Memories :was it difficult to create your first course?

[MarouaOuakrim]

I am currently preparing my first course that it is somehow fun and at the same time a hard thing for a beginner , I learned editing from scratch and recording audio ,which is something new for me to do , but also enjoyable and intresting

Question : Old instructors ,was it difficult  to create your first course ?

Thanks in advance

[Alfa-eLearning]

For me first course creation was not difficult as I had created in just 2 days over weekend. Right now that course is not public. The amazing part is its review process. It was in review for around 2 months before getting published. First review team provided some feedback and I did accordingly but some feedback I was not getting so I left course over there. That was March 2014. I got busy in my office work and never looked back to my Udemy account and course was still in review.

But destiny had some different plan for me and not wanted to end my journey very soon with Udemy.

After 2 months, In end of April 2014 Instructor Community Manager (Eliza) mailed me and told me that she was reviewing my account and found that my course is really close to get approved. She asked me what happened and told someone from team to help me. That person helped me and I did some corrections for few days and my 1st course got approved.

So this is my memory for my very first course on Udemy.

[MarouaOuakrim]

Destiny plays a role sometimes, and helps us to achieve what we want, happy to know your story 

[RamziDeveloper]

I am in the same situation, actually i am preparing my first course and i am in 70% but i have to work very hard to complete the 30%. The problem for me is that i am very perfectionist, i try to do everything perfectly and that takes a lot of time.

I hope that it will be one of the best courses in the arabic content specially in python programming langauge.

Wish all the best for you friends

[MarouaOuakrim]

Perfectionism makes you unable to move forward, so I think you should submit it if you finish it , and update it later

Good Luck  

[RamziDeveloper]

Thank you @MarouaOuakrim , perfectionism is terrible, i really want to finish my course and submit it but i am still working on the last 5 sections...It will be submitted soon.

Good luck for you

[Lizzy]

Hey, @RamziDeveloper 

I don't think perfectionism is always a bad thing. Many of the world's most successful people are perfectionists!

It's only a problem if you are using it to procrastinate but it doesn't sound like you are. 

It takes a lot of time to attend to the details. The only question to occasionally ask is whether anyone else will notice. If not, there might be a better use of your time.

Good luck with your course!

[RamziDeveloper]

@Lizzy Thank you so much

[DeniseFletcher]

Hi @MarouaOuakrim I'm an old instructor. I came to the platform 5 years ago whilst I was recovering from Breast Cancer. I was looking for a way to earn some money to pay my bills whilst I was recovering. I have over 20 years experience of stand up training and a mountain of material that could be easily converted or so I thought. Things were easier 5 years ago but also there was far less Udemy support to get your course live. I really struggled with the tech side of creating a course and it took me a whole 6 wks to create just my test video and 6 months to get my first course live. 
My 2nd course was created in 3 weeks and was on Procrastination lol. And then my next course was created in 24 hours! Yes really! And my 4th course a was a free course just for Women. I now have 10 courses. 
So my first year on the platform was very tough and a steep learning curve. I spent a ridiculous amount of time motivating and helping other instructors get their courses live and go on to greater success when really I maybe should have focused on my own courses. But I am a coach in real life so it's in my nature to help others. 

So 5 years down the line I can say I'm still learning. I completely envy those tech minded instructors for me that is still the struggle to convert all my material.

[MarouaOuakrim]

@DeniseFletcher  Thank you Dennis for your reply ,You are a strong woman, your story is very inspiring Thank you again, I am also currently struggling to just submit my first course,Sometimes I feel frustrated, sometimes I feel like I am chasing a distant dream, and I procrastinate because of the fear of failure , by the way your article https://community.udemy.com/t5/First-time-Course-Creation/Course-Creation-Blockages-AKA-PROCRASTINAT... about procrastination was very helpful , thanks 

[Lizzy]

Don't give up  @MarouaOuakrim 

The darkest hour is just before dawn!

[MarouaOuakrim]

@Lizzy  Thank you Lizzie for your encouragement, I wish you success

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[DeniseFletcher]

Thank you @MarouaOuakrim - my nickname is The Procrastination Queen lol.
Strong message to you now though ( I am always better with other people remember) 

YOU MUST GET YOUR COURSE LIVE IN THE NEXT 4 WEEKS

Why? 

BLACK FRIDAY SALES

Black Friday is one of the peak sales periods so if you want to be successful then your course needs to be in prime position for the feeding frenzy. Let that drive you. 

IT CAN BE DONE

The best thing to do about fear of failure is to treat the course creation as a continual improvement project rather that a one off get the course live. If it is a continous project then the first stage is to get it live - only then can you start to improve, tweak, add to and learn more.

Fear of failure is a fail in it's nature. Because if you don't take the plunge and get it live then you fail already. Yes if you get your course live it might not be the big winner you hope for and it could be a fail HOWEVER you will be so much further on in your learning. And learning is the real path to success. 

GO FOR IT! Message me if you need a bit more ooomph! 

[MarouaOuakrim]

@DeniseFletcher thank you so much, i intend to get it live before black friday.
thanks for your kindness for helping us ,we newbies.

[Lizzy]

@DeniseFletcher 

Thanks for sharing your story and for spending your valuable time helping out us newbies! I hope you are happy and healthy with lots of new ideas for courses. 

I spent a year on research and learning skills. Watched lots of promos on Udemy.  Now I have 3 courses on the go! None published but 2 almost fully uploaded. There is a method to my madness!

[DeniseFletcher]

@LizzyIf you have 2 nearly fully uploaded then you're nearly there. You just need one live ASAP -Go for it! Just because getting the course live is one challenge but the real challenge is once the course is live - the marketing is whole different game. 

Because of Black Friday the market place will be awash with new courses by the end of October which will mean your course will be up against lots of other new courses. So for you it would be good to get one course approved ASAP and get the social proof so you are primed for releasing the 2nd course in time for Black Friday 🙂 

Let me know if you need a bit more of a shove. 

[Lizzy]

Thanks @DeniseFletcher 

I will get them all live by Black Friday. You are right. I am going to send the first one for Udemy review. I will check if it's all there and do that today.

Thanks for the push. It helps!

[PavolAlmasi · Accepted solution]

For me, the first course was the easiest one to create. That's because my attitute was all wrong. It was just bunch of simple videos put together to a semi-concise way. Not much thought went into it and I didn't even bother editing the videos much at all. I made the course available for free, and got thousands of students in just a couple of days. Then made it paid course, and sat back and waited for the money...that never came. The course was of course a flop, and it deserved to be. I ended up unpublishing it and started to work on another course. This time, I put everything into it...and it was hard work indeed. But 10 courses later, I never looked back. The point is, the creation gets easier as you know what you are doing. The editing is done more efficiently, you pick up few tricks that make your workflow more fluent. But it still takes the same hard work as ever, if you are trying to create something great.

[MarouaOuakrim]

@PavolAlmasi  Thanks for sharing your story , at first, I thought it was easy to make a course, but this is not true, it requires hard work and perseverance

thanks

[TameraDion]

So I will do a quick response on @JasonDion's behalf. His first course was rough. He had been teaching in class and was about to transition into online teaching at the college he was at due to having to travel for his day job. So, the last session of his Network+ class he had, he recorded the entire thing and put it up on youtube for the students to reflect on. It was bad. It was a poor set of slides and him talking into one of those ball mics that was set up on a podium-but he paces while he talks, so sound would fade in and out. A friend of ours suggested putting it up on Udemy to see what could happen. He launched it the week after Black Friday 2016 and it made $56 in that short month-which was more than we ever expected. 

After seeing that this could be possible, Jason went and wrote and recorded a new course. First, he went and watched all the training videos Udemy provides about how to best create a course. That course did ok, so we did another, and another. Over time we now have over 25 courses, and have refined our skills so far beyond what they were at the start. I am now the full time video editor leaving him as the head instructor, and we have a team of VA's that help keep up with reviews, questions, etc.

There are a TON of great courses on Udemy that will help you learn how to edit in what ever platform you are using, and other courses that show the benefit of different cameras and mics. I highly suggest doing a search of the community to look for posts about these things to find the right ones for you and your budget as you get started out. We started with $20 mic and a cheap but decent webcam.

[MarouaOuakrim]

@TameraDion  Thank you for your reply and for your advice. I took some  editing courses ,it was difficult for me to create a course and I never knew where to start , but it's easier now.

thanks for sharing your story.
I have read @JasonDion  article . It has benefited me a lot and I changed some lessons because of it,
https://community.udemy.com/t5/First-time-Course-Creation/Four-essential-tips-for-increase-your-chan...

[TameraDion]

Jason is a great teacher in any medium and loves to help others as time permits!