A Daily Curation of the Web's Best Content for Startups
The secret to course success: Start with a webinar
“Too many creators want to launch their online course revenue stream with the ultimate course – an enormous collection of videos covering everything their students could need.
This is the wrong strategy. It requires too many decisions, too many assumptions about your audience, and too much time.
So let’s work on a better strategy where you can minimize the probability and the cost of failure – start with a short webinar.”
Everyone should own an online course that earns $150+ per day – Justin Welsh
“Everyone should own an online course that earns $150+ per day. The problem? Most people don’t know how to build one. Here are 6 steps that might help you get started.”
How Khe Hy built a $500k creator business
“Learn how creator Khe Hy left a job on Wall Street to find fulfillment – and turned a 36-person email list into a $500k creator business along the way.”
“RadReads started as an email Khe sent to 36 people while on vacation from his Wall Street job. He’s gone from those 36 people to an email list of 31,000 — and has brought in over $500k on Podia in the last 18 months.
Today, Khe works with a team to keep growing and reach more people with his message. His cohort-based course, Supercharge Your Productivity , opens three times a year (over 550 people have enrolled). He also offers business consulting through The Rad Studio and is building a community for his students and alumni. He’s been a full-time creator for seven years.”
99% of creators are not ready to sell high-priced courses “As someone who has sold over $500,000 in courses at an ARPU (average revenue per user) of $79.25, here’s my parting advice for new course creators: • Keep your course between 30 and 45 minutes. • Focus on high-value information, not production value. • Make sure your customers achieve one very specific outcome. • Use automated systems to turn everyone into an affiliate for word-of-mouth. Thousands of happy customers + word-of-mouth chatter + motivated affiliates = a scalable course business.” |
Former Airbnb product manager made over $300,000 teaching one online course in 2021
Lenny Rachitsky worked for Airbnb for seven years, and then he turned his knowledge into an online course about the job that brought in six figures.
How to make your cohort-based course more rigorous
“Cohort-based courses should focus on ‘how,’ not ‘what’ and ‘why.’ The reason students take a course is because they want to learn a skill or mindset, and ultimately to improve their work or lives. They’re looking for behavior change and transformation–but they can’t change if they only know the ‘what.’ They have to learn the ‘how.’”
Summary of Jack Butcher’s Million Dollar Build Once, Sell Twice Course
Simple overview of Jack Butcher’s course that had sales of over $1m in 2021.
“Here’s the operating system:
1. Start sharing ideas
2. Attract like-minded people
3. Figure out their problems
4. Build products that solve their problems
5. Extract proof you’ve solved their problem
6. Document/share your process along the way (which becomes a product)”
Here is a fascinating story from The New Yorker about Harvard professor David Malan and his popular online introductory computer class. More than 2 million have signed up for CS50 over the years. Check out the preview video on edX to see what it is about. This is a great example of what remote learning can be with an engaging teacher and a well-designed curriculum. With online learning exploding in popularity, there are big opportunities for instructors willing to put in the effort to become exceptional. What can you teach? There is a surplus of courses, but a shortage of great instructors. Salman Khan of KhanAcademy is another inspiring story in the online learning space. Starting with videos to tutor his cousins, Khan Academy has become a global non-profit educating millions around the world.
Amy Porterfield shares some of the unique courses that her students are finding success with. As they say, the riches are in the niches. These might help you generate some innovative course ideas. Psychic medium, Marilyn Alauria has made. $500k from her courses. Kasey Snelling earned $45k in two launches selling designs for Cricut and Silhouette cutting machines on Etsy. Tanya Smith earned $25k from her launch of The Profitable Boudoir and Portrait Academy, Danira Cancinos made over $120k from her caramel-apple course and another $60k from a course on sugar cookies. It’s pretty safe to say that almost any idea can be successful. Seth Godin’s advice to focus on a minimum viable audience, sounds pretty solid.