Steps we're taking to support Udemy's long-term growth & stability
Hi all,
Today, Udemy reported fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings, posting strong results and closing out our first year as a public company with a 22% year-over-year increase in annual revenue.
However, as many of you have discussed here in the Community, Udemy is not immune to the macroeconomic impacts that have continued to affect the global economy. In order to stay ahead of these headwinds and safeguard Udemy’s long-term growth, we are taking action to better align our cost structure with our expectations for revenue, demand and profitability. As a result, we have made the very difficult decision to reduce our global workforce by 10%. We believe these actions position us well to grow through this challenging environment and accelerate our path to profitability, while continuing to prioritize investments in areas that will be most impactful for learners, instructors and Udemy Business customers.
It is important to note that these actions are not a reflection of the health of Udemy’s business. Demand across our marketplace and the Udemy Business platform remains healthy. During Q4, we saw more than 35 million monthly visitors come to Udemy, an increase of 6% from the prior year, and 1.36 million monthly average buyers of individual courses and subscriptions. We expect this stability to continue in 2023, leading to solid full year revenue growth, despite the challenging macroeconomic environment.
We remain committed to bringing your content to the world and will continue to invest in products and services that support you. As we look towards the future, we are optimistic and bullish about our partnership to help improve millions of lives and businesses through learning.
With gratitude,
Chrystie & the Udemy Instructor Team
Comments
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@ChrystieV
these are very sad news.
I'm glad to see you are still with us.6 -
@MichaelPog
It certainly has been a challenging couple of days.1 -
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This does not come as a surprise. Every company goes through periods of growth and then consolidation. Most tech companies are doing the same now. It is healthy for every organization to step back and ask "what do we really need to serve our customers an grow?" The important thing is that growth is still strong, despite the poor macro-environment.
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Thank you @ChrystieV
for keeping us informed. It is very healthy for the morale of the instructors to receive this information directly from udemy. Thank you.3 -
Thank you for the update.
It's unfortunate that so many layoffs are happening across the tech sector.
Fortunately, the labor market remains strong. Wishing all the talented (soon-to-be former) Udemy employees to find a new position and direction soon.
Thank you!
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My thoughts and best wishes are with you all (and your families) in these challenging times. Thank you all for the work that you do in keeping this success story on the road, through thick and thin. You have all made such a difference to so many people throughout the world. On-wards and upwards, one and all.
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Tough news to process as a human being, but such is the nature of business. Thanks, @ChrystieV
, for informing the community. Let's hope the trends change in a positive direction for the industry in the coming months.2 -
Sorry to hear that @ChrystieV
- my thoughts are with everyone affected.1 -
@ChrystieV
Thank you for the transparency with your communication. I’m glad I didn’t hear this on social media first! Speaks volumes to Udemy’s healthy corporate culture.3 -
@ChrystieV
The macro-environment seems quite strong, at least US-EU, as they keep having record levels of employment and therefore keep monetary policy tight to fight inflation. Also, your numbers look reasonably good compared to companies that are decelerating.Do you mean you expected a higher growth rate?
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While lots of companies overhired in the last couple of years, I think if the marketplace rules were relaxed and instructors were allowed more freedom and choice, most of these people would not need to be laid off.
Consumer marketplace
- Consumer segment revenue decreased 4% year-over-year, including the negative impact of 5 percentage points from changes in FX rates year-over-year, to $74.7 million.
- Monthly Average Buyers on Udemy’s Consumer marketplace decreased by 2% year-over-year, but increased 3% sequentially from Q3 2022, to 1.36 million.
Depending on who you listen to, this might be the first round of layoffs. Udemy could be a 4 billion dollar-a-year company if they just let instructors scale up like the App store, Steam, and Amazon.
Here are my suggestions on how to accomplish this.- Reduce Udemy's share to 30%
- Allow us to opt out of international pricing
- Allow us to put certain courses in international pricing
- Allow us to bundle our courses and sell bundles at a discount
- Remove the personal subscription and replace it with instructor-level subscriptions
- Order bumps on our coupon
- Order bumps on free coupons
- NO order bumps on our courses from other instructors
- Allow us to talk about our other ventures outside of Udemy
- Bring in a leader board of people who make the most Enrollments, sales, and reviews, on a weekly basis.
- Change the algorithm to be more sales-based and not engagement based
- Allow us to set our own affiliate percentages
These suggestions are more Udemy specific
- Put a second price floor at courses above 30 hours.
- Get away from the minutes watched versus a la carte pricing.
Instructors will always make more money with a la carte purchases versus minutes watched.
The marketplace is losing money every single quarter. Something needs to change. Every quarter that the marketplace loses money, people's jobs are at risk.
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My thoughts are with those who have lost their jobs, its a tough place at the moment, I am feeling it here in the UK. Lets hope by all working together we can take this company forward x
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Very happy to see that Udemy is still growing strong, but my heart goes out to the people affected by the layoffs. Before I became self-employed almost a decade ago I experienced layoffs as an almost yearly occurrence, with this almost permanent sword over everyone's head, and with incredibly difficult decisions from managements side. I remember as part of that management I almost fell into depression with the decisions that had to be made and was one of the main reasons why I decided to strike out on my own.
Good luck to everyone good people, and know things always get better eventually, even if it doesn't seem to be the case right at this very moment
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Hi @ChrystieV
,Thank you for sharing udemy earnings.
I feel bad about the 10%workforce of udemy being reduced even though udemy earnings are high.
But glad that you are still with us, lively as you can be.
It is a community, so I personally take pride in making sure that the community is healthy, successful and prosperous.
Reading the community posts, learning from the community members made, some hard working days, go lighter for me.
Good luck to you all community members and thank you to the community leaders.
Best regards,
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Thank you for the update, Chrystie.
My "thumbs up" is for the transparency and the information you gave us about the situation. I hope the people who were let off will soon find new work.
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@ChrystieV
Thank you for letting usknow you are with us. More grease to
your
. We are working on getting better at our craft too, to at least grow
with Udemy a little, as you can see
from most instructors' comments and
contributions in the community.
And so sorry for those who lose
their jobs due to this step by Udemy,
I hope you find an open door quickly.
☝To the North, we move on!
Thank you.
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