5 Things I Learned About Launching Online Courses (And Earning $300K)
Lesson #2: Sell your course before you build it
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In the last five years, I’ve generated over $300k with online courses (in the productivity niche).
But it definitely wasn’t a smooth ride.
I wasted lots of time struggling and making mistakes before I was able to earn a full-time income from my digital products.
That’s why, in this article, I’ll share the five lessons about creating and monetizing your online course that I wish I learned years ago.
Take The Audience-First Approach (Not Creator-First Approach)
One of my first courses was on morning routines.
I spend three entire months working on it.
From making PowerPoint presentations to recording videos to writing the sales page, I put a lot of time and effort into it.
It totally flopped.
Why? Because I took the creator-first approach.
I created this course because I was passionate about morning routines back then (now not so).
Instead of listening to the wants and needs of my audience, I blindly created what I thought was cool.
This is a common mistake many creators and online entrepreneurs make.
They build a digital product (course, e-book, etc.) based on what they think is cool or what they are passionate about.
But it’s not about what you want, it’s about what your audience wants.
And if your goal is to create a highly profitable online course, you better take an audience-first approach.
Creator-First Approach:
What do I think is cool?
What am I passionate about?
What do I want to create?
Audience-First Approach:
What problems does my audience experience?
What pain points does my audience want to get rid of?
What goals does my audience want to achieve?
What outcomes does my audience desire most?
Taking an audience-first approach requires listening to your audience.
Ask them questions. Survey them. Jump on calls. Ask for feedback.
When you know their exact problems, goals, and challenges, you can create an online course your audience truly wants and needs.
This will make everything ten times easier (and more profitable).
When I finally started listening to my audience, I discovered procrastination was their biggest problem (not their morning routine).
This led me to create Procrastination Antidote, which generated over six figures in course sales as it actually solves a painful problem my audience struggles with.
Sell Before You Build
After my morning routine course flop, I decided to take a new approach:
Sell before you build.
These days, if I have a new idea for a course, I’ll first do a pre-order launch to validate if there’s enough demand for it.
Only if there’s enough demand will I actually create the course. This has been a complete game-changer.
(Obviously, if there’s not enough demand, refund everyone who did pre-order.)
Believe me, you don’t want to spend weeks or months building something that nobody wants.
It’s not fun.
It took me a few weeks to recover from the mental blow.
And no, asking your audience if they would be interested in buying your new course isn’t enough to truly validate demand.
Words are cheap.
People often say they’re interested when there’s no money at stake.
But when it’s time to take out their wallet, all of a sudden they’re no longer interested.
That’s why doing a pre-order launch — where you measure demand by the number of sales you make — is way more effective.
Also, a pre-order launch can offer the accountability lots of creators need to stop procrastinating on building their course.
Once you have those first pre-orders, you have real customers you’re accountable to.
There’s no more time-wasting, overthinking, endless tweaking, or procrastinating possible.
When you have real customers who are waiting to get started on their course, you actually have to deliver it.
So, always sell before you build.
It can save you weeks or months of hard work, or be the catalyst you need to finally launch your course.
Start With A Mini-Course
Instead of creating the ‘ultimate’ course on a topic, I’m a much bigger fan of creating mini-courses.
Mini-courses are usually 1–2 hours of videos, solve one highly specific problem, and help your customers reach their desired outcomes fast.
First of all, mini-courses make the course creation process much easier as you don’t have to record and edit hours and hours of videos.
Second of all, mini-courses actually help your customers get results.
If you offer a 10-hour course, most customers won’t even finish 5–10% of it because it’s too intimidating and time-consuming.
But if you offer a 1–2 hour course, they’re way more likely to watch all the videos, go through the exercises, and actually get results.
And when your customers get results, they’re more likely to:
Become a bigger fan of you
Purchase upsells and future offers
Recommend your course to friends and family
Leave a positive review (adding social proof to your course)
All in all, create a 1-2 hour mini-course that solves a highly specific problem for your audience.
Over time, you can create more mini-courses, build your portfolio of digital products, and offer them together in one bundle.
Start Your Email List ASAP
Digital marketers say it all the time, but that’s because it’s true:
The money is in the list.
My email list is responsible for at least 85% of my online course sales, and I consider it the most important asset for my online business.
Trying to sell your course through social media can work, but I don’t recommend it.
Most social media algorithms don’t favor promotional content, so at most 5% of your audience gets to see your course promotion on social media.
Email, on the other hand, has average open rates of 35–50%, so a far greater portion of your audience gets to see your offer.
(And the more people see your offer, the more sales you’ll make.)
That’s why one of my fundamental digital marketing rules is that social media is for growth, email is for monetization.
Don’t Overcomplicate The Course Creation Process
Most of my courses are simple screen recordings (using Loom) of a Google Presentation.
That’s it. Nothing fancy.
Most course creators, however, tend to overcomplicate the course creation process.
That’s exactly what I did with my first course.
I tried to make my videos ‘perfect’ and feared making mistakes.
But your course customers care far less about the production quality than you might think.
They mostly care about how your course can help them solve their problems and get the outcomes they desire.
That’s why they bought it. Not because they expect a Hollywood production.
So, keep the course creation process simple.
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Great article Jari!
I have some questions:
1. How many people would you consider enough demand to run with the course?
2. How do you get people to tell you what’s bothering them? I find it hard on Substack to get the engaged community feel. I think this might be because a lot of my subscribers are not on Substack.
Awesome comprehensive article. Good lessons there mate. What caught my eyes is selling your course before you build it--pre-order launch approach.