8 things I wish I had known about building online courses

Summary

The author reflects on the lessons learned from creating and selling online courses, emphasizing the importance of impact over immediate financial gain and debunking common misconceptions about the necessity of tiered pricing, member portals, custom forums, landing pages, and the value of starting with hands-on teaching before moving to self-study materials.

Abstract

The article outlines eight key insights gained from the author's experience in developing online courses. It challenges the notion that a large email list guarantees substantial revenue from course sales, highlighting the need for meaningful content that resonates with the audience. The author advises against overcomplicating the course structure with tiered pricing and unnecessary features like member portals and custom forums at the outset. Instead, the focus should be on creating a single, impactful course and using simple, accessible platforms like Facebook Groups for community engagement. The article also suggests that landing pages can be a distraction and that direct communication with interested members of one's email list can be more effective for initial sales. The author recommends a progression from personalized coaching to group classes, then to self-study courses, and finally to books, allowing for a more natural course development based on student feedback. The piece underscores the importance of listening to paying students, as they provide valuable input for future course topics, and stresses that courses with specific, clear outcomes tend to be more successful.

Opinions

Impact Over Immediate Profit: The author believes that making an impact should be the primary goal, with the understanding that financial success will follow.
Simplicity in Pricing: Starting with a single price point for an online course can reduce complexity and allow for a focus on content quality.
Ease of Access: Simplifying the course delivery system by using static HTML pages and embedded videos can enhance the user experience.
Leveraging Existing Platforms: Utilizing established platforms like Facebook Groups for course communities can be more effective than creating custom forums.
Landing Pages Are Not Essential: The author argues that landing pages can be an unnecessary step that delays the process of making an impact and generating sales.
Incremental Course Development: The author suggests a development path that starts with direct interaction with students and gradually evolves into more independent learning materials.
Student-Driven R&D: The author values the feedback from paying students as a crucial factor in determining the direction of future courses.
Specificity of Course Outcomes: Courses that promise clear, specific outcomes are likely to be more successful in the market.

8 things I wish I had known about building online courses

I launched my first online course a few years ago. I made many mistakes and false assumptions before then, and have learned many lessons since then. This is what I wish I had known.

Money is a side-effect of impact: A friend of mine had made $100,000 in one hour selling an online course. Since I had a big list too, I thought I might have the same success. I was wrong. People don’t just magically give you money. Once you learn how to have an impact, then you start making money.

You don’t need tiered pricing: Yes, in a perfect world, you have differently-priced options, each offering different levels of impact. But, it’s a shitload of work to get to this point. If you’re just trying to get started, go ahead and have one price. You can build up tiers later.

You don’t need a member portal: When I opened my first course — all about white space — I had spent 7 months wrestling with WordPress membership plugins, and designing a course portal. It just made things more difficult for everyone. Now, I’ve scrapped all of those WordPress hours, and all of my courses are static HTML pages that I’ve hand-coded, with videos embedded. Yes, there could be a value to an interactive portal, but it’s not necessary, especially on your first go.

You don’t need a custom forum: Thankfully, I was smart enough, when wrestling with WordPress membership plugins, to put off my plans for a private community. I’ve since learned that Facebook Groups are fine. There are plenty of people who make millions with courses, who use Facebook Groups. Most of your students use Facebook everyday, it’s better than having to log into a separate website, and they’ll actually see the notifications.

You don’t need a landing page: Wantrepreneurs love to talk about landing pages. To make your first dollar selling online courses, you don’t need a landing page at all. Making a landing page will just be one more thing that puts your nervous system into overdrive, and distracts you from making an impactful course. Identify the most interested members of your email list, get their buy-in directly, then send them a SendOwl (or PayPal) link. I made $5,000 selling a beta-version of my flagship course this way.

Work from hands-on to hands-off: Sure, you can build a whole course from scratch over the course of many months, then launch it. But, you’d be making all sorts of assumptions, and just making it harder to motivate yourself. The ideal progression is: Coaching > Hands-on group class > Self-study course > Book. You go from more intimate, with a higher price-point, to more self-service, with a lower price-point, along the way integrating what you’ve learned. For the courses I have in “alpha” stage, I take applications, then invite about 6 students to do a group course where I share videos, rough Google Docs, and then we do a Hangout once a week where I can work with them more directly.

Your students are your R&D department: Deciding what course to build is tough, especially at first. But, once you have paying students, it gets much easier—because your paying students will ask you questions that are obliquely related to the course their taking. These are suggestions for new courses, from paying customers. I can’t stress enough how different a paying customer is from a random reader of your content: One has demonstrated that they will pay money to invest in their development, the other—you have no way of knowing.

The more specific the outcome of your course, the better: My courses are actually not optimal ideas for courses. D4H Video teaches a framework for understanding visual design, and White Hot Course teaches a framework for understanding white space. I would make more money if I had a course that specifically taught you how to start working as a freelance designer. See how the outcome would be more clear? But, since “your students are your R&D department,” my courses give me ideas for new, more specific courses. They were worth building.

If you’ve been thinking about building an online course, hopefully this takes down some mental obstacles for you — I know it would have done so for me.