Leading the Charge into Democratizing Education and Building Community (not just Content) with Wes Kao, the Co-founder of Maven
Marketing Trends Podcast
Let’s be honest, content is king. And the challenge today is finding ways to make that content not just resonate with people, but also more helpful by giving users a community that not only creates a lasting impression, but one they can benefit from. Wes Kao is the cofounder of Maven, an organizational tool for the creation and dispersion of courses, which includes live activities as well as a-synchronous learning. At Maven, and in all of Kao’s past endeavors, it’s more about storytelling and active participation and less about passively watching someone teach you something. Maven removes all the independent tools, Zoom, Slack, etc, that are needed to make a full core-based course and gives the instructor more time and ability to focus on the material and education of their students. Content is not scarce, and it’s free, so if you want to differentiate yourself you need to create more communities, because communities are scarce.
“I think one important thing to think about in this transition is acknowledging that content is not the end all be all,” Kao said, a lot of us logically or intellectually might understand that butI talked to a lot of creators, and when they’re building their courses, uh, sometimes they’ll feel self-conscious that they’re charging this premium amount. And the first instinct is, well, let me add more content. Let me add another module on this. Let me add a couple more hours of lecture on this. Very rarely do I hear students say at the end of taking a course, saying ‘Gosh, I wish there had been more lectures.’ That pretty much never happens. What they do say is ‘I wish there was more of a chance to meet other people. I wish we had longer time to share our ideas and get feedback.’”
Creating communities and encouraging engagement amongst teachers and learners is the secret sauce in Maven. Everything is a story as far as Kao is concerned. In her years working with Seth Godin at the altMBA, she learned what it means to apply rigorous thinking to everything you do, be critical and analytical of the purpose and value of things.
“Think of storytelling, as anything that you do, the way that you show up, the way that you look, the way that you say something, everything is a story,” Kao said. “If you only rely on the content of your words to communicate your story, then you’re limited to really small leavers. The way you show up is part of your story.”
People used to think of storytelling as the full-length hero’s journey arc with a beginning, middle end, and that a good story or video needs to be at least five mins long. Kao’s throwing that out and getting right to the point with Maven. Her rigorous standards for competency based hiring has given her a team that is thinning rigorously and working with speed and excellence — another lesson taken from the pages of Seth Godin’s playbook.
To hear more from Kao and Maven, make sure you check out the full episode of Marketing Trends!
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