Wes Kao - Marketing Executive, Entrepreneur, and Advisor | Persuasive Communication

Wes Kao is a marketing executive, entrepreneur, and advisor who writes a newsletter at newsletter.weskao.com. She is co-founder of Maven, a platform that empowers the world’s experts to offer live courses directly to their audience. Maven raised $25M from First Round Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, and has served more than 20,000 students. In 2022, Maven was named by Fast Company as the #1 most innovative company in education.Previously, Wes co-founded the altMBA with bestselling author Seth Godin. The altMBA was the first mainstream cohort-based course and created the category. She grew the altMBA from zero to thousands of students in 550 cities in 45 countries in three years.Her work has been featured in Fast Company, Business Insider, Inc, Entrepreneur, TechCrunch, and The Information. In 2021, she was selected by Entrepreneur magazine on the 100 Women of Impact list. She has spoken at SXSW and guest lectures at UC Berkeley and Harvard Business School.

➡️ Talking Points

00:00 — Introduction

01:05 — Wes Kao’s Origin Story

05:28 — Founder Mindset Sans Title

12:22 — Unlocking Employee Creativity

21:43 — Maven's Inception

30:23 — Cohort-Based Learning Explained

38:05 — Accountability in Maven Courses

39:53 — Launching Maven: Lessons Learned

46:07 — The Thought Process Behind Scaling Maven

51:44 — Closing Thoughts from Wes

52:55 — Connect with Wes Online

53:08 — Overcoming Career Challenges

53:53 — The Most Impactful Person in Wes Kao’s Life

54:46 — Book and Podcast Recommendations

55:18 — Advice to 20-Year-Old Self

55:27 — Defining Success