Entrepreneurship has never been more accessible than it is today, with hundreds of ways to build a successful business online. One of the most popular ways to do just that is to take your skills and expertise and turn them into an online course.
These days entrepreneurs are creating online courses teaching every kind of skill imaginable. Whether your interest is digital marketing or fly fishing, with the whole world at your fingertips, it’s never been easier to find an audience as passionate about your topic as you. Communities of practice like Participate, are an excellent platform to get your audience engaged in a collaborative space.
But what makes an online course successful? And how much can you make from sharing your knowledge? Teachable, one of the top online course platforms, recently collected data from over 100,000 high-performing online educators to analyze exactly what drives their success.
The results were encouraging. It turns out you don’t need hundreds or even tens of thousands of customers to make a good living selling courses. More than half of the top schools in the sample have fewer than 1000 students – a very achievable number when you focus on a specific niche.
It doesn’t have to take long to build a profitable course either. On average, it took the top schools in the sample a little over a year to become top schools. The difference between a school that makes $25,000 and one that makes over $75,000 is just three months on average.
Even better, the majority of the schools sampled (82%) are earning over $25,000. Almost one third are earning over $75,000.
Teachable found that top schools use a range of tools and strategic decisions to boost their sales. By considering factors such as course format, length, and pricing, you can achieve the same level of success of these top online course creators.
If you’ve considered teaching online, check out this infographic from Teachable for more valuable insights into what works.
