WP Academy as a hiring tool

 

• 5th place in Europe in total number of freelancers
• 1st place in Europe in freelancers per capita
• 4000 kids per year sign up for CS studies
• 1500 CS engineers graduate per year
• NCR employs over 3000 people with average gross salary of $12400 per year

Target audience

SMB

PRO

C3

SMB

• easier access to the information adjusted to the beginner level of expertise
• easier bootstrapping
• making their website's dashboard a friendly and productive place
• how to acquire new customers
• knowledge base

• need for guidance
• business needs (low risk, demonstrative)
• price sensitive
• technical aptitude
• limited knowledge, time or money

THEIR NEEDS

C3

• New hire
• Existing C3 team member looking for promotion to Advanced WordPress Support or WP Premium Support teams

THEIR NEEDS

 

• advanced WordPress and product knowledge
• easier onboarding process
• ​better understanding of GoDaddy processes

Nascent PRO

 

1-5 sites

maybe not full time/hobbyist

60-100$ annually

not technical

front end design/HTML/CSS

not true developers

no biz skills

price sensitive

Aspiring PRO

 

6-20 sites

more of them are full time

160-220$ annually

some tech skills

mostly build but some maintain

mix front and back end devs

some, but not much biz skills

​not as price sensitive

 want good product

Advanced PRO​

 

20-50 sites

typical ManageWP customer

​mostly full time on web dev

500-1000$

solid tech skills

don't need a lot of support

but when needed should be advanced

have some biz skills and want more

PRO SEGMENTS

Advanced business skills

Advanced technical skills

Switching to recurring revenue model
More optimal workflow
New leads

Rock solid tools

Advanced business skills

Scaling the business

Further optimizing the workflow

New leads

Technical skills

Basic business skills

Comprehensive set of tools

THEIR NEEDS

PRO DATA

Growth drivers for Pros

1. Selling new services to existing clients - 40%
2. Providing support to existing clients - 31%
3. New clients - 21%

PRO DATA

Pain points

1. Too many roles - 38%
2. Finding tools to manage clients & business - 36%
3. Finding new clients/ways to grow business - 35%
4. Pricing my projects - 33%
5. Staying up to date on tech - 32%
6. Collecting payment for client invoices - 32%
7. Scope of work/setting client expectations - 31%
8. Finding content to keep up skill set - 30%
9. Developing repeatable areas of focus - 29%
10. Communicating the value of my services - 28%

PRO DATA

Most important skills

1. Creative/design - 29%
2. Dev tool or platform technical - 28%
3. Managing multiple sites and clients - 24%
4. Client/project management - 22%
5. Technical trends - 21%
6. Business - 19%
7. Marketing/lead gen - 17%
8. Client education - 16%
9. Sales/client acquisition - 15%

PRO DATA

Preferred skill acquisition methods for Pros

1. Online training courses - 44%
2. Conferences - 41%
3. Certification programs - 36%
4. Publications - 31%
5. Community meetups - 30%

PRO DATA

Support for a certification program

1. Yes - 83%
2. No - 8%
3. It won't make a difference - 7%
4. Not sure - 2%

September 2017

The initial launch

3 tracks 

Business Track (WP Elevation)

WordPress Track (WP Academy)

Product Track

basic

advanced

basic

advanced

basic

advanced

SMB

SMB

SMB

C3

C3

C3

Nascent PRO

Nascent PRO

Nascent PRO

Advanced PRO

Advanced PRO

Aspiring PRO

Aspiring PRO

Aspiring PRO

SMB

PRO

C3

• Deep understanding of advanced web concepts
• Deep understanding of GoDaddy services and tools, and how to implement them into your workflow
• Traffic driving & engagement strategies (SEO/SEM,
• Social Media, email marketing )
• Tools to help facilitate client interaction, review and approvals
• Stay on top of the latest digital technologies
• Guidance and education that will help you grow your web pro business

• Deep understanding of advanced web concepts
• Deep understanding of GoDaddy services and tools
• Better understand of customer needs and how to fulfill them
• Weaknesses and strengths of every product

THE VALUE PER SEGMENT

• Two people per track - one expert and one educator ( the same person for every track )
• One executor ( content knowledge + tech knowledge )
• Target will be SMB and PRO and C3
• Textual form - a collection of step-by-step lessons covering beginner, intermediate, and advanced topics
• Give them real time projects - something like CodeAcademy to check their knowledge
• Till September - launch 3 tracks ( Business, WP, Product )

 

PMM

Executor

WordPress = SMB and PRO

Business = SMB and PRO

Product = SMB and PRO

}

Educator

 

Expert

Expert

Expert

5 more people

GoDaddy education & certification beyond September

It's still Wild West out there

• GoDaddy has established itself as the de facto leader in the domain market
• There is no de facto leader on the web & hosting markets overall
• Our only direct competitor, EIG, focuses on cost reduction. They cannot consolidate their presence because they hide behind individual brands they acquire

GoDaddy as a de facto leader

• Ramp up the internal education and certification programs
• Become a founding partner of an independent certification body

Internal education & certification

• Introduce the Expert level of education for each track
• Introduce more tracks
• Launch certification that affects the Pro's ranking on Pro Connect
• Relaunch Pro Connect and promote it more actively to SMBs
• Connect external training/certification related profiles (Elance, Code Academy, Udemy, etc.)

Independent certification body