Founder stories
$100K ARRin 1 year
4 milestones
Productivity Expert Launches Cohort Course, Builds $5M/Year Business
Founder
Tiago Forte
Solo Founder•Non-technical•USA
Commitment
Full-timeExperience
First-timeProduct
Cohort-based course on personal knowledge management.
Type
Info ProductIndustry
EducationModel
One-time PaymentMarketing Strategy
How Tiago acquired customers
Primary Channel
Communities
Tech Stack
Tools used to build Building a Second Brain
ZoomCircleEmail marketingPayment processing
The Full Story
Tiago Forte 'rage quit' consulting with a month of savings. He created a course on SkillShare that became #2 on the platform.
Cohort Model
After taking a live cohort-based writing course in 2016, he launched his first BASB cohort in January 2017 with 25-30 people.
Scaling
It took a few cohorts to hit $100K ARR. Now on cohort 15 with 5,000+ learners and $5M/year at $1,500 per student.
- First cohort: 25-30 students
- Current: 5,000+ learners
- Annual revenue: $5M
- Price: $1,500/student
Key Takeaways
1
Validate teaching ability on platforms like SkillShare first
2
Cohort-based learning creates better completion rates
3
Start small (25-30 students) and iterate based on feedback
4
Premium pricing ($1,500) is possible with transformational results
Originally published onDisco
Inspired by Tiago's journey? Generate a business idea in the Education space using AI and real founder data.
Milestone Journey
Tiago achieved 4 milestones on the path to $100K ARR
First Customer
$10
1 month
February 2016
69% faster
vs avg 3 months+1 month to next milestone
$1K MRR
$1,000
2 months
March 2017
82% faster
vs avg 11 months+1 month to next milestone
$10K MRR
$37,000
3 months
April 2017
86% faster
vs avg 1 year+9 months to next milestone
$100K ARR
$100,000
1 year
January 2018
69% faster
vs avg 3 years1 year
Total journey time
4
Milestones achieved
Tiago's Path to $100K ARRPremium
The journey, decisions, and context behind this milestone
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