Today the Teachable team launched Discover. I’ve been a fan of this product for a while, and I think this move is a really interesting one.

Teachable Discover is a curated collection of the 50+ best courses on the Teachable platform. Unlike other course websites, Discover gives complete ownership to to the creator on pricing, student ownership and full lifetime value after the first sale.

I think it’s significant because it’s an example of what’s happening in marketplaces across the internet. The supply side (creators, writers, hosts, teachers etc) is losing trust in intermediaries, increasing demand for tools to help them own their destiny as entrepreneurs. This is precisely how Teachable started:

At the time, we were Udemy course creators who wanted a way to sell courses on our own website. We wanted to control pricing, have ownership of our audience, sell higher priced product and much more.

Now, they are building the distribution network that puts that supply side in control. This is a very natural evolution. While it may seem like they’re shifting attention to the other side of the marketplace, they’re doing so with a lot of thoughtfulness towards their original customer - the course creators. I would expect similar changes to happen in marketplaces across different industries.