Back in May 2019, I uploaded my first course on Udemy. The course was a fairly niche one so I did not really have much of an expectation. I even considered making the course free but changed that to a nominal price tag to get only serious students. I had been an early adopter of MOOCs and have immensely benefitted from the great educational content (some on Udemy as well) available to students all over the world. Creating a course on Udemy was my way to contribute back to this ecosystem. One year later, I am pleasently surprized at how quickly sales scale on Udemy which provides a viable income stream. I have seen some posts by instructors who have earned millions on Udemy. While I am nowhere close to their success, I am quite satisfied with how things are progressing. Based on my experience so far, I have compiled a list of pointers which some new instructors may find useful. 1) Try to create a crisp promo video which showcases the end product of your course. Nothing speaks better to the prospective students than a working prototype which they can look forward to building by the end of your course. 2) Don't take bad reviews personally. Try to improve your content based on the (reasonable) feedback received. If you have good content then your rating will be fine over time. As a new instructor, the pinch of any rating less than 3.5 star gotta hurt but there is no point losing sleep over it. Work on things which are in your control. 3) As a new instructor, take Q&A seriously and keep the engagement high. You will be surprized how much you will get to learn by addressing the questions. Some questions may be frivolous or answered previously under the same topic. However, rather than ignoring the question or reprimanding the student, try to explain how the student could have sought to find the answer herself (most students take it very positively). 4) Some students are always going to be difficult. You need to decide how much engagement is appropriate. At the end of the day, this is not a private tuition platform. Never yield to overt or subtle blackmail (do this or I will leave a bad review). Thankfully very few students do this. 5) Some instructors may disagree with me, but I would posptpone creating a second course until your first course has reached a critical mass. The marginal return on any effort invested on your first course is going to be much higher than on a new course. I created the second course only after 10 months and 8000 students. the course was created based on the demand from my existing students and the sales have been healthy since launch. 6) Monitor your "course engagement" stats very closely. I consider this the single most important leading indicator of how your course is going to perform. If the engagement is dipping try to get to the root cause asap. 7) Although both my courses have been included in the Udemy for Business catalogue, I sit on the fence regarding UFB's utility. This is because I am not a big fan of minutes views based revenue model and exclusivity clause. However, UFB inclusion does increase your enrolled student count significantly which helps with your brand. The world today is markedly different from what it was a year ago and the pandemic has fundamentally changed lives and business models. I see very bullish times for EdTech in the foreseeable future and Udemy being the undisputed leader is expected to benefit the most. As instructors we can expect significantly increased footfall and a bigger reach. All in all, it has been a roller coster year and I look forward to creating more educational content on Udemy's platform. Thanks and Regards, Mayank
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