Udemy

@derekm1215 I respect your view and your experience, which is obviously different than my own. You are right that I, and others, didn't start here because we lost our job due to the pandemic, and you are right it is undoubtedly more difficult to build up a student base if you are the tenth or twentieth instructor on a topic than if you were one of the first. That is all very true.    But, just a couple observations, and this is not to discount your opinion.    You only have one course published. I have said this many times in this forum, you can't succeed on Udemy with only one course. Everyone starts with one course, but those who are successful build up five, ten or twenty courses on related subjects. I was on Udemy for two years, from May '14 to September '16 before I made more than a couple hundred a month. Then, I published one course that really hit the mark and things began to increase.  I do want to correct the record. We have seen several changes in pricing and sharing over the years. And, I think we are probably more accepting of this change because we have seen that the previous changes were followed by increases in our revenue. You said "Their goal is pure and simple: it is to spend as little as possible to make as much as possible. PERIOD. End of story." I guess you could say this about any and every business. I can say that about my own business. But, and for me this is a big "but" I do think businesses have a purpose beyond just making money. This is probably not the place to dive into it, but I think the democratization of knowledge, is a worthy/noble purpose. It is transformative on a global scale. I love the fact that someone in Yemen can take my course on management for a few dollars, the same knowledge that I used to share in corporate training for thousands of dollars a day, and it can be transformative in their life, is a really terrific thing. We all want to make money, but it isn't only about that. As to all the other flaws in the Udemy system, I will only say that Udemy, like all businesses, is a work in progress.     ... View more

@Anonymous I agree. As with any change, there is associated risk. A year or two from now we may be able to assess that risk.   ... View more

I am going to say something that is likely to make me very unpopular. All of the calculations being done are not very meaningful because they completely leave out the major factor, the cause, of the change. Of course you can calculate that with the change from 50 to 37% and 25 to 50% you may come out a little better or worse. That's the easy part. It is almost irrelevant because you are not calculating the cost side of the business, only the revenue share side of the business. You are leaving out half of the relevant facts, and that is largely because we do not know those facts.   Let me give an example. Let's pretend you are a farmer and your product is bushels of corn. You are the creator. You sell to a chain of stores who place your corn in their store and sell it to customers. We will ignore the middle men, futures contracts and all that to make it simple. Let's imagine that you have costs to produce a bushel of corn. You have a bank loan on the land you use, you buy seed and fertilizer, you buy a tractor and other equipment to plant and harvest the corn, and of course, you have labor. Let us assume that if you add up all of your costs per bushel of corn, the costs come to $5. And, lets assume you have been selling your corn for $10 a bushel. So, you are getting  100% above your costs, or you have a gross margin of 50%.  Now, on the other side of the business is the sales and marketing of your corn. Let's assume that the store is able to sell your corn for $20 a bushel. So they are splitting the revenue with you at a 50% rate (like organic sales). But, the store also has costs in addition to the $10 they pay you. They have rent on property, marketing, insurance, transportation costs, and labor. So, from the $20 selling price they have to deduct your $10 plus another (just guessing) $9 for labor, rent, advertising, etc. In the real world retailers have a profit margin of around 2%.  To really analyze an adjustment in the percent that the farmer receives and the store receives you MUST know what their relative costs are.    Now lets relate this back to Udemy.    To produce a course on Udemy, what are our costs? Most importantly is the value of our time and expertise. This varies a lot across instructors given the different expertise and experience. What other costs - camera, lights, software... not much else. In fact our costs are very low and they don't change, with the exception of time responding to students questions. Now, on the Udemy side: they pay for servers or server time; they have hundreds of employees, office rent, and they pay for marketing/advertising costs.    Most instructors are assuming a fair division of revenue is 50%, but without understanding the costs or the coming changes to costs. I am not increasing the costs associated with my courses. Udemy, on the other hand, when they increased their take from UFB sales from 50% to 75%, they proceeded to open new offices in Brazil and other countries, and hired hundreds of employees, and advertized the UFB service. Those increased costs were justified by the additional revenue and by the additional 25% share. You may say that I, as an instructor I gave up 25% to pay for the additional investments by UFB. Like all investments it was a gamble. Some instructors walked away claiming it was unfair. I stayed, assumed the risk, and my net revenue increased by 400%. The bottom line is, does your net revenue increase or decrease... but not from a fixed sum, but from the revenue after the investments are made. The premise of the new change is not simply about the percent division of a fixed sum of revenue, which is what everyone has been calculating. That is a small factor in the business equation. The most important factor (and we don't have this information) is that Udemy is going to significantly expand their marketing to TV and other ads to increase total traffic to the site. Their costs, as with UFB, are going to increase. My costs are not going to increase one penny. That is what this is all about. It is about the changes Udemy is making on the cost side of their business. If you or I were going to make an equivalent increase in our costs we would have a different argument.    FWIW.       ... View more

@KarolyNyisztor Just out of curiosity, why "the timing couldn't have been worse." I don't understand.   ... View more

@professor Arain habib Allah prohibited h I am sorry to say that this and several other recent posts are incomprehensible. I am sure it is a language problem. But, I and I am sure others, cannot understand what you are trying to say.   ... View more

@icarolavrador I think your analysis is a good one. For the record, neither I or my courses have ever been featured in an ad and my closest competitor in my category is always featured as recommended in the middle of the page when you search my topic. He also never participates in this community.   Computing my numbers I will initially lose money. However... and trusting that the net effect will be an increase in volume that will exceed the immediate lose on a percentage basis. Hopefully, more traffic through the store will result in more sales for most of us.     ... View more

If you look here https://community.udemy.com/t5/Marketing/Best-Instructor-Posts-of-All-Time-Marketing/td-p/31077 you will find several discussions on marketing your course. Best advice.... make the best course on your topic.   ... View more

@MarkTimberl006 @Alfa-eLearning  I believe in equality of opportunity when it comes to the education of children, etc.  But, that is not what this is. If you have 1000 products to sell and you are going to spend X amount on marketing, are you going to spend X/1000 on every product? No. You are going to spend money on those that have the highest probability of  bringing customers into your store. Once they are in the store they can search, shop around and buy anything they like.  If you or I write a novel, and we have no track record of selling our novel, and Stephen King has just come out with a new novel, are you or I going to get equal attention from the marketing department/money? Hell no!    Marketing is not an equal opportunity business.    ... View more

@MarkTimberl006 Just on your second point: No retail marketing organizations promotes all courses equally. They promote those products that have the highest probability of appealing to customers and making money. Let's be honest. A lot of courses on Udemy are horrible and shouldn't be promoted at all. Do you want money shifted from marketing your best selling courses to courses that won't and shouldn't sell?     ... View more

@Alfa-eLearning I didn't suggest volume at any price. Obviously you don't want that. You should know that over the past two years the average revenue per student has been going up and that is due to the very analytic way Udemy goes about marketing. When was the last time you saw a $9.99 sale? Of course, the idea is to increase volume at the same or higher price.     ... View more

@EdSolverLearn The simple answer is volume, volume, and more volume. The point is for Udemy to increase marketing efforts and bring in more students. The calculations really don't mean much unless you can calculate the amount of increased volume. The way you are calculating is assuming a fixed volume. But, the whole point is to increase that volume in a way that more than balances the change in percent.    ... View more

Observation: How people react to this change is almost a psychological test: high trust versus low trust. Looking at the same facts, some assume Udemy is working in our interest and some assume Udemy is trying to screw us. Part of this is cultural and part of it is simply our experience in business, and in particular the business of creating and selling intellectual property. Some people think that Udemy taking 50% and now 37% is ripping us off.  In all intellectual property business there are essentially two sides: the creative side and the marketing/distribution side. Some think, if I sold and marketed it myself I could make 100% of the revenue (not really because there are always costs). This is about like saying if I write a book and print it myself, I can stand on the corner and sell it and make 100%. True. But, 100% of what?  Book publishing is a volume game. High volume you make money, low volume you lose money.   When you sign a contract with a publisher, as an author, do you know what percent of the sales you are agreeing to: (footnote - I have published eleven books) the answer is 15-20% of the proceeds to the publisher, which is 40% off the selling price (the store gets the 40%) so the author ends up with closer to 10-15%. Of course, both the publisher and store are going to promote books that are most likely to sell and that means authors who have previous success, a following, and on topics that are popular. This means that the majority of authors will make no money on their book, even though it may be brilliant and they may have worked on it for years. If you look at the music business or the art world, you will find very similar dynamics.    So, my perspective when I view this change is to think about the affect on volume. I am happy to take a reduction in % if it results in an equal or greater increase in volume. That is what happened with the UFB reduction a few years ago. Let's hope it happens again.      ... View more

@Julian Udemy is not screwing us! It does not ONLY benefit them. If they are correct that this will enable them to expand the business, it benefits us. I don't think you have been around long to have experienced the other series of changes that Udemy has made. Someone always screams "They're screwing us!" without understanding that they are growing the business and investing in the business.   This change does not reduce our revenue. Those of us who have been here for a few years have watched their decision making, watched the business grow, and watched our own revenue grow. As I mentioned earlier, my UFB revenue is up 400% since they reduce our cut from 50 to 25% so they could afford to invest in the expansion of the business. They have proven competent.    ... View more

I am sure that how each instructor will be affected will be slightly different. Some will lose a little and some will gain a little. However... I've been here a long time and seen a lot of changes so just a reflection on this latest change. It is primarily about growing the business.    In the past, every time Udemy makes a change in pricing or payment to us, people freak out. It seems to be a pretty automatic reaction. But... when you look back twelve or 24 months later and you can see that it enabled them to grow the business and our net revenue has gone up.   The biggest freakout for me was when they dropped the UFB revenue share from 50 to 25%. That was in December 2017. They did this on the theory that this would enable them to invest in UFB growth. They did, big time! And my UFB revenue has gone up more than 400% as a result.   My understanding is that this new change will enable them to spend more on TV ads and other promotions that will increase net traffic and revenue. They have been right in the past, let's hope they are right again. At some point, as in all partnerships, you have to trust that your business partner is acting in your interest as well as their own.    ... View more

You seem to have called a "gathering of Champions". What could possibly go wrong!   Honestly, it won't get you a free cup of coffee.    ... View more

I received mine two days ago.   ... View more

Your are replying to a post from last November. Forget it.    ... View more

Can you explain something. It says that you are a new member.    How is it that you have published 34 courses? Are these actually courses that you have developed? Also, the number of students as a ratio to reviews is very suspect. Just sayin'     ... View more

From your message I do not think we can tell why you were banned. You will have to get help from instructorsupport@udemy.com.    ... View more

To be clear, you do not need a 1099 to report your income. Just look at your PayPal payouts from January to December and you have your 2020 income from Udemy. This will be the first year they have issued 1099s and we have reported our income every other year. Just be sure you add it up correctly so there is no significant discrepency with the amount reported to the IRS by Udemy.  ... View more

Yes. At least from the perspective of a U.S.  based instructor. Maybe other countries tax laws dictate a business account but I don't know why they would. It is personal income.    ... View more

OK. But... I have a 65" 4K LG OLED TV and I can switch from football game being broadcast in 4k (few of them) and one that is in standard 1080p and can only tell the difference if I look VERY closely. Also, note that a high percent of Udemy students (it is either 40% or 60%) are watching on their cell phones.    If you want to record in 4k that is fine. I have a 4k camera and when I record a file in 4k it is a much larger file than when I record in 1080p. I am aware that computer monitors, particularly Apple's, are being marketed as 4k but I would still argue that most people will not see the difference.   ... View more

Are you watching courses on a 65" 4K television? No. 4K is irrelevant. You can't see the difference between 4K and 1080p on any computer screen, tablet or cell phone. It is a huge waste of bandwidth and storage space.      ... View more

I don't know what happened to it. @ScottDuffy  You are the first one to point this out. Maybe just take another one that is highly rated.    ... View more

Abigail, I have a suggestion. Instead of three separate short posts, none of which contain a complete sentence or thought, you might do better to write one post that expresses a complete comprehensible thought or question. Just a suggestion.    ... View more

@HerStylistPro It is not clear what you are saying, or asking.      ... View more