Op-ed: Knowledge creators need a platform that puts courses first

The following post is an op-ed from Teachable General Manager Mark Haseltine . Mark is passionate about the way knowledge can transform the lives of both creators and their students. Below, Mark speaks to the changing nature of the creator economy and his belief that knowledge products must be at the epicenter of a creator’s business as they seek to scale.

Last month, a new Adobe study surfaced a staggering stat: there are now 303 million creators globally. That’s a big number to comprehend, particularly at a time when there’s still no singular definition for this diverse group of creatives, experts, entrepreneurs, and social media mavens.

At Teachable, we’re focused on helping a growing subset of these creators turn their creativity and know-how into transformative businesses. They’re transformative because they unlock the potential for our creators to earn a full-time income (and then some), while also changing the lives of their students. 

At the root of this transformation is one thing: knowledge. 

Take just a small sampling of our Teachable creators. Once an assistant principal, Teri Ijeoma is now a world-renowned entrepreneur and investing coach; Tori Dunlap is changing the lives of millennials with her trailblazing approach to personal finance; Matthew James Duffy is empowering at-home bakers to master the art of sourdough bread; the list goes on and on. 

That’s why we believe the most successful creators put online learning at the epicenter of their business. 

And yet, as more and more creator platforms look to broaden their footprints, we increasingly witness knowledge products being thrown into the mix as an afterthought to things like community, podcasting, or digital storefronts. This growing trend seems to acknowledge the power of knowledge and online learning without understanding it as the epicenter of these creators’ businesses. 

We’ve witnessed a lot in our 8 years of business, and we feel stronger than ever before about the importance of putting knowledge products, like an online course, at the core of a creator’s business model. In doing so, creators can more deeply engage their existing audience with meaningful content on a platform specifically built for delivering learning experiences. 

And it’s clear the demand for knowledge from creators is there: as it is, half of people have used YouTube to learn a new skill and there are more than 300 billion views on the #LearnWithTikTok hashtag. That hunger for knowledge greatly informs our belief that a business rooted in knowledge is best positioned to transcend industry trends and deliver the most earning potential for creators. 

And those trends are unfolding within the creator economy in real time. The tools and features a creator chooses to leverage today will almost inevitably be different than those in the next year, two years, five years. With knowledge sharing as the foundation for their business, a creator can confidently scale their business, bringing in various add-ons at different times, or iterating on how their course content is presented and shared as new technologies emerge. 

What’s more, knowledge products are enduring investments—more so than other creator products. Take online communities, for example. Running a community is hands-on, time-intensive work that perpetuates the constant struggle of a creator to push out content and facilitate dialogue. It can also require near constant monitoring to keep members engaged. In talking to our Teachable creators day in and day out, we know burnout is on the rise and time is a finite commodity. That’s why courses prove to be so effective for a creator over and over again. Once a creator’s curriculum is finalized and the course is launched, it has the potential to pay dividends for years to come, with minimal daily or weekly monitoring. A very practical example of this is Teachable’s Drip feature, allowing creators to schedule and release content on certain days. The same principle can be applied to other knowledge products as the core, educational content is long-lasting. 

What remains constant is the knowledge itself. It’s a creator’s knowledge that connects, transforms, and ultimately, stands the test of time. This is why Teachable is focused on building the best knowledge products out there for creators—today and in the future. 

We do this because we believe creators looking to share their expertise and passions need a specialized knowledge product to do so. Their audience cannot learn just from a community forum post or a 60-second video on social media. Rather, students learn best from dynamic lessons built to their needs with an instructor who is invested in their success and transformation. In short, they need a best-in-class student experience that is flexible enough to deliver the outcomes they want for their students. 

Those outcomes will look different for each creator. For some, they may hope their students achieve a certain level of proficiency at a skill, for others, it might be an engaging UX for their course, and for others, it may simply be creating a fun atmosphere for students. When those unique outcomes are met, so too are the creator’s goals of long-term student engagement and loyalty. This is the reason why the most successful creators we’ve seen at Teachable spend time perfecting their course and defining the impact they’ll have on their students. 

Of course, we appreciate that a knowledge product is not always the only element of a creator’s ecosystem. But, we do believe it should come first. From there, an open platform like Teachable, makes it easy for creators to bring in those additional tools they need to hit their business goals. It also allows creators to experiment with new offerings, without endangering the very thing their audience came to them for in the first place: to learn something new from someone they trust and are excited by. 

This is why we don’t believe in being an all-in-one platform. Our bread and butter is enabling creators to build best-in-class knowledge products, and that’s exactly what we do. We’re a platform that steadfastly believes knowledge is the crux of a deeply engaging and successful career as a knowledge-based creator. In many ways, we also believe everyone—current and aspiring creators alike—have knowledge to share. It’s that exchange of information that has powered transformation long before Teachable existed, and now, is easier and more accessible than ever before.

As technology and industry advances, there’s one thing we know for sure: the pursuit and exchange of knowledge is timeless.