Transition School → Learnable
A UK learning platform for people breaking into tech outgrew its own name. I joined on a three-month contract to help take it from Transition School to Learnable, without losing anyone along the way.
Break into tech, learn on the job
Transition School was built for people switching careers into tech: beginner-friendly courses, real-life projects, and live online workshops to help them land their first tech job. Tutors came on to teach live, and some courses were pre-recorded and paid for.
Most of the audience were people in the UK and migrants moving to the UK, plus a lot of Nigerians.
What we were working with
A month before I joined, this was the brand: a site with learning pathways, a career quiz, a blog and workshop pages, plus an audience spread across six channels. Every one of them had to come along for the switch.
Counts from screenshots taken in early Nov 2024.
The name had become a ceiling
Transition School
A name that only spoke to people switching careers.
Full courses that students finished barely completed.
Learnable
A name with room for anyone who wants to learn.
Bite-sized live workshops people actually learn and practise from, instead of loading them with information.
Out with the old, literally
We came up with the idea for the launch animation: the new Learnable logo rolls in and pushes the old Transition School mark out of the frame. The name change, told in under seven seconds.
Watch the launch post ↗A good chunk of the roadmap
I reported to the Head of Marketing and contributed to the product marketing roadmap for the new product, handling a good chunk of it myself.
Working through the holidays
December 2024, with the founder: chasing the designs for my LemFi campaign ideas, lining up two weeks of new content, and getting approved posts onto the calendar before everyone came back in January.
Nobody gets left behind
Soft launch
Before anything changed, we let the audience know something was coming.
A 360 messaging plan
One story told everywhere our people were: the email list, the Slack community, social media and the founders' own channels. We tracked it all in ClickUp.
Switch everything at once
The pages, the handles, the logos, the whole brand changed together, so nobody met two names at the same time.
Two weeks of steady messaging
Consistent updates across every channel explaining what changed and why, until the new name felt normal.
The first posts under the new name
From the launch up to the project management workshop, we worked on the ideas for these.
The school kept running
Transition School didn't pause for the rebrand. While it was happening, I ran three live workshops end to end: telling the audience what was coming, scheduling them, sending the emails and making sure they happened properly. Each drew 20 to 30 attendees on average.
One was a collaboration with a UK-based brand, and one was sponsored by LemFi, the UK fintech, which also paid for people to attend.
Learn by doing
The LemFi workshop taught people to design their first website, for free. It also shaped the product.
“After our first workshop (thanks to LemFi), it became clear: people want to learn by doing, not just watching.”Learnable's founder, on the relaunchWatch the founder's post ↗
How the LemFi slots worked
LemFi gave out free places on our "Build your first portfolio website with AI" workshop on 25 January 2025. To win one, people posted a reel, a tweet or a LinkedIn post saying why LemFi should sponsor them, tagged @TransitionSchool and @UseLemFi, and used #CodeWithLemFi. I announced it to the community on Slack.
Executing a rebrand takes extensive communication, before and after. You keep telling your audience what's going on, so they're never lost.
Changing the name is the easy part. The real work is making sure everyone who knew you still recognises you on the other side.