Building our own online learning platform — turnkey LMS or custom build?

With custom software, everyone fixates on front-end design, but the real expense is video infrastructure. You can't host a 14-course video archive on a standard web server; you get billed for CDN distribution, video transcoding, and per-user bandwidth. Turnkey cloud solutions handle these costs much cheaper thanks to their bulk vendor agreements.

We started with a turnkey cloud LMS in early 2022. We were paying a flat license fee of 3,200 TL a month. We gained 400 students in the first 8 months. If we had dropped 350,000 TL on custom software back then, our cash flow would have dried up in year one. We now have 2,100 students and are still on the turnkey setup because we don't have to deal with software maintenance headaches.

Don't trust that 5-month timeline from agencies, it will drag out to at least 8-9 months. While you're stuck in debugging meetings with devs, your 14 courses will start getting outdated. The core value of education is the content; don't try running an IT shop before you've even made a sale.

Edit: asked below, I wrote the answer in the second message.

While deciding, make sure to factor in these hidden costs: 1) Payment gateway commissions and annual API updates. 2) Getting billed by developers every time video playback bugs pop up on mobile browsers. 3) Broken PDF templates in the automated certificate generation module. With a ready-made platform, the provider takes on all of these technical risks.

Under KVKK, where students' personal data and exam results are stored is of utmost importance. I strongly recommend reviewing the server locations, data processing agreement, and explicit consent mechanisms of any turnkey platform with your legal counsel before making a purchase.

student dashboard needs to be super simple. I mean people hate complicated menus. most turnkey systems have already gone through thousands of tests so the ux is pretty much dialed in. build from scratch and even button placement turns into a massive headache tbh.

We made a similar mistake two years ago. We spent 200.000 TL getting a custom platform coded; the system would freeze up whenever an instructor tried uploading an exam and then the developer left for military service. We ended up scrapping the project entirely and switching to a turnkey system with a monthly subscription. I still kick myself over that wasted year.

don't make things complicated for yourself. like having an existing audience of 200 people is an amazing starting point but you need to start selling right away while people's interest is still fresh. why wait months for a developer when you could upload your videos to an out-of-the-box platform and start selling in 3 days? you can always scale up as you make money.

Same here. Ask who prepared the quote and who will actually do the work.

Start with a small trial; don't commit to everything at once. This is my opinion, I'm not claiming it's absolute truth.

Looking at it as a process, the picture changes. Processes without records never improve, because you don't know what to fix.

Hope this helps.

I feel the same way. Every "we'll look at it later" in a meeting means unbilled work.

Start with a small trial; don't commit to everything at once. Hope this helps.

I feel the same way. Solutions that work at a small scale collapse when you grow; I learned this late.

I disagree with you on this point. Solutions that work at a small scale collapse when you grow; I learned this late.

When we decide without measuring, we always end up in the same place.

I went through the same thing two years ago. Processes without records never improve, because you don't know what to fix.

Proven by experience.

You're right, I've been down that road too. Everything goes well for the first three months; problems arise in the fourth.

Generally correct, but one part is missing. The biggest time-waster for us was not knowing who had the final say.

That's all, sorry if I went on too long.

Don't miss this: When making a decision, first look at what data you have on hand.

This is my opinion, I'm not claiming it's absolute truth.

There's one point I'm curious about. Don't hesitate to ask; those who don't ask always pay more.