My Passive Income Obsession.
I’ve been obsessed with the idea for a passive income for quite a while. This stemmed from the realization that my current job may not be my dream job, it might not hold for a long time, or my priorities may shift.
If you want to know about the passive income idea, you can start with Pat Flynn’s site www.smartpassiveincome.com because he is the master in this science. Apart from Flynn, many other online entrepreneurs have cracked the mystery of passive income. The ones that I came across
After a ton of thinking and tinkering, I have concluded that my idea of a passive income has to become a reality as soon as possible.
This quick realization was fueled by the understanding that passive income does not only bring passive cash in your
And this is what it’s all about for me. I long for freedom and happiness more than anything in this life.
In this post, I want to share you with my awkward steps at building my passive income “source” and what I have learned so far.
The project I started a few months ago with the hope it will grow and start bearing fruit is teaching on Udemy. Udemy is known to millions of teachers and students, but if it’s new to you, Udemy is an online course platform which means you can teach online. Sounds promising, isn’t it?
Before creating my first course and uploading it on Udemy, I researched tons of information about the pros and cons of teaching on this platform. Good feedback equaled in volume with the negative feedback.
Some people claimed to make 100,000 and more on Udemy while others complain about the unfair distribution of revenue between the author of the courses and the platform and other problems.
For me, the decision to starting on Udemy was not under consideration for long. I just decided to do it, and whatever happens – I will learn from it.
As of now, I have been on Udemy for about 7 months with 3 courses. Throughout this time, while learning about course building, revenue distribution, reasons for course popularity, and forces that drive traffic, I have reached a few learning milestones, both positive and negative.
I like Udemy for several different reasons:
1. Udemy brings organic traffic to my course which means I don’t really have to do any promotion although I could. Since I posted my third course in August 2018, I haven’t been creating more or advertising my courses.
As of now, I have 3 courses, 62 students and $312, 52 in revenue before taxes. Honestly, it’s a drop of water in a bucket, but it makes me happy to think that my idea has a potential and is transforming into real cash.
2. It’s incredibly easy to start on Udemy because the platform provides tons of resources for teachers. I took 2 of the courses offered, and after learning how to create a schedule/plan for a course, I started grinding and building my first course.
Uploading and making sure all the pieces are in place (like the connection to your PayPal account) were clear as well.
3. Udemy instructor’s dashboard provides all the necessary information for you to see how your courses are doing in terms of incoming traffic, sales, distribution of revenue, conversion rate, etc.
Looking at these parameters helps me figure how the platform works and what I can do to make my account grow. These parameters also give you a clear understanding of what does not depend on you, and you have no control about.
4. I sense my Udemyaccount can be more profitable and faster growing with my putting more time into creating courses and uploading them to the platform. And if it doesn’t grow, I blame myself only.
5. As a language teacher on Udemy teaching the English language (obviously), I learned about certain things that make my courses sell:
- Mentioning that your course will contribute to the TOEFL/… scores.
- Providing worksheets that contain lecture notes and practice exercises.
- Creating a course that is not too narrow but not too general (my worst performing course is about Writing a Compare / Contrast Essay which is too narrow; my best performing course is Connecting Ideas in a Better Way Using Transitions which lies in the sweet middle spot of being not too narrow or broad).
- Explaining simply with tons of examples.
These are the points I managed to draw from observing course performance and some of my students’ comments and feedback.
Unfortunately, the access to students is quite limited, and the Udemy students do not usually respond to any questions directly from the teacher from my experience. So everything I have learned about the performance of my course is through observation.
There are certain reasons I am skeptical about Udemy:
1) Udemy takes a
2) Pricing on Udemy, although left up to the teacher, in reality, is controlled by Udemy. The platform holds continuous sales and promotions.
It means no matter what price you put on your course, it will be promoted by Udemy at a different rate (much lower usually) most of the year.
With this in mind, to make a sizable revenue from your Udemy courses would take many more new courses and much longer time, which I see as putting tons of time and effort into something that will give me pennies in return.
3) The connection to students is minimal. Besides, the only channel of communication with students – messages- is dead. The students in my courses don’t ask questions or comment. Neither do they reply to my
Oh well…I see it potentially damaging because I have no grasp of what exactly attracted students to my courses, how I can modify them to target a broader audience or even what other courses I can create based on my students’ needs.
4) While promoting your related courses through interconnection and reference, you have no choice but promote other teachers’ courses in the same area. While it’s convenient for students, it’s not that great for teachers since you are basically sending your potential customers to other teachers.
The takeaway:
I do not regret starting on Udemy, and I don’t hate Udemy. It is a great platform where you can get a proof of your concept or idea. Still, let me tell you about my decision to move further with my “business” ideas to grow my teaching channel.
1) I am shifting to Teachable.com. I created my school, and it seems to be ready to go. I have no experience in selling my courses on this platform, but the most important benefit for me to switch to teachable is the ability to grab a bigger junk of profit from my own courses. That’s big. I will learn as I go.
2) Staring and developing online teaching practice is a profitable niche to me no matter what you teach. In fact, online learning and online courses are said to be a dominating channel for learning in the near future. Why ignore it?
3) Navigating an online course creation process sometimes includes “f&ck it!”, “I’m done with this crap!” and “Whatever…” moments. However, I follow a new mantra I adopted concerning my business ideas, which is: follow one course until success. Persevere.
4) Creating something new (online school) in unfamiliar settings (online) pushes you to think outside the box and broaden your knowledge. What I know now about online course creating is incomparably huge to what I started with.
I feel that I grow personally and professionally, and this is everything I need to continue with my idea of increasing passive income business and ultimately reaching financial freedom. Well worth it, isn’t it?
5) Skills and knowledge acquired in the process of creating an online teaching presence can potentially lead to many other projects that can bring profit, such as digital products, booklets, worksheets, units, books, checklists, and many more.
With all the ups and downs in my path of becoming visible online, with lots of frustration, experimentation, temporary giving up, I am happy, Imean very happy to be able to move on and on with my learning and making small steps towards more money and more happiness in my life.
