Happy to share that I have crossed a personal milestone of $250,000 on Udemy this month. This has been an absolutely delightful journey as a course creator. I want to begin by sharing my humble thanks to Udemy for providing an outstanding platform for instructors like us. Here's a glimpse of my journey:   Why I joined Udemy?   I joined Udemy in August 2016. The primary reason to join was to manage work-life balance and achieve financial freedom. Two mortgages and other loans amounted to over INR 80 lakhs (>$114K) of my personal debt. Although I was earning exceptionally well in my full-time job, I realized (much later) that most of my earnings were paid as interest to banks and taxes to the government. So, something had to be done. These huge loans were to be eliminated. Hence, in 2014, I had started taking cohort based trainings and the initiative was successful. My new side-hustle had a great start. However, with the full-time job, I had to manage marketing, execution, conversion, training, admin, and everything else for this side hustle (my new company). Plus, my weekends were packed with 12 hours of training each day. So, the initial success was at the cost of non-stop work for 3 consecutive years (2014 to 2016).   How I found Udemy?   During this period of extreme hustle, I realized my core strength was content creation. So I needed someone who could do the rest (marketing, sales, administration, etc). That's when I stumbled upon Udemy. I saw @SandeepKumar's Six Sigma courses on Udemy. That was my niche. I saw the number of enrollments and like everyone else, I thought the price per course was $200 (Lol 😂). I was blown by calculating the numbers of the high price per course and the number of enrollments. I later realized that the price point is not very high, however, a sustained effort can bring outstanding success on this platform. I joined the platform instantly in August 2016.   The Initial 2.5 Years on Udemy (2016 - 2018):   During this period, I dabbled with my full-time job, cohort based trainings, and creation of new courses. Below is my income of the first three months:   Aug 2016 - $15.70 Sep 2016 - $10.00 Oct 2016 - $11.25 I continued the path of earning a three figure income until September 2017. I was still fairly new on the platform and realized the importance of in-demand topics much later.   By mid-2018, I had heard much about @PhilEbiner and @ScottDuffy's success on Udemy. So I enrolled in their courses. I was also inspired by revenue posts from @FrankKane. I also regularly tuned in to Phil's Podcasts where he would interview successful Udemy instructors.   This became a perfect foundation for a sound and thriving business that was ready to be built on Udemy.   The Year that picked pace - 2019   My mantra was to create quality courses on in-demand topics and release new courses frequently. I followed this path and it helped me hit my first 4 figure mark in 2018:   Oct 2018 - $1,024.54 Nov 2018 - $2,384.91 Dec 2018 - $1,461.21 Jan 2019 - $1,664.59 As I continued this journey, I hit my first $5,000 mark per month ($5,196.01) in Dec 2019.   As my income increased and showed promising signs of success, I stopped efforts on my cohort based, reduced the frequency of my visiting faculty sessions, and focused only on my full-time job and Udemy. My non-stop work schedule was getting relaxed and work-life was getting in control.   The Year of My Corporate Life Retirement - 2020   I had never imagined I would ever retire the corporate life. And that too when I am in my mid-30's. But by 2020, early retirement was on my mind. I was earning twice as much as my full-time job salary. At a few occasions, my earnings surpassed the monthly salary of the CEO of BNY Mellon, India (my employer). And to top it all, I had cleared my mortgage and all other loans of >80 lakhs INR (> $114K). So, I was saving every penny earned. As I consistently started earning more than $7K per month, I decided to quit my full-time job. This was in October 2020. In the next month (November 2020), I hit my first 5 figure mark ($10,260.18). This assured that my decision to quit full-time job was right.   2021   This was my first year as a full-time Udemy instructor. With more time at hand, I dabbled with a number of other activities such as eBooks, Audiobooks, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. But it was Udemy that continued to increase income significantly. No other source was even close to Udemy earnings. The return on time and effort investment in making Udemy courses was way higher than any other sources. November 2021 turned out to be my best month on Udemy with a monthly income that crossed $15K. And in December 2021, I crossed $250K in life-time earnings.   That has been my journey so far. I achieved financial freedom. The standard of living increased significantly. I control my own schedule. I never have to leave my house. After clearing the debt, I purchased two villas - all cash. And the best part, I can see my daughter grow each day - all the time.   This post is definitely not to brag about achievements. These are several other instructors who have been on this path. I have just followed their path. Milestone posts (like these) from seasoned instructors used to inspire me.    To be successful, all you need to do is stick to the path with utmost dedication and passion. I am open for any questions. Feel free to drop them on this post.   Author: @Rahul Iyer 

New milestone unlocked. I did a $20,000 monthly milstone post a few months ago and decided to do one for each notch from here.  My first $30,000+ month on Udemy. The January sale seemed more effective than the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. Other than this, there is not one thing I did that magically make my numbers steadily increase each month. I am still on track to release one new 10+ hour course every 6-8 weeks. Continuing to grow my Facebook student groups (only paid students can join, this keeps the content and post quality up) and have 10,000+ in three groups. Youtube and Instagram are growing, but very slowly and do NOT contribute a ton to my revenue share. I have totally overhauled my flagship money making course to be updated to the newest software. This and many other updates have helped this course have higher ratings and sales. The Udemy Promotional algorithm that chooses which course gets paid ads by udemy, selects "best sellers" tagged courses. I have noticed a big increase in ad revenue sales in that course. It took 2 years for my flagship course to get the best seller tag. Not something that came overnight. Building Facebook communities have been a huge help in having bigger course launches I have stopped doing shorter courses on Udemy and now try to have at least 8 hours or more of content for each new course I have not offered any free courses for over a year I have created several intermediate courses to compliment my flagship best selling course to naturally make more cross sells. I do one big promo each month and offer my students all my courses for $9.99 I do a live stream and review students work in a live video (sometimes over 50 student projects in total), I ask for reviews right after this video so they are at peak satisfaction with the course and bonus content I provide. I can also quickly review 50 students work instead of having to get back to them one at a time.  I have improved my course intros dramatically. I have made them longer (4-5 min instead of 2-3 min) to make sure the right students enrolls in the course.  I have added new downloadable resources to ensure they have something other than just videos to engage with. This has been HUGE!  I would rather come out with one 12 hour masterclass than try to do 3, 4 hour mini classes. Longer more broad topic classes just tend to make more.    My total breakdown of earnings this month JAN 2020 (last 4 days of the month are projected average daily earnings and added to the total) ✔️Udemy: $33,500   I do everything myself, so no need to pay any contractors or employees I get to keep it all. I do not do any paid advertising myself. Just giving people a breakdown because I know when I first started I LOVED to see some of the top earners break down and give lots of details of their earnings. It is like getting to peer behind the curtain.   Not doing this to FLEX, doing it to give you a raw breakdown of some things I do to slowly increase my earnings AND showing you do not HAVE to have your own platform, do tons of paid ads, have a great social media following.   You can to still do well as an online instructor. Just make tons of high-quality content and be consistent with putting out that content and engaging with your students in positive ways. Content is king, if you work on anything this year, continue to up the bar on your video/audio/editing/content quality.  

I wanted to post this screenshot to give inspiration to you guys teaching on Udemy. I started here in April 2016, and it was slow going at first… achieving $50 in my first month and only $700 overall after 4 months. But I had an overwhelming passion to make Udemy my full-time job and be the best I can be at it.   After year 1, I had made just over $20k. I was happy but felt I could achieve more and help more people. Eventually it was when I posted the first Cryptocurrency course on Udemy that things changed!   I am 1m% grateful to Udemy for the support, guidance and motivation, in addition to the brilliant resources, to make courses. I have been exclusive with Udemy, no starting my own website, no posting on multiple e-learning websites… because I didn’t need or want to. Everything I have is here and I hope this achievement can show you that all you need is Udemy and great courses!   I thought I was late to the party starting in 2016 when Udemy had been going for years already. But it shows you if you make a knowledge rich, long course on Udemy in a trending area and you have worked hard building your student numbers and are genuinely helpful as a teacher, you can achieve your goals no matter when you join.   Hope this helped inspire you today…   Let me know if you have any questions.   Author: @Suppoman™ 

What a great Black Friday / Cyber Monday. I hit two milestones: $100,000 Total and $10,000 / month in less than 2 years. Thank you Udemy, for this great platform and all your efforts!   I started my first course just for fun and I didn´t expect anything because I teach extremely competitive topics (Python, Data Science, Finance) teach in English and I am not a native Speaker had no following never made courses / taught anything before (in fact, presentations had never been my favorite activity) hadn´t worked in B2C before (only B2B) don´t do any marketing   In my view, it´s still possible to start a successful (side-) Business on Udemy If you are an Expert in your Topics and provide additional benefits/insight/niches If you have some talent in structuring and explaining complex topics in a way that 98% of your students really understand and digest what you are saying. I have always been a good and passionate learner. I guess this really helps to create and optimize content for students.   If you have patience and realistic expectations. Even if your first course is (in your opinion) the best and most comprehensive course in its category you probably won´t make thousands in the first couple of months. Algorithms prefer/promote those Instructors/Courses with an existing track record, which is OK.    Some insights and tips: Udemy is not passive Income -> It´s hard work to create (& update) 10h, 50h, or even 100h of video content. If you are new, it´s even more important to answer student questions and help your students as good as you can (can be very time consuming and nerve-racking) Udemy is not a getting rich quick scheme. It´s a bet on continuous growth: I crossed the $1,000 Milestone after 4 months, the next $99,000 took 19 months. But the truth is that I am still months/year(s) away from break-even (income if I had invested the time spent on Udemy into the next best opportunity).  -> Udemy is more than just money, it´s a lifestyle. If you are an expert in something and earn good money, Udemy is probably not the best alternative if money is your first priority.  Don´t start with your “flagship” course. Start with 2 or 3 short/free courses, improve your course making skills, understand how the platform works, and build a first audience/following.   Author: @AlexHagmann 

So, it finally happened. It is really strange seeing that 7th digit pop up on my Udemy revenue report. It just feels so surreal. I cannot believe this happened with just one company and without any paid ads that I had to run on my own and almost zero expenses, minus my own human capital. I am grateful to be in the right place at the right time in my industry and I think there is still great opportunities out there for those just starting out.   It took me 4 years and 20 full length courses to get to this point. 2 years had been creating courses full time and the first two it was just a side hustle thing. I would have a system each week where Monday’s I wrote content, tue was filming, Wednesdays were editing, Thursday’s was launching and Friday’s was social media. I would do this every week for 4 years. When I had client work, I did it in the evenings, which was hard and I do not think I could have gotten to this point if I did not take the risk of letting my clients go halfway through this journey.     This will be my last revenue sharing post as I reached the last goal I was wishing to share.   Not going to go on and on with this one, just thankful to be given the chance to accomplish this, thank you for letting me share with you.  

I achieved an amazing milestone on Udemy this week.    I launched my first course on Udemy in January 2016.  That month I did about $750 in sales.    Since then I've launched 16 additional courses. A lot of nights, weekends, and holidays have gone into course creation. Today, I'll see single days greater than my first month.   It's been a journey. The quality of my first course was awful. I recorded dreey lectures against a grey backdrop. And used a Blue Yeti that picked up EVERYTHING. You could hear planes flying overhead, my dog crying... Yeah, it was that awful! LOL   But I've learned a lot along the way. The organization and quality of my recent courses has significantly improved. Each course I created, I reflected on what I could do to improve. Some came from student feedback. Some came from learning from other successful instructors. The important part is to always be learning and improving.    I know when I was starting out, this level of success seemed unattainable. I hope newer instructors find inspiration from this post. There is no easy button. It takes work and time. Every lecture you create, grows your content. Every day that passes, more students will find you. Until someday, you look back and say wow! To steal a slogan from the folks at ConvertKit - "Create Everyday!" Author: @JohnThompson 

MILESTONE! 🏆 I know it is not much to some of you big instructors out there, but I achieved a 5-figure number this month! Last Nov I came within a few dollars or reaching 5-figures but it feels good to reach it on an "off summer month" and not on a high sale month. This on top of the nice chunk of change I get from other sources/platforms monthly, teaching online is surpassing any prior expectations I had for income. A few tips of how I got here: ✔️The first 12 months was spent getting my income to $1,000 a month with only 12 months after that spent getting it to $10,000. You will notice how it speeds up quite a bit once you get past that $1,000 monthly marker. Same goes for building your net worth. That first $100,000 is a beast, with future subsequent $100,000 milestones being easier and quicker to reach.   ✔️You will notice that this month comprised of 20 percent instructor promotions. It can be higher, but it rarely has gotten that high and I think that helps a great deal in boosting you further past your prior numbers. I sent two promo e-mails this month along with a new course launch.  ✔️Speaking of course launches I *try* to do one each month. That means most of the month I am focused on course production and editing with one hour a day for student engagement. ✔️This was built on zero prior audience. It took that first 12 months to build a small audience to then build a bigger one in the next 12 months afterwards to achieve this type of income. 2 and a half years in total to get here, not really an overnight success but one where it was worth the years of effort. ✔️I do not have a huge youtube following, instagram following or anything else for that matter. This has largely been built using the Udemy platform and a student facebook groups and a page. I have spent too much time with little return on social networks like youtube/instagram. If it ain't working after several months of posting GREAT content then focus your efforts on building new courses instead. ✔️I have focused more on producing new courses and less on boosting and editing older ones. BUT Every 4 courses I take a month off and focus on upgrading prior courses with new content/lessons. ✔️I have had a larger focus lately on creating additional "bonus content" or "downloadable resources" for my classes to add a more rich experience. Students love being able to study things "offline" and some have a hard time streaming in their countries and really prefer this mode of learning, coupled with videos. My first few classes did not include many downloadable extra learning items. It is a student preference I had to learn over time. ✔️I have been focusing a lot on student support. One hour of each day is spend helping students with feedback. I have slowly (and it has taken over a year) to build a 5,000-member facebook group that contains just paying students. Paying students convert very well when you send them new course coupons. It is also a place where you can earn your 5 star reviews without asking by being helpful. ✔️Reviews are a HUGE deal in ranking. Any negative review (3 stars or under) with a comment is addressed immediately, not matter how crazy that review sounds. I never write a review off as "ridiculous" or "unfair" unless they use bad language. There is some truth in all reviews, no matter how unfair it sounds. I address all items, it if is a problem with sound, it gets addressed THAT DAY. ✔️I have a Black Friday plan in place. I am producing a course I think would have the greatest student demand (based on a poll on my student facebook group). I plan to launch in early October to get ranked high enough for Nov sales. ✔️Speaking of black friday I am boosting my biggest money making class. I have one super large course that is selling over $3,000-$4,000 per month. You bet I pay very close attention to that course. I recently upgraded the audio on 5 lessons and totally replaced 4 of them. I am adding new downloadable worksheets to lessons and I hope to remove lessons I think are unnecessary. All this will keep my rating boosted (in theory!). There is a point when upgrading a successful class is more profitable than creating a new one. Make sure you know when that point is. Usually, when a current course is still outselling your new additional courses. Anyways, just felt like sharing this milestone but also sharing a few tips as well! I hope you found some of this useful in your own teaching journeys!    Author: @LindsayMarsh    @LawrenceMMiller: Congratulations! You have done a great job of building a business on Udemy and it is obvious that you have worked very hard at it. You also did a great job explaining how you got there, which I am sure will be helpful to many.    

  Our approach is much different than most on here-- Our business on Udemy has diminished over the last few years, but, we're still very grateful for the partnership.   My company, Framework Television, has evolved from a Udemy seller to independent publisher to fledgling educational digital television network.     Not the normal Udemy path.   I started on Udemy because of cancer.   Strange but true.  I had been flying around the world as a technical trainer, teaching the first generation of mobile developers and multi-media web developers.  I had a great client base-- Lockheed, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Boeing and even the US House of Representatives were all my training clients.  I was making buckets of money and having a great time.  It was the life.  First class seats on planes, great hotels, and great people.   Then one day nine years ago, I was about to start a course for the FAA.  I was about to begin teaching and realized my muscles were so fatigued; I couldn't get out of the chair.   They brought me to the ER, and the eventual diagnosis was colon cancer.   I was 35 years old.   What they don't tell you about fighting cancer is that (for me at least) it was not so debilitating that you can't do anything, but, I wasn't able to travel and continue working.  So there was a lot of Price is Right and a lot of web surfing.   One day in my web surfing, I discovered Udemy.  And I thought to myself, "I can do this better than these people!  Maybe this is a chance to make some extra coin."   All in the same week I finished my chemotherapy regime, completed my first Udemy course and traveled to my first post-cancer training client in Minneapolis.  I finished posting the last lessons of Javascript for Beginners on Udemy from the Embassy Suites.   To my surprise, the course made money.   Suddenly it was making lots of money.  I was lucky.   So I made another course.  Then another.  Soon I had to hire an assistant.  Then he had to work full time.     So years later (and two paradigm shifts later) here I am.  I've had a #1 computer book on Amazon.  I've authored dozens of courses myself and published dozens of courses authored by others.  Now I'm on the adventure of my life starting a streaming video network teaching people coding, digital design, and game development.  It all started with Udemy.  And we're still there.     So a few recommendations for those just starting out:   1) Focus on quality.  You're not going to do well trying to find the shortest path between you and making a buck.  We've continually improved quality over the years in an attempt to better engage, better explain and create a better degree of success.   It's amazing that when you provide actual quality, you don't worry about the review system much.     2)  Video lectures are not enough.  Students learn better if you provide a multi-modal education.  Add worksheets, labs, even a written version of the lectures.  We now include the equivalent of an entire book with our courses as well as exercises, additional practice, etc.   3) Learn production.  Sorry, if I have to watch another Powerpoint presentation masquerading as a course I'm going to scream.  Differentiate yourself and create something worth watching.  We know why you use PowerPoint-- It's easy.  I can read the PowerPoint slides, thank you.  Reading them to me does not make a course.  (Argue all you want.  PowerPoint makes bad courses and makes you lazy).   Here's a screenshot from one of our courses: We're shooting against a green screen.  Everything else -- lower thirds, animated backgrounds, etc, we learned in Udemy courses.  You'd be surprised what you can learn here.   It matters.   Production matters because your audience isn't comparing your work to other online courses... They're comparing it to other media.  Video games, movies, TV Shows, are all your competition for eyeballs.  Can you engage as they can?  Do everything you can to engage your audience.   If they're not watching your snooze-fest, it's your fault.  Not theirs.   4) Work as you've never worked before.  I love every minute of the work we do.  I cannot be more excited to take the 30-minute train ride to our studio each day.  I work 12-14 hours on many days.  I've created a team of folks that I love.     This is my passion.   5) Be an expert.  I cringe whenever I hear the word niche.  When someone is seeking a niche, they're looking for a way to make money-- not teaching what they are passionate about.  We don't need another Facebook ads instructor who wants to do it because it's lucrative.  Of those of us who've made it to the million dollar mark I guarantee most of us are experts teaching what we're passionate about.     The opportunities always lose in the end, because there is a shiner quarter somewhere.   6) If you don't like it, quit.  Today.  There is no imperative to make a course.  It's even worse to make a lousy course and hate the process.  If you don't like it, quit.  Life is short and, in the end, you should spend time doing what you're passionate about.   That's all for now.  Ask me anything.   -Mark   Question Congrats Mark, what a great achievement!   It's an AMA, so here I go with the tough questions: 1) How long did it take you to get there? 2) You have over a quarter million students, are they all paid? It seems that ~$4 per student is a low number, that would mean most of them aren't repeat buyers? Any free coupons? 3) I see you have almost 7,000 reviews. How do you explain the low review to student count ratio? Do you think that has any impact on your sales? 4) You said your Udemy review has been dwindling. What do you attribute this to, what and when was your peak revenue and your monthly revenue now?   Thanks for the inspiration Stephane Answer Thanks.  I don't mind tough questions.  Not sure how some of these are helpful to you or help you sell more courses, but, here goes...   1) About 8 years. 2) I actually have over 375,000 students across different accounts.  I have other accounts generating revenue as well.  This was just the first one to reach a major milestone like this.  For a period a few years back when I worked closely with Udemy they systematically gave away one of my courses as a way to entice people into buying.  They don't do that anymore as their strategy has changed. I have no idea how many are repeat buyers.  It seems like we have a significant number based on names I notice again and again, but, since Udemy doesn't provide a convenient way to track that, we have more constructive metrics to focus on. 3) We've never focused on trying to get students to review courses.  Before the algorithm changes in 2016(15?)  the number of reviews wasn't a huge factor.  Now Udemy has made the number of reviews a major factor in search.  (The unintended consequence was wide-spread cheating).  We had plenty of reviews for social proof. Our current strategy focuses more on reviews and class participation. 4) We used to do over $25k a month up to $45K a month.  Now we do under $5K some months.  Our courses used to be featured by Udemy and supported with advertising.  The competition used to be a lot less.  Now that support goes to others.  (Yes, I'm a bit bitter about the way in which we were unceremoniously dropped, but, life goes on).  We are still participating and still trying to grow on the platform.  In fact, last month, with the help of friends we had a pretty good launch in a healthy category... We'll see what happens.   View the full thread: 1 Million. Ask me anything. (And I'm NOT one of Udemy's Favorites) 

I see a lot of people asking, "Why didn’t my course succeed on Udemy?"   Honestly, though, this question often comes too late for us to help them because they have already filmed and published a course. They have spent countless hours and effort to build this course, and they are discouraged because it didn't get a bunch of students buying it up in the first week.     So, with that in mind, here are my four tips for increasing your chances of success onUdemy based on my experience. It is a long read, but worth your time and consideration before you start filming.   (Following all of these tips will NOT guarantee success, but they will certainly put you in a much higher chance of finding success here on Udemy. Remember, Udemy is a crowded place these days with 100k courses from 50k instructors...how will you stand out and succeed?)   Please please please, follow these tips in order. After all, if you don’t get Tip 1 right, the rest of this post doesn’t even matter...   (1) Proper category selection.    This is probably the number one mistake of new instructors on Udemy. People think, “Hey, I know Java and the top Java course makes like $90k a month. I want some of that sweet sweet Java $$, so let me throw together a 3 hour course on it, publish it, and I am going to be instantly rich!”   What they don’t realize is topics like Java, Web Development, iOS Developer and Python are highly competitive topics with 500-1000 courses already released and in the marketplace on each of them. This means you are likely to get buried in the noise (sheer volume of available courses) and no one will be able to find your course. This equates to low or no sales.   Instead, you really need to find a topic that isn’t overcrowded and make a name for yourself there. The topics I have had the most success with (translation: the one with courses making large amounts of money if we measure success by revenue) is categories with less than 10-20 courses in them. Once you find a category like this that you are knowledgeable and can teach, we can then move on to step 2...   (2) Make a better course than what is out there.    Once I find a category, I actually watch the top 1-5 courses for that category (at least their free preview videos). I analyze their course and ask myself, “Self, if I were to make a course on this particular topic, could I do it better than this instructor?”   My first breakout hit for a course was in a topic with only 10-15 courses in it. The #1 course made around $3000/month, and when I watched the previews for that course I was bored. The videography was ok, the audio was ok, but the presentation was outright BORING. I knew I could create a better course than that instructor, so I built one. Within 3 months, my course became #1 for that category and has been my top selling course ever since. (Oddly enough, the top course revenue went up significantly as a result to, moving to 2x the previous top revenue because now there was a better option for students to buy, which in turned increased conversations for this topic area across the Udemy platform.   Now, the hard part here is that there are some categories I found that “looked” like a good opportunity (high demand from students and low number of courses), but the leading course was already very good. For some of these topics, I opted to ignore these categories because I didn’t think I could take the top spots from the existing courses. Could I make a great course? Sure. Could I make one significantly better than the existing leader? Probably not.   When you look at these existing courses, you have to be truly realistic in your approach. I have considered making a Python course before. Python is one of the most searched terms on Udemy and may be the single best selling topic on the platform, BUT the top courses are already REALLY REALLY good. I mean, Jose's Python course is top notch. Could I make a really good course, too? Sure, but there are already so many good courses (and literally hundreds of Python courses on Udemy already), I would likely get buried in the noise, so I don't make Python courses.   Let's take for example, a topic like ITIL 4 Foundation (my #1 course). If you look at the Insights tool for you would think this is clearly a topic you should make a course for. Low number of courses and high demand. But, you would be wrong...   Why? Because the top course is my course. It has great visuals, an energetic and well liked instructor, and exceptional video quality. The course is a complete study solution, where I give the student all the videos needed to pass the exam, quizzes, 2 practice exams, and a downloadable study guide. I give students so much value for their money, it would be hard to displace me from this top spot, because there isn't much you can do to give more value than I already have.    Now, if you are a brand new course creator, it is going to be hard for you to steal students from me. In fact, 9 out of 10 people who search the word ITIL on Udemy end up buying one of my courses. When I have spoken with Udemy has told me, “You clearly dominate this topic.”   But even beyond me thinking my course is the best,  (and students agreeing), you have another challenge in entering this particular topic. This topic is regulated by Axelos, owners of the ITIL brand. If you publish a course there without their authorization and approval, they will have Udemy remove your course under copyright infringement. So again, not a topic you want to join unless you jump through the very time consuming and expensive process of becoming “authorized” by Axelos to teach ITIL. (The same holds true for the CEH certificatoin for those in the IT space who want to teach hacking.)   (3) Make courses people actually want/need.    This may sound stupid, but do people want/need your course? If you are making a course on Underwater Basket Weaving, will anyone want or need it? Is there a big enough audience to support it?   I personally make most of my courses on IT certifications because it gives me a natural audience who is searching for courses to pass these exams. People go to Udemy everyday to search for “CompTIA Project+” or “AWS Associate”.    When you are starting out, people will find your course because of your topic. This is why finding a topic with less than 20 courses is so crucial, because it virtually guarantees you will be one page 1 of the search for that term. Over time, as you become more known and liked by student, then they start searching for you and you can break my 10-20 courses in a topic recommendation.    For example, many of my student search “jason dion python” or “Jason dion Java” because they want to learn those topics AND they want to learn them from me. (They won't find one, because I don't have those courses, but they keep searching.)   Going back to our Java discussion at the beginning of this thread, I now have a big enough following that I could launch a Java course and do pretty well. I won’t knock out the top guy, but I could probably make a few thousand $ a month with one because enough students know me and would buy a course in that topic from me at this point. But if I was where I was 2-3 years ago, forget it. That same course (regardless of how good I made it) would earn me maybe $100/month if I was lucky, and I would be on page 5, 10, or 15 of the search results. It would be very hard for students to find it and discover me.    (4) Happy students.    The last strategy I use is that I put my students first. I give them a complete course, a full study solution, in their Udemy course. I answer their questions. I support them in our FB group, etc.    These students are my biggest marketing effort. Just go into any CompTIA Facebook group and ask what you should study if you are going to take the CompTIA Security+ exam. I bet within the first 5 comments you get at least 3 of them saying “Jason Dion’s course on Udemy”.    This is marketing for me. Now, I don't get 97% because they didn’t use one of my coupon links (I am not the one marketing in these groups), but these recommendations are all over Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and LinkedIn, an they are all driving warm traffic back to my website and Udemy’s looking for my courses.    You have to be patience with this strategy though. It doesn’t happen overnight. These students took my course, passed their exam, and now they share the good news of "Jason's courses" with others because my courses worked for them. For that to happen, it takes 3-6 months from their first purchase, so you have to be patience. But, once the flow of recommendations starts to flow (you’ve primed the pump), it becomes a snowball effect.   Bottom Line:   I am not saying to go create courses in areas you are not an expert in. Please don't read it that way. I am not trying to make you a mercenary for hire. But, I do want you to consider all the things you COULD teach before deciding on a particular category. Your BEST thing, the thing you are the biggest expert in, may not be your best choice on Udemy because the market is too crowded in that topic.   For example, I have a friend who has been teaching Web Developement (HTML and JavaScript) for a few decades. He is an excellent teacher, and makes outstanding courses, but that is a tough topic to succeed in. Should he go teach a cooking class instead if that has high demand and less competition? Well, maybe...   This particular person is skilled in many things. He has been an online instructor probably longer than anyone else I know. He knows how to do some amazing things in Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, and Audition. He knows how to program computers. He knows how to run a profitable business. He knows management and human resources from running his companies. He knows educational design and learning management systems. You get the idea...this guy knows a lot of things. I just listed 6-10 different topics he could teach, teach well, and with expertise.    Most of us are like this. I look at my own background, and I have 20+ IT Certifications across cyber security, IT service management, and project management. I also can play guitar, run a business, manage people, do videography, and numerous other things that I could  teach.   So, when I started making courses on Udemy, I looked at various topics. My third course (which became my best seller) was on ITIL. It is something I had done at my job for over 10 years. It wasn't the thing I was most passionate or excited about, but it was a high demand area with a low number of courses. Yes, I have expertise in it, and I am certified in it, so I decided to make a course on it....and it paid off (big time).    That is my point here, because I could have created another Web Development course, or Java course, or Python courses, but I didn't. Even though I am knowledgeable about those things, I knew I would be fighting an uphill battle teaching them. For example, I used to own my own web development company. I have been a web programmer since the late 90s. I definitely could create a "Complete Guide to Web Development" course if I wanted to. The same with Java or Python, I program in both of those languages, but it doesn't mean they will provide me the best return on my time investment by creating courses on them. Some things may be good topics, but they may not be good FOR YOU.    Now, when I say things like this, I often get the objection, "But Jason, the only thing I know is Python", or Java, or Web Development. To that I say, "Well, nothing says you have to be on Udemy." Yes, I know this is a Udemy platform I am writing this on, but remember, no one is forcing you to use Udemy. Udemy is awesome, but if you are going to spend 50-200 hours building a course and get ZERO traction because you are hidden in a sea of other courses, then maybe you need to find your own path...or be prepared to market the heck out of the course yourself on Udemy.    Either is fine, but remember, if you are making the next Web Dev, Java, or Python course, you better have a plan for how you are going to be found and how you will stick out among 500+ other courses on that topic. If you think you will just click "Publish" and students will flock to your courses in these highly competitive topics, you are going to be sadly disappointed, I promise you.    I hope this helps some of you out there as you embark on your Udemy journey, Jason Dion   Author: @JasonDion 

Sometimes it's a bit intimidating to start a whole new Post just to ask a question.    So go ahead and ask your question as a comment in this thread, and I'll do my best to answer. No stress, no worries. No dumb questions. Ask away.   Who am I? I'm a fellow instructor, and I've been on Udemy for about 7 years. Udemy's my full-time income these days and they've been very good to me over the years. I've seen a lot. And I'm here to help. So how can I help you? What do you need to succeed? LMK below.   Question Hi Scott,   Thank you for offering your help on here.   My course was recently flagged for not generating enough enrollments. The email from Udemy said that I need to update my course with a fresh video at least every 6 months. What else can I add to it?     Also, do you have any tips to attract new students? I've been marketing it through my Instagram page.   Thanks Answer   Hi there, thanks for asking.   I notice your course is called "Structural Analysis of Statically Determinate Trusses".   I can't say that this is a topic that I am familiar with.    For this particular course, you need to identify who your ideal student is. I think you did a pretty good job describing them in the course landing page. It appears to be Engineering students who are stuck on this particular element of learning structural engineering, who also speak English. Do you have an idea of how many people in the world that may be? Maybe 10,000 total? I don't know.    Next, you have to get this course in front of them. I am not sure if enough of those 10,000 are on Instagram and searching the right hashtags for your posts to get in front of them.   You might try Facebook ads, to catch people in the right age group, college and university engineering students, etc. But it's hard to see how you can make money advertising to a small group of people at this price point.   Your course has 4 students and 0 reviews. I always say that you need to push that thing to at least 10 reviews. So you might have to give your course away for free to "a few" people and ask them nicely to review it (honestly). 0 reviews is not a great place to be.   To be honest, I'd think about your next course. That's your highest expected value move. Something that might have some mainstream appeal.    Think about the Discovery Channel, the Science Channel, and mass entertainment youtube channels and tv shows - and what kind of programs they air related to your expertise in Engineering.   Find the most-watched engineering videos on YouTube. Find the most popular TV shows in your field. What are they teaching?   "The Science of Suspension Bridges - How They Stay Up" "The Science of Burj Khalifa and Other Mega Skyscrapers" "How to Build in Earthquake Zones"   Things like that. What would a million people potentially be interested in when they are bored on a Saturday afternoon related to engineering?    I think your success on Udemy will be in that space.   If you want to remain on the academic side of engineering, you might have to do more marketing. Write a newsletter, build a mailing list, start a community, start a YouTube channel on the topic.... find a way to bring free information to people that can hook them into your paid course.   Have a look at Arjit Raj on Udemy, you might have some things in common:  https://www.udemy.com/user/arjit/   Good luck!   Question   Hi @ScottDuffy  I am completely new to this field and also english is not my native language but i am trying very hard to improve english and delivery so that i can reach to wider audience’s. In June i have launched my two course. Conversation rate for first is 3.4 % and for second is 5.2% I able to earned in June :-  $341.11 and July:- $412  Actually can you suggest me how can i improve my courses. Is it possible for me to earn $1500/month from udemy? maybe dumb question. Thanks in advance   Answer There are no dumb questions, first of all.   "Is it possible for me to earn $1500/month from Udemy?" Don't let me or anyone else tell you what you can achieve. General life advice, OK? I know it's possible to make much more than that on Udemy. Maybe not easy for everyone. But it's possible. I know hundreds of people that do.   "Whether you think you can, or think you can't, you're right." - Henry Ford.   For future courses, you'll have to improve the sound quality. There is quite a lot of echo. It sounds like you are recording in an empty room. I can understand you OK, but as a future improvement, you need to figure out how to record without so much echo.    In fact, if you get bad reviews saying the student can't understand you, some of that will be because of the echo. I think this is probably the most important thing you need to work on.   The course I previewed is called "Full stack project with spring boot java and react - TDD".   It's a minor thing, but you should learn about "Title Case" because book titles, course titles, blog post titles, etc should have every word start with a capital.    In my search, you are #4 for "spring boot react" on Udemy. But I see that you expect students to have beginner-level skills in Spring and React already. So you're not "teaching" spring, you're just using it?   So what are you teaching? Test-Driven Development? You should use the word "Test Driven Development (TDD)" in your course title. TDD alone is not enough.   "Master Test-Driven Development (TDD) with Spring Boot & React"   I don't know if that title fits, but I would try that as a title and see if it improves things.   Those are my suggestions for now. It's a competitive category. Good luck! View the full thread here

  The purpose of this post is not to show the money I make on Udemy (in fact there are no numbers in the screenshot I uploaded), but to share my journey as an instructor, in the hope of inspiring others who are perhaps just starting theirs, or who are frustrated because things are not turning out as they expected, and can't spot what is going wrong.   I have divided my journey into 4 stages. In all of them there is a single common denominator (mistake-learning process) and a single result when adding up all the parts (growth).   Stage A represents what we could call "magical thinking": I'm going to publish a course and I'm going to get rich right away. Who hasn't fallen into that wonderful fantasy? I have. And in the worst way. When that didn't happen I got frustrated, I blamed Udemy, I blamed the students, I blamed the review system, and I blamed my competitors. I blamed everyone except the person I was supposed to blame: myself.   The obvious result of this mentality was to stop trying. Why would I do that? I had created what I thought was the most magnificent course possible and no one was smart enough to give it the sacred value it had! As a result I lost 2 valuable years.   Stage B begins when I said to myself: "let's try it one more time, but this time let's look at what the winners do, and let's start from there". In this stage I dedicated myself to do two things: to be inspired by the right people (thanks Phil) and to produce non-stop, without focusing on the numbers. The only thing I was looking at was what I could do better in my next course.   Something very important at this stage was that I understood that nobody is an expert in everything (specially me), and therefore I needed to learn a lot, and for that I had to associate with others, exchange experiences, link up with my colleagues.   I took advantage of every opportunity that Udemy offered to network. These actions were reflected in my charts, and reinforced that conviction. The big step (fruit of this mentality) and that gave way to the next stage, was the decision to participate in the global event Udemy Live Berlin 2019. It was not easy, I live in Argentina, and my income still did not allow me to travel so comfortably, but I knew that this was the right step.   Stage C (immediate growth and subsequent fall) was a direct consequence of 2 aspects: the Berlin meeting on the one hand (which gave me contacts, successful partnerships, support groups, great friends, and mostly a lot of learning) and on the other hand the explosion of the Covid pandemic in March 2020.   At first my sales exploded, the quality of my products improved, I started to develop a team (why did I resist so much?) and everything seemed to go up. But there were still lessons to be learned. Sales dropped sharply in the following months, and then just kept growing slightly. But this time I was ready to blame the right person: me.   I was guilty of taken for granted that success was guaranteed. I was being kidnapped by the dumb idea that my students will love my next course, just because they loved my previous one.  At the same time the world was changing and I couldn't see where it was going, and I was letting my courses be a constant reproduction of themselves. I was giving my students more of the same, in an ever-improving package. Something needed to change, and fast.   That's how stage D began, where the chart shows the biggest growth lines I've had in my entire career. What are they due to? Because I reacted to what I learned during Stage C. I decided to stop thinking about making courses that make money, and focused on making courses that improve the life of my students. When it used to take me 1 month to do a course, now it takes me 6 months. I plan my next courses as if it were a Netflix show (I'm not saying I'll make it, I'm saying I use that concept as a goal).   The paradox is that I learned that when you produce with total love, the student falls in love with you, and you achieve in an indirect way the objective you were looking for directly before.   My success on Udemy does not mean that I have surpassed anyone, it only shows that I have surpassed myself. That I have learned from my mistakes and that I must have a humble attitude if I want to keep growing. That's why I shared this graph without numbers, because what's important are those lines that go up and down, moving to the rhythm of my own wisdom and my own stupidity.   If you ever feel stuck in your career as a course creator, run to the nearest mirror, there you will find all the answers.   Author: @FedeGaray 

After almost full 5 years of Udemy experience, I reached USD 250K today! I owe this success to inspiring instructors who always go before us and show us what are possible. Special thanks to @LindsayMarsh  and @PhilEbiner  who showed me basic strategy to be successful in Udemy. That is just keep making courses. I learned to be good contributor to Udemy community from @ScottDuffy. Helping others and serving community themselves are rewarding. @LawrenceMMiller always gives wisdom and insight.  For those who have just started Udemy journey, I want to share one secret to be successful in Udemy. That is, there is no such secret. All you need to know is shared in this Udemy community. BY learning Udemy courses by yourselves, you can learn how successful Udemy instructors teach and how they structure their courses. Stop chasing "best way", "short cut" nor "Only_successful instructors_know_things". Because there are no such things.  I am merely a high school graduate and no degree in higher education. I was raised by single mom. Most of Japanese companies denied my resume because of my academic background. I am a husband and a father of 3 daughters. I still work for 9 to 5 job. Meaning I am just a normal guy. But one thing I did was I kept making courses. After 59 months of Udemy career, I have published 48 courses and still continue. Those who feel that your revenue grow very slow, I know how you feel. But, once you get momentum, things go really quickly. I calculate how much months I needed to earn every USD 50K; 1st 50K 38 months 2nd 50K another 7 months 3rd 50K another 6 months 4th 50K another 4 months 5th 50K another 4 months. As you see, to earn first 50K, it took me 3 years. But another 50K was easy, just 7 month. 5 times faster than 1st 50K. It is because during the 3 years, you cumulate skills and you cumulate courses, students and reviews. Another 50K , you can use these. I know by observing come-and-go in communities (it used to be Facebook, and now this official community) for 5 years, that not many are patient. So stick to it and just keep moving on, you are already special here!   Best regards Shigeru Masukawa from Tokyo, Japan    

Hi There, I'm Denise and I have been on Udemy for a few years. I have 10 courses. I thought I'd share some of my thoughts about NOT being the most successful of Udemy instructors. I think when you first come to Udemy it can be easy to give up before you have even got going with creating your course. Or you create your course and it isn't successful at all and you feel deflated. It's comparisonitis!!!  Comparing yourself to other people. Some course creators just nail their course and their niche and are immensely successful from the word go. I want you all to know that there is room for everyone to get some success and over time you can be more successful. It just takes more time and perseverance for some / many people. Don't give up. Learn. For me I overcome my technical shortcomings just by learning bit by bit. It was an enormous mountain to climb.I am still learning. I have become more successful and Udemy does reap rewards as long as you keep at it Sometimes it is important to keep in your mind that there are course creators who earn nothing but also there are course creators who earn a fortune. However there are a lot more who earn somewhere inbetween and that is ok and can pay your bills or help you earn extra money if you have lost your job, you need more money, you need to work flexibly because of family commitments, you have been ill or you are retired.   Just keep the end in mind and your reason, your why for create online learning  Kind Regards   Author: @DeniseFletcher 

This post might come off sounding a bit self-centered and egotistical. Apologies in advance if it comes off that way. My intention tonight was to reflect on my 7+ years as a Udemy instructor.  I thought I would share them.   As always, if any of these spark questions or interest, feel free to ask about them in the comments below.   1. I don’t read my reviews. Stranger’s opinions about me are not important. I do, however, have someone to read them and respond.    I once heard Seth Godin say something similar at Udemy Live. I care about the opinions of people I trust and respect, not Internet strangers.   2. If one person says something bad about me or my course, I don’t believe them. They’re having a bad day. I forget about what they said. Everyone has a right to their opinion. But I also have the right to ignore it.   You have to have thick skin to survive in an Internet Marketplace. Or a Facebook Group. I really don't let what people say to me affect me. That's on them.    3. If multiple people say something bad about me or my course, ok maybe there’s something that can be improved. So I improve it. And then I forget about what they said. My lack of memory for inconsequential things is my greatest strength.   At some point, there's a quorum. If a few people say something needs to be improved, OK, I improve it. But I still don't let their harsh judgements affect me. It's fixed! Moving on!   4. I don’t read emails, private messages, social media messages, or answer phone calls unless I want to hear from that person. I currently have 26.999 unread emails and I’m perfectly fine with it.    I view being hard to reach as a strength.    5. I am not perfect. I can always be better.    6. I am not a perfectionist. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a perfectionist actually. There are just people making excuses for why something isn’t done.   7. Great is the enemy of good.   A book I have not read. But it makes sense. If you spend too much time trying to be perfect or trying to reach greatness, your competition will have passed you 6 times.   8. Practice makes you better. Create one video, and it’s at-best “ok”. Create 100 videos, and you get better. Create 1000 and you get better. Do it again, and again, and again.   Practice, practice, practice. What we do is a skill. You can't beat me with your first course. I've been doing this for years. Work harder. Practice harder.    9. Not every course I have made has been a success.   You don't see the failures. Shhh....   10. I watch my own courses frequently enough. I’ll just sit and watch 1-2 hours of each of my courses every few months. And that spurs ideas for making them better.   How many instructors watch their own courses one or two times per year? I bet it's less than 1%.   11. I don’t give away all my best secrets to public Internet forums.   Author: @ScottDuffy 

We often discuss whether sales are going up or down and we discuss a lot of factors over which we have no control, such as Udemy’s advertising, the pandemic, etc. But we do not often discuss how our own work product determines the rate of sales. So, I thought it would be worth making a list of instructor’s “controllable” factors that will determine the rate of sales of a course.   Let’s do a survey. Assume you are launching a new course, so it has no current students and no ratings to begin with. Let’s not discuss inclusion in UFB because that will come later. What will impact its initial sales?   Please reply by stating the numbers of those you think are most impactful in order of important… #1, 2, etc. Pick your top five factors in order. Or, add to the list if you like. If you suggest an additional factor, I will add it to the list in this message so others can rate it.   Topic title (with key words) Subtitle Written course description. Category in which the course falls Quality of the promo video – video technical quality Quality of promo – explanation of content and benefits Quality of the promo – personality/style of the instructor Quality of other sample videos Instructor’s bio/resume/CV Instructor’s prior ratings and courses List price of the course Length of the course (longer) Length of the course (shorter) Number of competing courses Rating of competing courses Instructor’s marketing efforts – YouTube Instructor’s marketing efforts – mail list Instructor’s marketing efforts – website Instructor’s paid ads (Facebook, etc.)   Author: @LawrenceMMiller    @Mufaddal: Here is my top 5 in descending order of their impact to sales Irrespective of Udemy or self hosted site    1, Category and level of interest in market  for the course or topics 2. Level of awareness about the instructor and courses - Reach - Mailing list, youtube, Linkedin etc  3. Instructor bio- Trust is huge factor. Once students trust to be an authority or someone worth listening to and learn they will keep on buying. 4. Ratings and Reviews  5. Competition    @Marious: Here is my list: 11, 1, 12, 9, 4 For me it is all about advertising the course and targeting it.   If targeted by Udemy, I will get a lot of sales... Udemy is really good at targeting people with ads. It is much harder for individual instructors... It is enough to look at Black Friday (not a year ago, but 3-4 years ago...) - crazy results! I do not want to panic (yet), I want to wait till the next big promotion from Udemy but my current results show huge drops despite my efforts in publishing new courses. I want to wait till the next big sale by Udemy to see if this trend keeps going    So from things I can control it is all about the price and showing that students own this course forever and can rely on me (I think it would be a good option to be added - active support from an instructor). So in a way it is about advertising Udemy as a great platform, showing the benefits, and saying there is a cool course that I actively support.   From marketing tools, Facebook worked for me a few years ago but no crazy results...   I think owning is a key factor here - I have heard a lot of comments from students from Udemy and outside of Udemy saying that they like to own a course, it feels better than 'renting' it for 2 months - they feel some kind of a connection. I get that and like it. On the other hand a lot of people enjoy UfB, I used to make a lot of money of it (not the case anymore and I have no control over it, unfortunately - 50% drop for me).   Also, try a number of things and see what works for you. Try new titles, new projects, and new ideas.    Thanks Lawrence for an interesting topic!   @Rahul Iyer: Hi @LawrenceMMiller ,    This is an excellent list. In my opinion, all the factors you've listed are important. Not one  can be singled out. The best part is if we control these factors (which are rightly in our total control), Udemy does it's part very well. Some may not agree to my statement. But if it is an in-demand topic and all these factors are taken care off, we are making it easier for Udemy to market our courses. Thanks again!    Regards,  Rahul  

    Hi,  I'm Phil Ebiner. I'm a long-time Udemy instructor - been here since 2012. And I'm excited to be a part of this community. Please feel free to ask me any questions!   Since 2012, I've made over $1.5 million from Udemy. And I don't say that to brag, but to show you what a normal guy like me can do... someone who started like many of you without an audience, experience teaching, experience selling, email list, website... nothing.   It has taken a lot of hard work and time to do this, but I believe you can achieve your goals if you have the right mindset and put in the right amount of effort!   I love Udemy, and hope to help you out on this amazing platform! Cheers, Phil   Question   Hi Phil, very inspiring, what kind of courses you are doing  I just joined Udemy I am an Artist and art instructor for many years I want to start a cours but don’t know how . can you guide me to start  how many hours should a cours be is it like continued courses , should a cours or a project be finished in one course and continue doing another project ? Thank you    Answer I teach creative skills like photography, photo editing, video editing, motion graphics.    Great question about how long a course should be. I always say that they should be 'as long as it takes to teach the topic.' I wouldn't focus on just simply trying to reach a certain length of course... just focus on teaching a topic in an efficient and easy-to-digest manner. You don't want to drag on and on about a topic.  On the flip side, I've seen longer courses do better on Udemy. So adding additional topics/content, and making the course comprehensive enough to be 5+ hours is generally my rule of thumb.   In terms of finishing the course - do it! Just get the course done and launched!   View the full thread: Ask Me Anything - Phil Ebiner, long-time instructor - Udemy Instructor Community

    When I created and published my first course 2 years ago on Udemy, I expected my market to be fairly limited and sales to be lukewarm. If someone told me that in a couple of years I would be sitting at $100k earnings (much higher number in terms of sales) I would have referred that person to a psychiatrist. Thanks Udemy for providing this excellent platform and helping instructors like me build their brands and a viable income stream.   My sales started slow (first few months) but they scaled really nicely post the Black Friday and Year End sales in 2019. The UFB was a welcome addition but the pandemic really hit the ball out of the park. The sales have slowed since then but they are still at acceptable level and I trust the think tank at Udemy to take the right decisions. I have a demanding full time job (which I plan on keeping) and therefore I rely completely on Udemy for marketing and promotions and so far they have done a darn good job at it.    Note to new instructors. 1) Creating and supporting courses is a lot of hard work and it should not be thought of as a passive income stream. 2) Take the reviews and feedbacks positively. It will help you become a better instructor. Always remember that your average student has likely purchased the course from the Rockstar instructors as well and you can't blame them for comparing your courses with theirs. 3) Actively supporting the course (answering questions, incorporating suggestions) wins you a lot of goodwill and helps with your brand. Very important for new instructors. 4) Keep upgrading your older courses. I cringe at some of my earlier videos as my inexperience comes across quite clearly. Also the obsolescence rate keeps increasing and I need to update lectures which may have used tools/packages which are not supported anymore.  

My latest course got Udemy's badge "Hot & New"  Here's what I did to get it! Recently, I've been participating regularly with my drawing posts on one of Facebook drawing groups. As my posts there were so engaging, I decided to post about my new course after publishing it on Udemy! So I posted a catchy image of my drawing and I posted that I have this new course where I teach realistic food drawing with ink markers and that I need their help to review the course! Here's exactly what I posted in the group:   It's win-win! 20 people will take the course and give me reviews! And at the same time I've marketed to the course in an indirect way. That's because when the free coupons were sold out, those who were interested in the course have ordered using the discount link. By the way, I was so happy to receive comments from people who said that they don't want to disappoint me by enrolling in the course and not able to watch it and review it! This was really honest! This reminded me of my first courses when I used to share free coupons on Facebook groups that are created for sharing free Udemy courses; something that I realized is terribly bad. That's because you get students enrolled in your course only because it's free although they wouldn't be at all interested in it. Consequently, you get a large number of students with ZERO  review and minimum or no student progression. On the other hand, when I started to share free and discount coupons on Facebook groups that are specialized in the fields of my courses (polymer clay and drawing), I got students who are interested in my courses and who wrote me reviews. They got benefited from the course and I got reviews which are so important for further marketing and sales. Besides, people who missed the free course have bought it because they grew interested in it. On sharing your course's link on Facebook groups, take into consideration that: Some groups' rules don't accept sharing links or selling, you've to respect that! It's better to be an active member on the group from the begining. It'd not be decent to post on the group for the first time just to sell your course there. Be kind first! I've been on Udemy for only one year and I'm still learning more and more every day! As I'm a relatively new teacher here, I wanted to share this marketing tip with those who might be new or still haven't enough audience to market to! Hope you find it useful!  

Hi Everyone This is the story of my journey on Udemy to earning my first $1000. This post is almost long overdue. I wanted to write this post at the start of Aug, but I got very busy with my next course. I am going to start at the beginning.   I graduated from university majoring in Mechanical Engineering in 2015. I had no idea where my life would take me five years later. Having found no job in Afghanistan and desperate to work, I found myself teaching 4th, all the way to 10th graders at school. I started teaching basic computer skills and the English language. In a matter of five months, I wrote six books on office and some necessary software. There were no books in the school curriculum of Afghanistan for computer so I had to come up with some to teach.   Right after the school year ended, I found myself diving more and more into computer science and software engineering. I learned HTML, CSS and JavaScript in just a month and started teaching them by the end of 2015. I think I binge studied them. These technologies were like nothing I had encountered before. I mean I had learned 2D and 3D modelling in AutoCAD, SolidWorks and Pro-E along with 2D and 3D analysis of Structures in AnSYS when I was in university. But, HTML/CSS/JavaScript had very different tones to them. After a year of studying and teaching at schools and universities, I became a full stack web developer. It was such an honor and an incredibly challenging task in Afghanistan at the same time.   It was the start of 2017, where I thought of getting a scholarship and take my skills to the next level. So, I decided to take the TOEFL test and I did. It was almost the same time when I started having chronic lower back pain. I was studying more and more everyday and the sitting was killing my lower back. I was sort of an athlete when I was in university. I ran a lot and did bodybuilding as well. But sitting made me familiar with the physical pain. It has been 3.5 years and I still get the pain but it is not chronic anymore. It comes and goes. Last year I went to Kabul and visited a doctor among other doctors over the years. He was the first one to tell me that I have a spinal abnormality. I have an extra lumbar vertebra, a sixth one like there were not enough already. And that guy is causing the pain. He told me if I am not careful, I might end up with a spinal surgery. It is very difficult to be careful about your health and program at the same time and live in Afghanistan with no resources at all.   Anyway, I did not let the pain stop me and self-studied TOEFL, which was nothing new at that time (the self-studying part) and scored 98. I could not get any scholarship and one year passed. It was start of 2018 when I found a scholarship to study in Japan. I studied IELTS and scored 7.5 and I still did not get the scholarship. I realized, if there is anyone or anything that is going to change my life, it has to be me, no scholarship, no nothing. So, I started studying Data Science and Machine Learning which was really interesting for me and still is. But what I got from the Japan scholarship was the light of my life, I met my wife who is the best scholarship I can get and got married after 5 months. In the march on 2019, I hurt my knee badly. Multiple injuries. Torn meniscus, torn ligament, displaced kneecap and a few minor ones. I could not afford knee surgery so I let it heal itself. It did heal to some extent, but in the process, I hurt the left knee. Subsequently, I suffer from pain in both of the knees and the back every day.   It was towards the end of 2019 when I stumbled upon Udemy and the idea of teaching on Udemy. It took a month to create a compartment to record. It was in the preparation for teaching on Udemy that I understood the true meaning of difficult. I searched for days on in my city and other cities and I could not find any good microphones to record. Finally, I found used (second hand) headphones just to realize my laptop does not record well. I must have changed the OS tens of times along with the drivers but nothing changed. I had saved almost $1.5k and I had already spent $600 on the compartment and bought the laptop for almost $950 (borrowed 50 bucks). The laptop is quite fast. Intel core i7+ (12 CPUs), 16BG Intel Optane Memory (IRST), 8GB physical RAM and 1TB HDD and 2GB dedicated GTX graphics. The laptop can handle mountains but not recording apparently. So, I decided to record the audio on my smartphone and synchronize it with the video. This is when I brought my brother into the equation. He is very good with the Adobe Realm and is also working on his Udemy courses. So, that’s how it all started.   Here is me sitting in my 1.5m by 2m studio built with the technology of 21st century in Afghanistan.   Nonetheless, the most challenging problem was yet to come. It was the month of Feb of 2020 when I was hit the hardest in my entire new life (development). The Udemy website was blocked in Afghanistan. The reason that this was the strongest punch thrown at me, was the very fact that I could not do anything about. I checked all the ISPs in Afghanistan and nothing could open Udemy. I could log in through some kind of VPN service, but I was not about to do that because I thought doing that is unethical and I might get banned from the platform. So, naturally, I got depressed. I did not eat for days and stopped working and studying altogether. I drowned into the horrors of not being able to change myself, my life and the life of people around me for the better. I tasted the bitterness of this world. I sank into the notion that I am good for nothing and no matter what I do, life in Afghanistan will always prevail over me. It was the worst weeks of my life. My wife helped a lot and never gave up on me, encouraged me as always, but I was drowning deeper that even I had realized.   After almost a month, one day my wife told me that Udemy is working again and I could log into my account once more. I remember the moment clearly. It was like someone blew life into my lungs again and I was able to breathe again. I was hit the hardest because when I saw Udemy and the potential of having a wonderful life, I was mesmerized. I knew at that moment that teaching on Udemy is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I had a clear picture of my life’s purpose and why I was born.   The first course was published on Apr 6th and after two days I earned $20 with no prior online presence including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. I removed my Facebook account in 2018. It was basically a waste of my time. My course grew more and more. I got more and more students. On the 31st of July, I released my second course and earned almost $95 in half a day. The courses are growing rapidly and so is my excitement. I teach 57 countries and 312 students in just 4 months.   Here is a screenshot of my earnings so far. I hope I can inspire at least one person in the world. If I can do it in Afghanistan, so can you.   At the end I want to thank dear Abbie and dear ElianaC for being there for me and answering my questions. I also would like to thank the Udemy policy and instructor support teams and all of Udemy deeply for inspiring people around the world and providing opportunities to learn and grow. I also would like to extend my gratitude to all of my fellow instructors and thank you for your posts and guidance. You have helped me a ton, literally.   Love from Afghanistan

    Super excited to have finally reached this one. 100,000 in sales on Udemy and here is some of what I learned on the way. ( Thos took 3 years by the way! )   1. Consistent output is key. Either updating existing courses or making new courses. ( I have 12 courses now. ) 2. Appreciate bad reviews. What!? Yep, I said it. Those are the ones that will lead you to better course creation if you listen! ( of course I mean the constructive ones. ) 3. Learn to promote your content. Don’t wait for Udemy to do all the work. You can notice that over time I got better at selling my own courses. I started to get less organic sales so I began to share more videos on YouTube, engage with my audience on social media, and create more blog posts. I now bring in 30% of my own sales. 4. Build your audience off Udemy! The real power is in your following and they love interacting with their favorite instructor so give them ways to do that. For me it is pretty easy since I teach art. I comment on their art and give any insights I can. Create helpful free content for your target student as well as a clear line of sight to your course content. 5. Help as many people succeed as you can. Do this and you will find success along the way! 6. Don’t wait for perfection!  It isn’t even a real thing in my world.  I am an imperfect being and I share that in my content.  Besides, I would never get anything done if I thought otherwise.   I hope this helps and I am here if you have any questions! 🙂   -Robert (@Robert_Marzullo)