A Quick Guide to Creating an E-Learning Platform with Airtable, Memberstack, Webflow and Zapier

friends i got carried away and i built

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my own custom e-learning platform inside

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of webflow

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let's check it out

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hey friends welcome back to the channel

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if you're new here my name is connor i'm

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the founder of the unicorn factory a

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freelancer marketplace in canada and in

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new zealand

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so i use this channel here to make

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tutorials teaching people how they can

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build their own

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no code marketplaces or directories

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using webflow ear table and zapier

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so today i am not going to be talking

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about marketplaces

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i want to show you an e-learning

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platform that i built using the webflow

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ear table member stack and zapier stack

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as some of you may already know besides

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running the unicorn factory i also run

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my own consulting business where i teach

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people how they can build their own

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directories and marketplaces using the

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same tools that i use to build the

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unicorn factory

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now one of the things that i recently

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started working on for the students that

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i've been working with

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is a little e-learning platform where i

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basically post tutorials like these

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where they can re-watch it in their own

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time so that they can build additional

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features

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on top of what they're already doing so

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obviously there are already tools out

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there that you can use to build

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e-learning platforms like

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podia or teachable and i did a little

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bit of research but i ended up deciding

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to have a little crack at building it

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myself

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inside of webflow and then using ear

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table and zapier to basically build the

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database and set up all the automation

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so what i'm going to be doing in this

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video is taking you behind the scenes of

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it showing you how it's all set up

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and then at the end of the video i am

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going to tell you what makes more sense

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should you

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build a custom version of your

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e-learning platform

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or should you just stick to the existing

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tools that are already out there

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but before we get into it you know what

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i'm gonna ask please

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like this video subscribe to the channel

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makes me feel good makes me want to make

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more of these videos

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but without further ado let's get into

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it alright so

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here we are so of course i'm using

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memstack to run the user portal inside

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of webflow what we're looking at here

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is the user only page that is built

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inside of the webflow cms

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so this is actually something that i

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haven't done before and what you can do

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with member stack is you can create

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member only pages where you create a cms

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collection inside of webflow for your

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students and then you can build them

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their own

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unique dashboards now what's cool about

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building

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your dashboards with the webflow cms is

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you can add more data rich things in

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there for example links

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videos and images so at the moment it's

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pretty simplistic i only have a bunch of

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links in there to our zoom recordings

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and their webflow marketplaces and the

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air table links

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but i've got a lot of plans for this

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particular section in the future

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so what i want to do is i want to

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include things like little

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quizzes or progress reports and all

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those types of things

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and basically the way it will work is

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every single

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student on the platform will have their

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own unique cms

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page that they have access to where they

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can kind of just see how things are

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going what the next few steps are

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and so being able to use the members

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only

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feature inside of member stack has been

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really fantastic and that was actually

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one of the key reasons why i wanted to

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just try and build this myself

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first so obviously the main part of the

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learning portal is the lessons pages so

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i have a bunch of lessons that i've

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uploaded already

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and again it's pretty straightforward i

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use this year to host

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all of the different um videos and then

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i created a webflow cms collection

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for the lessons and i just basically

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upload all of this information into here

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now one little thing that i've added

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that is quite fun is a resource section

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so

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what i did was i created a separate

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collection for

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links to different resources or

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different action items

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so in this case i have added a link to

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a google sheet where they can basically

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create a metrics dashboard for their

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marketplace

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and i can just link that through the

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webflow collection

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and that has been a real fun little

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add-on

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to add to the site so the other than

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that there's not

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a lot much else inside this user portal

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right now my top priority with this

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and the whole reason why i started

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working on this in the first place was

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just so that i could create these videos

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that would allow

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my students to prepare or to even just

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recap some of the things that they

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learned in our coaching sessions

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and so really what i'm spending most of

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my time on at the moment is just

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creating more videos and resources that

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i can add to the site

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and yeah so that is kind of where i am

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with it now

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but i just also want to show you now

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some of the workflows and some of the

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behind the scenes things that i'm doing

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with webflow zapier and airtable

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so inside of airtable i kind of have my

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main

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dashboard with all of my lessons and

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different themes

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where i can add videos and

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update descriptions for the different

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texts and all those types of things

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so what i'm doing at the moment is i

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plan out all of my videos in here

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and then what i do is i just go and

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write the outline

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and then i just start recording the

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video as soon as i've recorded the video

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i also

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write the about section and then from

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there i have a workflow set up that then

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allows me to send

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all of the information that i populated

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in here

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to webflow so once all that information

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has been sent to webflow it

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automatically populates the different

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fields and what's cool about that

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is that i can now actually control the

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data flow

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from inside of airtable which means that

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if i add

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any new videos that are in between two

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existing videos then i can automatically

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update things like

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the next lesson link or the previous

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lesson link or the orientation link

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while we're at it i might as well show

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you the resource and action section so

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what i do here is i

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have um a link to a resource for example

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in this particular case i link to

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an introduction about the box model

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inside of webflow

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and what i do here is i just populate it

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i select the lesson that i want it to be

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sent to

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and once that's all linked up it then

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automatically adds through a collection

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list that i added to the lessons page

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so in terms of zaps you know because

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it's early days i don't have that many

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yet but i do have one where i send the

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tutorials

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from ear table to um

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web flows so again it's the standard

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steps of

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creating a new record in view creating

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the actual lessons page inside of

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webflow

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and then using the custom request step

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to also send through any additional

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resources that i might want to link to

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that particular lesson i also

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set up a workflow for when i add a new

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student to my

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account so i create the accounts in

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member stack at the moment

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but what that then does is it

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automatically creates a google drive

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folder where i

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store all of the videos that we um from

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our one-on-one sessions

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then it also creates a new user in the

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accounts table inside of ear table

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creates the dashboard

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um and then it does a whole bunch of

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updates to member stack into air table

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just so all the data sits in the right

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place and so that is the first

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version of my e-learning platform

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obviously it's still very early days it

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doesn't have a lot of features

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but it was a very fun use case to

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experiment with inside of the airtable

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webflow and zapier stack

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but now the question becomes is building

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an e-learning platform using this stack

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better than actually using one of the

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existing tools

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let's first of all have a look at how

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much it actually costs to use

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my stack to build an e-learning platform

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so

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member stack is 25 a month i don't

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actually process any of my transactions

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through member stacks so i don't get

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affected by the transaction fee

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then web flow is 25 to 50

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depending if you already have an account

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you don't need to pay extra for an

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account plan but i use cms hosting for

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this so that is definitely another

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25 i do however already pay

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for the cms hosting for my personal

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website which this e-learning platform

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is

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built on so uh to me that is not really

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an additional cost

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then airtable is 25 but again i'm

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already using a table so i'm paying for

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the pro

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plan that would otherwise cost 25 then

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zapier can be between 25 and 50 which

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again i'm already paying for

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because i'm using it for other platforms

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like the unicorn factory

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and then the only real thing that i did

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have to pay for was

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this thea to host all of my videos so i

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paid this dear 99

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a month and that is something that is

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reasonably expensive but it is a really

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great platform you can do really

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fantastic things with the videos for

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example

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automatically generating captions adding

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chapter titles to your videos

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and the whole branding functionality is

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quite nice as well

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so really the main cost that i

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personally have is an additional 125

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a month which is the additional member

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stack plan and the vista account

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but if you were to start from scratch

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you can see quite quickly that it does

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add up to quite a bit now the question

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is

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what makes more sense building it

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yourself or just using a platform like

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teachable or podia

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so as you all know i'm very biased

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towards building online platforms

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yourself using webflow airtable and

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zapier

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but i can tell you right now there is

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absolutely

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zero reason why you should be building

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your own

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custom e-learning platform with

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platforms like podio or teachable

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already out there

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no matter how you look at it in every

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regard using a platform like teachable

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or podia just makes more sense

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because for starters it's a lot cheaper

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so the prices of using even the more

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advanced plans that they have on their

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websites it can range anything between

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79.99

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i am just paying that for this dear and

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vistia is actually included in these

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platforms which means that you'll

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actually save money by just using a

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platform like teachable or podia

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so the second thing is you just get way

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more useful functionality using a

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platform like teachable and podia so

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they have a whole bunch of tools

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and systems already set up that allow

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you to

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integrate third-party tools to set up an

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affiliate marketing program all those

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types of things so

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honestly you'd have to build all of

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those things from scratch inside of

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webflow your table and zapier

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and a lot of the features that they have

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you couldn't even really rebuild with

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that stack

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but what if you want to really customize

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the look and feel of your e-learning

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platform

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even then you can actually customize a

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whole lot with those platforms so really

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the marginal benefit that you get from

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using a design tool like webflow which

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is definitely better you won't actually

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get all the benefits that you get from

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the existing

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inbuilt features of these e-learning

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platforms

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so even if you are already a web flow

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wizard you know your way around air

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table you know heaps about zapier

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you should definitely just stick to

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using a platform that is already built

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and fit for purpose

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with all that being said i should

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probably explain why i decided to build

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my own

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custom e-learning platform instead of

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just using podia or teachable now the

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main reason why i wanted to build it

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from scratch was mostly because i wanted

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to try out some different use cases

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using the airtable webflow and zapier

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stack

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i'm always really interested to see how

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far you can take these tools what kind

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of use cases they solve and what use

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cases they don't solve

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in this case building an e-learning

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platform just happened to align with the

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kind of consulting work that i'm doing

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and it was just a really good way to

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experiment with different types of

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features that the

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awz stack has so if my priority was to

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build an e-learning platform or an

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online course i would definitely just

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use podio or teachable to build it and

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that is only because the focus should be

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on the course creation not on the

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building of the platform

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so in conclusion if you want to practice

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your airtable webflow and zapier stack

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skills then this is definitely a fun

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interesting use case to try out

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but if your main goal is to build an

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online platform or an e-learning

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platform then just use one of the

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existing tools that are already out

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there

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with that being said i hope this was an

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informative video

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if it was please hit like please

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subscribe to the channel

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and i'll be making more of these fun

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videos in the future

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other than that i hope you have a great

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rest of your day goodbye

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‍