Author: Joe, Co-founder of Rouxbe

29 Apr

12 Comments

Why is one eyebrow always higher than the other?

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Okay, re: the eyebrow thing…I’ll let you in on a little secret, when I’ve worked a really long day, one of my eyebrows goes higher than the other. So pretty much, it’s always up there.

The real reason I’m writing is to let you know that Monday, end of day, is the deadline to have your previously-paid fees credited toward a Lifetime upgrade.

For the hundreds of you that took advantage of the offer, congratulations! You will NOT regret it. The response to this model change was overwhelmingly positive, so thank you for your suggestion and for your ongoing support.

IN ADDITION: Please check out the above video. The first part is in response to the questions that many of you have asked over the last few days. The last part of the video is about Rouxbe for Life. What’s that you ask? Well, many companies tell you what they do, how they do it, how they do it better than everyone else, but not all companies tell you why they do what they do – why they exist as a company. This video explains why we created Rouxbe (“Engine of Contribution – where we take a percentage of our proceeds and help better the world we live in”).

Have a great day everyone. Thanks again for your support.

Joe

19 Apr

154 Comments

Lifetime’s Back Baby! Announcing the Great Culinary Top-Up Campaign for Existing Students!

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I know, I know…I can hear the customer comments already.

For those of you that might not know or remember what I’m referring to, we used to sell Lifetime Tuition Plans but canceled them for good back in September 2010.

So what happened you ask and why are we offering it again?

Over the last couple of years, not a week has gone by where we didn’t receive questions, comments and concerns from existing and prospective students that didn’t like the fact that they would lose access to their Rouxbe resource at the end of their payment cycle. While this is not unlike any recreational or professional cooking school where you go to a class, learn what you can in the time allocated and then back at home you are on your own, we have to say that we kind of agree.

At Rouxbe, we believe that culinary education can change lives. This is what we set out to do when created the site. We teach life skills and once those are learned, you have them for life. However, it is true that from time to time you may need a “refresher” to remind yourself of the key indicators and key steps necessary to perform a variety of cooking skills.

So that’s it. We agree. We hear you. We’re responding. But that’s not all…

Starting May 1, the Rouxbe Cooking School becomes a:

Premium Online Lifetime Cooking School.
Once you’re in, you’re in.

There will be two new tuition purchase options:

1. Lifetime Tuition Plan for $399.95 USD
(payable upfront in one single payment, save $100 off option #2)

2. Lifetime Tuition Payment Plan for $499.95 USD
($99.95 for the first month and then $33.33 for twelve consecutive months, cancel at anytime)

One other very important note:

Coming very soon, we will only be accepting a limited number of students each month. The reason for this is simple. Rouxbe never attempted to be the largest cooking site on the web. We set out to provide the very best online culinary education. And like any school, teacher to student ratio is a critical metric contributing to a student’s successful learning process. Rouxbe is now in over 180 countries, and in addition to the thousands of students we teach, we provide instructional video services to over 12,000 culinary students, work with universities, colleges, and provide training services to hospitals, hotels and restaurants. To ensure that we maintain the highest educational standard, we have decided that it’s critical that we scale our instructor team alongside our students, but this means limiting the number of available seats in the classroom. Stay tuned for more details regarding this, but rest assured that if you are already a student, you will, of course, continue to have full access to the school and our support services.

Introducing Learning Paths and “Certificates of Completion”

Over the next few months we’ll be rolling out our Version 3.0 Rouxbe Cooking School – an extremely ambitious and innovative site update that will completely transform online learning in the cooking space.

We have spent the last 18 months developing a new learning path feature. Essentially, learning paths are curriculum-driven classes or paths, that will walk students through our lessons and recipes to a variety of culinary end goals. For you, maybe this means that you’d like to follow the same path that a professional chef takes or maybe you’d just like to learn more about Culinary Basics, Knife Skills, Healthy Cooking, or Italian Cooking, etc. Each learning path will come with a specific task-by-task path guided by a Rouxbe Chef, additional assessment features and a “Certificate of Completion” at the end of the class.

Follow this blog, twitter or facebook as we’ll be releasing more information about this new feature over the course of the next two months.

As we move into our 7th year of operations, and the upcoming 4th anniversary of the “official” launch of our online cooking school, there is no doubt that 2012 is going to be an exciting year of content and feature releases. We hope you will agree.

Again, if you’d like to participate in this “Top-Up Campaign to Lifetime”, please monitor your inbox over the next week or contact our student support team.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback by adding a comment below. Has Rouxbe helped you become a better cook?
Respectfully,

Joe Girard
Co-Founder of the Rouxbe Cooking School

17 Aug

7 Comments

Site Updates at the Rouxbe Cooking School

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Hi Everyone,

Just a quick post to let you know that there will be a few new changes to your “My Rouxbe” page (formerly the “Home” page).

First off, if you are not logged in, you should automatically be prompted to do so. This is due to a lot of feedback we’ve received from paying members (who were not logged in) that were asked to pay again when trying to view video content. Select the “Remember me” option to by-pass this prompt.

Secondly, we have re-organized the content on the new “My Rouxbe” page to prepare us for a number of exciting changes which we will be implementing over the next several months. You will also see your profile picture and masthead image on this page (which you can customize), as well as a few links on the left-hand side of the page (What’s Happening on Rouxbe, Cooking School Progress, and Bookmarks). In general, expect this page to become more of a “My Content” utilitarian-type dashboard in the very near future, particularly as we add new features that many students have requested.

What features, you ask? We aren’t ready to announce them quite yet, but they will be significant, including additional purchase options for Rouxbe, more guidance to help you work through Rouxbe’s instructional content (and to identify the content most relevant to your personal learning goals), and recognition for your learning achievements. More details will follow soon, and Rouxbe members will be the first to find out.

If you have any problems accessing the site or viewing any of the content, please drop us a note. Also, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to add them below.

Cheers,
Joe Girard
Co-Founder and VP Product Development

05 Aug

1 Comment

Rouxbe Partners with TeachStreet.com

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We are pleased to announce that Rouxbe has partnered with Seattle-based TeachStreet.com.


TeachStreet is a dynamic online community that brings motivated learners and talented teachers together. It is a place where you can find the resources to learn anything – not just cooking. It’s pretty cool.

We figured because our users love to learn online, that you might find TeachStreet.com a useful and fun place to find local and online classes, cooking articles and even cooking classes.

You will also now see Rouxbe on Teachstreet as we extend our reach for new cooking school students into their online community of people that love to learn online.

Filed Under: Miscellaneous

29 Jul

21 Comments

Announcing: Rouxbe Cooking School Partners with Allrecipes.com

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Exciting news for Rouxbe! We might be small in scale but we’re strong on instructional cooking video content and today we are very pleased to announce that we’ve officially partnered with the largest recipe site in the world – Allrecipes.com.

Allrecipes.com has been hearing from their members that they want to improve their cooking skills. So starting immediately, they will be sending their members to the Rouxbe Cooking School to learn the skills and techniques behind becoming a better and more confident cook.

This is a great sign that we’re on the right track in focusing on cooking skill, technique and cooking fundamentals. All in all, this is a great way for more people to learn about the Rouxbe Cooking School and how it can help them enjoy the thousands of recipes found on their site.

What does this mean for existing Rouxbe subscribers?

Most importantly, it means that you made a great choice in becoming a student at the Rouxbe Cooking School – as validated by this partnership with Allrecipes.

Oh…and don’t worry, you won’t see advertising appear on Rouxbe — we are committed to focusing on the exact same instructional cooking videos students in over 200 countries have come to enjoy and learn from.

And if you haven’t joined yet, you can get a 7-day free trial right here and if you like what you learn, then you can join for as little as $29.95 per month. It’s time – don’t you think?

I want to become a better cook (get a free trial today)

Finally, to all of our Rouxbe students out there, please help me welcome all of our new Allrecipes.com home cooks who have joined us here at Rouxbe.

Thanks,  Joe

Filed Under: Business, Miscellaneous

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