PublicBeta online-learning platform for entrepreneurs launches, 40+ courses

PublicBeta, “the online learning community for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs” and brainchild of WooThemes co-founder Adii Pienaar, has launched today with V1, and over 40 tantalising courses for you to sink your teeth into.

PublicBeta aims to live by a ‘for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs’ motto and its courses reflect just that. All the courses have been designed by 41 entrepreneurs across categories such as:

• Personal Brand. Example — “The easiest way to build your brand”
• Bootstrapping. Example — “Bootstrapping a competitive industry with well-funded competitors”
• Investors. Example — “Words are money: how to fund messages and write copy that will resonate with prospects and VCs”
• Culture. Example — “How to create a company culture that works for you and your team”
• MVP. Example — “How non-technical founders can bring a product to market.”
• Life. Example — “Life Hacking your way to success”
• Psychology. Example – “Hooked: Learn the hidden psychology behind how products form habits”

Each course seems to vary from around four to eight lessons, and is delivered via video, as well as additional written resources. Courses are not time-specific, meaning that each learner can complete them in their own time. There is no quiz either, as Pienaar tells Ventureburn, “we believe that entrepreneurs are driven enough to be accountable for their own time, we don’t need to ‘test’ them.”

PublicBeta is a passion-project for Pienaar, who even sunk US$100 000 of his own money into it to get it off the ground. He adds:

“PublicBeta is a project born out of a personal passion and it’s very close to my heart. I’m incredibly excited to open the door to this passion to other, like-minded entrepreneurs now and I look forward to engaging with those entrepreneurs within the PublicBeta community.”

The billing model is not pay-per-course, but rather a subscription model that gives full access to all the courses on the site. There is a US$30 per month option, and a US$300 for the year alternative effectively giving you two months of free access. There isn’t a free trial but there is a “no questions asked” full refund within 30 days in place – if you are unsatisfied with the service.

PublicBeta will have new content released every other week, meaning that roughly two extra courses will be added per month to bulk up the existing 40-odd on the website already. To put it into perspective, if you completed just the existing forty courses for the US$300 yearly-fee, it would come in at around US$7.50 per course, at US$30 monthly it would cost you US$9 per course.

Pienaar has used his personal blog to gain traction for PublicBeta, and a previous update stated that the platform had over 2 000 subscribers to the PublicBeta newsletter well before launch.

Pienaar has cleverly linked PublicBeta to his recently published ebook Brandiing. The book is available at three pricing tiers (US$39, US$99, and US$199), and you get one month, two month, and three month’s PublicBeta subscription thrown in at those prices respectively – amongst some other bells and whistles in the higher tiers — leveraging his personal brand to give PublicBeta more exposure.