$250,000 and counting...

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Rahul Iyer
Community Champion Community Champion
Community Champion

$250,000 and counting...

Udemy Record_Final.png

 

 

 

 

 

 



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:

 

  1. Aug 2016 - $15.70
  2. Sep 2016 - $10.00
  3. 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:

 

  1. Oct 2018 - $1,024.54
  2. Nov 2018 - $2,384.91
  3. Dec 2018 - $1,461.21
  4. 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.

132 Replies
Joshua George
Community Champion Community Champion
Community Champion

Awesome post, very well written.

Congrats on the big milestone!

Rahul Iyer
Community Champion Community Champion
Community Champion

Thank you @Joshua George ... Appreciate the note 🙂

Congratulations @Rahul Iyer 
Happy to read your journey story. keep it up.

 

Rahul Iyer
Community Champion Community Champion
Community Champion

Thank you @TechiWIZ... 🙂

Thank you for your story. It is very inspiring to me cuz I have just joined in and am developing my course on Udemy. There is still a lot to learn)))) Thanks again! 

Rahul Iyer
Community Champion Community Champion
Community Champion

Appreciate your note @SerzhVelychanskyi, thank you. Wish you all the best! 🙂

THANK

@Rahul Iyer Well done. That's really awesome. Congratulations. 

Rahul Iyer
Community Champion Community Champion
Community Champion

Thank you @MarkEmmanuel Apprecite your note 🙂

Wow !!! Hats off to your dedication. Really very inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing your journey.

Rahul Iyer
Community Champion Community Champion
Community Champion

Thank you @ManasRoul 🙂

That's FANTASTIC!  Thanks for sharing the details with us!

Rahul Iyer
Community Champion Community Champion
Community Champion

Thanks @StanVangild204 🙂

Rahul, That's fantastic and I greatly appreciate you sharing this personal journey. You have now become the inspiration to many others. 

Rahul Iyer
Community Champion Community Champion
Community Champion

Thank you @VirajShetty265... Appreciate the note 🙂

Hi Rahul, what an amazing achievement! I am very happy for you and wish 10x more success in the near future.

 

 

Rahul Iyer
Community Champion Community Champion
Community Champion

Thank you @mariorossiudemy... Appreciate your note 🙂

Congratulations @Rahul Iyer , motivating story for us as a biginner
Could you please details howa much courses you publish per month ? how much time ? how you promote courses ? ..;

 

Thanks

Rahul Iyer
Community Champion Community Champion
Community Champion

Hi @trainer777,

 

Nice to meet you. Great questions. Below are the details:

 

How much courses you publish per month ? How much time?

It is difficult to publish one course per month. But I try to publish a course every two or three months. This is because the scripting, voice-over, shooting, production, publishing, etc takes its own sweet time.

With that said, I have not published a single course in the last six months as I was focused on updating the existing courses. I think this practice of updating the existing courses before Black Friday did help in having an excellent season.

 

How do you promote courses?

The best part about working with Udemy is you can focus on content creation and Udemy does the rest. They will do complete marketing and administration. So, you are working on your core skills of creating courses (effectively).

 

Having said that, I do spend a little time in catering to my audience on Social Media Sites. I am active on a handful of them. Here, I do not put effort on promoting my courses. I prefer giving out nicely created value-driven content for free. As the external audience sees good content that they can use to add value to their work, they are automatically attracted to my courses here on Udemy.

 

I hope this helps. Please feel free to shoot additional questions as needed 🙂

 

You are the best!

GuilhermeMP
Community Champion Community Champion
Community Champion

Wow... amazing story, Big Rahul! This is surely an inspiration 🙂 

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