Team’s Pick: Gina Bianchini

Course Lab: Lessons from Successful Online Course Creators

Gina Bianchini is the co-founder and CEO of Mighty Networks. Her mission is to usher in a new era of creative business built on community.

In this episode we discuss:

• The convergence of online courses and communities.
• Is there still room in the market for new course creators?
• Scaling your business on a single platform.
• Moving from content-only to transformational courses.
• The flywheel effect of adding layers and tools to an existing course.
• The importance of recognizing and playing to your own strengths when making decisions about what tools and platforms to use for your online business.
• Danny and Abe’s debrief.

“I am both personally and professionally obsessed with how we create social experiences with communities and courses that enable people to achieve results and transformation in their lives that they simply can't get on their own.”

– Gina Bianchini

Gina Bianchini is the Founder & CEO of Mighty Networks. Her mission at Mighty Networks is to usher in a new era of creative business built on community. Mighty serves “creators with a purpose” selling experiences, relationships, and expertise to their members via community, content, online courses, and subscription commerce–all offered in one place under the creator’s brand.

Before Mighty Networks, Gina and Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen launched Ning, a pioneering global platform for creating niche social networks. Under her leadership, Ning grew to ~100 million people in 300,000 active social networks across subcultures, professional networks, entertainment, politics, and education.

Gina and Mighty Networks have been featured in Fast Company, Wired, Vanity Fair, Bloomberg, and The New York Times. She has appeared on Charlie Rose, CNBC, and CNN. She grew up in Cupertino, California, graduated with honors from Stanford University, started her career in the nascent High Technology Group at Goldman, Sachs & Co., and received her M.B.A from Stanford Business School.

Resources or websites mentioned in this episode:

Mirasee

Gina’s website

Gina’s LinkedIn

Credits:

• Guest: Gina Bianchini
• Hosts: Danny Iny & Abe Crystal
• Producer: Cynthia Lamb
• Executive producer: Danny Iny
• Assembled by: Geoff Govertsen
• Audio Post Supervisor: Evan Miles, Christopher Martin
• Audio Post Production: Post Office Sound
• Music soundscape: Chad Michael Snavely

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Music and SFX credits:

• Track Title: Serenade No. 13 In G Major. II. Romanze – Andante

Artist Name(s): Moments

Writer Name: Public domain

Publisher Name: BOSS SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTIONS

• Track Title: Bossa BB

Artist Name(s): Marie

Writer Name: Chelsea McGough

Publisher Name: BOSS SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTIONS

• Track Title: Carousel Lights

Artist Name(s): Chelsea McGough

Writer Name: Chelsea McGough

Writer Name: Matthew Wigton

Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

Publisher Name: BOSS SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTIONS

• Track Title: Grace

Artist Name(s): Shimmer

Writer Name: Matthew Wigton

Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

• Track Title: Coo Coos

Artist Name(s): Dresden, The Flamingo

Writer Name: Matthew Wigton

Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

Episode transcript: Team’s Pick: Gina Bianchini

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