Language school in Beijing needs business model advice.

November 17, 2013 10:04 PM

We have an idea to create a paid membership site based around short educational videos. We have lots of supplementary materials (PDF's e.t.c) to go with each video. Our question is how much should we give away for free? Any experience with paid membership sites based around a freemmium model would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
posted by tjabeijing to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Have you outlined a path to purchase / sales funnel for your target customers?

If so, you'll be aware of which questions they want answering by your service.

So one approach is to give them free answers to their initial questions, but then once they're hooked, to ask them to pay for the answers to the sub-questions that spin out of the initial free answers.

Good luck!
posted by Speculatist at 4:05 AM on November 18, 2013

I would look at talktomeinkorean.com. They give most (all?) of their audio lessons away for free on their website in downloadable MP3 format, but then they sell batch downloads of the entire level for $9.99, either as a group of MP3s or physical CDs. It can be a chore to go download each level, so I can see people paying for the convenience. Additionally, they provide notes and workbooks at PDFs, but sell bound books of the lessons in their store. They're often recommended in the Korean language sub-reddit, so I don't think this business model is a turn off for a lot of users.

Perhaps you could reach out to them with questions? Good luck!
posted by bluecore at 12:22 PM on November 18, 2013

japanesepod101.com/chineseclass101.com provides the audio for the basic series for free, but the various pay levels provide more. Written transcriptions of the dialog and vocabulary lists are well worth it to me.

I wouldn't have paid, though, before I listened to a couple of podcast episodes to see if they were any good.
posted by ctmf at 7:02 PM on November 18, 2013