In 2011, I taught digital marketing for the first time.
I had NO IDEA what I was getting myself into!
Five years have passed since then. For the first two years after I taught, I kept thinking about how badly higher education and business marketing professors needed better resources to do a better job of teaching online marketing.
More importantly, I felt terrible for the hundreds of thousands of students paying for a business degree that didn’t include any material regarding digital marketing. So, I came up with the idea for the text Internet Marketing Essentials and wrote up a business plan for Stukent.
In the business plan (created in 2013), I included these three slides to show the need for something like Stukent.
Employers at brands like Dell couldn’t find qualified, educated talent…
Job listings data from Monster backed up our point that Dell was not the only company struggling to find talent…
Our own market research found that reputable schools still weren’t teaching digital marketing…
Stukent did get funded. I did go on to co-author Internet Marketing Essentials. We did go on to bring digital marketing simulations and other texts to market. Tens of thousands of students and professors from over 600 institutions from over 15 countries have been impacted by what we created.
Our mission at Stukent hasn’t changed. We’re
- helping educators help students help the world.
We even specifically were able to help Dell!
Check this out. The other day I got this Linkedin message from a student that has used the Stukent courseware.
NOTE: I have never met Jamie Berger from Dell, and I had never spoken with Monica Lunardelli before she sent me that message. I did get her permission to use the message she sent me.
“Making money is a by-product of a business that helps people. If you want to be successful in business, help people. Add significant value to their lives. The money will follow.”
Others have said something to that effect over and over again, but those are my words and I understand them. I get them. They make sense to me. Most importantly, I have experienced it in my own life.
Go on a mission to help others. I promise the money will follow. I have seen it work in three startups so far.
