On Deck has the potential to transform education
That isn’t quite
as optimistic as it sounds
On Deck just announced that it raised a $20m Series A round of financing from an impressive list of investors. For those who aren’t in the industry, let me tell you this is a big deal and makes them one of the hottest education companies around. They announced this raise through a post on their website, but more importantly, they did it concurrently through my favorite newsletter, Not Boring by Packy McCormick. He’s a Duke grad who writes about big trends in the investment world and the Internet. You can read his post about On Deck here, and it’s well worth the read, as always.
For those who aren’t going to read, let me try to summarize.
What is On Deck?
is where the world's top talent comes to connect.
Whatever it is you want to do next, our ever-growing community and action-oriented programming will help you get there—fast. If you want to learn something new to uplevel your career, launch and scale your big ideas, or make lifelong friends, this is the place for you.
This is how they describe their programs, which are the fundamental product they provide.
8- to 10-week-long virtual fellowships provide community, education, support, and momentum to supercharge your path forward.
This all sounds interesting. They basically run short online courses around accelerating your career path. I’m all about community and lifelong education. But Packy McCormick describes their business even more ambitiously. According to him,
On Deck is building a modern, digitally native education platform at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional higher and continuing education.
This meme from Paul Millerd describes it well.
OK, now you’ve got my attention. I’ve written about the cost of higher education before and ever since I met Katelyn Donnelly, I’ve known that The Avalanche is Coming in higher education. Could On Deck be it?
Why it might be the future of education
Packy goes on to describe all the ways in which this business is unbelievable.
The amazing talent they have recruited to their team
Their early profitability in a space that is notoriously hard to be profitable
The technology stack that allow them to launch new programs amazingly efficiently
The incredible network effects that their approach to community is creating
At first, I was blown away. They were growing incredibly fast and had the team, network of investors, and ambition to be a future powerhouse in education. I had been skeptical of On Deck before, but I realized after reading Packy’s piece that most of my skepticism was due to my own biases and didn’t stand up to scrutiny. In fact, many of my complaints about On Deck could also be made about a lot of higher education.
Here were my dumb complaints.
Complaint 1 - On Deck is way too expensive for an 8-10 week fully virtual course. Their courses cost anywhere from $2,000 to $12,000…are you kidding me?
Well, let’s see. Let’s look at higher education. I didn’t see them exactly cutting exorbitant tuition rates when they went virtual, and their prices make On Deck look like a bargain, even adjusted for the time period.
Complaint 2 - They are all about cultivating an aura of scarcity, and using that scarcity to get more and more people to pay exorbitant fees.
Ummm…what exactly is the model of Ivy League education institutions?
Complaint 3 - They are growing too fast instead of getting their product right first.
Move fast and break things - literally, the internal motto of Facebook.
If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn.
Grow fast or die slow is pretty much the unofficial motto of the entire Silicon Valley software culture. So, this complaint is best dismissed by saying - Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
OK, fine. I can be a bigger man. I can admit I was wrong. Maybe On Deck is the future and I need to start embracing it. But there was one criticism that lingered. One criticism that I couldn’t dismiss so easily.
My major criticism of On Deck
They don’t seem to care about the education they provide.
That should be a damning statement for a company that is so clearly in the education space, but it’s obviously not given the incredible trajectory they are on and the powerful investors they have on board.
In Packy’s analysis, which was obviously done with cooperation from the company, there is NO mention of the actual education they provide through the programs. And Packy actually went through one of the programs himself! How did he describe his experience:
When it was time to leave Breather and really go for it, I decided to do what an increasing number of founders do: apply to On Deck. I got in, and joined ODF2 in New York. I remember getting into the Slack, joining the #intros channel, and thinking that I was so far out of my depth. On Deck put together one of the most talented groups of people I’ve ever been a part of.
Turns out, On Deck was a lot of the things I was looking to build: education, community, network, friendships, and career opportunities. I made friends and connections in On Deck that I still talk to daily.
Take note of the language. One of the most talented groups of people. Made friends and connections he still talks to daily. That’s impressive in terms of community building, but it doesn’t say a damn thing about the education.
And notice the investment thesis Packy lays out: the talent, the profitability, the technology, the network effects. Again, no reference to the education they are providing.
Even in On Deck’s website, the references to the educational aspects are few and far between. The main outcomes they tout are the fact that they’ve had 1,400+ fellows who have collectively founded 330 companies and raised over $250m in capital in the last 18 months. As far as outcomes go, this is one of the more obviously inane.
What exactly did On Deck do to contribute to this success? Did they pick highly successful fellows or did they accelerate their path in any way?
Now, I’m not saying measuring the actual outcomes is easy by any means. Look at higher education and the lack of meaningful outcomes. Two points on that. First, we have to be able to distinguish between orders of magnitude. We are talking about a fully virtual 8 week course. That’s closer to an AirBnb SuperHost taking credit for the number of their guests that had gone on to found companies and raise capital. Second, two wrongs don’t make a right. I’m not looking for the disruption to higher education to just go after our money in different ways. Technology offers so much incredible potential for learning. Given On Deck’s tech expertise, they should take that as a challenge worth taking on.
This tweet thread from Nicole Williams at Compound VC summarizes my thoughts well.
My personal experience with On Deck (and Creator Institute)
Before I go further, let me describe my own personal experience.
Awhile ago, I was looking for some structure to help me possibly write a novel. I came across the On Deck Writing Fellowship that was launching and thought to myself, “Oh, this could be interesting?” It sounded like they were trying to bring together ambitious writers and support them in an intensive process that might get me where I wanted to go.
For someone who had built a life out of climbing educational ladders, this sounded like the next badge of honor to add. I applied and crossed my fingers.
While I was waiting to hear back, I heard mention of this other program called Creator Institute. Let me walk you through the two processes as I went through them concurrently.
Applying
Creator Institute was open to anyone who filled out the application, paid $500 ($300 if you were a student), and had an intro call with Professor Eric Koester of Georgetown who ran the course to make sure it was a good fit
On Deck Writers was closed, advertised their extreme selectivity based on managing their cohort size, and charged $2,000
Getting in
As I said, Creator Institute was open so having a call was the only prerequisite to get in
Despite touting the curation of their cohort, there was not even an interview process. They took a 5-minute ‘first-round application’ with a couple short answers for a second-round application and let me know I was in.
Interview
My call with Professor Koester was great - he talked about the program, how it was structured, the commitment I’d have to make, the flexibility it offered. He showed an interest in my topic for the book and gave me clear, concrete answers to what I’d be doing. He talked about the author success rate going through the program and how the process would be difficult and challenging, but one I could be successful with if I made the commitment.
My call about the On Deck Writers fellowship was very different - I learned very little about the actual program because it was coming together on the fly, there was no commitment to do anything (it was a ‘you get what you put in’ model), and it seemed like I was just being encouraged based on the people that had already signed up.
Ultimately, this should have been a slam dunk decision, right? Creator Institute was 1/4 of the price for twice the length and had been a more engaging process. Going through the On Deck application process made me feel like they were looking for the most impressive LinkedIn profiles that they could get to pay. Yet, the allure of scarcity is really hard to capture. So I agonized over the decision. I made a list of pros & cons, and it wasn’t till I talked to my wife about it that I made my choice (if I remember her words, they were something like, “Um…this one seems like it’s exactly what you’re looking for and it’s cheaper. Do that one.”)
I won’t rehash my experience there, but let me leave you with a reference to something else I wrote and the link to the full piece. Creator Institute is the future of education.
Long story short: Creator Institute is the real deal. They offer a structured curriculum that breaks the book-writing process down into bite-sized pieces and give you the resources and motivation to make it through the journey. The curriculum over the 20 weeks isn’t perfect, but it’s very solid. I would give it an A-. The thought that’s gone into it is evident to anyone involved. The journey is a mix of inspiration (through an active speaking lineup), education (through weekly sessions with Professor Koester), and perspiration (through the library sessions and writing workshops).
The course manages that mix to get first-time authors to the finish line. And their results speak for themselves. I don’t know why Professor Koester doesn’t publicize the actual results more proudly, but I believe it’s something like 90% of participants finish a first draft manuscript. It makes me think:
Wouldn’t it be awesome if On Deck cared as much about their learning outcomes as they did about growing fast?
If they took their role as educators seriously and not just their roles as community builders? If they put as much thought into the learning in their programs as they did on their growth? If they looked a little more like Creator Institute?
It’s incredibly frustrating that it seems like the ‘hottest’ education companies from an investment point of view are often the ones where we talk the least about the education they provide. Where we avoid talking about the learning, the learning outcomes, the efficacy?
I hope anyone who reads this doesn’t think I’m trying to bash On Deck. I think their growth has been incredibly impressive, I love the engagement and activity of their community, and I love the ambition in their vision. And look - maybe they actually also provide an amazing educational program within each of their 17 courses and that’s just not what they or others have focused on. I find that hard to believe, but it’s possible. Or maybe they haven’t yet but they plan to improve that as they are hyper-focused on winning the market first and believe they can improve the educational program later. Given the plethora of educational resources and talent they have on board, that’s definitely a reasonable proposition.
In fact, that’s what makes me so hopeful. I think getting the curation right is so achievable, but it takes aligning your vision and strategy to that goal. So I’m hopeful that On Deck celebrates this investment round and their investors push them to do the hard work of getting On Deck to achieve their potential.
You know, everything always comes back to tennis for me.
Once, I remember excitedly telling my tennis coach, the legendary Joe Brennan, about how I had overheard another coach say that ‘I had a lot of potential.’ I expected him to share my excitement but he didn’t. Here’s what he said.
“You should never be happy to hear you have potential. Potential is something latent. Something undeveloped. Hearing you have potential should piss you off. It should motivate you. Potential is something you could become but haven’t chosen to yet.”
So, in the spirit of Joe Brennan, let me say, unequivocally,