MBA thinking killed my startup, lessons on losing 98% of users, and being fired as a co-founder | Gagan Biyani (Udemy and Maven)

In today’s episode of The Eric Ries Show, I’m joined by Gagan Biyani, Co-Founder and CEO of Maven, a platform that’s redefining online education with cohort-based courses. Before Maven, Gagan co-founded Udemy, now one of the largest online education marketplaces, and Sprig, a meal delivery startup.

Gagan started his entrepreneurial journey at just 21, and along the way, he’s experienced both big wins and tough lessons. We get into what worked, what didn’t, and how those experiences shaped his approach to building companies today.

In our conversation today, we talk about the following:

• How a free truffle at Sprig revealed the pitfalls of MBA-style thinking

• Why Gagan has shifted his thinking to be less metric-obsessed

• The underestimated value of intuition in decision-making

• Maintaining company culture at scale—onboarding new hires while preserving core values

• What drives value in any marketplace

• Lessons from Gagan’s exit from Udemy—and how he rebuilt his friendship with his co-founder

• How to use AI to increase productivity and where it falls short

• An explanation of Gagan’s concept of ‘atomic unit’

• AI’s potential to transform education

• And more!

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Where to find Gagan Biyani:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaganbiyani/

• X: https://x.com/gaganbiyani

• Website: https://www.gaganbiyani.com/

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Where to find Eric:

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In This Episode We Cover:

(00:00) Intro

(03:06) MBA thinking and how taking away the free truffle impacted Sprig

(13:35) Different types of trust in different industries

(19:19) How to preserve trust while balancing business costs

(26:21) How Maven’s internal processes, once ideal, needed to evolve with growth

(30:40) Why investing time in new hires is key to embedding company culture

(32:10) Gagan’s entrepreneurship journey

(35:00) The value of intuition

(37:40) Early insights at Udemy that led to the shift toward video-recorded courses

(46:52) Thoughts on failure

(49:40) How to build a successful marketplace

(54:42) Gagan’s exit from Udemy

(1:03:01) Why Gagan founded Maven and an explanation of cohort-based education

(1:07:05) The difference between Maven and Udemy and how Maven is doing now

(1:13:12) Why AI is overhyped—but still very useful

(1:16:02) The future of AI in education

(1:22:36) Lightning round

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Referenced:

• Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/
• Maven: https://maven.com/
• Meal-delivery service Sprig shuts down: https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Meal-delivery-service-Sprig-shuts-down-11176468.php
• Mercury: https://mercury.com/
• Carta: https://carta.com/
• Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_Silicon_Valley_Bank
• The HBR Interview: “We Had to Own the Mistakes”(with Howard Schultz): https://hbr.org/2010/07/the-hbr-interview-we-had-to-own-the-mistakes
• The Product Market Fit Engine by Rahul Vohra: https://www.mindtheproduct.com/the-product-market-fit-engine-by-rahul-vohra/
• Using Sean Ellis Test For Measuring Your Product/Market Fit: https://medium.productcoalition.com/using-sean-ellis-test-for-measuring-your-product-market-fit-c8ac98053c2c
• TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/
• Founder Institute: https://fi.co/
• The Lean Startup course on Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/the-lean-startup/
• Eren Bali on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erenbali/
• Carbon Health: https://carbonhealth.com/
• Oktay Çağlar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caglaroktay/
• 21+ Truly Shocking Online Course Completion Rate Statistics: https://bloggingx.com/online-course-completion-statistics/
• Improving Your Product Sense: https://maven.com/shreyas-doshi/product-sense
• Brian Chesky on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianchesky/
• Alpha School: https://alpha.school/
• The Minimum Viable Testing Process for Evaluating Startup Ideas: https://review.firstround.com/the-minimum-viable-testing-process-for-evaluating-startup-ideas/
• Gagan’s X post about monk mode: https://x.com/gaganbiyani/status/1349061303416082439

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Eric may be an investor in the companies discussed.