At the beginning of 2024, the Course team gathered in our office in Riyadh. We had clear ambitions and specific goals to achieve throughout the year, but we did not imagine that our journey would take turns we had not accounted for.
Discussions began about the nature of the Course: Are we a product for creating a digital academy? Or a comprehensive platform that allows content management, marketing, and training? Should we focus on developing LMS features? Or enhance the capabilities of digital products? These questions were part of setting the plan and goals, which centered around building an integrated digital content economy. Based on this, we prepared a marketing strategy and began building a competent marketing team to lead us to achieve that vision.
Pre-Transformation Challenges: Searching for the Real Problem
The first half of the year passed without achieving any of the expected results. We began analyzing the data and trying to understand what happened, when Abdul Rahman came up with a sentence that changed our line of thinking:
We don’t need to fix the product, we need to fix the business.
This sentence marked the beginning of a shift in the team's focus from the product to the foundations of the business itself.
We have an amazing product that combines 10 products into one! You can use it to build any comprehensive digital activity without the need to use any additional tools or leave the platform: Page Builder, A comprehensive platform for managing the educational experience, A digital sales system, A consultation booking system, An integrated payment system, An all-in-one blog, Marketing tools and email campaigns, CRM for customer classification, and many other features. However, we realized that the problem lies not in what we offer, but in the target customer and how we price the service.
The New Direction
We began studying all aspects of the SaaS market and analyzing our data precisely. From here, a flaw in our pricing policy and the unsuitability of the packages for the target customer began to emerge. During this research, I stumbled upon the book “The Pricing Roadmap”, which provided a clear vision for pricing SaaS products. It gave a wonderful example comparing the product to a train, where there is an economy ticket and another business class ticket at a higher price. The idea was that the service might be the same, but some are willing to pay more for a premium experience.
This example inspired us; we understood that we possess an advanced product but we are offering it at an unsuitable price and services for our targeted customers.
Testing the New Direction: SLG Instead of PLG
The moment came when we decided to test a completely different experience, switching to the SLG (Sales with Direct Assistance) model instead of PLG (Self-Service Sales). We decided to offer a demo presentation to potential customers with scheduled appointments for personal communication, and raise the price to five times more, while improving the overall customer experience.
In the first meeting with a customer who requested the offer, we presented an enhanced product with additional features and a dedicated account manager. The client's response was positive, and they had no issue with the price compared to what we offered. We continued this experience for three months, and the results were more than encouraging.
The Beginning of a New Journey
This experience made us realize the true power of our product and its ability to adapt to the needs of each client. The easy customizability allowed us to create a unique experience for each client without turning into a specialized development services company. MRR revenue increased by 100%, and these results were a real turning point towards the new identity of the Course.
I don’t know what the next phase will look like; we are trying new ways without certain knowledge, aiming to create a real change, not a superficial one.
But we all at the Course believe that these new directions will take us to places no one has reached.
And this will be the title of the new journey at the Course.