Udemy

ba0708 · ‎11-06-2021

Direct bank deposits for international bank accounts (e.g. Wise). Not sure if that qualifies as a feature, but it's just the absolute most important thing for a lot of instructions, including myself. More important than anything you could add to the instructor UI. Buuut, if I had to mention something, it would be to tag the traffic we sent to Udemy so we can see which traffic sources convert the best. Since we only have three coupons to work with, creating a coupon for each traffic source is not an option. Also making the referral links more reliable in terms of pricing so we don't have to rotate coupon codes every month to get consistent pricing and conversion rates.

ba0708 · ‎11-05-2021

Being able to work full time on Udemy. I don't, but I could.

ba0708 · ‎11-03-2021

Quality above all. If the quality is high, success will come. Also be laser focused on what students need to know and not just what you want to talk about, because it may not matter to a lot of people. Find out exactly who your target audience is and cover their needs.

ba0708 · ‎11-02-2021

Thank you for the response, @Bella. I understand that there is legal stuff involved with international payouts. However, if anything, I'd imagine that it would be easier, since payouts would be to verified bank accounts and not just some online account where the money could essentially go anywhere. But I'll admit that I have zero clue. However, I do know that basically every freelance platform (Upwork, Fiverr, etc.) and other online course platforms support this. So it can't be that much of a hassle, especially given Udemy's size. If everyone else can do it (including companies that are significantly smaller than Udemy), it must come down to prioritization. I know Udemy focuses on growth, but this is really important to a lot of us as it eats a lot of our profits, and so I think it's about time this gets prioritized.

ba0708 · ‎10-23-2021

If flying on Musk's rocket palm tree was the only way to get off the island, would you risk it? Of course it would have no landing legs and would be caught by a tower...

ba0708 · ‎10-19-2021

By far the most important thing you could change about the promotional system is that we still have no way of tagging our traffic to figure out which channels drive the most sales. Sure we could create different coupons, but the system is too constrained for that to work in practice. Specifically because we cannot create enough coupons. And doing that also means that the referral link wouldn't be an option, since that's just sending traffic into a black box. Which, by the way, doesn't work very well; I've moved away from that link since it doesn't convert traffic very well, and gives me less revenue than using coupon codes. In a perfect world, I'd be able to tag my URLs with a source, just as with utm_source, and the referral link would be reliable. That would enable me to figure out which channels drive the most sales, plus save me the hassle of rotating coupon codes every month, updating links, etc.

ba0708 · ‎09-29-2021

None, sorry. I don't mean to be negative, but those things just haven't had any effect for me. The personal plan might, but that's too early to say. The direct deposits for non US instructors would have a huge impact, as we are losing 2-3% of our revenue in payment fees. We have been waiting for a long time without any word on it, so I surely hope it's being worked on!

ba0708 · ‎09-23-2021

That makes sense! Thank you for the answer, @Bella! 🙂

ba0708 · ‎09-16-2021

"When a student refunds their subscription, their payment and any consumption are removed from the overall instructor pool." It makes sense that the payment is removed, but why is the consumption removed from the pool? If someone watched my course for an hour (and potentially asked questions), shouldn't I be rewarded for that by getting a bigger cut of the pool? I.e. even though the pool is smaller, instructors whose content was viewed by students who refunded, are still rewarded for that. In my mind that would make sense - especially since I might have had to answer questions, respond to assignments, etc.

ba0708 · ‎07-30-2021

I hope Udemy will give the promotional system (coupons) an overhaul. In its current state it's garbage and has been so for a long time. An update is way overdue. The thinking behind it was good, but the implementation was poor.

ba0708 · ‎07-19-2021

Still getting lots of Q&A questions sent to me as direct messages. I haven't noticed any difference since these changes were made. I think this is a side effect of having automatic welcome messages enabled, in which case a prompt should be made there too (i.e. for threads where the only message is an automatic welcome message).

ba0708 · ‎07-16-2021

Yikes! The old visual identity was much better. Sorry Udemy! 😕 Also, it was a bit weird to tease us in advance and try to get us that excited. A new brand is cool and all, but won't get us instructors too excited since everything is pretty much the same. So meh...

ba0708 · ‎05-28-2021

There is. But you have to ask for the instructor support to do it for you after you have uploaded your videos. After that, you have to ask for every new video you upload. It's just a way for Udemy to save bandwidth. It sucks (hey, it's 2021), but that's how it is.

ba0708 · ‎05-05-2021

@JasmineBayer My understanding is that this is just to limit the scope of the pilot, so if Udemy proceeds with the Personal Plan after the pilot, it won't just be UFB courses that are available.

ba0708 · ‎05-04-2021

@Abbie, how does the Personal Plan work in regards to instructor promotions? I understand that this is a pilot so it might not be set in stone for the long term. But for now, I assume that Udemy will not promote the subscription model to traffic sent by instructors through referral links and coupon codes? For the long term, I'm curious how the model would work with promotions, if at all. Also, the FAQ states the following: "For first-time subscribers, there may be an option to trial the collection for a limited time before subscribing." What happens if someone trials the subscription for a week and watches a lot of content, asks questions, etc., but ends up not paying? Are the watched minutes just not added to the pool, so the end result is similar to refunds (i.e. instructors won't earn anything)? Or are the minutes added but no dollars are added to the pool (i.e. the minutes are factored in, but the "pie" won't be larger)?

ba0708 · ‎05-03-2021

It does work correctly for me. Looking at my sales, the change happened just recently, so perhaps there was a brief transition period?

ba0708 · ‎04-29-2021

Thanks for the response, @Abbie. It's true that if the revenue goes up (without adding more work), the revenue share doesn't matter much. I actually believe Udemy can do this; the numbers just looked odd to me. Anyway, I'm fairly optimistic since changes Udemy made have historically not impacted instructors negatively, so I hope this won't be an exception. 😉

ba0708 · ‎04-26-2021

I also don't understand the revenue split. To me the presented arguments seem more like excuses for maximizing profit. UFB has sales teams doing a lot of work to get companies to join, and given how UFB has grown, that has been well worth it for both Udemy and instructors. Fair. The same won't be the case for the Personal Plan (correct me if I'm wrong), which is going to run alongside the usual transactional sales. Potential students who are driven to the website one way or another will just be presented with both options. Of course there are nuances for pushing one or another, but anyway... Over time, it's not hard to imagine which option Udemy is going to push the most. I do understand that it is an investment to build and scale a subscription model. But how is that different from all the other platform investments Udemy has made? And if Udemy believes subscriptions is what is needed to increase revenue, won't that investment pay off even with 37% for instructors? Did Udemy just "automatically" go for 25% because that's what instructors are used to with UFB? Again, for sure there is lots and lots of work for Udemy in building out a subscription plan, but how is that work different from everything it took for the transactional marketplace to get to where it is today? Based on the limited information available, I just don't see how it makes sense.

ba0708 · ‎04-13-2021

Awesome, thank you! 🙂

ba0708 · ‎03-17-2021

Just ran the numbers, and it looks like I'll be losing $300-500 per month with this change. That being said, that's only the case if the number of sales don't increase. That's the whole point of this (at least officially), so I hope that will indeed be the case. Logically I like the simpler revenue share. Financially, I'm 20% skeptical but Udemy has earned 80% of my trust over the years. Even if I lose a few hundred dollars per month, I am confident that Udemy will be able to grow my revenue over time. So yeah, we'll see. I'm sure I'll be alright personally.

ba0708 · ‎02-23-2021

Awesome! 👌 Another thing I'd love to see is suggestions for existing questions when asking a new one. That would hopefully eliminate many duplicate questions. Stackoverflow has been doing it for many years, and it works extremely well. 🙂

ba0708 · ‎11-12-2020

Definitely before Black Friday. The earlier you can get it out the better, because then you have a chance of getting a few ratings before the sale. But if that's not possible, just try to get it out before BF and Cyber Monday. If that doesn't work out for you, it's not the end of the world since January is also a good month on Udemy. But moving forward, I'd say try to get a new course out a month before BF or so. Best of luck! 🙂

ba0708 · ‎11-11-2020

What does a 1440p recording look like downscaled to 1080p when playing it from the local file? I.e. the exported video file, outside of Udemy. Just to factor Udemy out of it. My 720p videos on Udemy look really blurry compared to the files I export. I imagine Udemy is pretty aggressive when it comes to saving bandwidth.

ba0708 · ‎11-11-2020

I have limited knowledge of these things, so don't blindly trust me on this... 😉 Which resolution did you record in? I found that recording in 1920x1080 gives me the best results, because that matches the aspect ratio that the videos will be viewed in (16:9). When I first started out, I recorded videos on my MacBook in some weird resolution and found that the videos would get all blurry due to changing the aspect ratio. Of course you can record in a higher resolution as long as the aspect ratio is correct. So if you are not recording in 16:9, then that is probably your biggest issue. Since you have to contact Udemy to even enable 1080p, I'd say that uploading anything above 1080p is not worth the effort. I'd say record in a resolution with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and then upload your videos in 1080p. If you recorded in 2560x1440, then you should be fine.

ba0708 · ‎09-20-2020

Congrats Ross, awesome job! 🙂

ba0708 · ‎09-06-2020

It depends on which material you leave out. You mentioned that the first 75% of the course is a "solid entity on its own," so I assume that the last 25% are not strictly necessary? For instance, if a student can complete the first 75% just fine without missing key pieces of information, you should be fine. An example could be that your first 75% covers fundamentals and the last 25% cover advanced topics that are not strictly necessary. In that case you would be fine doing two releases. It's a quite common strategy actually, especially for those with small audiences, because they can then verify that there is an audience for their course before proceeding. Since you have been working on the course for three months full time, I suppose you have at least a couple of hours of material already, so that should be good as well. Based on what you wrote, you should be fine doing a first release and then releasing additional lectures afterwards. On a side note, Udemy won't have to review your course for the second release; you can simply edit your curriculum and the lectures will be published immediately. Best of luck, and I hope you get your course out there sooner than later! 🙂

ba0708 · ‎08-28-2020

That conversion rate is not alarming for a new course at all. For established courses, I'd say a conversion rate of 10-15% is common. But for a new course with few reviews, the conversion rate is going to be lower. As for the accent (I didn't actually check it), I am not sure if it affects the conversion rate much, but some people do mention it in reviews. Anyway, it's not a major concern if people can understand what you are saying. Anyway, your conversion rate is fine for the time being, at least in my opinion.

ba0708 · ‎07-26-2020

Sounds like a virus, spyware, or something. Check your Chrome extensions and do a virus scan. I don't know exactly what that site does, but my guess would be that it sets an affiliate cookie before redirecting you back to Udemy, or some even more shady stuff. Anyway, you have something bad on your system! 😉

ba0708 · ‎06-06-2020

Now that's pretty cool! It's a small reminder that we are teaching on a platform that's on fire (in a good way!) 🔥 🚀

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Bo Andersen

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