:05 – By the time Devslopes started, the CEO already had 40K students on Udemy
• 08:33 – Devslopes gets students from affiliates too
• 09:12 – Devslopes want to fully dive into the learning experience
  • 09:32 – They liked the idea of having everything in one program so they created the SaaS model
• 10:17 – Devslopes publishes to affiliates the content that the affiliates want to promote
• 10:26 – Udemy likes to promote 30-60 hour courses
• 10:43 – Devslopes is also on Skillshare, Learnability and Inkydeals
  • 10:58 – 90% of the content goes to Udemy and the rest are spread out to the rest
• 11:08 – 90% of the revenue is from Udemy, too
• 11:30 – Devslopes is just starting to use Facebook ads which is their only paid marketing
• 12:05 – CAC
  • 12:11 – Most of what Devslopes gets from Facebook ads is social presence but no paid leads yet
• 12:44 – The charge of Udemy fluctuates depending on how they promote their content
• 13:21 – Evan focuses on the product and handles the team
• 13:37 – Devslopes currently have 5K iOs downloads and a couple of thousand from Mac
• 15:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

1. With the advancement in technology, more people are opting to learn from the comfort of their own home.
2. Target your market so it will be easier for the company to adapt a new business model.
3. Customers will stick with your product if it is of value to them.

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