[HN Gopher] Show HN: AlterClass - A platform for making and sell...
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Show HN: AlterClass - A platform for making and selling programming
courses
Author : gdangelo
Score : 77 points
Date : 2021-12-12 17:20 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (alterclass.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (alterclass.io)
| seveibar wrote:
| I submitted a quick course for review. I love the concept and the
| execution is snappy. Like some others, I'm concerned about the
| pricing model because I have no way of exporting the content I
| create on the platform outside of it- so unless I want to lose my
| course it seems like I'll need to pay forever.
|
| I couldn't find a way to reorganize blocks or lessons, or even
| insert a block in-between two other blocks. I was surprised to be
| confused here because the rest of the platform is really
| seamless.
| gdangelo wrote:
| Thanks for submitting your first course, "Building Typescript
| Libraries". I've received the notification, I'll look into it
| first thing in the morning tomorrow. Did you submit it just for
| testing AlterClass or for launching it for real? :)
|
| I totally understand that the ownership of your course content
| is a concern for you and I'm working on a solution. I don't
| want to promise anything yet, but I do think hard about it. As
| an instructor myself, I understand that you want to own your
| course and have access to it outside the platform you used to
| create it. More on that soon.
|
| Regarding the blocks/lessons order, it is not possible on the
| authoring system yet. I'm working on that too.
| seveibar wrote:
| I would build out more of it and list it for free (I've
| dropped in a lot of TODO sections), I'm not sure if
| "progressive release" is possible, if it's not, we wouldn't
| want to release it as is. I have a lot of team members who I
| have to teach this type of build system, and the material
| online isn't very opinionated so I end up seeing a lot of
| incompatible configurations.
| gdangelo wrote:
| I see. Thanks for the update. Having TODOs is not a great
| experience for the students. If you'd like to list it for
| free, I suggest you, at least provide a first version of it
| that can teach something meaningful for the students. And
| then, you can still add more sections/lessons to it over
| time. I'll review it tomorrow morning and we will work on
| it together.
| elanning wrote:
| Greetings Greg, really great work. Thanks for sharing this.
|
| Now my greedy request: if you could take all this technology and
| make a blogging platform for developers, I would be greatly
| appreciative! And happy to pay a monthly fee!
|
| I really need a coding blog platform where I can write
| interactive blogs for my readers.
| gdangelo wrote:
| Right now, I'm focused on online course creation. I've no plan
| for building a blogging platform. But I do have a blog on
| AlterClass with in-depth tutorials. If you are interested, I'm
| looking for guest authors ;)
|
| Have a look and let me know your thoughts ->
| https://alterclass.io/tutorials
| xingped wrote:
| What do you mean by interactive blogs? And what do you need
| that isn't solved by Wordpress? (Not a blogger, just know that
| most blogs use Wordpress or similar and curious what you're
| looking for.)
| gdangelo wrote:
| Hi HN! I'm Greg, solo founder of AlterClass
| (https://alterclass.io/), a platform to build and sell better
| programming courses with no restrictions and a fair-revenue
| sharing model.
|
| I'm a software engineer who got into creating programming courses
| back in 2019. I wasn't satisfied with the resources I found on
| the web to learn and master React.js, so I decided to build and
| launch an online course to help people learn everything they need
| to become successful React developers.
|
| However, I didn't want to develop a video-based only course where
| students would be passive, just listening to me and reproducing
| every keystroke I type on my keyboard. How can you learn a skill
| as practical as programming just by watching hours of video of
| someone coding? It's like trying to learn how to drive a car only
| by watching someone else driving. It doesn't work like that.
| Programming (or any other technical skills) requires a
| significant amount of practice to really acquire and master the
| skill.
|
| So I came up with a project-based course that included a ton of
| practical content: quizzes, coding assignments, mini-challenges,
| real-world projects, and more. The problem is, creating such a
| course takes time, let alone building an audience and finding
| customers. Plus I had to build my own platform to create the
| course content and host it. I couldn't find any affordable (with
| a fair revenue sharing model) and easy-to-use tool out there that
| could help me with this.
|
| After spending months building all of this, I realized how much
| work it was just to launch one course. But I was more than ever
| convinced that students want and need more than just video-based
| or code-along courses to learn new skills. The natural next step
| was to work on building a platform to make this much easier.
|
| So, I built AlterClass, a modular and easy-to-use platform for
| creating and selling your programming courses online. AlterClass
| lets you build engaging and interactive programming courses using
| diverse blocks to compose your lessons without being restricted
| to a single format. You can choose between quizzes, code
| snippets, embedded coding environments, videos, rich-text
| articles, and more. Then, it provides support for getting paid
| for your course once it is ready. AlterClass instructors receive
| up to 100% of all the sales wherever they come from. Plus, I
| never alter your prices and never run any promotional campaigns
| on your courses. So you keep most of the revenue for yourself and
| the control over your courses.
|
| You can also fund courses with pre-orders before they get
| released. Coming soon, you'll be able to host them on your own
| domain.
|
| About the tech stack, I've built the platform using React /
| Next.js, NextAuth.js, Tailwind CSS, FaunaDB, and Stripe. And
| everything is deployed on Vercel.
|
| You can use AlterClass for 14 days for free (no cc required):
| https://alterclass.io.
|
| My goal is to help developers create better and profitable online
| courses and save months of work in the process. If you have any
| questions, please feel free to ask! Any feedback is much
| appreciated as well!
| Trung0246 wrote:
| Is it possible go have a donation-based approach? Such that users
| can pay any amount (including zero) to access?
| gdangelo wrote:
| Today, you can launch your course for free, or sell it for a
| price you select from $9 to $299. However, your students cannot
| choose the amount they'd like to pay for the course. But thanks
| for the suggestion. I'll think about it ;)
| holtkam2 wrote:
| I think this is dope. Good job man. I hope this catches on and
| helps more creators get their content out there. I'll definitely
| consider using it
| gdangelo wrote:
| Great! Thank you for taking the time to visit AlterClass. I
| hope to see your courses launched soon :) If you have any
| questions or need help, feel free to reach out to me using the
| chat on AlterClass.io.
| csbartus wrote:
| Why pay a monthly fee?
|
| All competitors are free. I would consider paying a fee only if
| better sales are guaranteed. Which is not the case, obviously.
|
| I guess a free tier is a must, and hints about expected number of
| users, vistors.
| gdangelo wrote:
| I'm still very early and I'm still experimenting with the
| business model and how it can fit as best as possible with the
| instructors needs. For now, I've chosen to have a low price
| subscription ($9/month) for the instructors that don't know if
| they'll make a lot of sales. The $9/month helps me with
| covering the cost of running, maintaining, and improving the
| platform by adding more and more features over time.
|
| In case, you plan to make a lot of sales (because you already
| have a huge audience on social media or Youtube for example),
| you can choose the other plan (Pro trainer), and pay no fee on
| each sale (expect for the Stripe fee). In either case, you can
| upgrade/downgrade at anytime and for no extra cost.
| ecshafer wrote:
| I have to pay money to make courses?
|
| That seems to be backwards, as that means I am charging to be
| able to put in time and effort to make the content that the
| learners use, which generates the product that you are selling.
| This just doesn't seem to make sense.
| the-dude wrote:
| I seem to remember MOOC platforms with different monetization
| schemes are not without their problems either.
|
| With this model, you can actually expect you will be listened
| to ( as a course offerer ).
| gdangelo wrote:
| Running, maintaining, and improving AlterClass is a full time
| job and it is costly. I'm putting a lot of time and effort into
| it. The monthly subscription is to help me make a living while
| helping others with creating and selling better online courses.
| Etheryte wrote:
| You seem to be missing the point the parent comment is
| making. Of course asking for money makes sense from your
| side, but the question here is about the content creators.
| Why would they choose your platform over competitors, many
| which are free?
| pc86 wrote:
| In reply to the author's top-level comment, which for some reason
| I can't reply to.
|
| Not sure I'd call 10% transaction fees _plus card processing_ a
| "fair revenue sharing model" when I'm already paying a monthly
| fee? And not sure it's really ethical to say "No transaction
| fees" for the more expensive plan when I'm still going to be the
| one paying card processing, not you.
| gdangelo wrote:
| Thanks for your comment. The payment processing fee is what
| Stripe charges and unfortunately I can't change anything about
| it. However, it is very low and I believe it is fair to take it
| out from the sales amount. In other words, if you make 10,000
| (or more) sales a month, AlterClass cannot cover the Stripe
| fees for all those sales just with the monthly subscription.
| Finally, you can check out the following page where I compare
| Udemy to AlterClass for instructors. There is a nice revenue
| calculator and a detailed comparison table. Let me know your
| thoughts.
|
| -> https://alterclass.io/udemy-alternative
| Closi wrote:
| I agree with the original poster - if you say no transaction
| fees it should mean no transaction fees.
|
| What Stripe charges you is your expense/cost. If you want to
| pass that on to the customer, then that's fine, but that is
| you charging a transaction fee to cover the cost (not Stripe
| - because it is you billing it to the subscriber).
| gdangelo wrote:
| Thanks for your feedback. I've tried to be as transparent
| as possible about the fees on the platform, so that's why
| I've differentiated between AlterClass cut/fee and the
| Stripe fees for processing the payments. So when I say no
| transaction fee, I mean no extra cut/fee from using
| AlterClass. I'll try to make it clearer and obvious to the
| customer. Thanks for pointing this
| Closi wrote:
| Sure, maybe you could say 'Zero Commission and Low
| Transaction Fees' :) Understand where you are trying to
| get to.
|
| Good luck with your business - the site looks great and
| it's clear a load of work has gone into it. Wish you
| every success! A few other notes:
|
| - Unsure why your login system needs full access to all
| my user data on GitHub - seems excessive but maybe I just
| don't understand what 'full access' means in this
| context?
|
| - Agreed with other posters on price, it seems like a
| free tier would be mutually beneficial for both you and
| the course writers. Also not sure how you are planing to
| police preorders in particular, but it's worth making
| sure that you don't lose your shirt if someone doesn't
| make with the goods (i.e. as this is a preorder rather
| than a pledge, if you already paid the creator and they
| never delivered the course, I assume you might be liable
| for refunds unless you are very careful).
| gdangelo wrote:
| Thanks for the advice and your feedback.
|
| For the authentication, I'm using the Next-auth.js
| library, and what I get from Github is only your Id,
| name, email, and avatar URL. That's it. Not sure why
| you've seen "full access".
|
| I'll think about the free tier. And for the pre-orders,
| yes this is something I've though about and this is
| definitely something I'd like to avoid. I'll probably
| unlock the fund only if the instructor delivers (for
| first time instructors for example) so that I protect the
| students from losing their money if the instructor does
| not deliver and run away with it.
| insomniacity wrote:
| How does this compare to slip.so? I'm intrigued by the idea of
| these platforms, but not really seen them in use...
| gdangelo wrote:
| I invite you to try AlterClass and make your own opinion about
| it. AlterClass is free for 14 days (no cc required). I'd really
| appreciate your feedback.
| wicked_gazelle wrote:
| fwiw, slip.so appears to be pivoting away from education
| marketplace. I received an email for a course I pre-purchased
| recently:
|
| "We're pivoting our company away from the course marketplace
| idea, so we're reaching out to inform you about your purchase
| and what to expect next.
|
| We'll be helping [redacted] migrate his/her content to a new
| platform, and make sure that if you've purchased his/her course
| on Slip, you will get access to it on the new platform, with no
| additional charges.
|
| You'll receive instructions via email on how to access the
| course on the new platform."
| klohto wrote:
| First time I'm hearing about this. Checked my mail and
| nothing. Nothing on Twitter even on Kenneth's profile. Is
| there more details what are they pivoting to?
| CoffeePython wrote:
| We're making the announcement next week, but yes we're
| pivoting away from the course marketplace but will still be
| doing something in dev education :)
|
| We'll send all our users an email early next week (though
| we've emailed a subset of users already. Namely those who
| have purchased a course that is already being migrated off
| the platform).
| strzibny wrote:
| Just wanted to ask the question. Are they really pivoting to
| something else? Curious now what it is.
| newsbinator wrote:
| Wow, way to do it right!
| wiradikusuma wrote:
| Hi Greg, congrats on launching! Everything looks polished. Fast
| loading time, responsive, clean design. Well done!
| gdangelo wrote:
| Thanks for your review and feedback. I'd really appreciate you
| took the time to check all those aspects of the app/website.
| tedyoung wrote:
| Since you're the merchant of record (as it's your Stripe account
| that's getting the money), how are you handling tax collection
| for those jurisdictions that require it?
| gdangelo wrote:
| Taxes are calculated and collected by Stripe during checkout
| depending on the user's location.
| imachine1980_ wrote:
| the page don't work if isn't in full screen i need to resize my
| window to be allow to see courses, i don't even know the pricing
| gdangelo wrote:
| Could you please reach out to me from the chat on AlterClass.io
| so that I can help you with that matter? Thanks.
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