Creating an online course
I recently sent around a survey to get feedback on my Write Your Own Website Copy course idea (this definitely needs a better name).
I received an avalanche of ideas, thoughts and feedback from the incredibly generous humans who responded.
And I want to share what I learned with you so here is the high-level analysis of the feedback I received (I've removed verbatim responses, names and any identifying information to protect the privacy of the respondents).
If you're thinking about creating a course you might find something useful here. I would also highly recommend running your own customer research to make sure you're informed by ideas that are relevant to your community (who knows, they could be different from what you read here!).
I'm no course creation expert (although I've taken a few) but one thing I'm learning is that this whole bizzo can take a lot of time. The idea that courses are an easy path to “making money in your sleep” isn't a reality. Not if you want the course to be good.
Hilary and Margot Yell at Websites did an excellent episode on the promise and lies of passive income (How to Scale Without Really Trying) about exactly this and it's definitely worth a watch.
Maybe your experience will be different, but I've already spent around 30 hours:
thinking about the idea
asking my peers “could this idea be a thing?”
creating a survey to validate the idea
creating the content to tell people there's a survey (and make it super appealing to complete)
reading and analysing survey responses
emailing survey respondents to share my insights and let them know next steps
checking back in with my peers about what I learned and what I think I might do next
having a strategy session with a coach about what I learned and what I think I might do next
researching ideas for making the course awesome
And I haven't even started creating any of the course content or marketing strategy/content to get people into the course. Phew.
All of that is to say, none of this whole running-your-own-business business is easy or fast or "passive". And anyone trying to sell you on that idea is selling you lies (#sorrynotsorry).
We just don't happen to see the inner workings as often as we see the beautiful shiny end product. And we're made to believe that end product somehow magically happened between the times the people who made them were swimming in their infinity pools or polishing their lambos.
I want you to know that I'm right here with you through the messy and time-consuming reality of it all. And hopefully making it a liiiittle bit easier by sharing what I know.
AND while I'm sharing useful stuffs, here are a couple of links the lovely Kirsty Fanton has flung my way while I've been working on my idea:
One last thing? If you need help with customer research strategy, creating a survey, content to help you engage your community in completing your survey and/or analysis of responses, I'm here for ya.
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