Making DECODEING School with WordPress and 2 Plugins
DECODEING started out as a complex project. I have been slowly working on it for 2 years. But recently discovering makers and the #justshipit movement, I knew that I was wasting my time.
So, I decided to delete the whole thing and start again. This time creating only an MVP and not fucking around for two years to decide on features and colors.
Just SHIP it. Just get a working product with basic features out there and see if it sticks. It might NOT stick. Then… I wasted TWO YEARS. So, get it out there so you don’t waste time.
DECODEING MVP
DECODEING is an online school that takes college degree curriculums and matches the courses with MOOCs and open courses. So, you can get the same knowledge as someone with a college degree for FREE online. Same exact knowledge but without student loans and a fancy piece of paper.
So, the business model here is to do all the heavy work and match online courses to a college curriculum. Charge monthly until schooling is done while also giving students an easy way to track their progress.
So the MVP is simple. Course content + tracking + signup/payment form = a working product.
Stick With What You Know
I created DECODEING in WordPress since it’s fast to set up, and I have been working with it for 4 years. Nothing is faster than working with what you already know.
Tracking Learning Progress
Then for the back-end tracking, I have set up WPComplete (This is an affiliate link. If you purchase WPC PRO, I get compensated).
WPComplete, is a tracking plugin that lets users mark each page as “complete.” There’s a free version, but I purchased the upgrade to get the cool feature of having dashboards that show where you left off and how far you are from completing the teaching.
Taking Payments with Monthly Subscription
Then for payments and membership, I am using Memberful. I like Memberful because there is a free plan to use and it integrates into WordPress BEAUTIFULLY! They can even hide certain pages from users who are not on the plan or whose subscription payment bounced.
Their login overlay isn’t too disruptive from my website, and I find it suits my needs well. Especially since I don’t have to waste time to learn about payment gates and coding with Stripe. I don’t have the time right now!!
So, there you have it. An easy MVP solution with WordPress and two plugins.
