Live data from Hacker News

Udemy S-1 IPO

sec.gov

21–30 of 110 posts

Re: Udemy S-1 IPO

#21
post #13

One thing I particularly appreciate from Udemy compared to other platforms is that there are many great (and not so great) courses covering obscure topics that are not available in Coursera, Edx, etc.

Like what?

Like deep diving TLS: https://www.udemy.com/course/ssl-tls-intro/

Re: Udemy S-1 IPO

#22

Is the online course market not over saturated with LinkedIn Learning, Pluralsight etc

Is the online course market not over saturated with LinkedIn Learning, Pluralsight etc

The market is saturated with computing-related courses aimed mostly at beginners (programming languages, software tools etc). Despite that, there is still space for well-structured, well-narrated (scripted or semi-scripted) courses with clear instruction aimed at beginners, intermediate and advanced users.

An expert in a subject is not necessary a good teacher. This is why the course quality on Udemy varies enormously. It's also why, for example, so many programming courses follow the bullet-point slides and voiceover template. There are so many more imaginative ways to teach online - but that takes more time and effort.

Udemy also encourages long courses because it gives users the impression of depth or breadth of content (and thus better value-for-money). This is why so many courses are 10, 20, and even 30+ hours - even though length is not a marker of quality.

I'm sure many readers on Hacker News have already seen the link below which is a parody of programming tutorials. (And which applies equally to free and paid tutorials.)

Every programming tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAlSjtxy5ak

Re: Udemy S-1 IPO

#23

Is the online course market not over saturated with LinkedIn Learning, Pluralsight etc

I don't think that's as relevant as the current demand for VCs to unload their investments as fast as possible before the next major economic catastrophe. It boggles my mind that we're set to nearly double the record number of IPOs this year, and last year was the highest number since 1999, yet in general no one finds this at all interesting or alarming.

I don't think I have any special insight here, but it seems like a lot of the companies this time have actual products, revenue, and a plausible path forward. I've also read that during the period from 2008 until about 2019 there was an unusually low number of IPOs.

Re: Udemy S-1 IPO

#24
post #18

One thing that's worth mentioning is Udemy is a completely different type of company based on you being a watcher of courses vs being an instructor on Udemy. I was an instructor there for 5+ years (with ~30k enrollments) and in my entire professional career I've never met a worse company in terms of how corrupt they are and how little they actually care about instructors unless you happen to be one of the few instruc…

I think you've warned us off before— you and I may have even communicated privately. Thank you.

Re: Udemy S-1 IPO

#25
post #18

One thing that's worth mentioning is Udemy is a completely different type of company based on you being a watcher of courses vs being an instructor on Udemy. I was an instructor there for 5+ years (with ~30k enrollments) and in my entire professional career I've never met a worse company in terms of how corrupt they are and how little they actually care about instructors unless you happen to be one of the few instruc…

As someone who has thought about becoming an instructor, what platforms are better?

Re: Udemy S-1 IPO

#26
post #7
post #2

I'll wait for the 90% discount on the stock.

I was going to say they it all would be at 9.95 for the next 24 hours...But interestingly I just checked, and it seems there are no promotions, and courses that were sold days ago at 9.95 are now 120 and up. Is there maybe an IPO coming up? :-)

Their promotions are usually time limited. And you'll have to make a separate account because the promotions are for new users only. So now you have your content spread over multiple accounts. But you can use Udeler so that you have local copies of everything, much better anyway.

Re: Udemy S-1 IPO

#28
Interesting that the founding CEO owns only 1.5% of the company while the current CEO owns 2.5%. Wonder if this is because of secondary or dilution? How much does the other cofounder (Gagan) hold? I would have thought this was a huge success story for founders but it might not be?

Re: Udemy S-1 IPO

#30
post #26
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say they it all would be at 9.95 for the next 24 hours...But interestingly I just checked, and it seems there are no promotions, and courses that were sold days ago at 9.95 are now 120 and up. Is there maybe an IPO coming up? :-)

Their promotions are usually time limited. And you'll have to make a separate account because the promotions are for new users only. So now you have your content spread over multiple accounts. But you can use Udeler so that you have local copies of everything, much better anyway.

I think it's more than just new users - I've gotten larger discounts from logging into the same account through a different browser.
Post reply on HN