gdangelo

Most of the website/app is built with homemade components. For some of them, I've leveraged the UI components from Headless UI (https://headlessui.dev/) which is a project from Tailwind CSS.

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

Then, what feature do you need/want that isn't on this list? Finally, what made you consider looking at another platform if you already have everything you need on others? Thanks for your feedback.

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

I've just pushed some changes. You can now re-organize: 1. blocks within a lesson, 2. lessons within a section, 3. and sections within a course.

Check it out, and let me know what you think.

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

I agree. It is something I'll look into, supporting more payment methods.

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

Please see my comment above.

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

  1- An easy-to-use interface to create the content of their course, specialized in technical/programming courses.
  2- The freedom to organize their lessons as they wish. Instructors are not restricted to a specific format. Instead, they can choose from various blocks, as mentioned above.
  3- The freedom to sell their courses for the price they want without worrying about any promotional campaigns from the platform, for instance.
  4- Integrated payment processing, so they don't have to worry about setting it up themselves.
  5- A marketplace to host and showcase their courses.
  6- Tools to help them build up the audience they need to drive initial sales, such as offering free courses, presale courses, or using their custom domain (coming soon). I will also provide/include marketing tools to instructors to manage their audience right from AlterClass (coming soon).

As a primary goal for 2022, I will also keep driving highly relevant organic traffic to AlterClass. So that, on top of everything I mentioned, instructors could benefit from this traffic when launching a course with no audience.

I hope this helps you understand the benefits of choosing AlterClass to launch your courses. Please let me know if there is anything unclear, and as always, feel free to provide any feedback or idea you have. Thanks!

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

Thanks for your feedback! The tutorials section provides in-depth technical content to anyone for free. In addition, it helps drive organic and relevant traffic to AlterClass so that instructors with published courses can benefit from it. No more relevant traffic on AlterClass, the more potential students for the instructors ;)

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

You're right. I'm about to add them to the website asap. But, I'd like to emphasise that my goal is to give the instructors full ownership and control over their content, but also give them access to it beyond AlterClass.

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

Thanks a lot for your message. I'm glad it inspires you. Regarding your suggestion, I may release a course on how to build a SaaS platform using modern dev technologies.

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

Thanks you for taking the time to try AlterClass using the free trial. I really appreciate it.

Q1. I see the Code playground block as a mini code-editor that would give you the ability to run coding challenges your students will have to complete, much like what you find on Codecamedy for instance. Also, I'd like this code playground to support languages CodeSandbox doesn't, such as Python. Plus, in comparison to CodeSandbox, this block will feel more integrated to your course as it will be native to the AlterClass platform and not just an iframe embed into your lessons. Feel free to suggest any idea you have for this block :)

Q2. I thought about it and my goal is to add more blocks over time to give you as much freedom as possible in creating your lessons. I support YouTube videos as it is the most popular, but Vimeo is something I could easily add. I've added it to the backlog. Stay tuned ;)

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

Thanks for your comment and feedback on the marketplace. Right now, the AlterClass marketplace is more a way for people to launch their courses quickly without worrying about setting up their own platform and hosting the content. I won't compare myself to any app marketplace (like Apple or Google) as it is not my end goal. I want to give the instructors full control of their courses and give them the freedom to access beyond AlterClass. I'm still working on this, so stay tuned ;)

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

Thanks for your feedback.

Q1. Yes, the pricing model is something that has been pointing out several time here. I'll think about it and probably open the "Starter" plan as a free tier + the 10% cut. How does it sound?

Q2. Payment via PayPal for students is something I'll definitively support in the near future. Stay tuned ;)

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

Thanks for pointing this. I'm only supporting PayPal for payout for now as I ran into a blocker with Stripe when trying to implement transferring funds to instructors. Indeed, as students can buy several courses from several different instructors, I can't just use the "destination charges' feature from Stripe, as you mentioned, since that's for 1-to-1 transfer. So, I've looked deeper into this and even contacted Stripe about it, and they suggested to process the payment with Stripe Checkout once, and then create multiple transfers referencing the successful Charge that's created. However, again, I can't really use this because it is a feature that Stripe only support for their US users and I'm in the EU: https://stripe.com/docs/connect/cross-border-payouts. Hopefully, they will release this feature for the EU soon so that I could offer you to connect your Stripe account to receive your payments as an instructor.

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

Thanks! React / Next.js + Tailwind CSS

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

Thanks :)

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

What I mean by that is ownership and access of your course content beyond AlterClass. More coming soon :)

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

Thanks for the advice and your feedback.

For the authentication, I'm using the Next-auth.js library, and what I get from Github is only your Id, name, email, and avatar URL. That's it. Not sure why you've seen "full access".

I'll think about the free tier. And for the pre-orders, yes this is something I've though about and this is definitely something I'd like to avoid. I'll probably unlock the fund only if the instructor delivers (for first time instructors for example) so that I protect the students from losing their money if the instructor does not deliver and run away with it.

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

Taxes are calculated and collected by Stripe during checkout depending on the user's location.

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

Right now, I'm focused on online course creation. I've no plan for building a blogging platform. But I do have a blog on AlterClass with in-depth tutorials. If you are interested, I'm looking for guest authors ;)

Have a look and let me know your thoughts -> https://alterclass.io/tutorials

gdangelo

5 anni fadiscuss

I see. Thanks for the update. Having TODOs is not a great experience for the students. If you'd like to list it for free, I suggest you, at least provide a first version of it that can teach something meaningful for the students. And then, you can still add more sections/lessons to it over time. I'll review it tomorrow morning and we will work on it together.

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Show HN: AlterClass – A platform for making and selling programming courses

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