🚀 August ’25: Best Month Yet on Udemy

It’s been a while since I posted here.

As a Community Champion, I should show up more.

Mea culpa.

The good news: my online business (Udemy is ~70%) just had four all-time high months in 2025, with August ’25 as the best month ever.

See my Udemy chart:

You can see quite a few spikes upwards, followed by a stabilization.

Here’s what actually drove the spikes on my chart:

Launched new courses right when topics were heating up.
Remade + rebranded winners (fresh 2026 editions, tighter structure, cleaner assets).
Collaborated with Udemy on pilots/initiatives. When they open a door, I walk through it.

Q4 plan (my OKRs from yesterday):

Yesterday was the first day of Q4, and I spent a significant time planning what would move the needle for me.

Finishing remaking my top 4 performers → upgrade content, rename to 2026, refresh thumbnails, first sections, and course materials.
Experiment with short courses. single-outcome, fast to ship, tight value.
Say yes to every pilot Udemy invites me to and treat each one like an experiment.
I will also travel (on my own dime) to London and Frankfurt to participate in Udemy events to connect with UB customers.

On analytics vs action:
I’m an analytics guy, and many of my courses are data-heavy.

But I have just a $150k/year business I want to keep doubling and I need to think what is the best return on my investment.

Right now, my best ROI is improving courses, building new ones, and talking to students, not slicing dashboards.

Analytics could potentially increase my business by 10%, maybe 20% at best.

That does not compare to my initiatives above in terms of ROI

When this hits $500k, I’ll reconsider that stance.

My read on Udemy:

Udemy’s hearing us and shipping stuff to help us grow.

I’m choosing to lean in, test what’s new, and report back with what works.

Less complaining, more experiments.

If something’s broken, let’s try a fix, share the tweak, and keep moving.

Your turn:

What are your top 3 bets to grow before the end of 2025?

Let’s swap what’s working so more of us hit record months. 🙌

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Comments

PhillipBurton

Hi @DiogoAlvesd487 ,

I look forward to seeing you again in London. I booked my train ticket today. :-)

I'm continuing to make courses - some short, some long. I am in the process of creating a pair of around 6-8 hours courses. I also have my eye on creating another course, but the details I need aren't out yet.

Once I have finished creating this current pair of courses, I will be re-recording two of my courses as well - that will take into the New Year.

Apart from that, Business As Usual - respond to questions quickly (and reviews where needed), and make YouTube content and LinkedIn posts to hopefully drive traffic.

Phillip

Rahul Iyer

Excellent post. Thank you for sharing your success @DiogoAlvesd487 and congratulations! Well done!

DiogoAlvesd487

Yes! Looking forward to seeing you in London!

DanaIsseh561

can you elaborate on point 4 please. What events? Are these exclusive events that not all instructors know about? I would love to connect with UB customers.

FrankKane

While I haven't been having my best months ever, I have reversed a sharp negative trend with similar strategies in the past few months:

June is when I hit the panic button, and I've launched three new courses in hot, underserved AI topics since then. It remains to be seen if this results in a steady lift after the new-course-boost is gone from them, but I'm hoping to just keep things steady. These courses are on the short side, and project-based, to keep the focus on engagement.

I also refreshed my older courses earlier in the year, but that didn't really have a measurable effect for me. You're right to focus on the CLP and first section - that's something I had always done, so maybe there just wasn't a ton of room for improvement there.

And I've also been saying yes to just about every new opportunity Udemy has thrown our way - and to opportunities outside of Udemy for things like books and speaking engagements. I'm also keeping my own education up so I can be responsive to emerging hot topics; right now I'm reading up on quantum computing.

The days of passive income are gone. We gotta work for it now.

Congrats on your success.

DiogoAlvesd487

Thanks for sharing!

LindsayMarsh

Good attitude. Me shifting into AI and launching fresh courses will be what turns my ship around. I know this full and well, we just have to get our bottoms in gear. I am battling deep burnout after 9 years of hustling in course creation so my issue is personal but great advice for all. Just be carful about avoiding burnout. Slow and steady wins the race, I wish I took my own advice.

LawrenceMMiller

Thanks for this. Perfect example of what is working on the platform. You are fortunate in that you have the skills to capitalize on the demand for AI related courses, as is Frank Kane.

@DiogoAlvesd487 One question. Can you be more specific about the short form courses you are doing. Are they just a few minutes on YouTube to grab attention, or are they one hour courses with some depth. Where are you posting them? Thanks.

TonyAlicea

It's good to get a positive comment in the sea of complaints and concerns. While Udemy needs to know how instructors are hurting, pure complaining is demotivating, and potentially causes one to miss opportunities.

hprez21

Hey @DiogoAlvesd487, I sent you a message on LinkedIn. Cheers!

AbbyA

I just finished creating my 5th course. I am getting paid nothing. No one is taking my classes. What am I doing wrong? Can you give me some tips please? The only one course that I got enrollment was the free course which I ended up charging now. I made a total of $18 so far and that is just from friends.

FrankKane

That must be frustrating. Topic choice matters a lot. What are you teaching?

macaulayfamous

This is a great achievement. Your dedication and hard work have brought you to this level. Congratulations to you.

ChrisBankes120

Finance and Accounting has many many many courses in it; Money Management Tools does not come up as a topic; your courses are quite short eg 38 minutes; a course recently launched has '2025' in the title and 2025 is nearly ended; at least one course has not been updated since May 2025; some courses are pitched at Beginner rather than 'all levels'; your one low(ish) review "Useful content, but I confess I expected more" has no response from you; your profile has no picture; the first Preview video of a course seems to be a woman walking along a beach and some stock photography; in the few videos I watched you don't appear. Personally I disliked the cascading of letters in Table of Contens….

These are all pretty minor - but you did ask for tips - and uin the main can be fixed.

It's a very competitive market - I couldn't see whether you offered anything special.

But your reviews are great "Life-Changing Financial Freedom Course!I can't recommend this course enough! " - it is very difficult to start though. 5 courses with very few students - it's catch-22 really - you lack social proof because…you lack social proof. Enrolments of 2 students - even at 5 stars - puts people off.

"Good luck!

Tom1

It's good to see a positive post here. I have also experienced similar to you, having had my best month yet in August, but looks like September is going to top that with the increase in UB numbers.

DiogoAlvesd487

I will (fingers-crossed) release a 30-40 minute course in 2 weeks here on Udemy. It will have 10 videos of 3-4 minutes with loads of exercises and so on. Again, it is an experiment. Maybe it will fail like many others!

DiogoAlvesd487

Agreed, 100%. That was my main motivation for posting!

DiogoAlvesd487

Roger!

DiogoAlvesd487

I checked your courses. Here are my 2 cents:

Audio quality is good. Slides are ok. Content is concise and to the point.
Your content is very short. Take your course on FIRE. I could watch this same video on YouTube,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqSExy3HBm0 which is engaging enough and probably get the same output. Recall that you have a course, so you might want to lean on adding things that YouTubers cannot - Quizzes, assignments, resource materials, step-by-step guides.
Your courses are short, which is not ideal for the marketplace, which leads to low social proof and so on. It is a never-ending spiral. Do what you must, but you gotta get to 10 reviews for each of the courses. For reference, watch this video starting at 4:23. No, the title has nothing to do with the segment I want you to watch. https://youtu.be/bzVuNxEVScs?si=r4WeS2eXn7nHhjAf&t=263

On a personal note, it is frustrating. I still recall my second course, which was on a machine learning algorithm called XGBoost. Now, at the time, when I searched for XGBoost, I would get courses on boosting testosterone, so the discoverability was terrible. Have a look at your keywords. See how people find you, see what keywords people should find you, and optimize for that. But, there is no optimization that overcomes the lack of social proof.

DiogoAlvesd487

Thanks!

DiogoAlvesd487

Nice. Do share your story if you get a second-best month in a row!

DiogoAlvesd487

I have always found that working with people is the best way to overcome feelings of burnout. No obligation, but I would be very happy to collaborate with you on a 1-hour introductory course on AI for Designers. Do reach out if this would make your heart beat a little bit faster

DiogoAlvesd487

Thanks!

Oli_Hochberg1

Hi there. out of curiosity, when is this event planned in London?

Oli_Hochberg1

Hi there. I plan on adding to my initial course, and make it a bundle offering. I am also looking forward to test out the one-on-one coaching option that Udemy wants to implement. And also, I 'd like to branch out and create a focused group of students (but that might be more like looking into 2026). Out of curiosity, when is this event planned in London?

Ramesh Retnasamy

Thanks for sharing your experience @DiogoAlvesd487. Congratulations!

CarlosMartinez

Congrats, @DiogoAlvesd487, on your amazing results! 🎉
Thank you for bringing this positive energy to the forum—it’s much needed. Times are changing fast and not always easy, but as instructors we can choose: either complain or take control of what’s in our hands. Your post is a great reminder of the attitude we should all adopt. Much appreciated!

Salil Dhawan

Congratulations @DiogoAlvesd487

Love the positivity! Thanks for the inspiration!

Faisal

Onwards and Upwards @DiogoAlvesd487

SivakamiS2017

Congratulations, @DiogoAlvesd487 !

Yes indeed, some positivity and inspiration is much needed now ! I hope you are right, that Udemy is listening to us, and plans to make it a little easier for us to get back some of that lost revenue.

TaimurIjlal570

thanks for the positivity despite the fact that loads of instructors are facing very difficult times right now on this platform. will try and apply your advice also and see if they improve my declining revenue

DiogoAlvesd487

Good luck!

Mufaddal

Great post @DiogoAlvesd487 . Lot of positive Vibes . Thank you ! Lets keep going!

MarinaT

Hi Diogo,

Thank you so much for sharing, and congratulations on achieving your best months on Udemy so far. Wishing you continued success, and many more milestones ahead!🎉