Coursera

About Coursera & Brief History
 Coursera was founded in 2012 by two Stanford University Computer Science

professors- Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng to share their knowledge and skills with
the world.
 Andrew taught Machine Learning and had 400 people enrolled and when the course
was opened up to the general public, 100,000 people enrolled for the same. For him to
reach the same size and make it possible, he had to do that for roughly 250 years.
 Since then, they decided to build a platform where anyone, anywhere can learn and
earn credentials from the world’s top universities and education providers.
 Coursera offers a wide variety of courses in various fields. These classes are
typically scheduled and run between 4-10 weeks with video lectures, reading
assignments and quizzes along the way.
 All students sign an honour code, pledging not to cheat, plagiarize or engage in
unethical academic behaviour and are encouraged to participate in web forums The
biometric analysis of keystrokes and the use of webcams during exams help ensure
the identity of test takers for those earning certificates.
 Coursera now offers courses through their website as well as via their mobile app.
Business Model
The initial value creation model assumed that people crave knowledge and want to continue
to attain information and skills in a wide array of topics. And even though MOOCS were
labelled higher education killers and potential brand diluters, they also created value for
academic institutions that saw the potential for a new, future revenue stream.
Initially, Coursera offered classes free of charge with the future intent to test out creative
monetization strategies. The MOOC provider is moving towards the following revenue-
generating strategies:
1. Fee-based courses which require students to pay a fee for access to graded
assignments.
2. Specializations, a sequence of courses with a capstone project.
3. Course Certificates (formerly known as Signature Track).
In addition to charging optional tuition fees, Coursera's monetization strategy includes

providing networking opportunities that introduce its students to potential employers and
recruiters. Employers can also pay for access to valuable student information – with their
consent – such as performance metrics and demographic information.
Other sources of revenue may include:

 Enrolled students can pay for human-provided tutoring services to help them in
trouble areas.
 Enterprise versions of the platform may be sold to companies, governments or other
organizations for professional training and certification.
 Coursera may sell advertisements on their website/app or offer official
course/specialization sponsorships.
 Coursera could license their identity-verified testing services for secure assessments
to end users.
Growth
Analysis & Conclusion
Since 4 years of its founding, Coursera learnt a hard lesson– both value creation and value
capture did not work.
 Students churned out of the product and the course completion rate was extremely
low.
 The life-long learning value proposition wasn’t as strong as assumed – most students
wanted to see something for their work (a credential, a new job, etc.)
 This lack of value creation prevented Coursera from benefitting from any potential
network effects.
 Multihoming was rampant
Coursera found it hard to capture value in this context so it refocused on three things:
 Create more value for users with improved product quality – They worked to improve
student-professor and student-student interaction, tied up with good universities and
increased product offering. They hired a former Netflix product executive rethink
Coursera’s search and course recommendation functions with the goal of driving
tailored content to users based on their learning needs.
 Reduce multihoming via a subscription offering
 Capture more value through an enterprise business model – Coursera has built a B2B
platform and is going after the corporate and workforce training via partnerships with
corporations and governments. Coursera, in keeping with its mission, will maintain its
B2C business, but it has realized that more money is on the enterprise side right now.
Coursera has worked its way to the Forbes’ 2018 Next Billion-Dollar Startup list to cross into
unicorn territory. Current growth trajectory includes expansion around the world. After the
U.S., Coursera’s greatest growth has come from India, China, Mexico and Brazil.
The latest investment in Coursera was led by SEEK Group, an Australian company with
stakes in online employment and education firms. SEEK was joined by previous Coursera
investors Future Fund and NEA. It brings Coursera’s total funding to $313 million.
It is, therefore, moving down a profitable path. Moving forward, it should continue
to differentiate their platform from competitors, consider strategic use of the data the
platform is collecting and encourage third party developers to enrich the Coursera
community.

Coursera

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Coursera

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

About Coursera & Brief History

 Coursera was founded in 2012 by two Stanford University Computer Science

In addition to charging optional tuition fees, Coursera's monetization strategy includes

Other sources of revenue may include:

You might also like