Building AN AI Academy’s first paying cohort with short‑form video

APPROACH

• In‑house ownership created tighter feedback loops between strategy, content, and performance, so the team could respond in days rather than weeks

• Native short‑form content on TikTok and Instagram met prospects where they already spent time, generating around 120 leads and converting them into the first full-paying cohort

Challenge

• A new AI training academy was entering a highly competitive, saturated education market and needed to prove its offer quickly

• The team was struggling to fill the first cohort with enough qualified applicants to validate the program commercially

• An external agency had been engaged, but it lacked a clear, tested brief and framework, which led to poor deliverables

• Brought growth and content strategy in‑house to remove the dependency on a misaligned external agency

• Designed a simple, modern acquisition strategy built around short‑form video for TikTok and Instagram to speak directly to the target audience

• Produced and distributed iterative video creatives, testing hooks and messages to quickly learn what converted

RESULTS