11 Online Learning Platform Success Stories [2024]
Building an e-learning platform is one of the most profitable business ventures in 2024.
People are looking for ways to occupy their minds indoors, while others want to advance their skills, so they are marketable.
Therefore, the demand for online learning services is still high.
Do you dream of building an online learning platform like Udemy or Coursera?
Starting an online learning platform is easier than you ever thought. Even if you have never written a line of code, you can hire an experienced web programmer to build an interactive online learning platform.
Alternatively, you can purchase a ready-made online learning platform. Regardless of the approach, ensure your online learning platform lets users signup, create accounts, search for courses, and supports secure transactions so the users feel safe.
In this list, you'll find real-world online learning platform success stories and very profitable examples of starting a online learning platform that makes money.
1. Live Lingua ($1.44M/year)
In response to the Mexican swine flu, the founder of Live Lingua, a language learning platform, pivoted their brick-and-mortar language school to online classes through Skype. They quickly realized the potential of online language learning, sold their physical school, and rebranded as Live Lingua, growing steadily at about 20% each year since 2012.
How much money it makes: $1.44M/year
How much did it cost to start: $60
How many people on the team: 9
Live Lingua, an online language learning platform, built a 7-figure business on a bootstrap budget using SEO and launched thanks to the Mexican swine flu, with the company now growing at around 20% a year every year since then.
2. CG Cookie ($1.06M/year)
Wes was in a tough spot in 2007, dealing with financial struggles and a long daily commute. During those hours on the train, he began to work on a side project he called CG Cookie, a website focusing on computer graphics. With a background in 3D game art, he wanted to build something positive and useful for the CG community.
Wes and his friend, Jonathan, faced many challenges, especially when they couldn't afford to keep the project going in 2009. They decided to presell a training DVD to validate their idea and earned enough to continue. This gave them the confidence that CG Cookie could become a real business.
They continuously refined their idea based on user feedback and market needs, focusing on subscription-based access to high-quality training. They learned the importance of clear direction and community focus, adapting their strategy whenever necessary to meet their goals without losing sight of what they set out to achieve: helping artists succeed.
How much money it makes: $1.06M/year
How many people on the team: 15
3. Taro ($600K/year)
Rahul Pandey came up with the idea for Taro through a combination of his personal experience and feedback from the community he built. Initially, he created a YouTube channel to share career growth advice based on his experiences moving up the ranks in tech companies like Facebook and Pinterest. As his channel grew to 100,000 subscribers, he noticed a significant demand for this type of content, revealing a gap in resources for helping software engineers navigate their careers.
This realization was further validated through seminars he hosted with his co-founder, attracting thousands of engineers and confirming the need for more focused career development resources. Before fully committing to Taro, they refined their concept through the Tech Career Growth community, adjusting their content based on user feedback and the specific concerns raised during events. Despite the challenges of narrowing down a broad idea into a coherent product, Pandey's commitment to addressing a well-defined problem eventually led to Taro’s focused mission of providing insider career growth advice for software engineers.
How much money it makes: $600K/year
How many people on the team: 3
4. Games for Business ($480K/year)
In 2016, the founder started Games for Business, a game-based learning platform, after realizing the potential of gamification in the market. With a background in digital marketing and experience in game-based projects, they quickly signed major clients in the HR tech market, leading to international recognition and the eventual acquisition of the company by Austria's largest private education group.
How much money it makes: $480K/year
How much did it cost to start: $150K
How many people on the team: 15
Games for Business created a game-based learning platform for multinational organizations that doubled its revenue in the first three years and was recently acquired after landing deals on three continents.
5. MentorCruise ($480K/year)
Dominic Monn came up with the idea for MentorCruise while facing the challenge of finding a mentor during his own career development. He realized that mentorship was a major problem for many professionals, so he built a coaching marketplace where career professionals could turn their knowledge into a marketable coaching business and mentees could easily find a mentor. Despite the challenges of building the platform while balancing his studies and a full-time job, MentorCruise now makes around $24,000 per month in commissions and processes over $120,000 every month for its mentors.
How much money it makes: $480K/year
How much did it cost to start: $0
How many people on the team: 5
MentorCruise is a career coaching marketplace generating $24k MRR and processing $1M annually for mentors, with most traffic and sales coming from SEO and organic sources, currently looking to expand to the B2B market.
6. Frontend Mentor ($360K/year)
Matt Studdert, founder of Frontend Mentor, came up with the idea for his business while teaching a front-end web development course. He noticed that his students often struggled to find professional designs and projects to practice their skills and build their portfolios. This led him to create a platform that provides developers with challenges, designs, and optimized assets, ultimately launching Frontend Mentor.
How much money it makes: $360K/year
How much did it cost to start: $8K
How many people on the team: 0
Online learning community Frontend Mentor has over 200,000 members, with over 1,500 paid subscribers generating over $15,000 MRR, offering professionally designed challenges to improve front-end coding skills with a freemium business model and a focus on real-life experience.
7. Write of Passage ($300K/year)
After taking Tiago Forte's course, David wanted to help 1,000 people start writing online. He was so excited he even tweeted about it and approached it as a challenge.
How much money it makes: $300K/year
Unlock the growth strategy of Write of Passage, a business making $25K/month and $300K/year in revenue, with founder David Perell's laser focus on shareable content and driving people to his email list.
8. Learn Azure ($120K/year)
Denis wanted to expand his knowledge of Cloud Computing and Microsoft Azure Services to advance his career. While searching for a mobile solution to facilitate learning on the go, he realized that no suitable mobile app was available. This inspired him to create the "Learn Azure" app, fulfilling his dream.
I searched high and low for a mobile app that could help me prepare for Azure exams, but my search came up empty. Frustrated, I took matters into my own hands and set out to create my own app. And thus, "Learn Azure" was born. — Denis Kazakov (Source)
How much money it makes: $120K/year
Case study about how Denis Kazakov built Learn Azure, an educational app that helps learners become Microsoft Azure Certified Professionals, generating an average of $10K/month and $120K/year, showcasing tech stack with Microsoft technologies and growth strategy through strategic promotion resulting in significant increase in downloads.
9. Siva Solutions Inc. ($60K/year)
Senthil Kumar, the founder of Siva Solutions Inc and American Dental Software, was inspired to start his business after his wife, who is an oral surgeon, told him about the exorbitant prices charged by website developers in the dental industry. As a software developer himself, Kumar saw an opportunity to offer affordable website development solutions specifically tailored to dentists. He incorporated features such as 3D dental education videos and interactive patient forms into the websites, ultimately helping dentists improve their online presence and streamline their processes.
How much money it makes: $60K/year
How many people on the team: 20
Senthil Kumar spearheads Siva Solutions Inc, a game-changing digital marketing and software development company which caters to dentists using an array of well-crafted products to manage patient data and inquiries, thus enabling efficient management of processes, while boosting them to the 1st page on Google.
10. VSTEAM Education ($42K/year)
Vidura, an Aerospace engineer and professional street-dancer, started his educational startup to provide practical science and engineering workshops to schools. With 11 STEM workshops and unique speaking engagements that incorporate dance, the company reached over 5,000 students last year and is poised for growth post-pandemic. They have seen success in attracting and retaining customers through targeted email marketing, Google Adwords campaigns, and word of mouth.
How much money it makes: $42K/year
How much did it cost to start: $2.5K
How many people on the team: 1
Vidura, a qualified Aerospace engineer, started an educational startup delivering STEM workshops in schools and delivering speaking engagements with dancing for entertainment, having delivered over 5,000 engagements reaching out to schools and is looking to resume after the pandemic.
11. Mini Startups ($14.4K/year)
Stefan, a former NASA analyst with a passion for space, launched Martian to fund his dream of flying to space. His new venture, Mini Startups, sold over $1,000 in pre-orders for a course on building “mini” tech companies before even beginning development.
How much money it makes: $14.4K/year
How much did it cost to start: $80
How many people on the team: 1
Stefan, founder of Martian, launched an online course called Mini Startups that sold over $1000 (11 pre-orders) before it even started, teaching how to build "mini" tech companies from scratch without requiring a technical co-founder.
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