Apollo Academy: from 0 to 500k+ Plays
A few months into my tenure at Apollo.io, Tim Zheng, the CEO, asked me to take on a long-cherished dream of his: creating the "Khan Academy" of sales. Two years later, Apollo Academy served over 500k plays of content to salespeople and entrepreneurs around the world. Apollo Academy was named by Skilljar as one of the 6 best academies in tech. This is the story of how we did it.
COMPANY
Apollo.io
COMPANY
Apollo.io
COMPANY
Apollo.io
POSITION
VP, Content Marketing & Product Education
POSITION
VP, Content Marketing & Product Education
POSITION
VP, Content Marketing & Product Education
ROLE
Program Owner & Product Manager
ROLE
Program Owner & Product Manager
ROLE
Program Owner & Product Manager
Making it Real
Making it Real
Making it Real
After four previous program owners had been let go for failing to get it off the ground, Apollo Academy landed on my plate in April 2022.
Tim Zheng, Apollo's CEO, understood that it wasn't enough to just build software — we had to also teach people had to use it. And with hundreds of thousands of active users, Apollo needed a scalable, cost-effective solution.
That meant that out-of-the-box tools like Skilljar were cost prohibitive. To serve Apollo's large volume of customers, we had to build our own thing.
Apollo Academy v1
I've been told I have a 'bias for action'. Within a week of this landing on my desk, I'd drafted a project brief and PRD, brought in the design and engineering teams I'd need to pull this off, and gotten the project started. Then, I started making content.
We already had a catalogue of webinars to pull from, so now we just needed a series of 'how-to' videos that focused on using the Apollo product. I called those "Learn Apollo" courses, and in a two week span, I filmed 25 videos that we broke down into 5 different learning paths, with one path for each of Apollo's key personas.
When the content, design, and engineering were done, we had this:
It was a dark-mode only site, and while it was visually appealing and a massive hit with customers — driving over 100,000 plays of content, it had some limitations. Namely, it hosted only video content, and we had big plans for text-based content in the future. So, after a year months or so, we began work on v2.
Apollo Academy v2
If the v1 of Apollo Academy was a teenager, the adult showed up in v2. This version featured an expanded variety of content, including in-app templates, text-based articles and guides, and a greater variety of filters for the user to find just the right content.
This version of Apollo Academy was featured by Skilljar in their article on the best academies on the internet:
https://www.skilljar.com/blog/6-academy-examples-youll-want-to-steal
After four previous program owners had been let go for failing to get it off the ground, Apollo Academy landed on my plate in April 2022.
Tim Zheng, Apollo's CEO, understood that it wasn't enough to just build software — we had to also teach people had to use it. And with hundreds of thousands of active users, Apollo needed a scalable, cost-effective solution.
That meant that out-of-the-box tools like Skilljar were cost prohibitive. To serve Apollo's large volume of customers, we had to build our own thing.
Apollo Academy v1
I've been told I have a 'bias for action'. Within a week of this landing on my desk, I'd drafted a project brief and PRD, brought in the design and engineering teams I'd need to pull this off, and gotten the project started. Then, I started making content.
We already had a catalogue of webinars to pull from, so now we just needed a series of 'how-to' videos that focused on using the Apollo product. I called those "Learn Apollo" courses, and in a two week span, I filmed 25 videos that we broke down into 5 different learning paths, with one path for each of Apollo's key personas.
When the content, design, and engineering were done, we had this:
It was a dark-mode only site, and while it was visually appealing and a massive hit with customers — driving over 100,000 plays of content, it had some limitations. Namely, it hosted only video content, and we had big plans for text-based content in the future. So, after a year months or so, we began work on v2.
Apollo Academy v2
If the v1 of Apollo Academy was a teenager, the adult showed up in v2. This version featured an expanded variety of content, including in-app templates, text-based articles and guides, and a greater variety of filters for the user to find just the right content.
This version of Apollo Academy was featured by Skilljar in their article on the best academies on the internet:
https://www.skilljar.com/blog/6-academy-examples-youll-want-to-steal
After four previous program owners had been let go for failing to get it off the ground, Apollo Academy landed on my plate in April 2022.
Tim Zheng, Apollo's CEO, understood that it wasn't enough to just build software — we had to also teach people had to use it. And with hundreds of thousands of active users, Apollo needed a scalable, cost-effective solution.
That meant that out-of-the-box tools like Skilljar were cost prohibitive. To serve Apollo's large volume of customers, we had to build our own thing.
Apollo Academy v1
I've been told I have a 'bias for action'. Within a week of this landing on my desk, I'd drafted a project brief and PRD, brought in the design and engineering teams I'd need to pull this off, and gotten the project started. Then, I started making content.
We already had a catalogue of webinars to pull from, so now we just needed a series of 'how-to' videos that focused on using the Apollo product. I called those "Learn Apollo" courses, and in a two week span, I filmed 25 videos that we broke down into 5 different learning paths, with one path for each of Apollo's key personas.
When the content, design, and engineering were done, we had this:
It was a dark-mode only site, and while it was visually appealing and a massive hit with customers — driving over 100,000 plays of content, it had some limitations. Namely, it hosted only video content, and we had big plans for text-based content in the future. So, after a year months or so, we began work on v2.
Apollo Academy v2
If the v1 of Apollo Academy was a teenager, the adult showed up in v2. This version featured an expanded variety of content, including in-app templates, text-based articles and guides, and a greater variety of filters for the user to find just the right content.
This version of Apollo Academy was featured by Skilljar in their article on the best academies on the internet:
https://www.skilljar.com/blog/6-academy-examples-youll-want-to-steal
Distribution & Marketing
Distribution & Marketing
Distribution & Marketing
While building Apollo Academy was in and of itself a herculean challenge, getting eyeballs on it was even harder.
This required true cross-functional collaboration across all areas of the business, including product, design, engineering, marketing, and executive sponsorship.
As the executive owner of Apollo Academy, it was my role to make sure that the academy property showed up where we needed it to; namely:
in the Apollo app
in the email lifecycle campaigns
in our Intercom support chat macros
in links from the Knowledge Base
in our customer success onboarding talk track
One thing I know for sure doesn't work? Getting all the stakeholders you need in one room and trying to get everything done at once. Instead, I approached each key stakeholder individually, briefed them on the project, and worked with them to make it happen.
The results? Growth from 0 to over 500,000 content plays on the Academy in a two year span, and a mention from Skilljar as one of the 6 best academies in technology.
While building Apollo Academy was in and of itself a herculean challenge, getting eyeballs on it was even harder.
This required true cross-functional collaboration across all areas of the business, including product, design, engineering, marketing, and executive sponsorship.
As the executive owner of Apollo Academy, it was my role to make sure that the academy property showed up where we needed it to; namely:
in the Apollo app
in the email lifecycle campaigns
in our Intercom support chat macros
in links from the Knowledge Base
in our customer success onboarding talk track
One thing I know for sure doesn't work? Getting all the stakeholders you need in one room and trying to get everything done at once. Instead, I approached each key stakeholder individually, briefed them on the project, and worked with them to make it happen.
The results? Growth from 0 to over 500,000 content plays on the Academy in a two year span, and a mention from Skilljar as one of the 6 best academies in technology.
While building Apollo Academy was in and of itself a herculean challenge, getting eyeballs on it was even harder.
This required true cross-functional collaboration across all areas of the business, including product, design, engineering, marketing, and executive sponsorship.
As the executive owner of Apollo Academy, it was my role to make sure that the academy property showed up where we needed it to; namely:
in the Apollo app
in the email lifecycle campaigns
in our Intercom support chat macros
in links from the Knowledge Base
in our customer success onboarding talk track
One thing I know for sure doesn't work? Getting all the stakeholders you need in one room and trying to get everything done at once. Instead, I approached each key stakeholder individually, briefed them on the project, and worked with them to make it happen.
The results? Growth from 0 to over 500,000 content plays on the Academy in a two year span, and a mention from Skilljar as one of the 6 best academies in technology.
