The dynamics of the ed-tech industry are gradually evolving while opening doors for endless opportunities. Nowadays, the big impact of the creator economy has turned the knowledge commerce category into a fast-evolving reality. New competitors and business models are continuously pushing companies to elevate their game and product offer. This reflects a current revolution around how people learn online and who they are learning from, with new platforms, behaviors, and technologies leading this change.
A prominent company that is revolutionizing the ed-tech industry and the education sector as a whole is Kajabi. Established in 2010, it enables educators, coaches, and those involved in passion economy or creator economy to step into the higher value online knowledge space. It actively leads its passionate knowledge creators to success using its comprehensive ed-tech platform and all of the resources necessary to build an online knowledge-sharing business.
Kajabi has always focused on empowering knowledge entrepreneurs and creators who are serious about achieving success online. It has helped thousands of educators to escape the hours-for-dollars trap and expand beyond the limitations of in-person instruction.
Kajabi’s all-in-one knowledge commerce platform, with an ever-expanding set of tools and features, leads the industry in helping people turn what they know into what they do.
Used by seasoned business owners, educators, authors, speakers, and first-time knowledge entrepreneurs, Kajabi has helped customers (affectionately referred to as “Kajabi Heroes”) generate over $3 billion in sales. This includes more than $1 billion in the last 12 months alone. Kajabi Heroes have also reached over 50 million knowledge consumers globally, an impact that’s redefining the new reality of online education and knowledge sharing.
A Dedicated Visionary
Kajabi is led dynamically by Kenny Rueter, the Co-Founder, and Executive Chairman.
Known for his quiet confidence and servant leadership, Mr. Kenny remains relentlessly committed to the success and celebration of #KajabiHeroes, along with growth and opportunity for all of the Kajabi team members supporting them. He is a true collaborative leader who always intends to provide opportunities. Mr. Kenny believes that it is just the beginning of times when people have started realizing that efficient tools such as Kajabi can assist entrepreneurs of all levels, backgrounds, and cultures achieve excellent outcomes.
The Beginning of a Journey
Mr. Kenny states that in 2009, he created a sprinkler toy for his three young sons that the whole neighborhood loved. Everyone wanted a copy of that toy.
This made Mr. Kenny realize that he could create a video and instructions to sell online as a less costly, more feasible way to bring the product to life. He had a rude awakening once he learned everything needed to build a website, find the right e-commerce plugin, and actually sell his plans online. No solution met his needs without requiring tremendous efforts.
He saw the need for a tool or set of tools, to help people transform their ideas, skills, and knowledge into valuable products they could sell online. Accordingly, Mr. Kenny partnered with a few friends who were designers, and together, they bootstrapped the first version of Kajabi.
The Initial Challenges
Throughout its illustrious journey, Kajabi faced many challenges. “In the beginning, one of the biggest obstacles was not knowing Kajabi was inventing a category on the go, with its uncertainty and associated risk,” expresses the management. The subscription-based business model was new. The university had to create a significant perception of value to pull a behavioral change in its potential audience to embrace the model. Back in the day, it also overcame tech challenges to build an integrated ecosystem in the most seamless way possible.
A plethora of Excellent Offerings
Kajabi is an all-in-one platform that integrates a diverse range of products, including video online courses, coaching programs, membership sites, podcasts, newsletters, and more. It offers subscription-based plans that scale alongside its customers as they start and grow their online businesses.
Kajabi holds some important offer differentiators, such as it does not take a cut of their revenue. It is a true all-in-one solution and is incredibly user-focused by design, bringing the functionality of countless apps and tools into one place. This allows people to build digital content or services quickly and easily.
With Kajabi, people get complete autonomy and personalization tools, which help them to take their business forward. Customers can highlight their brand, customize appearance and feel, charge as per their requirements, and so on.
Together with a top customer service, a very active online community where customers support each other, share stories, questions, struggles, and advice.
Beyond its products, Kajabi University provides free training to its customers in different skills and areas of knowledge that they need for their digital business. It currently offers 30 free online courses created by some industry start coaches as a part of the first wave of a significant expansion in 2022.
Thriving During the Pandemic
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced many challenges, Kajabi has seen impressive growth during this period due to the high demand for online education and training, stimulated by the new reality of remote life. The university raised $550 million after completing a growth equity financing last May, valuing the company at over $2 billion. Its growth has also translated into an increase in hiring across nearly all business departments during the pandemic.
The university pays utmost attention to the safety of its employees. All employees have been working remotely since the beginning of the pandemic. This year Kajabi aims to test its first hybrid working model, with all safety protocols and vaccination requirements according to California law.
Embracing Changes Positively
Team Kajabi believes that it is important to keep track of all the changes and developments taking place around them. This is an ongoing effort that requires constant investment in monitoring and understanding the big picture of cultural trends and tensions, their impact on the knowledge economy, and more specific behavioral changes and evolving needs of the customers.
Kajabi’s product and design teams always test new features and products to stay ahead of shifts signaled by those analyzed trends and behaviors.
The Future Frontier
Aiming towards the future, Kajabi intends to continue scaling its team and building best-in-class products as it expands internationally. It also wants to explore strategic mergers and acquisitions that can further expand its product portfolio and geographic reach.
The university’s long-run goal is to help one million customers to earn $100 billion. “We’ve seen $3 billion generated by our Kajabi Heroes so far, so we’ve still got a bit to go, but we know we’re on the right track,” states the management.
