Udacity- The Beginning

The concept of Udacity grew out of the free computer classes that were offered in 2011 through Stanford University. These classes gave inspiration to Thrun and Peter (who were the instructor of the classes help at Stanford University at that time) to start up with their platform to provide online education. Udacity was then proclaimed at the 2012 Digital Life Design Conference. In 2012, the venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz showed a keen interest in this startup and led to an investment of $15 million in Udacity. Udacity was also funded by Charles River Ventures and around $200,000 was invested by Thrun himself out of his money.

In 2013, a year later, Thrun announced in a company article that Udacity is a lousy product and its service was to focus more on vocational courses for professionals and “nanodegrees”. The Udacity company creates its nanodegrees in cooperation with some other corporations and educational institutions.

Finally, in 2014, Udacity successfully gained 1.6 million users in their total 12 courses and 26 free coursewares. This was the first major milestone achieved by the company. In October 2017, Udacity along with Unity launched their “Learn ARkit” program whose aim was to help out developers in improving their AR application building skills. In that particular month, Google partnered with Udacity to launch a scholarship initiative for all aspiring Web and Android application developers.

How does Udacity work?

After exploring the Udacity Business model and revenue model in detail now it’s time to get started with the working procedure of the company to answer- “How does Udacity work?”. So, let’s get started.

Udacity, an online platform that provides educational courses to students and professionals for their development and professional enhancement. Most of the courses present on the platform have been created in collaboration with other leading companies, including Facebook, Google, educational institutions such as Standford University, and many other organizations and enterprises.

All these courses are delivered in Nanodegree format on this platform and these programs are composed of Capstone Project in the end to test the knowledge gained. The consumers who have used this platform say that most of the courses present here are based on the problems faced by the business world and that’s what makes the Udacity courses highly appropriate and practical. This feature ensures that learners use the certifications gained from the platform to switch their careers or gain a new position in the company.