Maven

Building the first platform for cohort-based courses. We empower experts to turn their expertise into engaging, live courses. Over 10,000+ ambitious professionals have taken courses on Maven. Learn more at maven.com

Funded by First Round and a16z.

Co-founder

weskao.com

Building, launching, and growing cohort-based courses.

Clients include:
Outlier (from cofounder of MasterClass) 🎓
Build a Second Brain 🧠
Write of Passage ✍️
Section4 👓
Amy Jo Martin
Single Grain's Consulting School
Suzy Batiz (CEO of Poo~Pourri)
William Ury
Morning Brew ☕️

Cohort-based courses

altMBA

Built the altMBA from the ground up alongside bestselling author Seth Godin. Grew it to thousands of students/alumni in 45 countries and 550+ cities. Established a new premium market category with ARPU 50x above the competition as the first mainstream cohort-based course. Kicked off category of CBCs. 

Highlights:
+ Grew global community of thousands of alumni
+ Designed student experience and course structure
+ Led student acquisition/retention
+ Ran hundreds of experiments to improve student acquisition & organic referrals
+ Hired and trained team of 50+ coaches to support scaling

***

First joined Seth Godin HQ as Special Projects Lead. Helped Seth expand and diversify his product portfolio to better connect with his audience of one million readers. The challenge: "How do you take a non-scalable asset like Seth—and create intimate, transformative experiences at scale?"

50% strategist: analyzing business models, distribution channels, pricing strategies, user segmentation

50% producer: launched bestselling Udemy courses (Freelancer Course, Leadership Workshop), prototyped hackathon days, led digital community engagement (Your Turn Challenge)

Singularity University

Selected as 1 of 90 innovators from 40 countries as a fellow in the 2017 Global Solutions Program. Received a full $30k scholarship sponsored by DB Pharmaceuticals and Google.

The 8-week fellowship was part think tank, part entrepreneurship incubator located at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA.

2017 Global Solutions Program Fellow

Flite (acquired by Snapchat)

Flite was a real-time online advertising technology platform, funded by Sequoia Capital. Built the content marketing engine from scratch. 

Content strategy and execution: Flite’s blog, editorial calendar, ghostwriting for the CEO, product videos to show features and benefits

Co-marketing partnerships and events: Flite’s inaugural customer summit, joint case studies with clients like Shell Oil and Kellogg’s

Marketing communications: website messaging and copy; product messaging; managed PR agency, then took the function in-house. Saved $180k/year while continuing to secure high-profile coverage with New York Times, TechCrunch, MediaPost, AdExchanger, etc.

Head of Digital Marketing

Bare Escentuals

Focused on growing market penetration for the Face category, including the bestselling and award-winning BareMinerals foundation.

Created a new framework for analyzing category performance for new product development. The framework incorporated competitive analysis, trend analysis, internal sales data, packaging, pricing, etc. Rolled out as the company-wide standard among marketing teams.

Revamped the in-store sampling program to better represent the BareMinerals foundation product. Created new guidelines and educated the field team.

Appointed to lead a weekly task force of 20 people for the company’s largest product launch of 2010, the "Customizable Get Started Kit.” Led a cross-functional team across Legal, Merchandising, Product Development, Channel Marketing, Marketing Ops, Finance, and Production.

Global Brand Management Marketing

Gap Inc.

Created financial plans, forecasted sales and inventory levels, and optimized profitability for $165M women’s tops category. Exceeded gross margin % targets each season.

Completed Gap Inc’s Retail Management Program, a competitive executive leadership program for ~15 hand-picked graduates per year. Rotated through Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, in core retail functions of Merchandising, Inventory Management, and Production/Supply Chain.

Analyst

L'Oréal

Drove student in-store traffic by 250% in 3 months for Kiehl's via grassroots marketing, sampling, and events.

Created sales enablement collateral for new product launches; sent to 1,000+ stores globally. 

Initiated a deep dive on the market opportunity for organic skincare.

Brand Management Marketing

Co-founder of Maven, a marketplace for live online courses. Check out maven.com.

End-to-end marketers have:

the hustle of a growth marketer
the writing ability of a content marketer
the taste level of a brand marketer
the project management of an ops marketer
the tactical savvy of a channel marketer
the conversion obsession of a performance marketer

If you’re looking to drive growth during tough times, you need employees who know how to bring ideas to life with little outside help.

End-to-end marketers aren't simply marketing generalists. They are the best of what generalists can be, but they're special because they show strategic thinking, an ability to execute, and good judgment across dozens of micro-decisions a project might require.

If you find an end-to-end marketer, hire them. If you are lucky enough to have one or more on your team, invest in them.

Wes Kao

The best marketers turn bugs into features. The things you thought were errors, constraints, or liabilities can actually become selling points. Here's how to turn problems into solutions:

I don't know who needs to hear this, but if you feel self-conscious talking about your work.... you are probably exactly the kind of person who should talk more about your work. 💜

Building anything of value takes time. But if you wait too long, you may never ship. The worst part: seeing someone else post the same insights you’ve been too shy to write about. 

Even though I was nervous about sharing my ideas publicly, this is what eventually got me to say, "You know what... I talk about this topic all the time in conversation. I have a spiky point of view and I KNOW what I share is useful for folks I talk to. I should write about it publicly."

You already have ideas. Start sharing before you feel ready.

Some folks say “Avoid jargon! People don't know what x means!” Actually the best marketers use jargon to intentionally repel customers who aren’t a good fit–and to attract the right customers.

Jargon isn’t about using big words and acronyms to sound sophisticated. It means using industry terms when it makes sense to–and not “dumbing down” your content to cater to the lowest common denominator.

For example, check out the screenshot below. Emily Kramer is the former Head of Marketing at Asana and now teaches a popular course on B2B marketing. On her landing page, she doesn’t shy away from using marketing jargon like "PMM," "OKR," "KPI," "funnel," "positioning," or "growth levers."

Those terms might be confusing for some people… But her target audience are senior marketers at B2B startups who get it. Her messaging speaks directly to these target students because she has the discipline to ignore everyone else.

If you use jargon in your marketing, beware of getting feedback from friends who aren’t in your target audience. They might tell you to remove jargon because they don’t understand it. Instead, ask one of your actual target customers so you can get a more accurate assessment of whether your messaging resonates.

PS When you’re ready to share your knowledge, teaching online is a highly-leveraged way to grow your impact. Get started for free: https://bit.ly/3Qe1q93

I’m shocked at how many people are in meetings all day and begin their actual work at 5pm.

We live in a noisy world. Your “spiky point of view” helps you stand out in a sea of sameness. Here’s how to develop your own spiky point of view (plus a free worksheet in the comments):

I’m grateful to work remote, but I love good old fashioned in-person get togethers. Last month, I spent four days with this brilliant group of Maven team members who traveled from Reno, Oakland, Boulder, Seattle, Austin, Toronto, and Brooklyn to meet for a company off-site in Playa del Carmen.

It was four days of group dinners, team bingo, breakfast buffets with plates of fruit before the day starts, brainstorming, small pod discussions, and pickle ball games.

The first day of an off-site is a shock. I need to acclimate. I spend most of my days alone, so being surrounded by 20 people all of a sudden is a lot. 

By the second day, I love it and want it to be like this all the time.

By the third day, it feels like a routine and I can’t remember what it was like not being in the same space. 

By the fourth day, we’ve had lots of fun and work time, my cup is full, my mind is inspired, I’ve had enough social time, and I’m ready to go home to my 27” monitor and my quiet workspace in my snowy suburb.

And then in six months, we do it again.

I love that it’s become normal to embrace the different ways a distributed team can look and how it can work. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

For us, we meet twice a year as an entire company and sometimes in smaller subgroups in between. We might change this cadence in the future and the way off-sites look will evolve as we grow, but for now, it’s working.

When we say bye because it’s time to head to the airport, the truth is it’s not actually bye. We collaborate insanely well remotely and work together every day in Slack. 

So it’s not bye at the end of an off-site. It’s “have a good flight—and I’ll see you on the internet.”

Climbing the corporate ladder isn’t the only way to grow your impact anymore. In 2023, high performers are growing their influence by consulting, writing, and teaching—often becoming the go-to expert in their industry.

This Thursday, I’m talking to three experts who are finding highly-leveraged ways to scale their impact and monetize their expertise.

Here’s a sneak peek:

Emily Kramer is the former Head of Marketing at Asana and Carta, runs a B2B marketing consultancy, and teaches a top-rated course on Maven.

Christian Wattig has led FP&A at some of the world’s biggest companies like Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Squarespace, and he teaches a popular course on Maven with over 9 cohorts.

Amanda Natividad is the VP of Marketing at SparkToro, grew her audience from 0 to 128k, and runs a top-selling course on content marketing.

We’ll discuss how to:
• Identify what your audience wants to learn from you
• Market your course authentically
• Start small and iterate

Join us on Thursday, March 2, 6-7pm ET.

What questions do you want to ask our expert panel? Drop a comment below.

View event: Maven Panel: Scaling Your Expertise

https://www.linkedin.com/events/mavenpanel-scalingyourexpertise7035991501843111936/

When you’re giving feedback, it’s tempting to unload your frustrations onto your recipient. If you’ve ever wondered, “Should I say this? Will this hurt or help?”, do this:

Before your next conversation, mentally forgive the person.

Why? Feedback conversations usually happen when you’re at a breaking point. Conflict is uncomfortable, so it's normal to avoid it and tell yourself "this isn't that bad" or "oh it's not a big deal." You finally decide to speak up when you can’t hold it in anymore.

If you are brimming with resentment, it can easily boil over. It won’t take much to throw you off... A passive-aggressive comment, a raised eyebrow, a tiny smirk. Don’t let that derail what could otherwise be a productive conversation.

That's why you must get the emotion out of your system before you walk into the room.

Do what it takes so when you go into the actual conversation, you bring a positive (or at least neutral) energy. Talk to your spouse, therapist, or trusted friend. Come to terms with and forgive them for any hardship they may have caused you.

The energy you bring will set the tone for the conversation. If you're jumpy and impatient, they'll feel it. If you're calm and stable, they'll feel that too. Your recipient will be much more likely to hear you when they can feel your good intent. So bathe in your good intent, so it comes through in your body language, facial expressions, content, and tone of voice.

Framing your ideas is key to growing your influence at work. Here’s a quick way to get your boss to perk up and listen:

It's frustrating to share great recommendations, but have your (brilliant) ideas received with blank stares or confusion. The reason this happens is because of a lack of context. Most people dive right into sharing their recommendation, but their boss isn’t primed to hear it. 

Your boss thinks, “What is this about? Why does this matter? Is this even a problem worth solving?”

That's why you must frame the problem, then offer the solution.

___

Ask yourself, "What bad things will happen if we don’t do this? What good things will happen if we do?"

I call this Bad Things / Good Things.

Here’s how it works:

Bad Things / Good Things helps you structure your message in a way that makes your audience perk up & helps you give the right level of context.

Let’s say you want to make changes to your company’s homepage. But your team is skeptical. Here's what you could say.

😱 What bad things will happen if we don’t do this?: "If we don't improve our homepage, our target customer will judge us for looking cringe. In the near-term, we're going to continue to lose visitors and waste effort driving traffic to our site."

🤩 What good things will happen if we do this?: "If we improve our homepage, we can signal the kind of brand we are. Better visuals/messaging and low-hanging fruit page optimizations will likely increase our conversion by 20% within a few months."

From there, you can transition into talking about your recommendation and what that entails.

___

People are either driven by loss or gain. This framework hits on both.

→ When you mention what bad things happen, you’re appealing to the fear of loss.

→ When you mention what good things happen, you’re appealing to potential gain. You’re painting a picture of what a positive future could look like--if they take action.

___

Takeaways:

- If you dive right into your solution, your boss won’t understand why it’s important or urgent.
- You must frame the problem, then present your solution.
- "What bad things will happen if we don’t do this? What good things will happen if we do?"

___

PS Framing is one of the frameworks I teach in the Maven Course Accelerator, a 3-week program on how to build your own successful course. Class starts next week and there are a few seats left. Enroll here (it’s free): https://bit.ly/3Qe1q93

The best educational content is Tactical, Actionable, Concrete, Specific (TACS):

Tactical: "This isn't a generic idea I've heard a million times before"
Actionable: "I can put it into practice and apply it to my own work"
Concrete: "This can be observed and measured--not just theory"
Specific: "This is precise advice for a particular situation"

Here are examples:

🚫 “Why communication skills are important for marketers"

^ Super obvious, nothing new, and too vague. Except for new grads out of college, most professionals already know why communication is important.

✅ "How to communicate when you don’t have positional authority"
✅ "How to keep your CEO informed with the right level of detail"
✅ "How to explain why you’re deprioritizing an feature folks advocated for"

^ These are tactical, actionable, concrete, and specific. Your audience (students, customers, clients, subscribers) will appreciate you for respecting their intelligence and giving them insights without fluff.

Do this regularly, and you'll become known as a rigorous, thoughtful, must-follow voice in your industry.

What else makes you say "yesss this is gold" when you come across great educational content?

PS This is one of the lessons I teach in the Maven Course Accelerator. Hundreds of experts have gone through the program to launch their own successful course.

Class starts next week and there are a few seats left. Enroll here (it’s free): https://bit.ly/3Qe1q93

Keeping your audience engaged on Zoom is a superpower. Most listeners will pay attention for ~10 minutes before getting distracted. Here’s how to use the State Change Method to keep your audience alert and awake:

Btw I teach this framework in the Maven Course Accelerator—our free, 3-week program on building a successful cohort-based course. Our next cohort starts this week. Join here: https://bit.ly/3Qe1q93

🔥 New milestone: Just kicked off our 10th cohort of the Maven Course Accelerator with these brilliant experts:

• Head of Product, PayPal
• Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan
• Head of Health Tech, Meta
• Head of Data Science, CZI
• Head of Pricing Strategy, Uber
• Director of Engineering, Google
• Behavioral Researcher, Stanford
• Senior Product Marketing Manager, Asana
• Director of Business Strategy, Microsoft
• Principal Product Manager, Amazon
• Senior Research Scientist, Google
• Director of GTM, Salesforce
• Head of Data Science, Meta
• Product Designer, Spotify
• Lecturer, Columbia

I'm blown away by the depth of experience and track record of these operators, executives, consultants, and leaders who are sharing their knowledge on Maven. They're teaching material you wouldn't get access in the past unless you reported directly to them at some of the world's most interesting companies. 

These instructors are the new wave of digitally-native professors. They've spent years sharpening their craft, so they're now in a place where their knowledge is in-demand. I meet hundreds of experts who are in the same boat and itching for alternative paths besides (or in addition to) continuing to climb the corporate ladder.

Many of these experts have already started shipping their surveys and landing pages within a few hours of using Maven's course builder tool.

If you've always wanted to share your knowledge, I believe now is the best time to be alive. The internet has opened up insane possibilities for doing work you love.

PS Our 11th cohort kicks off later this month. If you’re an expert who's ready to monetize your expertise, come teach on Maven. It's free to get started: https://bit.ly/3Qe1q93

There’s a reason why lead magnets continue to be popular in marketing: they work. Here’s a breakdown on how to optimize yours:

A lead magnet is a free resource you offer in exchange for a prospective customer’s email address.

Lead magnets are powerful tools for solopreneurs, consultants, and experts because they give your prospective customer a free taste of what you offer. It derisks the opportunity to work with you.

For example: If you’re targeting sales reps, you might offer a call script they can use right away. If you’re targeting UX designers, you might offer a Figma template. If you’re selling a course about content marketing, you might offer a social calendar template.

Here are 5 tips to maximize your lead magnet conversion:

✅ 1. Offer something people would be shocked you’re giving for free

Your lead magnet should solve a specific problem for your prospective customer. It can come in many forms—a webinar, worksheet, template, 1:1 call, etc. The reaction you want your target customer to have is: “Yes, I need this. If their free stuff is this good, their paid stuff must be insane.”

✅ 2. Use a visual

Visuals communicate the “vibe” of who you are and what your offer is about. You don’t need to design anything fancy. A simple screenshot of the resource will do. In the example below, the instructor shows a clean and simple screenshot of an Excel model.

✅ 3. Show your credibility

Folks may land on your page but have no idea who you are. So, give them a quick sense of your credibility in a few words. When they read your track record, your lead magnet will feel like even more of a steal.

✅ 4. Paint a picture of the problem that your lead magnet solves

There’s an ongoing debate about long vs short copy on landing pages. Both can be effective. But IMO you don’t need 5,000 words to sell a free resource. Keep it simple. The most important thing is that your lead magnet solves a specific, concrete problem for your audience.

✅ 5. Put your email capture field above the fold

Optimize for getting prospective customers to give you their email instantly. Don’t make people think too hard. In the example below, the CTA is to download an Excel model template. A financial analyst will think, “Yes please–I want to see this spreadsheet.”

PS Maven launched our new lead magnet tool last week and instructors have already gathered 3,000+ new leads. 🤯

We’re hosting a free workshop tomorrow (Tuesday, March 14) on how to create your own simple lead magnet. Register here: https://bit.ly/3mDqL1r

---

To recap:
1. Give away your best resource
2. Use a visual to grab attention
3. Show your credibility
4. Describe the pain your lead magnet solves
5. Use a simple CTA

What else should you do to make a lead magnet irresistible?

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