Most often the shortest emails have the biggest impact, like today.
Whilst I was baking the first plum cake of the year Myngle sent out a message to all of their teachers which consists a staggering 189 words but changes a lot for teachers, students and the platform itself.
Dear Mynglers,
How are you?
Today we have an important update that is going to be implemented this week.
Myngle is going to align individual class prices of all teachers to only 3 price’s categories. The packages’ prices will not be affected. But the percentage will be adjusted according to the new price of the lesson. Now students will have different spending power and less price variability for them.The new categories will be like the following:
30 minutes Up to €10 €10 €11-15 €15 €16 above €20 45 minutes Up to €15 €15 €16-20 €20 €21 onwards €25 Best Regards,
Edu Team
Now, what does this all mean as with this alignment into three levels come of course a lot of interesting questions up, like for example: who decides what teacher can take which price? I think, I can give a guess to answer this question already but let’s start at the beginning and with what we know.
First of all, we have to ask ourselves: what is a price? If we boil it down to its essence it is more or less a quality indicator for a product or a service. Something that is cheap will most likely be of cheap quality, something that is expensive will most likely be of good quality. (Yes, this is very simplified but let’s just assume that most people think like this.)
Hence what we now have on Myngle is a three class quality system manifested by the three different price categories. It’s like in the supermarket: you now have the budget line, the house branded and the premium branded goods. This leads of course to the question who actually decides if your teaching service is in the bottom row with the $0.99 articles, on the premium shelf or somewhere in between.
The answer might be found in the partnership with Lancelot School. Remember? Teacher training for the Myngle platform. You either are a Myngle certified teacher, a Lancelot trained teacher or a Lancelot certified teacher. Wait a second, three levels of training? What a coincidence!
I think, you see where I want to take this. If you are reader of my blog for a while you should be pretty familiar with the evolution of the Myngle platform and in this case it actually makes sense. As the latest posts were about predictions already, these modifications on Myngle have been awaited by myself and a few others for quite some time. Therefore, to me they are the next logic step in their evolution towards something like an online school. But acknowledgement is always the best confirmation.
Myngle are trying to build a brand that is renown for quality live lessons (plus all the other little projects like the Myngle shop they are experimenting with aside). With the new pricing structure plus the certification system they are not only making it easier for customers to scan the teachers by “quality”, it also builds up a need to get trained or certified at Lancelot School in order to get the possibility to take higher prices, as I think this change will surely be announced in the next couple of weeks.
Coming to the prices, I have to state that they are actually in the range that I have been preaching for about two years now. I think, I will take credit for this 
. Together with the maximum discount policy that had been introduced about a month ago there is no chance of price dumping on the Myngle platform anymore but of course it also sets an ultimate end to the idea of a free marketplace.
All of the above does not have any influence on the actual capabilities of the teachers on the Myngle platform of course as they are still pretty free in their choice of the teaching methodology and the material they are using. The Lancelot School courses are also not designed to actually train a teacher for the Myngle platform especially not for 1:1 lessons which are still the biggest chunk of the lessons taking place (all?).
Hence, I think this will be the next building lot Myngle has to attack. The direction is clear: more control over the teachers also on how and what they teach especially in the price range Myngle is aiming for from now on. Customers who are willing to pay between 20€ and 40€ per hour have certain expectations and rightfully so. Adjusting prices top down does not adjust teaching capabilities or like Biggie said: Mo Money, Mo Problems .
Trust me, this is my space, I own it for years 
. Diddy, take it from here.
