I couldn't be more thrilled to share Maven to the Product Hunt community.
15 years ago, online education was considered a dead industry. VCs literally told me not to work in online learning. We started Udemy anyway and it took almost 5 years for anyone to take us seriously.
There's been almost no innovation since then. Video-based courses that you watch on your own time have a 4-10% completion rate. Insane. What do you do when you're stuck? How do you ask questions? How can you learn just by watching things instead of making things?
Maven takes the next step forward. Taking inspiration from my co-founder Wes's altMBA, and many other online learning programs, we've introduced Cohort-Based Courses (CBCs). CBCs are powerful because they are LIVE with the instructor and you get to learn alongside peers. Most people are skeptical at first, but once they experience it they are transformed. That's why our courses have a 75-90% completion rate and a 9.1/10 average star rating.
Alongside our Product Hunt launch we're introducing the largest library of CBCs in our industry. 100+ courses on topics such as content marketing, analyzing financial statements, breaking into product management, and leading teams. Instead of professors who have limited industry experience, Maven's experts have years of real-world experience.
I know some of you will love this immediately and others will be skeptical of a new format. My co-founders and I will be here all day to answer questions and engage. Please feel free to ask away!
@gagan_biyani Congrats on the launch Gagan. Upvoted. I see some good creators teaching on Maven. Very exciting!
Discovered the product via Invincible Product Hunters community. :)
Hey Product Hunt community!
Excited to be here today because, well… Most online courses suck. Video-based courses (like the ones on Udemy or LinkedIn Learning) have a lack of community, low engagement, and no accountability. Completion rates are only 6-10%. That’s nuts.
That’s why we built Maven. We believe cohort-based courses (CBCs) are the key. CBCs are interactive, community-driven online courses where a group of students advance through the material together. What makes CBCs unique? They’re about active learning–not passive content consumption. Because of this, completion rates are 75-90%.
Back in 2015, I launched the first mainstream cohort-based course when I co-founded the altMBA with Seth Godin. Since then, it’s been amazing to see the adoption of this new learning format across instructors and students alike.
This year, almost 10,000 professionals from orgs like Google, NASA, McKinsey, and Tesla have taken courses on Maven. Here’s what folks are saying:
“Most actionable course I've ever taken, plus a fantastic community on top.” - Uli Kuenzel
“One of the most engaged learning experiences ever, and loved the shared learning that happened among this passionate community of founders, operators and investors.” - Wayee Chu
“I thought an MBA was the only way to connect with smart and dedicated people, but I found that on Maven.” - Lance Sun
“This wasn’t like taking an online course where you just glide across the surface…I was able to incorporate the material into my work right away.” - Brian Shea
“The instructors are 🔥 and it feels like an intimate learning experience.” - Allie Felix
We all know that reading about swimming is not the same as putting on goggles and getting into the pool. That’s why Maven instructors are current or former practitioners themselves. For example:
• VP Sales at Yelp
• NYTimes bestselling authors
• Product Lead at Meta, Google
• Executive coach for Wikimedia, Spotify and GE
• COO from Bridgewater Associates
Until now, we had a dozen courses live at any given time. Today, Maven kicks off our Fall Season with over 100+ new courses to help professionals level up on topics like:
• Leadership
• Marketing
• Financials
• Investing
• Writing
• Branding
• Networking
• Crypto/NFTs
• Technical skills
• Audience building
• Product management
There’s a lot more to build but I’m pretty stoked about the opportunity to help ambitious operators meet a community of like-minded learners. Check it out and I’d love to hear what you think.
@weskao been following Maven and your journey for some time now, it's quite inspiring. Thanks for the content you put out on Twitter and guest podcasts. And congrats on the launch to Maven team :)
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@weskao Super excited about this, cannot wait to welcome new amazing students, it's an honour to be part of this!
618 days ago I realized I needed to quit my job... 😧
Why?
Because after spending the previous year building and working for various online courses, I was convinced something had to change.
Some team somewhere was about to build the infrastructure that would power the next era of online learning (including all of my own courses!).
I wanted in.
Now, after 2 years of hard work we're finally sharing our vision for education 🏛️
Sure the format for cohort-based-courses is a massive improvement over traditional online learning...
But do you know what my favorite part about all of this is?
Maven is attracting a whole new wave of experts who want to teach.
They're the most qualified instructors on the planet (and people you would never get to learn from otherwise) 💪
@ridderingand Yesss to the experts who are the most qualified instructors on the planet (and people you would never get to learn from otherwise). Maven instructors are incredible. ⚡️
10 years and 3 big products in, it was kind of crazy for me to jump back into an early stage startup, but when I met Gagan and Wes to chat about Maven, there was no way I could resist.
There’s a massive change happening in learning. Something is emerging that makes it possible to learn cutting edge ideas from real world experts, to get into deep discussions with other passionate people, and to engage with ideas instead of just consuming them.
But for this massive change to become a reality, a lot needs to happen.
This change needs a new generation of real world doers to see the value they could bring into the world by opening up their minds and experiences to learners.
It needs a platform that encourages discussion, gives you room to think, helps you ask great questions, and gets you feedback from your classmates.
It needs a dozen tools to be integrated so subject matter experts can focus on sharing their knowledge, not on the logistics of setting up, selling, and managing a course.
And it needs a team that knows how to take a massive vision and build it with creativity and discipline, year after year, because the change we’re seeing is so big it’ll take a decade to play out.
Luckily Maven has all that. We’ve taught some incredible courses, we’ve built some of the biggest apps, and we’ve loved building the Maven platform with each other and alongside the insanely talented instructors and students that use it.
It’s great being at the beginning of this journey, we’re excited to share Maven with you, and I can’t wait to see what you teach and learn on it.
@shreyans___ I love how you constantly challenge ideas folks take for granted and ask the big questions. We need this type of thinking as we try to shift how education exists in the world and I'm proud to call you my cofounder on this journey.
Hello Product Hunt community 👋🏼 I come with an extra special announcement about a startup I really admire and respect - stoked to launch Maven today on Product Hunt!
I'm super proud to say I played a small role in the early days of Maven. I helped the team to build their first landing page - shoutout to Gagan for trusting in me, no-code tools, and moving fast by shipping things.
Fast forward to today, Maven is hosting 100+ courses with world-class instructors, impacting 10k+ people and ultimately changing how CBCs work!
Kudos to Gagan, Wes, Shreyans, and the rest of the team for proving to the world that live learning is effective, engaging, and energizing.
@audrey_maven All startups are intense but you've made Maven's journey lighter, more fun, and more connected. Thanks for being yourself and for everything you do Audrey.
@sydney_liu_sl Most courses are built for founders schedules so 2-3 sessions per week for 1-2 weeks. They are action-packed and taught by founders and executives. Here's a great list of courses curated just for founders and leaders: https://maven.com/collections/fo...
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@sydney_liu_sl Good to see you around! Really appreciate your support
The traditional online courses can be mass. There may be lots of videos, quizzes, articles, etc but it is impossible to learn the "craft".
The Cohort-Based Courses (CBC) solve this issue: you continue the courses with real support from your lecturer. Also, the "forums" turn into real communities.
I want to thank to ?makers of Maven. With help of Maven, be sure that you will finish the course you bought.
And for some of us, this one will be the first online course we finish 😃
@umut_sonmez I'm obsessed with craft--and believe more people should be too. Real learning happens when you THINK you know how to do something... Then try it, realize you actually had no idea what you were doing, then try again and again and again. Those reps, along with instructor guidance, feedback, discussing with other peers trying it too, and trying again, is how we learn. Cohort-based courses now give a space and structure for this, when previously we had to try to find that space ourselves.
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Proud to be one of the early Maven instructors.
Even more proud of what we've been able to accomplish in the past few months.
We're just getting started! 🚀
@yuanwang1 I still remember how you took our written Maven values and, in a few hours on a whim, whipped up jaw-dropping digital posters of each one. You know my favorite Picasso quote: “There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who transform a yellow spot into the sun." You transform yellow spots in to the sun, Yuan.
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