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Wan-Chien Kao

Marketer, Entrepreneur, and Advisor

Wan-Chien Kao is a co-founder of Maven, a platform that specializes in cohort-based courses, which are designed to facilitate live learning experiences. Maven was established to address the challenges faced by course creators in building engaging and effective online courses. Under Kao's leadership, the platform has seen significant success, with over 20,000 professionals participating in its courses and instructors earning more than $14 million in teaching revenue.1

Kao's background includes co-founding the altMBA, a program developed in collaboration with bestselling author Seth Godin, which also focuses on cohort-based learning. This initiative grew rapidly, attracting thousands of students across multiple countries.1

In addition to her entrepreneurial endeavors, Wan-Chien Kao has experience in digital marketing and project management, having worked in various roles that emphasize strategic communication and operational excellence.1

Highlights

Sep 20 · twitter

A milestone I'm proud of: My newsletter hit 50,000 subscribers!

This is an overnight success story…that took 14 years.

I started writing online in 2010. For over a decade, I wrote to a small audience and had no social presence. Basically I wrote into the void--and I'd do it all over again.

I've learned so much from using the act of writing to sharpen my own thinking. It continues to challenge me every week--honestly it's painful most of the time, but in the best way possible.

It's brought incredible people and opportunities into my life. I've realized that writing is like your bat signal: you can put it out into the night sky and see which simpatico people come out of the woodwork.

I'm not that metrics-driven. I didn't connect the dots but this is probably why I didn't quit much sooner lol.

Still, I think hitting 50k subscribers is exciting because I always thought it was insanely out of reach. Other people might hit that number, but not me. And now here we are, which is kind of nuts.

If you are drawn to working on your craft, but not quite seeing the results you want, keep going.

It’s an honor to write for you every week. Cheers to many more years of learning together.

Sep 6 · twitter

"Advance the plot."

I have this quote pinned to the top of my calendar as a daily reminder to get outside my own head.

The fact that I look around corners, think about what could go wrong, etc is a strength.

But sometimes that strength presents a shadow side: analyzing beyond the point of diminishing returns.

I try to recognize as soon as possible when I'm approaching diminishing returns, and ask myself:

What can I do to advance the plot?
What action can I take to get closer to the outcome I'm aiming for?

Sometimes it feels like there's SO MUCH activity going on in my brain. When I scenario plan, it's like I've fast-forwarded and lived multiple paths.

Then I pause and remember, "Oh yeah, I haven't done anything about this in the outside world (yet)."

It's a good reminder to think--and then turn that thinking into taking action.

Very few things can guarantee an outcome, but being a high-agency character in your own story means taking action (outside your mind), which increases the chances you get what you're aiming for.