CornUp, short for Startup + Unicorn, is a Masterclass for startups: the best people in the startup world teach in-depth courses, and completing them unlocks the ability to apply for roles at high-growth companies. Designed as my project for the 10K Designers cohort, with the full study published on Medium.
Research
The brief: design an "edutainment" platform for a specific niche. I chose startups, a world I'd worked closely with for five years, and analyzed Masterclass, Udemy, Coursera, Y Combinator Startup School, and Reforge.
The gap: no structured, expert-taught path into startups. YC's Startup School is superb but geared to founders (10,000+ applications a year, ~300 accepted); everything else teaches you to build a startup, and almost nothing helps you land a job at one.
The product
Four membership tiers doubling as an audience segmentation model: Explorer (new to startups), Passionate (taking them seriously), Committed (decided to get in), Believer (long-term, with fresh content). Courses split into essentials (product, strategy, fundraising, scaling) and niches (self-driving cars, crypto, e-commerce).
The differentiator is the jobs marketplace, built around a deliberate constraint:
Design principles, applied by name
- Hick's Law: login limited to the three options this audience actually uses (Google, Facebook, AngelList).
- Social proof: logos of companies where graduates landed; instructor affiliations up front.
- Nudging: founder quotes placed at decision points.
- Strategic upselling: tier upgrades surfaced where motivation peaks, not scattered everywhere.
Process ran Research → Information Architecture → Wireframes → Visual Design → Prototype.