Part 1: The Udemy Experiment – Flipping Websites
I've been experimenting with creating products because I wanted to see if it was possible to make money with Udemy.
Originally, I was going to make my course on publishing be my first course. However, I've decided that I'm going to put a lot of time and energy in to that post. I don't want to release that course just for the sake of getting a course released. I want to release the most stellar, in-depth course on publishing possible.
This means that I cannot rush the creation of this course. I need to take my time and really dive into everything I can possibly teach on the topic of publishing.
With that being said, I still want to move forward on experimenting with Udemy as quick as possible. I'm going to be releasing my publishing course through this platform, I need to make sure that the platform serves all my needs when it comes to putting a course out there.
So I teamed up with a business partner of mine, Joe Fier, and together we created a course on how to flip websites.
Just to give you a little bit of history… Joe and I have been flipping sites for over 4 years now. It's a way that we make some extra capital when we want to launch a new project or we just need some more funds to accomplish something.
Joe already created a large portion of this course and we have already launched it on a very small scale. I think we sold it to something like 30 people total. We never really pushed it or did a big promotion for it.
We saw this opportunity with Udemy to repurpose and breathe new life into an amazing course that's already made. We added about an hour worth of new content and got the course online.
So far, I'm loving Udemy. It takes care of some many things all in one place.
When I've created courses in the past, I've had to purchase a domain, purchase hosting, upload videos to Amazon S3, create an account with Clickbank to handle checkout, create sales pages, add payment buttons, sync my autoresponder, handle customer support, manage affiliates, deal with refunds, and the list goes on…
Udemy handles ALL of that for me… Literally, everything I just mentioned is handled by Udemy. My number one focus becomes about creating killer content. I don't need to stress about all of the technical stuff. I can literally put 100% of my attention into making sure that I make the best possible content. Udemy handles the rest.
Of course Udemy takes 30% from all the sales. It's worth it in my opinion, however. They take so much off my plate.
Anyway… Our site flipping course is now live on Udemy. It's inexpensive, it's great content, and we're very proud of it.
We're making it free to get initial impressions. So please leave us some good feedback if you do sign up. 🙂
What are your thoughts on Udemy and this course?
Sponsor:
Part 2: The Udemy Experiment Update
I've mentioned before that I'm experimenting with Udemy.com on this blog.
Well the course has been live for a a couple weeks now and I thought I'd give a quick update about it.
So far it hasn't made any money because we've still been giving away free coupons for the course. Udemy explains that when you first publish a course is might be necessary to give your first several students free access in order to gain some momentum and some reviews. After all, no one wants to purchase a course that says “0 Students / 0 Reviews”. You need to get that social proof started somehow.
One thing that I'm finding absolutely shocking is that we're having such a hard time GIVING AWAY this course. We, at one time, sold this course for $37 and received rave reviews on it.
Now we're selling it for $17 and giving away coupons to grab it for free and we've only had 28 people take us up on them. We literally posted the coupon codes in Facebook for all to see after we had a TON of people say they were interested. However, saying you're interested and actually taking action are two different things. People would love to know how to easily flip sites for money, but no one is willing to take the time to actually study the process.
This leaves me with the question… Are we not getting people to register because they are not interested in flipping sites or are we not getting registrations because people just don't take action or want to follow through?
I think I have my answer by looking inside Udemy itself.
Udemy actually allows teachers to see the stats of who's completed the course and how far each person is with the course…
I think it's pretty clear from the stats that, even the people that did take the time to register, people just aren't interested in following through and taking action on the information. They are obviously interested in the concept of site flipping because they took the time to register with Udemy, enter the coupon code, and join the course. However, once inside, they don't seem to want to take the time to actually watch the training.
Would this be different if they had paid something for the course? Would we have been better off giving a 80% off coupon code instead of a free coupon code? I'm thinking the result would have probably been better and I'm thinking that's going to be our next little test. People only seem to consume a concept if they have skin in the game. They need to have a little money invested in it to feel like it's important enough to actually watch.
Other than this insight, I'm absolutely loving the Udemy system. It's so easy to add new videos in, add resources, message the users, and do anything else I could want to do with it.
Here's a look at what it looks like from a teacher perspective.
And here's the dashboard to edit a course…
I can literally drag and drop courses around however I want them and it automatically renumbers everything.
It's a pretty great system.
If you're interested in the site flipping course. Let me know in the comments. I'll give you a coupon for it. However, I better see a 100% completion at some point after giving it to you! It's only about 2 hours worth of training total and you'll have a new skill in your back pocket!
Part 3: Joe Fier Interviews Miguel Hernandez (An experienced Udemy Pro)
Here's another interview we did with one the top earners, Jonathan Levi.
Interested in learning about an alternative to Udemy that gives you even more control? Check out this interview with the founder of Teachable.
