What if we rebuilt education from the ground up?

That's the question at the heart of everything Akimbo Inc. does. Founded in 2015 by entrepreneur, bestselling author, and marketing trailblazer Seth Godin, Akimbo is a public benefit corporation that offers virtual seminars and workshops for leaders across the globe. Today, it's owned and operated by CEO Alex Peck and Chief Learning Officer Marie Schacht, who are building a learning institution for the long haul.

To date, altMBA and other Akimbo workshops have transformed the lives of 25,000+ people in 90+ countries. And they've done it with a small team, no VC funding, and a relentless focus on what actually makes learning stick: community.

So how did Seth and the Akimbo team go from launching their flagship program to building a global learning institution with 10+ offerings? They focused on designing experiences rooted in connection, commitment, and shared humanity.

Here's what they learned along the way.

Focus on community-centered learning, not education

There's an important distinction Seth draws between education and learning. Education is compliance. Learning is doing, experiencing, trying, failing, and trying again. Education requires enrollment. Learning requires an emotional commitment — and that's what carries people through the inevitable hard parts of trying something new.

altMBA runs a 97% completion rate. That number isn't an accident. It's the result of participants committing to an emotional journey of transformation, not just a program they signed up for. They show up for themselves, and for the people in their cohort counting on them.

"The purpose of community is to create possibility when we confront the things that we are afraid of." — Seth Godin

When JaLeesa Beavers, altMBA's Director of Student Experience, joined the program as a student herself, she described walking into a room of diverse, accomplished people and immediately doubting what she had to offer. That experience — the discomfort, the feedback, the eventual realization of her own value — is by design. The community creates the conditions for transformation.

Understand what your members are actually paying for

Money is a story. What someone pays for isn't the information or the credential — it's what they receive in exchange: status, connection, belonging.

Students pay a premium for an altMBA workshop because they want to be part of something. They want to be seen. They don't want to let their cohort down. When someone in a live learning experience knows they'll be missed if they don't show up, that social pressure becomes one of the most powerful retention mechanisms available.

"Learning online is not how do I get someone to pay the tuition? It's how do I create a community so that there's social pressure, status rewards, and affiliation for people who enroll?" — Seth Godin

This reframe changes everything about how you design and market a learning program. The product isn't the content. The product is the experience of belonging to something meaningful.

Optimize for experience over information

There is no shortage of free information on the internet. Anyone can find out how to do almost anything in seconds. That means information alone is not a product worth paying for.

What altMBA designs for is safety, connection, and curiosity first. Once that foundation is set, they create a practice and let it become second nature. They don't teach facts — they show possibilities, use case studies, create space for reflection, and let insights be revealed rather than handed over.

"Establish the conditions for the revelation, and then let the learner discover the revelation. If they discover the revelation, they will never forget it." — Seth Godin

This is the difference between a lecture and a transformation. When members become genuinely curious, they seek out the answers themselves. They own the learning in a way that passive content consumption never produces.

Set the culture early to drive engagement and retention

The principles and guidelines of a learning community have to be established before the first session begins. Permissions need to be clear. Members need to know how to behave, what's expected of them, and why showing up matters.

altMBA uses small learning groups to increase accountability. When people feel on the hook — and feel genuinely responsible for supporting their peers — they stay. They engage. They come back.

"Be bold, make mistakes, learn a lesson, and fix what doesn't work." — Seth Godin

JaLeesa described the onboarding process: new members receive a physical package in the mail, join the Disco community, attend an orientation session, and establish community practices, cultural values, and personal goals before the program even starts. That's culture-setting at the point of maximum receptiveness.

How altMBA runs its 31-day workshops on Disco

When altMBA was evaluating learning platforms, they needed something that could hold the operational weight of running multiple workshops simultaneously while keeping the human-first experience their members expect.

They chose Disco. The platform brought together their community, onboarding flow, and program delivery in one place — saving significant time on daily operations and giving the team more room to focus on what they do best: creating transformative experiences for leaders.

JaLeesa put it simply: Disco's features saved them meaningful time in day-to-day operations, and the member feedback on the experience was positive from the start.

What learning businesses can take from altMBA's growth

The altMBA story isn't about scaling fast. It's about scaling right. Seth and the Akimbo team built something that works because they were ruthlessly focused on the conditions that make real learning possible: community, commitment, culture, and the courage to let learners find their own revelations.

Whether you're running a training business, a professional association, or an internal academy, the same principles apply. People don't finish programs because the content is good. They finish because they belong to something worth showing up for.

Ready to build a learning experience your members actually complete? Book a demo with Disco and see how the world's most transformative learning organizations run their programs.