7 ms·

Show HN: AlterClass – A platform for making and selling programming courses

117 points by gdangelo 5y ago

imachine1980_ 5y ago
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 5y ago
  Could you please reach out to me from the chat on AlterClass.io so that I can help you with that matter? Thanks.
gdangelo 5y ago
Hi HN! I'm Greg, solo founder of AlterClass (https://alterclass.io/ 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 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!
insomniacity 5y ago
How does this compare to slip.so? I'm intrigued by the idea of these platforms, but not really seen them in use...
- wicked_gazelle 5y ago
  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."
  - newsbinator 5y ago
    Wow, way to do it right!
  - klohto 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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 5y ago
    Just wanted to ask the question. Are they really pivoting to something else? Curious now what it is.
- 5y ago
holtkam2 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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.
  - mind-blight 5y ago
    I'd definitely consider adding a free tier - even if it's just the ability to build a course without publishing it. It takes a lot of effort to build out a solid course. A lot of folks will take longer than 2 weeks. I think it's difficult for a content creator to justify a monthly fee until they're ready to publish and try to generate an income. Only having paid options also increases friction for adoption. If something is free, I'm happy to give it a try and see if it's worth paying for. If I have to pay no matter what, I find myself a lot less likely to try something out. I'm definitely interested in trying, but the lack of a free onboarding option makes me more hesitant (not sayings that it's 100% rational, just that it's my emotional response when looking for options :) )
wiradikusuma 5y ago
Hi Greg, congrats on launching! Everything looks polished. Fast loading time, responsive, clean design. Well done!
- gdangelo 5y ago
  Thanks for your review and feedback. I'd really appreciate you took the time to check all those aspects of the app/website.
seveibar 5y ago
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 5y ago
  I've just pushed some changes. You can now re-organize: 1. blocks within a lesson, 2. lessons within a section, 3. and sections within a course. Check it out, and let me know what you think.
- gdangelo 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
Trung0246 5y ago
Is it possible go have a donation-based approach? Such that users can pay any amount (including zero) to access?
- gdangelo 5y ago
  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 ;)
ecshafer 5y ago
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.
- gdangelo 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 of which are free?
    - gdangelo 5y ago
      1- An easy-to-use interface to create the content of their course, specialized in technical/programming courses. 2- The freedom to organize their lessons as they wish. Instructors are not restricted to a specific format. Instead, they can choose from various blocks, as mentioned above. 3- The freedom to sell their courses for the price they want without worrying about any promotional campaigns from the platform, for instance. 4- Integrated payment processing, so they don't have to worry about setting it up themselves. 5- A marketplace to host and showcase their courses. 6- Tools to help them build up the audience they need to drive initial sales, such as offering free courses, presale courses, or using their custom domain (coming soon). I will also provide/include marketing tools to instructors to manage their audience right from AlterClass (coming soon). As a primary goal for 2022, I will also keep driving highly relevant organic traffic to AlterClass. So that, on top of everything I mentioned, instructors could benefit from this traffic when launching a course with no audience. I hope this helps you understand the benefits of choosing AlterClass to launch your courses. Please let me know if there is anything unclear, and as always, feel free to provide any feedback or idea you have. Thanks!
pc86 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 https://alterclass.io/udemy-alternative
  - Closi 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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
      - 5y ago
elanning 5y ago
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.
- xingped 5y ago
  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 5y ago
  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 https://alterclass.io/tutorials
tedyoung 5y ago
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 5y ago
  Taxes are calculated and collected by Stripe during checkout depending on the user's location.
MarcelOlsz 5y ago
Congratulations on launching. It looks very clean.
- gdangelo 5y ago
  Thanks :)
RNCTX 5y ago
I don't see any contractual terms posted. "You own your content" does not qualify. Lots of content companies have predatory contracts that give them perpetual licenses to content buried on page 13-b.
- gdangelo 5y ago
  You're right. I'm about to add them to the website asap. But, I'd like to emphasise that my goal is to give the instructors full ownership and control over their content, but also give them access to it beyond AlterClass.
lil_dispaches 5y ago
I like everything but the Paypal! You can payout directly to stripe accounts: https://stripe.com/docs/connect/destination-charges https://stripe.com/docs/connect/destination-charges
- gdangelo 5y ago
  Thanks for pointing this. I'm only supporting PayPal for payout for now as I ran into a blocker with Stripe when trying to implement transferring funds to instructors. Indeed, as students can buy several courses from several different instructors, I can't just use the "destination charges' feature from Stripe, as you mentioned, since that's for 1-to-1 transfer. So, I've looked deeper into this and even contacted Stripe about it, and they suggested to process the payment with Stripe Checkout once, and then create multiple transfers referencing the successful Charge that's created. However, again, I can't really use this because it is a feature that Stripe only support for their US users and I'm in the EU: https://stripe.com/docs/connect/cross-border-payouts https://stripe.com/docs/connect/cross-border-payouts. Hopefully, they will release this feature for the EU soon so that I could offer you to connect your Stripe account to receive your payments as an instructor.
moneywoes 5y ago
Love the landing page, what did you use to build it?
- gdangelo 5y ago
  Thanks! React / Next.js + Tailwind CSS
  - moneywoes 5y ago
    Any component library? Great work
    - gdangelo 5y ago
      Most of the website/app is built with homemade components. For some of them, I've leveraged the UI components from Headless UI (https://headlessui.dev/ https://headlessui.dev/) which is a project from Tailwind CSS.
shatteredspace 5y ago
I used the free trial mechanism to play around with the site a little bit more in depth. Very clean all around and super intuitive to use. At the moment I have nothing to contribute to the site as in courses (at least at for the near future), but for others interested: What will the Code playground block be for (compilation?, interpretation? of code?). I see playground and sandbox to be very similar, so it might be beneficial to change CodeSandbox to CodeEditor in the future. In terms of flexibility, have you thought about allowing non-YouTube video links within the course material (Vimeo or otherwise)?
- gdangelo 5y ago
  Thanks you for taking the time to try AlterClass using the free trial. I really appreciate it. Q1. I see the Code playground block as a mini code-editor that would give you the ability to run coding challenges your students will have to complete, much like what you find on Codecamedy for instance. Also, I'd like this code playground to support languages CodeSandbox doesn't, such as Python. Plus, in comparison to CodeSandbox, this block will feel more integrated to your course as it will be native to the AlterClass platform and not just an iframe embed into your lessons. Feel free to suggest any idea you have for this block :) Q2. I thought about it and my goal is to add more blocks over time to give you as much freedom as possible in creating your lessons. I support YouTube videos as it is the most popular, but Vimeo is something I could easily add. I've added it to the backlog. Stay tuned ;)
yccheok 5y ago
Congratulation! Building a marketplace to sell something (Apps, courses, clothes, food, ...) is a very challenging problem. I am an App developer who sales app in Google Play. The only thing I am concerning is, how much users are Google Play (marketplace) is gonna to bring to me? Rest of the concern factors are secondary to none. Even if Google Play choose to charge higher fee, or providing a more crappy publishing tool, I still will stay with Google Play. Because I know if I try to sell my Android app elsewhere, I will get 0 customer. Good luck to your venture!
- gdangelo 5y ago
  Thanks for your comment and feedback on the marketplace. Right now, the AlterClass marketplace is more a way for people to launch their courses quickly without worrying about setting up their own platform and hosting the content. I won't compare myself to any app marketplace (like Apple or Google) as it is not my end goal. I want to give the instructors full control of their courses and give them the freedom to access beyond AlterClass. I'm still working on this, so stay tuned ;)
ashwinipatankar 5y ago
I was searching for such a platform. Thanks for building this Greg, great work. However two things which made me to think twice: 1. Per month subscription model Vs percentage cut per sales 2. Payment via paypal. If changes will be made to these two things then I will jump in without doubt.
- gdangelo 5y ago
  Thanks for your feedback. Q1. Yes, the pricing model is something that has been pointing out several time here. I'll think about it and probably open the "Starter" plan as a free tier + the 10% cut. How does it sound? Q2. Payment via PayPal for students is something I'll definitively support in the near future. Stay tuned ;)
  - ashwinipatankar 5y ago
    10% cut per sales sounds good. Payment to PayPal still sounds little complicated for some countries. Means if I am a course creator and I am from one of the developing country, then I may end up facing issues. What's about connecting Wise or Stripe or something like that ?
    - gdangelo 5y ago
      I agree. It is something I'll look into, supporting more payment methods.
ilovefood 5y ago
Hi Greg, congratulations on the launch. I've looked around a bit and you did a fantastic job to be honest. It inspired me to keep on crunching on my project as well! I wish you all the luck and success with this. I think this is the right approach to make courses more interactive and also interesting! Why not make a course on how you built alterclass on alterclass? ;) All the best.
- gdangelo 5y ago
  Thanks a lot for your message. I'm glad it inspires you. Regarding your suggestion, I may release a course on how to build a SaaS platform using modern dev technologies.
laserpistus 5y ago
Welcome to the space Greg - the site and tutorials looks good!
- gdangelo 5y ago
  Thanks for your feedback! The tutorials section provides in-depth technical content to anyone for free. In addition, it helps drive organic and relevant traffic to AlterClass so that instructors with published courses can benefit from it. No more relevant traffic on AlterClass, the more potential students for the instructors ;)

117 points by gdangelo 5y ago

imachine1980_ 5y ago

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 5y ago
Could you please reach out to me from the chat on AlterClass.io so that I can help you with that matter? Thanks.

gdangelo 5y ago

Hi HN! I'm Greg, solo founder of AlterClass (https://alterclass.io/ 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 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!

insomniacity 5y ago

How does this compare to slip.so? I'm intrigued by the idea of these platforms, but not really seen them in use...

wicked_gazelle 5y ago
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."
- newsbinator 5y ago
  Wow, way to do it right!
- klohto 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
  Just wanted to ask the question. Are they really pivoting to something else? Curious now what it is.
5y ago

holtkam2 5y ago

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 5y ago
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 5y ago

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 5y ago
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.
- mind-blight 5y ago
  I'd definitely consider adding a free tier - even if it's just the ability to build a course without publishing it. It takes a lot of effort to build out a solid course. A lot of folks will take longer than 2 weeks. I think it's difficult for a content creator to justify a monthly fee until they're ready to publish and try to generate an income. Only having paid options also increases friction for adoption. If something is free, I'm happy to give it a try and see if it's worth paying for. If I have to pay no matter what, I find myself a lot less likely to try something out. I'm definitely interested in trying, but the lack of a free onboarding option makes me more hesitant (not sayings that it's 100% rational, just that it's my emotional response when looking for options :) )

wiradikusuma 5y ago

Hi Greg, congrats on launching! Everything looks polished. Fast loading time, responsive, clean design. Well done!

gdangelo 5y ago
Thanks for your review and feedback. I'd really appreciate you took the time to check all those aspects of the app/website.

seveibar 5y ago

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 5y ago
I've just pushed some changes. You can now re-organize: 1. blocks within a lesson, 2. lessons within a section, 3. and sections within a course. Check it out, and let me know what you think.
gdangelo 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago

Trung0246 5y ago

Is it possible go have a donation-based approach? Such that users can pay any amount (including zero) to access?

gdangelo 5y ago
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 ;)

ecshafer 5y ago

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.

gdangelo 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 of which are free?
  - gdangelo 5y ago
    1- An easy-to-use interface to create the content of their course, specialized in technical/programming courses. 2- The freedom to organize their lessons as they wish. Instructors are not restricted to a specific format. Instead, they can choose from various blocks, as mentioned above. 3- The freedom to sell their courses for the price they want without worrying about any promotional campaigns from the platform, for instance. 4- Integrated payment processing, so they don't have to worry about setting it up themselves. 5- A marketplace to host and showcase their courses. 6- Tools to help them build up the audience they need to drive initial sales, such as offering free courses, presale courses, or using their custom domain (coming soon). I will also provide/include marketing tools to instructors to manage their audience right from AlterClass (coming soon). As a primary goal for 2022, I will also keep driving highly relevant organic traffic to AlterClass. So that, on top of everything I mentioned, instructors could benefit from this traffic when launching a course with no audience. I hope this helps you understand the benefits of choosing AlterClass to launch your courses. Please let me know if there is anything unclear, and as always, feel free to provide any feedback or idea you have. Thanks!

pc86 5y ago

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 5y ago
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 https://alterclass.io/udemy-alternative
- Closi 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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
    - 5y ago

elanning 5y ago

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.

xingped 5y ago
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 5y ago
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 https://alterclass.io/tutorials

tedyoung 5y ago

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 5y ago
Taxes are calculated and collected by Stripe during checkout depending on the user's location.

MarcelOlsz 5y ago

Congratulations on launching. It looks very clean.

gdangelo 5y ago
Thanks :)

RNCTX 5y ago

I don't see any contractual terms posted. "You own your content" does not qualify. Lots of content companies have predatory contracts that give them perpetual licenses to content buried on page 13-b.

gdangelo 5y ago
You're right. I'm about to add them to the website asap. But, I'd like to emphasise that my goal is to give the instructors full ownership and control over their content, but also give them access to it beyond AlterClass.

lil_dispaches 5y ago

I like everything but the Paypal! You can payout directly to stripe accounts: https://stripe.com/docs/connect/destination-charges https://stripe.com/docs/connect/destination-charges

gdangelo 5y ago
Thanks for pointing this. I'm only supporting PayPal for payout for now as I ran into a blocker with Stripe when trying to implement transferring funds to instructors. Indeed, as students can buy several courses from several different instructors, I can't just use the "destination charges' feature from Stripe, as you mentioned, since that's for 1-to-1 transfer. So, I've looked deeper into this and even contacted Stripe about it, and they suggested to process the payment with Stripe Checkout once, and then create multiple transfers referencing the successful Charge that's created. However, again, I can't really use this because it is a feature that Stripe only support for their US users and I'm in the EU: https://stripe.com/docs/connect/cross-border-payouts https://stripe.com/docs/connect/cross-border-payouts. Hopefully, they will release this feature for the EU soon so that I could offer you to connect your Stripe account to receive your payments as an instructor.

moneywoes 5y ago

Love the landing page, what did you use to build it?

gdangelo 5y ago
Thanks! React / Next.js + Tailwind CSS
- moneywoes 5y ago
  Any component library? Great work
  - gdangelo 5y ago
    Most of the website/app is built with homemade components. For some of them, I've leveraged the UI components from Headless UI (https://headlessui.dev/ https://headlessui.dev/) which is a project from Tailwind CSS.

shatteredspace 5y ago

I used the free trial mechanism to play around with the site a little bit more in depth. Very clean all around and super intuitive to use. At the moment I have nothing to contribute to the site as in courses (at least at for the near future), but for others interested: What will the Code playground block be for (compilation?, interpretation? of code?). I see playground and sandbox to be very similar, so it might be beneficial to change CodeSandbox to CodeEditor in the future. In terms of flexibility, have you thought about allowing non-YouTube video links within the course material (Vimeo or otherwise)?

gdangelo 5y ago
Thanks you for taking the time to try AlterClass using the free trial. I really appreciate it. Q1. I see the Code playground block as a mini code-editor that would give you the ability to run coding challenges your students will have to complete, much like what you find on Codecamedy for instance. Also, I'd like this code playground to support languages CodeSandbox doesn't, such as Python. Plus, in comparison to CodeSandbox, this block will feel more integrated to your course as it will be native to the AlterClass platform and not just an iframe embed into your lessons. Feel free to suggest any idea you have for this block :) Q2. I thought about it and my goal is to add more blocks over time to give you as much freedom as possible in creating your lessons. I support YouTube videos as it is the most popular, but Vimeo is something I could easily add. I've added it to the backlog. Stay tuned ;)

yccheok 5y ago

Congratulation! Building a marketplace to sell something (Apps, courses, clothes, food, ...) is a very challenging problem. I am an App developer who sales app in Google Play. The only thing I am concerning is, how much users are Google Play (marketplace) is gonna to bring to me? Rest of the concern factors are secondary to none. Even if Google Play choose to charge higher fee, or providing a more crappy publishing tool, I still will stay with Google Play. Because I know if I try to sell my Android app elsewhere, I will get 0 customer. Good luck to your venture!

gdangelo 5y ago
Thanks for your comment and feedback on the marketplace. Right now, the AlterClass marketplace is more a way for people to launch their courses quickly without worrying about setting up their own platform and hosting the content. I won't compare myself to any app marketplace (like Apple or Google) as it is not my end goal. I want to give the instructors full control of their courses and give them the freedom to access beyond AlterClass. I'm still working on this, so stay tuned ;)

ashwinipatankar 5y ago

I was searching for such a platform. Thanks for building this Greg, great work. However two things which made me to think twice: 1. Per month subscription model Vs percentage cut per sales 2. Payment via paypal. If changes will be made to these two things then I will jump in without doubt.

gdangelo 5y ago
Thanks for your feedback. Q1. Yes, the pricing model is something that has been pointing out several time here. I'll think about it and probably open the "Starter" plan as a free tier + the 10% cut. How does it sound? Q2. Payment via PayPal for students is something I'll definitively support in the near future. Stay tuned ;)
- ashwinipatankar 5y ago
  10% cut per sales sounds good. Payment to PayPal still sounds little complicated for some countries. Means if I am a course creator and I am from one of the developing country, then I may end up facing issues. What's about connecting Wise or Stripe or something like that ?
  - gdangelo 5y ago
    I agree. It is something I'll look into, supporting more payment methods.

ilovefood 5y ago

Hi Greg, congratulations on the launch. I've looked around a bit and you did a fantastic job to be honest. It inspired me to keep on crunching on my project as well! I wish you all the luck and success with this. I think this is the right approach to make courses more interactive and also interesting! Why not make a course on how you built alterclass on alterclass? ;) All the best.

gdangelo 5y ago
Thanks a lot for your message. I'm glad it inspires you. Regarding your suggestion, I may release a course on how to build a SaaS platform using modern dev technologies.

laserpistus 5y ago

Welcome to the space Greg - the site and tutorials looks good!

gdangelo 5y ago
Thanks for your feedback! The tutorials section provides in-depth technical content to anyone for free. In addition, it helps drive organic and relevant traffic to AlterClass so that instructors with published courses can benefit from it. No more relevant traffic on AlterClass, the more potential students for the instructors ;)