Building in Public #4

Context

As mentioned in my previous post, there were 2 objectives for weeks 5 and 6. Here is a quick summary of the same along with a summary of where we are -

1. Preparing the initial set of dashboards for the “Course discovery” and “Competitor tracking” modules - Different dashboard views have been prioritized and prepared using Google Spreadsheet, making them ready for sharing and collecting interests and feedback.
2. Standardize parameters for storing reviews / comments, and creator / instructor details - Reviews and Instructor details have been standardized, but their data has not yet been captured and stored.

Part 1a: Dashboard views

Before jumping into developing the initial set of dashboards, it is important to understand what are the different views that can be created, and which of them should be prioritized.

Here is a list of views that the course creators might find useful -

1. [MVP] Market overview:
• On a specific date: Total courses, total subscribers, total instructors, avg. number of courses per instructor, avg. subscriber per instructor, avg. price, estimated historical revenue, total reviews, avg. course rating as of yesterday.
• MoM trend: Increase in total courses, total subscribers, total instructors, avg. number of courses per instructor, avg. subscriber per instructor, avg. price, estimated historical revenue, total reviews, and avg. course rating from the previous month.
2. [MVP] Category / Subcategory overview:
• On a specific date and category: Total courses, total subscribers, total instructors, avg. number of courses per instructor, avg. subscriber per instructor, avg. price, estimated historical revenue, total reviews, avg. course rating for selected categories / subcategories as of yesterday.
• MoM trend: Increase in total courses, total subscribers, total instructors, avg. number of courses per instructor, avg. subscriber per instructor, avg. price, estimated historical revenue, total reviews, and avg. course rating for selected categories / subcategories from the previous month.
• List of courses: Clicking on a category / subcategory should take the user to a list of courses belonging to the corresponding category / subcategory, along with a course’s name, category, subcategory, launch date, total subscribers, avg. price, estimated revenue, avg. rating, total reviews, and an affiliate course link for each course.
3. [Next version] Instructors overview:
• On a specific date and category / subcategory: Instructor name, primary category, active since, number of courses, total subscribers, avg. price, estimated historical revenue, avg. rating, total reviews sorted based on estimated historical revenue as of yesterday.
• MoM trend: Instructor name, primary category, active since, increase in number of courses, total subscribers, avg. price, estimated historical revenue, avg. rating, and total reviews as of yesterday. All the rows will be sorted based on the incremental revenue (M-1 revenue).
• List of courses: Clicking on an instructor’s name should take the user to a list of their courses along with a course’s name, category, subcategory, launch date, total subscribers, avg. price, estimated revenue, avg. rating, total reviews, and an affiliate course link for each course.
4. [Next version] Courses overview:
• On a specific date and category / subcategory: Course name, category, subcategory, launch date, instructor name, course link, total subscribers, avg. price, estimated historical revenue, avg. rating, total reviews sorted based on estimated historical revenue as of yesterday.
• MoM trend: Course name, category, subcategory, launch date, instructor name, course link, increase in total subscribers, avg. price, estimated historical revenue, avg. rating, total reviews sorted based on incremental revenue (M-1).
5. [MVP] Miscellaneous: Distribution of total courses, total subscribers and estimated revenue based on pricing, difficulty, primary language and other tags.

Ideally, each view should be present in a separate tab with multiple states (for each sub-point), we can combine a few of them to reduce the number of tabs. Here is how -

1. “Market overview” and “Category / Subcategory overview” tabs can be combined into one by adding multi-select category and subcategory drop-downs.

By default, “All categories” / “All subcategories” would be selected, meaning the tab represents market overview. If the user checks only one category, for eg. “Technology”, then it would become a category breakdown for “Technology” courses.

2. “Category / Subcategory overview > List of courses”, “Instructor overview > List of courses” and “Courses overview” can be combined into one single tab by adding multi-select drop-downs for category, subcategory, and instructor.
3. All the tabs should also have a “keyword search” feature where users can look at overview / lists based on courses that contain the keyword. This will prevent creating separate tabs, such as “Skill overview”

Part 1b: Dashboard link

Here is the link to the initial dashboard, containing some of the views mentioned above -https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jJv0n2PWqOcB8zHKoWIyGRwH3A5RPIZVeSxJTJ-QKOo/edit?usp=sharing

As a next step, I will share this link in different Udemy course creators’ forums, such as on Reddit, Facebook, and Discord. The primary objective behind sharing this link is to understand the demand for such a tool. Apart from sharing in forums, I will also start reaching out to individual course creators to collect feedback from them on how to make this tool more user-friendly.

Part 2a: Table structure for storing reviews

Reviews will help us better understand how the demand for a particular course has grown over time. There will be a delay between when the reviewer started a course and when the review was added, but exactly how long this delay is, on average, needs to be determined using a survey.

Part 2b: Table structure for storing instructor details

This table will allow us to develop some of the instructor-focused views mentioned above as well as help identify some of the top instructors that can be targeted for this product.

Target for September & October

This time, instead of just taking a target for 2 weeks, I will be setting up targets for the remainder of September and the entire of October and November. Here are some of the broad goals that I want to achieve -

1. Add supporting commentary on the dashboard views to give potential users more context on how to interpret and use the analysis.
2. Reach out to 250 Udemy instructors over LinkedIn to better understand what can be done to improve the current offering and if this is a tool that they’d pay for.
3. Share the spreadsheet’s link in public forums, while keeping track of how many people are checking out the analysis. The target is to get 1000 eyeballs on the analysis.