Inside Airtable's Playbook: How to Launch an Academy in 75 Days

Let’s face it: We know Customer Education is in a massive growth spurt. Gone are the days when “training” meant uploading a dry PDF or scheduling one-off webinars. Today, CE teams are combining the best of traditional classroom methods (clear objectives, engaging delivery) with cutting-edge SaaS operational skills to build scalable, strategic, and boss-worthy programs.

And no one’s doing this better than Airtable. With an airtight operational system, a team that knows how to play to their strengths, and tools that make every process repeatable and scalable, they launched Airtable Academy in just 75 days. Spoiler: this didn’t happen by accident—it’s the result of bold decisions, a killer playbook, and a no-nonsense approach to making customer education work.

Here’s the inside story—and how you can replicate their success.

Why Airtable Needed AcademyOS

Kevin Dunn, Airtable’s Customer Education leader, walked into his new role with a tall order: build a CE program that wasn’t just good—it had to be so strategic and scalable that executives would beg to fund it.
The challenge?

• Airtable’s customers needed training to unlock the full value of the product.
• CE needed to align with business goals like renewals, onboarding, and deeper adoption.
• There was no time for trial and error; success had to happen fast.

Enter Airtable Academy, a program designed not just to educate but to drive measurable business impact.

The Team Setup: The Right People with the Right Charter

Kevin’s team wasn’t huge—it was two people. Yes, two people launched an entire academy. How?

1. Clear Charter: The goal wasn’t just “create content.” It was to tie education to outcomes like onboarding speed and product adoption.
2. Roles and Strengths:
   
   • Kevin handled strategy, OKRs, and aligning the academy to Airtable’s larger goals.
   • Anne Marie, the team’s content guru, focused on creating standout content and operational workflows that made scaling seamless.

Why This Approach Worked

Airtable’s success wasn’t magic. It was a strategic mix of:

1. A Laser-Focus on Outcomes

The academy wasn’t just about offering “nice-to-have” training. It was tied to the goals that matter most to SaaS businesses:

• Faster onboarding (get customers up and running).
• Improved retention and renewals.
• Clear product adoption wins (the academy drove a 16% boost in product usage).

2. Operational Excellence from Day One

Kevin’s team didn’t want a program that required constant manual labor. They built an Academy Operating System (OS) in Airtable that made everything easier, from planning to execution. Some of their genius moves:

• Using AI to automate “invisible labor” like summarizing feedback and creating marketing copy.
• Standardizing workflows for course production, feedback loops, and prioritization.
• Keeping every detail (course descriptions, certifications, feedback) in one centralized, relational database.

“We didn’t just want to launch fast—we wanted to launch smart. We focused on creating repeatable processes so we could scale without slowing down.” – Kevin

3. Customer-Centric Content

Airtable built their academy with their users in mind.

• Every course aligned to specific personas (builders, admins, etc.).
• The academy focused on short, modular lessons that could be reused across different formats.
• Feedback was baked into the system, so courses were always improving.

Now, for the results.

In just a year, Airtable Academy became a certified game-changer:

• 40,000+ course enrollments
• 2,000 certifications issued
• A 66% completion rate—way above the industry average
• A proven 16% boost in product usage for accounts with academy users

Why does this matter? Because this is the kind of CE program that executives fund. It doesn’t just educate customers—it drives bottom-line impact.

That Sounds Great—How’d They Do It? 

Airtable didn’t just use AI for surface-level content creation. They built it into their Academy Operating System (OS) to make the entire process faster, smarter, and scalable. Here’s how AI helped at every stage:

1. Content Creation: Solving the Blank Page Problem

Creating 25 courses, two certifications, and supplementary materials in 75 days is no small feat. AI played a critical role in speeding up content production by:

• Generating Course Descriptions and Quizzes: Airtable uploaded course transcripts into their system, and AI extracted key concepts to generate course descriptions, quiz questions, and glossaries in minutes.
  
  • Example: AI created draft quizzes directly from course scripts, ensuring relevance while cutting hours from manual drafting.
• Writing Promotional Copy: AI created templates for email campaigns, Slack announcements, and LinkedIn posts, tailoring them to different audiences (e.g., internal teams, external users).

“AI didn’t just save us time—it allowed us to focus on quality and strategy by automating the invisible labor.” – Kevin Dunn

2. Feedback Loops: Triaging at Scale

Airtable used AI to handle post-course feedback, a traditionally manual and time-intensive process.

• How It Worked: Every feedback form was connected to Airtable’s system. AI automatically summarized trends, identified common pain points, and suggested action items for the team.
  
  • Example: AI flagged that multiple users struggled with a new product feature, prompting an immediate course update.

“By automating feedback analysis, we could act faster and smarter, keeping our courses relevant and our learners engaged.”

3. Prioritization: Picking the Right Projects

With hundreds of potential updates and requests coming in from customers, product teams, and CSMs, Airtable relied on AI to streamline prioritization:

• AI scored each request based on three factors:
  
  1. Visibility: How noticeable the gap was to customers.
  2. Friction: The impact of leaving it unresolved.
  3. Effort: Resources required to address it.
• This scoring helped the team focus on high-impact projects without overloading their small team.

4. Reporting and Internal Enablement: Making Data Actionable

Airtable synced Skilljar data with Airtable dashboards, using AI to overlay insights from product usage and customer health metrics.

• AI provided dynamic, real-time reports for internal teams, enabling Customer Success Managers to see:
  
  • Which customers had enrolled in courses.
  • The certifications earned.
  • How academy participation aligned with customer health scores.
• This visibility empowered teams to act as champions for the academy, helping customers get more value from the platform.

Want a Template Like Airtable’s?

Kevin and Anne Marie didn’t just build a CE program—they created a repeatable framework that any CE leader can adapt. And now, you can get a version of their playbook.

Click here to grab a free CE template to help you:

• Prioritize your education roadmap
• Automate repetitive workflows
• Drive measurable outcomes (and make your boss say “yes” to more funding!)

Final Thought: CE Is Adapting—Get Ahead of the Curve

Customer Education is no longer a “nice-to-have.” It’s a critical growth lever for modern SaaS companies. Airtable proved it, and you can too.

With the right mindset, tools, and processes, you can build a CE program that delivers outcomes your customers love—and your leadership team can’t ignore. Let’s get to work.

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