Final year student creates CourseNest platform to discover Cohort Based Courses free
Today, we at TechnoVans, came with the story of a young Indian Entrepreneur who has created the platform CourseNest to discover Cohort Based Courses. TechnoVans team talked with Avi and summarized the details he shared with us, the same we are sharing with you here.
- About the founder
Avi is a final year student pursuing Bachelors of Commerce from the University of Delhi. He is a generalist and has developed a deep interest in Product, Design, and Startups over the last few years.
- How it all started
Initially, Coursenest was supposed to be a discovery platform for traditional online courses or MOOCs (massive open online courses) as seen on platforms like Udemy. However, the problem with online courses is that their completion rate is as low as 5-13%.
He had been a part of cohort-based courses and realized how valuable they are. They are more engaging and have a completion rate of 90-95%. He had also interned with Avalon Meta as a designer that offered CBCs around various skills like marketing, finance, design, etc.
He says the main distribution channels for most cohort-based courses are their online audience and community. However, not everyone is a part of this audience and may resort to searching online for a CBC. Moreover, not every CBC creator has an audience. There were no platforms that had a list of the top CBCs across the internet. Hence, the idea for Coursenest as a discovery platform for Cohort Based Courses was born. - How much effort the founder has taken to implement this idea?
Once he finalized the idea, the next task was to validate it. He had a chat with a few Cohort creators and people who were active in the CBC space and received a positive response. This is when he started designing the MVP and searching for CBCs.
- What challenges were faced and how did the founder overcome this?
The initial challenge was to actually find the CBCs. He knew a few of them through his network but they were not enough. Actually, there were actually not many CBCs around as compared to the MOOCs.
He went on a hunting spree for CBCs on the internet which took some time but was fortunate enough to find some great ones. Other than this, there’s an option on the website to submit a cohort which helps in discovering and listing new cohorts.
- Why should people choose or use Coursenest?
The CBC market is growing at a fast rate. However, there is too much noise around them right now. There are various platforms that have come up that allow you to create and manage a CBC.
People should use Coursenest as it acts as a meta-layer that aggregates all the CBCs across various platforms. Apart from discovery, you also get detailed reviews of the alum of the cohort. He says that most of the Cohort Based Courses are quite expensive in terms of monetary and time investment (mostly worth it though). Hence, a decision to join one should be taken after checking out the reviews and experiences of the alum and comparing it with those of similar cohorts. - Future plans/goals of Coursenest
He says the future plans of Coursenest at a micro level include adding CBCs that are super valuable from across the internet. Other than this, get the alum of the listed Cohorts to come in and share their reviews and experiences.
At a macro level, creating more awareness about CBCs is the aim. Along with this, he will be focusing on monetization as CBCs become a little mainstream.
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