Lynda Clone App: Redefining Learning Experiences

https://dev.biztechcs.com/blog/lynda-clone-app/

Did you know that more than 6 million students prefer online education? What could be the reason? It gives them the freedom to pursue their passion and skills at their own pace with no restrictions. Other than this, the courses available are affordable, have flexible schedules, and can be accessed from anywhere anytime.

Even with plenty of e-learning apps coming in the market, Lynda is one of the most prominent platforms in providing online courses, classes, video training, and tutorials. If you are someone looking to develop a Lynda Clone (now known as LinkedIn Learning), then this article is for you. We’ve covered all the aspects of building a Lynda clone from scratch.

To start with the technical aspects of the Lynda clone, first, let’s have an understanding of the Lynda/LinkedIn Learning app.

What is Lynda and How it Turned to LinkedIn Learning? 

Lynda.com is an online e-learning platform. It was started by Lynda Weinman in 1995 and within a few years, it became a huge library of content where professionals, designers, photographers where anybody could learn about photoshop, programming languages, and any new technology at an affordable cost. 

The platform grew and in 2015, it was acquired by LinkedIn, a social professional networking platform. And in 2016, it was rebranded as Linkedin Learning that helps people discover and develop the skills by accessing all the courses present on Lynda and the additional ones.

Lynda now LinkedIn Learning, today offers over 7,449 courses (and over 180,000 videos) in popular fields like web design, web development, IT, education/instruction, media production, and business. Experts create and deliver all courses as well as provide supplemental materials like exercise files and relevant work samples. Users can create accounts in order to track course progress, create playlists of potential coursework, and add/manage course notes. In case one already has a LinkedIn account then that suffices too to login into LinkedIn learning and the certificates get added to their LinkedIn profile.

Why Should You Build a Lynda/LinkedIn Learning Clone App?

The reasons to go for the Lynda clone are many. The first reason is its business model – subscription-based. A single subscription gives users access to a wide range of courses making it worth their money. Next, it has a plethora of professional courses and skill-based certifications which adds direct value to their resumes and CVs.

Since it has a proven business model, it’ll be a safe bet for you if you want to build your own Lynda clone. The question many people who want to build such a platform might have is how they can stand out or even apart from the already existing platform? To which our answer always is to find a niche or even multiple niches and build the platform accordingly while keeping the base similar to what people are already accustomed to which in this case would be Lynda aka LinkedIn Learning.

Now that we’ve covered the basics and the why part of the blog, let’s move to the how part of it.

How to Build a Lynda Clone App

To build a Lynda clone, first, you need to understand it’s workflow, features, and business model. Though the ultimate goal of every e-learning platform is to provide online courses and materials, every business model has something unique to offer. And this one fit for all rule doesn’t apply while developing any app even if you are cloning an already existing platform. 

Understanding the Structure of Lynda Clone

• Users/Learners register for the platform and selects the specific skills they are interested in.
• Based on the selected skills, courses are recommended to them.
• Users/learners select the course from the recommended list or search for a specific course via global search and browse through the huge list of courses.
• They enroll for the course by clicking on the enroll button. 

On the other hand, tutors can register for the platform, create their designated courses, and upload it. You can even go one step further and allow learners to follow particular tutors/professionals which can keep all your users engaged. And you’ll not only be creating an e-learning platform but also an interactive platform where the learners get to know their tutors and develop productive relationships.

Make Learning Easy With Udemy App [A Detailed Guide] 

Business Model

Lynda has a subscription-based business model, i.e. members can subscribe for the platform on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis and have access to all the courses on the platform or can buy a single course like in the marketplace business model.

Choosing the Business Model

1. Subscription-based Model

Lynda offers professional courses that will help students to acquire new skills and knowledge. So you can offer access to all the courses by subscribing to the platform at the same price. Or you can provide different subscription levels such as basic, standard, and premium. For example, introductory courses can be accessed with a basic subscription plan, whereas an advanced course would require a standard or premium access. Though it would be a standard or premium subscription, it would be advantageous for students/learners as they can avail of multiple high-quality content at an affordable cost.

2. Marketplace Model

In this model, you would be able to earn a commission on every paid course. Though the commission rate would vary based on the course.

Tip: Go for a subscription-based business model at least, to begin with where users subscribe to the platform and view multiple courses. As learning is projected on professional skills, having to pay for every course won’t be that acceptable by your audience. But as you grow, you can introduce some courses that are equivalent to degrees and have separate individual prices for them.

Revenue Model

For Learners: A paid subscription to the platform option. A monthly or a yearly subscription would provide them unlimited access to all the courses or you can limit access by subscription levels as mentioned in the business model section.

For educators, you can plan a fixed monthly amount based on the number of enrollments or hits.

Target Audience

As the Lynda/LinkedIn learning clone app targets professionals and people seeking to develop professional skills, your target audience can be anyone in the age group of 25-40 essentially. They can be students wanting to learn new skills for a job, a working/senior professional, manager, VP, or owner of a company wanting to know the current landscape of the industry or trying to keep themselves updated. Apart from this, any independent expert instructor that would like to create the course.

Suppose you wish to add 3rd party content as LinkedIn added development courses from Harvard Business School’s Publishing arm in Linkedin Learning, then the audience would also comprise of 3rd parties which could be institutes, schools, etc.

Thus, to know your ideal customers, you need to create a Buyer’s Persona that would help you describe your ideal customers, their characteristics, challenges faced by them, their specific needs and interests, and how they make decisions. 

To create a buyer’s persona:

• Start with their personal information like age, gender, marital status, location, income, education, hobby, interests, etc.
• Next, add their professional information like job, career, company, skills, tools used, etc.
• List down their personal and professional goals.
• Then, the challenges faced by them.
• What are the solutions you can provide them?
• What would be the features that they would look for?
• Consider all the reasons why they won’t use your Lynda Clone
• Design your solution wireframe

Understanding the Features of Linkedin Learning App

Profile: 

• Register/Login Portals: Separate login portals for Users, Instructors, and Admin.
• Social Media Signups: Users and Instructors can sign in via their social media platforms, for example, google sign in, log in using FB, LinkedIn, etc.
• Profile Settings: Here, every app user can manage their profile details such as username, account, password, and other details.
• Dashboard: User Dashboard would provide users with courses and their details. Instructor Dashboard would provide instructors with their courses, number of enrollments, and other required details. 

Courses: 

• Free and Paid Courses: Students can find a comprehensive list of free and paid courses here.
• Course Details: It will provide students with an overview of the course, it’s structure, topics covered, etc.
• Sorting and Filtering: Users can find a specific course by applying filters such as subject, category, ratings, and more.
• Recommendations: Based on the skills and the enrolled courses, students can view recommended courses shown on the dashboard.
• Live Video Streaming: Users can attend live webinars, lectures/events using video streamlining platforms like Zoom, GoogleMeet, Webex, etc.
• Notes section: To allow students to take online notes while viewing the lecture.
• Live chat: With other students enrolled for the course or the instructor to discuss the course or other QA sections.

Account:

• My Courses: Here, users and instructors can view a list of their courses. For users, it would be the courses they’ve enrolled for. And for instructors, it would show the list of courses created by them.
• Wishlist: Users can wishlist courses for future learning.
• Course Goals: Every course will come with certain goals that users have to complete. This would also motivate them to take more courses and complete in a predefined time limit.
• Resources and Materials: Here, all the materials related to courses such as pdfs, documents can be viewed and downloaded.
• Downloads: Users can download the course/lectures to view it in offline mode.

Payment:

• Subscription: Students can subscribe to various courses by paying a subscription fee.
• Payment Modes: Allow students to pay in different currencies via different payment modes such as PayPal, Stripe, Mastercard, net banking, e-wallets, coupons, and many more.

Marketing:

• Email and Notifications: Emails and notifications related to courses, new add-ons, would be automatically sent to the registered users.
• Coupons: Students can avail coupons and discounts to reduce the subscription cost/course cost, etc.
• SEO and ASO: To help with better website/app visibility and traffic.

Additional features:

• Ratings and Review: It would help students to decide while enrolling for the course.
• Feedback and Support: Users can share their feedback related to course, app, and even register a complaint/query.
• Danger Zone: The instructor can remove the course and only enrolled students would be able to access it. New users won’t be allowed to access it.
• Transfer and Withdrawals: Instructors can receive the payment directly in their linked bank accounts or app’s wallet. They can even withdraw the amount instantly if required.
• Multi-Language: Users can access the courses in multiple languages.
• CRM: Here admin can track all the details of students and instructors.

Know Cost and Technical Requirements of the Lynda Clone

While building a Lynda clone, you’ll have to take care of these technological requirements: 

• Backend/Frontend such as AngularJS, ReactJS, Vue.JS, etc.
• Framework – CakePHP, Laravel, Symphony, NodeJS, ASP.Net.
• Database and Infrastructure – MySQL
• APIs such as Zoom, GoogleMeet, MailChimp, SearchEngine, etc.
• Payment gateways such as PayPal, Mastercard, Stripe, e-wallets, net banking, etc.
• Plugins – CMS, CRM, Sales and Reports, etc

And many more…

Considering all the technological requirements and other 3rd party integrations, the estimated cost of building the Lynda clone script depends on your requirements. If you have any doubts related to web app development cost or want to get an approx idea based on your requirements, contact us.

How Can We Help You?

Be it a Udemy clone app or a Lynda clone script, we can help you build one with our expertise in web and mobile app development.

For Lynda clone script, we can help you build an app with:

• Responsive Layout
• Fully Scalable
• Latest technology
• Easily customizable code
• Multiple payment integrations
• Technical Support
• Basic and advanced features
• Customer Support, etc.

Want to know more?

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