Skillshare.com Review
Posted 17th December 2014 at 05:25 PM by imarkedy
In this article, we’ll give a quick and informative Skillshare.com review for students and readers. For our regular readers, you will understand that this particular website has been one of the e-learning platforms we've referred to as ‘non-starters’. There was a host of reasons for labeling Skillshare this way but haven't received an e-mail from them today, our label seems to have been more than appropriate.
More than a month ago we made the decision to put some of our content on this website despite it being among the bottom feeders in the online learning industry. However, even though certain websites may not be profitable for your business, it never means these bottom feeders have no value to your bottom line. At most, we figured to earn a few bucks from Skillshare while at worst branding opportunities. According to the above e-mail neither may be an option.
We e-mailed back to the employee who sent us this e-mail and are awaiting a response. Our question was simple; “what does this mean for our classes?” Being new to scale share as instructors anyway, we are waiting for them to give us more information. As was written and some months ago concerning this website, a few years ago we made the decision not to teach classes due to their lack of clarity on future direction for both themselves and freelance instructors.
Near the end of this E mail our suspicions and gut instinct to not waste time and resources building a following on this website have been confirmed. As we wrote to the employee who sent this e-mail we now say to both our students and readers - recommending a competitor is never a good sign! Due to no longer being able to service a need their instructors had, Skillshare has disclosed information which leads us to believe not only is it not worth your effort to produce classes for this website but we may be witnessing its ultimate failure.
One of the online classes we teach here on our website is business finances and budgeting. Another red flag which leads us to believe this website will either not exist soon or will be bought out by a competitor is there a statement about earnings over the last year. For those who may have missed this while reading the above e-mail from an employee we only know as ‘Nicole’, here are the red flags;
1. After existing for a bit over 4 years, they only have 1 million students
2. With 1 million students, pay-outs to their most precious asset (instructors) is a paltry $1 million dollars.
This is important because this company has received nearly $10,000,000 in investment sense opening almost 4 years ago. For those who may not know Skillshare was one of the companies on the forefront of the so-called ‘democratizing education’ movement along with competitors such as Udemy.com, Pluralsight and others. What is even more telling is a website launch just 18 months ago located at Curious.com has received three times the amount of funding as the more seasoned Skillshare.
Perhaps we are looking to much and to the above announcement however, something is wrong. Please do not view what is written here as us somehow wanting this all some business to fail. Nothing is further from true! If they succeed, thousands of online instructors can build their brands, sales and business. There is no value, for instructors anyway, to wish their demise. Nevertheless, to discontinue allowing instructors to charge as each sees fit for their content can only mean three things for their business model as we view it;
1. they are going to charge a higher monthly subscription rate to their entire catalog. This means users will pay a flat fee to access all courses.
2. Individual courses are failing to sign up the required number of students to make Skillshare’s business model viable.
3. Skillshare invested tons of venture capital into a program which was unprofitable.
None of these truly bold well for the future of this company. If simply charging a higher monthly subscription rate for access to their entire catalog is the goal, they must totally rebrand themselves in a now very competitive marketplace. This should of been done for years ago or at minimum, in the last 18 months. If individual courses given by structures are failing to sign up a significant number of students, the recent announcement of a change in business model may be too late.
An organization investing tons of venture capital into an unprofitable strategy is par for the course. The most successful businesses often experience these massive failures before success is ever achieved. Of course, all of this could be simple conjecture. At minimum, however, at least some of what is written here must be of fact. We welcome e-mails from either employees or instructors at Skillshare with comments. As the great Charles Barkley once said – “I might be wrong – but I doubt it”.
Brian D. Dale
SBDC TV
More than a month ago we made the decision to put some of our content on this website despite it being among the bottom feeders in the online learning industry. However, even though certain websites may not be profitable for your business, it never means these bottom feeders have no value to your bottom line. At most, we figured to earn a few bucks from Skillshare while at worst branding opportunities. According to the above e-mail neither may be an option.
We e-mailed back to the employee who sent us this e-mail and are awaiting a response. Our question was simple; “what does this mean for our classes?” Being new to scale share as instructors anyway, we are waiting for them to give us more information. As was written and some months ago concerning this website, a few years ago we made the decision not to teach classes due to their lack of clarity on future direction for both themselves and freelance instructors.
Near the end of this E mail our suspicions and gut instinct to not waste time and resources building a following on this website have been confirmed. As we wrote to the employee who sent this e-mail we now say to both our students and readers - recommending a competitor is never a good sign! Due to no longer being able to service a need their instructors had, Skillshare has disclosed information which leads us to believe not only is it not worth your effort to produce classes for this website but we may be witnessing its ultimate failure.
One of the online classes we teach here on our website is business finances and budgeting. Another red flag which leads us to believe this website will either not exist soon or will be bought out by a competitor is there a statement about earnings over the last year. For those who may have missed this while reading the above e-mail from an employee we only know as ‘Nicole’, here are the red flags;
1. After existing for a bit over 4 years, they only have 1 million students
2. With 1 million students, pay-outs to their most precious asset (instructors) is a paltry $1 million dollars.
This is important because this company has received nearly $10,000,000 in investment sense opening almost 4 years ago. For those who may not know Skillshare was one of the companies on the forefront of the so-called ‘democratizing education’ movement along with competitors such as Udemy.com, Pluralsight and others. What is even more telling is a website launch just 18 months ago located at Curious.com has received three times the amount of funding as the more seasoned Skillshare.
Perhaps we are looking to much and to the above announcement however, something is wrong. Please do not view what is written here as us somehow wanting this all some business to fail. Nothing is further from true! If they succeed, thousands of online instructors can build their brands, sales and business. There is no value, for instructors anyway, to wish their demise. Nevertheless, to discontinue allowing instructors to charge as each sees fit for their content can only mean three things for their business model as we view it;
1. they are going to charge a higher monthly subscription rate to their entire catalog. This means users will pay a flat fee to access all courses.
2. Individual courses are failing to sign up the required number of students to make Skillshare’s business model viable.
3. Skillshare invested tons of venture capital into a program which was unprofitable.
None of these truly bold well for the future of this company. If simply charging a higher monthly subscription rate for access to their entire catalog is the goal, they must totally rebrand themselves in a now very competitive marketplace. This should of been done for years ago or at minimum, in the last 18 months. If individual courses given by structures are failing to sign up a significant number of students, the recent announcement of a change in business model may be too late.
An organization investing tons of venture capital into an unprofitable strategy is par for the course. The most successful businesses often experience these massive failures before success is ever achieved. Of course, all of this could be simple conjecture. At minimum, however, at least some of what is written here must be of fact. We welcome e-mails from either employees or instructors at Skillshare with comments. As the great Charles Barkley once said – “I might be wrong – but I doubt it”.
Brian D. Dale
SBDC TV
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