Thought I would share a milestone that is exciting for me. I just passed 300,000 lifetime students on Udemy! It's truly incredible. When I published my first course from my small desk next to my bed in my apartment, I never imagined even approaching such a number.
I took a several year hiatus from producing new content, but this milestone coincides with work I'm doing currently to finish my first new course in 6 years! I'm so excited to release something new.
Here's a few lessons I've learned:
- Don't worry so much about how many others are teaching the topic you want to teach. That just shows that a topic is popular. What matters is the quality of your content. Make the course that you wish you would have had on that topic. There's likely others out there like you.
- Don't fret so much about pricing on Udemy. Focus on building an audience, as that's where the real success lies.
- Don't be afraid to share a portion of your content for free on YouTube or elsewhere. Be confident in your content, and use it to convince potential students to buy the full course.
- While you should file takedown requests, don't lose your mind worrying about pirating. Most people who download pirated content wouldn't have paid for it anyway. And some people just might appreciate your content enough that they decide to pay for it afterwards and now you've gained audience (that's happened to me many times).
- Don't worry about how much each individual student is paying for a course. Think of each new student as audience growth for your next course.
- Teach what you know and love: it will come out in the course, and you'll have greater enjoyment in the long-term support of the course, such as answering student questions.
Happy course production!
