Online Learning Platform

8 Online Learning Platform Business Success Stories [2024]

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Updated: July 23rd, 2024

Building an e-learning platform is one of the most profitable business ventures in 2024.

People are looking for ways to occupy their minds indoors, while others want to advance their skills, so they are marketable.

Therefore, the demand for online learning services is still high.

Do you dream of building an online learning platform like Udemy or Coursera?

Starting an online learning platform is easier than you ever thought. Even if you have never written a line of code, you can hire an experienced web programmer to build an interactive online learning platform.

Alternatively, you can purchase a ready-made online learning platform. Regardless of the approach, ensure your online learning platform lets users signup, create accounts, search for courses, and supports secure transactions so the users feel safe.

In this list, you'll find real-world online learning platform success stories and very profitable examples of starting a online learning platform that makes money.

1. Live Lingua ($1.44M/year)

In response to the Mexican swine flu, the founder of Live Lingua, a language learning platform, pivoted their brick-and-mortar language school to online classes through Skype. They quickly realized the potential of online language learning, sold their physical school, and rebranded as Live Lingua, growing steadily at about 20% each year since 2012.

How much money it makes: $1.44M/year
How much did it cost to start: $60
How many people on the team: 9

How I Started A 7-Figure Online Language Learning Platform Thanks To SEO

Live Lingua, an online language learning platform, built a 7-figure business on a bootstrap budget using SEO and launched thanks to the Mexican swine flu, with the company now growing at around 20% a year every year since then.

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2. Games for Business ($480K/year)

In 2016, the founder started Games for Business, a game-based learning platform, after realizing the potential of gamification in the market. With a background in digital marketing and experience in game-based projects, they quickly signed major clients in the HR tech market, leading to international recognition and the eventual acquisition of the company by Austria's largest private education group.

How much money it makes: $480K/year
How much did it cost to start: $150K
How many people on the team: 15

How We Developed A $40K/Month Game-Based Learning Platform

Games for Business created a game-based learning platform for multinational organizations that doubled its revenue in the first three years and was recently acquired after landing deals on three continents.

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Read by 4,215 founders

3. MentorCruise ($480K/year)

Dominic Monn came up with the idea for MentorCruise while facing the challenge of finding a mentor during his own career development. He realized that mentorship was a major problem for many professionals, so he built a coaching marketplace where career professionals could turn their knowledge into a marketable coaching business and mentees could easily find a mentor. Despite the challenges of building the platform while balancing his studies and a full-time job, MentorCruise now makes around $24,000 per month in commissions and processes over $120,000 every month for its mentors.

How much money it makes: $480K/year
How much did it cost to start: $0
How many people on the team: 5

How I Built A $24K/Month Mentorship Marketplace

MentorCruise is a career coaching marketplace generating $24k MRR and processing $1M annually for mentors, with most traffic and sales coming from SEO and organic sources, currently looking to expand to the B2B market.

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Read by 5,941 founders

4. Frontend Mentor ($360K/year)

Matt Studdert, founder of Frontend Mentor, came up with the idea for his business while teaching a front-end web development course. He noticed that his students often struggled to find professional designs and projects to practice their skills and build their portfolios. This led him to create a platform that provides developers with challenges, designs, and optimized assets, ultimately launching Frontend Mentor.

How much money it makes: $360K/year
How much did it cost to start: $8K
How many people on the team: 0

We Built A $180K/Year Learn-To-Code Community

Online learning community Frontend Mentor has over 200,000 members, with over 1,500 paid subscribers generating over $15,000 MRR, offering professionally designed challenges to improve front-end coding skills with a freemium business model and a focus on real-life experience.

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Read by 10,555 founders

5. Write of Passage ($300K/year)

After taking Tiago Forte's course, David wanted to help 1,000 people start writing online. He was so excited he even tweeted about it and approached it as a challenge.

How much money it makes: $300K/year

Perell's Journey From 2.9 GPA To $3M ARR Writing Course

Unlock the growth strategy of Write of Passage, a business making $25K/month and $300K/year in revenue, with founder David Perell's laser focus on shareable content and driving people to his email list.

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6. Learn Azure ($120K/year)

Denis wanted to expand his knowledge of Cloud Computing and Microsoft Azure Services to advance his career. While searching for a mobile solution to facilitate learning on the go, he realized that no suitable mobile app was available. This inspired him to create the "Learn Azure" app, fulfilling his dream.

I searched high and low for a mobile app that could help me prepare for Azure exams, but my search came up empty. Frustrated, I took matters into my own hands and set out to create my own app. And thus, "Learn Azure" was born. — Denis Kazakov (Source)

How much money it makes: $120K/year

How Denis Kazakov Built Learn Azure App & Hit $10K/MRR in 4 Months

Case study about how Denis Kazakov built Learn Azure, an educational app that helps learners become Microsoft Azure Certified Professionals, generating an average of $10K/month and $120K/year, showcasing tech stack with Microsoft technologies and growth strategy through strategic promotion resulting in significant increase in downloads.

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7. VSTEAM Education ($42K/year)

Vidura, an Aerospace engineer and professional street-dancer, started his educational startup to provide practical science and engineering workshops to schools. With 11 STEM workshops and unique speaking engagements that incorporate dance, the company reached over 5,000 students last year and is poised for growth post-pandemic. They have seen success in attracting and retaining customers through targeted email marketing, Google Adwords campaigns, and word of mouth.

How much money it makes: $42K/year
How much did it cost to start: $2.5K
How many people on the team: 1

On Starting A STEM School Workshops And Speaker Services Business

Vidura, a qualified Aerospace engineer, started an educational startup delivering STEM workshops in schools and delivering speaking engagements with dancing for entertainment, having delivered over 5,000 engagements reaching out to schools and is looking to resume after the pandemic.

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Read by 4,916 founders

8. Mini Startups ($14.4K/year)

Stefan, a former NASA analyst with a passion for space, launched Martian to fund his dream of flying to space. His new venture, Mini Startups, sold over $1,000 in pre-orders for a course on building “mini” tech companies before even beginning development.

How much money it makes: $14.4K/year
How much did it cost to start: $80
How many people on the team: 1

On Launching A Course On Building “Mini” Tech Companies From Scratch

Stefan, founder of Martian, launched an online course called Mini Startups that sold over $1000 (11 pre-orders) before it even started, teaching how to build "mini" tech companies from scratch without requiring a technical co-founder.

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Read by 6,536 founders