What Makes General Assembly So Successful?
Who is General Assembly (GA)? A training company founded in New York city in 2011 and acquired for $412.5 million in 2017 [1]. That is quite a lot for a six-year-old education company! That puts them roughly in the same category as edX, a massive open online course (MOOC) provider founded by Harvard University and MIT.
To distill what makes them so successful, let us break down what they do and how they do it. Note that in this post we will focus only on their retail activities, because that is the market segment that offers the most valuable lessons, in my opinion.
One of the secrets to GA's success is up there for everyone to read on their website.
They are in the career-making business. Not merely in training, not just in certification, but in the business of helping people tangibly level up. How do they do that? They (A) teach them in-demand skills, (B) credential them with certificates, and help them (C) expand their network and (D) find a new job.
(A) Teaching
It is good to have a skill when applying for a job. And it is even better to have an in-demand skill. So those are the ones GA focuses on. They watch the labor market and build programs for trending skills. At the moment, their training offer includes data analytics, software engineering, user experience, and a few other related fields. However, a relevant and up-to-date curriculum is often not enough to distinguish oneself as an educational provider. It also matters how the content is taught. GA tries to achieve effective instruction by, among others, grouping participants into relatively small cohorts (of about 30), high instructor-to-student ratio (1:9) and streamlined user experience of the learning environment.
(B) Issuing certificates
Job applicants use training certificates to substantiate their claims about the skills they put on their CVs. But the extent to which certificates do that is proportional to the reputation the training provider has among employers. Your mom issued the certificate? Thank you, next. Have a degree from MIT? Here's the contract. GA has earned respect among employers for their ability to deliver skilled workforce and can now furnish their graduates with valuable certificates.
(C) Facilitating networking
It is not what, but who you know. This statement is more or less true depending on your geography but being part of a large open network gives you an edge everywhere (and is not necessarily a bad thing). GA actively stimulates participant networking both during and after the program.
(D) Helping graduates find a job
GA has one more trick up their sleeve when trying to help customers transform their careers. By the virtue of having been bought by Adecco, a global staffing company, they can help match graduates with appropriate jobs. And if the graduate is a little nervous before the interview, they also offer interview trainings and career coaching.
In summary, this is what GA mean when they say they are a career transformation company:
Pay us (a lot - author's note) and we will not only help you gain skill and give you a certificate - as other companies do - we will help you get a new, awesome job.
And I think the focus on people's careers, and not merely skills, has been an important ingredient in General Assembly's success. Because for someone who wants to level up, skill is merely a means to an end, not an end in itself.
The end.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with General Assembly and have never been their customer. The following analysis is based solely on historic and current publicly available information. I recognize the presented explanation of GA's success is incomplete. For the purpose of this post (share GA's business plan with my audience), I prioritized clarity over completeness.
REFERENCES
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/11/26/2u-finishes-deal-to-buy-edx/
