Interview With Micah Cooksey, Treehouse Marketing Rock Star

This interview was conducted in 2016. Micah is currently a Senior Brand Partner at BuySellAds.com. The responses in this interview reveal Treehouse’s beginnings and shed light on the industry.

Since launching in 2011, Treehouse has created nearly 500 hours of original course content which has helped nearly 200,000 students to learn invaluable skills including coding, web design, app building, starting a business and more. Their 200+ courses led by expert instructors help people of all ages and skill levels around the world advance their careers so they can stay ahead of the trends and have a leg up on their competition in the workforce.

And Micah Cooksey, one of their brightest up and coming team members, is no exception. Micah received his Bachelor’s degree at the young age of 16 and is finishing his masters degree at 19! He’s currently doing sales and marketing at Treehouse.

We were honored to have the chance to interview Mr. Cooksey and learn more about Treehouse, one of our top picks in our online learning platform comparison. We also learned more from Micah’s insights into the online learning market.

Read Our Treehouse Review | Visit Treehouse’s Website

How has Treehouse grown so quickly?

I think it really comes down to the product. Our students really love Treehouse because the product really does have a positive impact on their lives. We get countless testimonials and inbound emails from students who have had their lives changed from using Treehouse. That’s not because of our marketing, or our venture funding, but because our product actually helps people learn new skills and embark on new career paths that they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to achieve. We firmly believe that when you build a great product that helps people live out their dreams, that will power your growth. I believe this has been the case for Treehouse.

What sets Treehouse apart from other online learning sites?

I’d have to say that quality and mission set Treehouse apart. There are a lot of e-learning sites out there, and more to come, I’m sure. What sets Treehouse apart is the bar we set for our content and learning experience. We don’t crowdsource our learning content; we create it all in house. We have our own production studio, and a large percentage of our staff are instructors – the folks who create our content. Many of the e-learning platforms out there rely on contributors to submit the content. This can be a challenging model to curate for quality, and the standard of the content quality will vary by contributing instructor. With Treehouse, our content quality is consistent, and we only create the type of content that we believe to be the best for our students.

Video: what you can learn in a year with Treehouse

Here’s just one of the many success stories from Treehouse and how much you can learn and advance your career in a year.

What’s next for Treehouse?

I really think that Treehouse has just scratched the surface. Our vision is big and we are aspiring to have a substantial, positive impact on the world. We dream of a day when high school graduates won’t have to take on student debt in order to have a fulfilling career. We believe that technical skills for the in-demand jobs of tomorrow can be attained at a much lower cost, through a much more efficient learning environment. We recently launched our Techdegree program, which is a much more intensive learning program than our traditional pay-as-you-go subscription. The Techdegree is designed to significantly accelerate a student’s job readiness for technical careers. We believe that products like Techdegree are going to be a big part of the future of Treehouse and our culture.

Who is your biggest mentor and what did you learn from them?

I’ll list two main people here.

First, my father has had the biggest influence of anyone on my character. He set a solid example to follow of what it looks like to be principled and live with integrity. Growing up, I learned to try to honor God in everything that I do, which has a big effect on how I approach every area of life.

At work, I’ve learned a ton about marketing from my immediate supervisor, Marissa Christoffel, who serves as the head of marketing at Treehouse. She has a really broad range of experience that I enjoy learning from. Having a boss that’s been in my shoes before is a huge plus.

Anything else you’d like to add?

I think marketers have to be careful not to be distracted by trends, blog articles, and jargony “marketing speak” that can make it unclear what the goals are and what the basic strategy needs to be.

Just because certain buzzword is trending right now doesn’t mean that you should skip the fundamentals in favor of “doing what everyone else is doing.” Getting your core execution down will build a foundation from which you can then test out more experimental strategies.

Thanks Micah for your insight! We hope you enjoyed this interview dear reader. What would you like to learn online? Share with us in the comments!