Reforge
Reforge was founded by startup growth veterans from giants like Hubspot and Pinterest, and has quickly staked-out a position as the most well-regarded program for growth and product management. They recently shifted from a course-based model to a membership community. Their courses are not truly cohort-based, but the content quality is perhaps unparalleled.
4 out of 5 Stars
Skill Upgrade Rating
All Reforge Courses on Skill Upgrade
3 reviews for Reforge: Marketing Strategy
SkillUpgrade’s Professional Review of Reforge
Reforge is a good fit for you if you’re an early-to-mid-career professional marketing, product management, or engineering and want to learn frameworks for growth used by leading tech companies. The content quality is unparalled, but the level of live instruction is fairly minimal, as is the level of interaction with other students.
If you’re willing to put in the time to learn on your own, this program will help you speak the language of growth and prepare you for more growth-focused roles. That said, to advance in a growth-career, there’s no replacement for hands-on projects, and this program does not provide that.
The Pros
Good for early and mid-career professionals looking to accelerate their careers
- Incredibly high-quality content written by leaders in industry
- Offers knowledge and frameworks that can be immediately applied at work
- Built by seasoned experts for mid-career professionals
- Access to other professionals facing similar challenges at work
- Unlimited access to all course content from other programs with one membership
Resources such as case studies, exercises, etc. to help apply theory.
The Cons
The program recently shifted from specific courses to more of a membership model
- The courses themselves have very limited human contact- you’ll likely not interact with any instructors or other students
- There are no private sessions with faculty or mentors for personalized guidance and feedback
- The Slack channels can be noisy
- The curriculum is more focused on theory and frameworks, rather than on hands-on projects. You learn the theories but not the data or tools.
- The content is written by folks at massive businesses like Uber and Hubspot, and so the learnings may be a lot less-relevant to businesses that are earlier stage and growth-stage and not yet at that level of scale.
All You Need to Know About the Reforge
What is Reforge
Reforge is an online training platform and community founded by some of the most well-regarded startup growth leaders in the world from companies like Hubspot, Uber, and Pinterest. They previously offered growth-focused courses, but have reorganized to be more of a paywalled community for growth and product. Once you apply and pay to become a member, you can enroll in numerous courses. The course are not, strictly-speaking, cohort-based courses, as the class sizes are in the hundreds and there’s limited student-to-student interaction. However the content is some of the highest-quality material out there.
History
Despite having the budget for upskilling employees who were keen to accelerate their careers, Brian Balfour, previously the VP of Growth at Hubspot, couldn’t suggest any courses or programs that would truly benefit his former team. He decided to take things into his own hands, creating the ‘Growth Series’ course in collaboration with Andrew Chen (who was with Uber at the time).
Feeling strongly about bridging the demand-supply gap, Balfour left Hubspot and founded Reforge in 2016 in San Francisco, envisioning a professional education startup that can help working professionals maximize their potential.
Background of the Founders
Balfour is the Founder/CEO of Reforge and former VP of Growth at HubSpot. He has co-founded multiple VC-backed startups and companies such as e-learning provider Boundless and game distribution company Viximo, and currently serves as an investor/growth advisor to several startups. He also writes about growth and user acquisition in renowned publications including Forbes, Hacker Monthly, and OnStartups.
How Reputable is Reforge?
Reforge more or less has high search volumes in the business and industrial category worldwide. Singapore had the highest search volume over the past year, followed by Denmark, Australia, Norway, and Sweden. ‘Course’ was a breakout-related search term while ‘reforge product strategy’ was a highly searched related query.
Funding Raised by Reforge
As per Crunchbase, Reforge has raised a total of $81 million in funding from 14 investors across two rounds. Andreessen Horowitz and Insight Partners are their lead investors.
Deeper Dive Into Reforge’s School Structure
What Will You Need to Enroll at Reforge?
Not everyone can enroll in the Reforge programs. Those interested need to apply for memberships. All applications are screened according to the following criteria:
- Digital product-related role
- Company relevance
- Demonstrated strong initiative
For more information, click here.
The screening is not for the basis of qualification per se, but to determine the applicability and usefulness of the courses to the individual.
How much is the tuition at Reforge?
Reforge follows a membership model where individual programs cannot be purchased. The individual membership fee is $1995 per year. Multi-seat subscriptions for three seats and above are charged at $1785 per annum per individual. To add 10 or more seats and for group subscriptions, you can contact Reforge at hello@reforge.com
Does Reforge Offer Scholarships?
No. Scholarships are not offered at present.
Does Reforge Offer Free Trials for Their Courses?
There are no free trials for the courses.
What are the Courses Offered by Reforge?
Reforge offers cohort-based, application-oriented programs that are built and led by seasoned executives from top-tier companies. The platform offers three cohorts a year, and members can take one program (called live programs) per cohort as part of their membership.
| Cross-functional Growth Programs | Product Programs | Engineering Programs | Marketing Programs |
|
|
|
Marketing Strategy
|
Are Reforge Courses Accredited? Can They Count Towards a University Degree?
No. The courses are not accredited and don’t count towards a university degree.
Reforge Course Delivery Details
| Cohort Size | Reforge membership applicants are screened to ensure that members who stand to benefit most from the programs are prioritized. However, there is no upper limit on the cohort size or memberships. |
| Sample Syllabus | Here is the sample course structure of the Advanced Growth Strategy Program. |
| Duration of Program | The live programs are typically 4-6 weeks long. They are intensive, part-time virtual programs that can be taken from anywhere across the globe by busy, full-time professionals. |
| Materials Provided |
Members have access to one live program per cohort. For each of the three cohorts, they can choose one live program and learn directly from top-notch executives. One live, interactive session per week is included. Most programs offer two time slots for these live events to accommodate learners from different time zones. For those who still cannot attend the live sessions, the recordings and transcriptions are uploaded within 72 hours of the event’s end. Each live program includes 2-3 hours of self-paced course materials and video modules. Learners have access to an array of hands-on exercises, worksheets, and weekly micro-projects for active learning and concept application in praxis. In addition to the live programs, members have year-round:
|
| Mentorship Programs | There are no mentorship programs, but learners do have access to a global community of peers and industry experts they can meaningfully engage with. |
| Projects and Assignments | There are no graded assignments. The live programs include weekly micro-projects and one step-by-step project to assess the execution of learnings. |
| Hours of Live Instruction Per Week | There is one 90-minute live session per week that happens via Zoom. Experts teach students how they can apply theoretical concepts by walking them through real-life scenarios. In addition, there are other live events that learners can attend. |
| Are There Teaching Assistants? | There are no teaching assistants. |
| Are there Discussion Sessions Over Zoom or Similar Platforms? | Yes. The cohort-based weekly live sessions, live case study discussions, and other live events take place over Zoom. |
| Are there small group discussions on Discord, Slack, or other messaging platforms? |
Yes. There are optional live case study discussions with the cohort peers every week. These smaller discussion groups serve as spaces where people with similar problems can help each other by applying concepts in practice. Learners are free to attend or host community deep dive sessions. They can engage in meaningful discussions with peers through the forum and Slack channels. |
Notable Reforge Instructors
The Reforge instructors are some of the best minds in tech, having solved the hardest challenges in the industry. Here are a few of the notable instructors at Reforge:
- Brian Balfour, Founder/CEO at Reforge
- Andrew Chen, GP AT A16Z
- Casey Winters, CPO at Eventbrite
- Elena Verna, Ex-SVP Growth at SurveyMonkey
- Crystal Widjaja, Ex-SVP Growth at GoJek
- Ravi Mehta, Ex-CPO at Tinder
- Adam Grenier, Ex-Head of Growth Marketing at Uber
- Fareed Mosavat, Ex-Director of Product at Slack
How Does Reforge Set You Up for Success?
Career resources offered by Reforge
Reforge programs are designed by the best minds in the tech industry who have pushed the envelope on their jobs and pushed the frontiers of knowledge in the industry. The courses capture their wealth of knowledge and original thinking and as such, cannot be found elsewhere.
The courses are continuously updated to ensure that they reflect the latest developments and emerging trends in the industry. Reforge partners also contribute to the Reforge Career Accelerator programs.
Career resources offered by Reforge
Reforge programs are designed by the best minds in the tech industry who have pushed the envelope on their jobs and pushed the frontiers of knowledge in the industry. The courses capture their wealth of knowledge and original thinking and as such, cannot be found elsewhere.
The courses are continuously updated to ensure that they reflect the latest developments and emerging trends in the industry. Reforge partners also contribute to the Reforge Career Accelerator programs.
Reforge In the Media
Reforge’s growth is outpacing an already fast-growing sector, and its formula represents the future of online learning.
Reforge is one of a growing number of sites delivering support for working professionals who are hungry to learn but don’t see opportunities within their workplace.
Reforge Reviews from Reputable Publications
In this Reforge Course Review of the Advanced Growth Strategy program, Jorgenson likes that the courses are developed by credible and experienced professionals who have applied the concepts in their jobs. Instead of teaching just tactics, the course steps back and teaches unique, well-considered frameworks.
According to him, the main flaw (not a dealbreaker) is that the material includes several quantitative examples but does not provide step-by-step guidance in application. So, learners are on their own when it comes to applying frameworks to company data. He believes it would be useful if learners have private access to instructors or experienced students in such cases.
In this review of digital marketing online courses, Friedman writes that Reforge programs are comprehensive, in-depth, and application-focused, with weekly live sessions. The main drawback of the platform is that one needs to apply for the membership and wait for the sessions.
Reforge Reviews from Students
Tereschenko believes the course structure is perfect and that it is clearly built by practitioners, for practitioners. He also writes that the access it provides to top minds in global product management and peers from top companies across the globe is a definite advantage of the platform. One of Reforge’s key drawbacks, he writes, is that the programs and Slack channels are slightly overcrowded. He also thinks that the selection process is unclear and needs to be more transparent.
Reforge provides a variety of templates: You get the bigger picture but you need to apply it within your context.
Other Schools vs Reforge Comparison
| Course Topic | Reforge | Other Schools |
| Product Management |
$1,995 for a yearly membership
|
Senior Product Management Certification from Product School Cost: $4,499
|
| Growth Marketing |
$1,995 for a yearly membership
|
Growth Marketing – Cornell Certificate Program Cost: $3,600 or monthly @ $950 for 4 months
|
Maxim Tereschenko –
“The first plus that I would highlight is the perfect structure of the content and its organization. Everything is served without “water”, without bullshit, clearly and to the point. The practical aspect of knowledge is visible, it is clear that everything was created by practitioners for practitioners.
The second is the level of speakers and students. In terms of roles, positions, questions asked – you understand that this is top and there is nowhere too much higher. It is a good place to touch the heights of global product management knowledge.
The third is socialization. There are many options for how and where you can meet and chat with colleagues from top companies around the world. Do not expect a magic pill and effect from the program. Ahead is a long and difficult work on the application of the knowledge gained in the company and their comprehension, meditations to change your thinking and beliefs.”
Apark029 –
Content was meaningful and had an immediate impact. Discussions were pretty good as well, though I spent less time in the breakout sessions… worked through a lot of exercises week over week with others in my org. Be prepared to spend more time per week than they mention if you’re really sinking your teeth in.
Tecassiano –
Content is dense and complete. Sometimes I would take back some parts of the lesson to really make sure I was following the rationale.
The community and guests are awesome. They share great use cases and I reached out to some of them to talk about specific points and always learned something new.