Udemy Course Earnings Journey - Fresh Start

Hey BHW Community,

I’ve always wanted to do a course and see if it is a good stream of passive income. I’ve held it off for years as it takes time to build a good course.

But yesterday I decided…. screw it, let's make a quick course, put it on Udemy and see what happens. The plan is to post an update each day or couple of days to keep the community posted on progress.

Here is a breakdown so far…

DAY 1:
Time Spent: 5 Hours
Expenses: $0
Income: $0
Released Courses: 0

Actions: Day one was all about getting things moving. First I started by deciding on my Niche, once I got my niche, I did some research to see the competitions. There is alot of videos in the niche selected, so to battle that, I created a Niche, in a Niche…thats some inception level stuff.

The mini-niche only had 2 videos on the platform so I took that as a good entry point.

I put together the course details breaking down the course overview, lectures, and descriptions. Once I had done all that I was left with 20 lectures.

Next I started putting together the content, this is going to be a short course so I started smashing out videos. I managed to do 16/20 of the videos on the first day.

After finishing and uploading those videos, I called it a day and turned the computer off.

DAY 2:

Time Spent: 3 Hours
Expenses: $0
Income: $0
Released Courses: 1

Day 2 which is today, I needed to focus on finishing the last 4 videos and getting all written/images content completed.

I started with finishing the videos. That took the majority of the 3 hours for today, then I went through the content and created a nice thumbnail image.

I went to submit the course but needed to complete verification, this took a couple of minutes and approved by them a couple minutes afterwards. After verification I submitted the course successfully.

As of right now the course is in review, this can take between 1-2 working days.

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Summary:
Journey Days: 2
Total Time Spent: 8 Hours
Total Expenses: $0
Total Income: $0
Released Courses: 1 (in review)
Total Course Length: 1 Hour, 20 Minutes

Hopefully the course get's approved quickly and I'll then have an update for everyone tomorrow.

IMPORTANT RULE: Do not ask for my niche or industry, or basically any questions that are just you trying to figure out the niche. You don’t need to know the niche, find your own.

Well great news, it has only been a couple minutes since opening the thread. The Udemy course has been approved (that was quick), no further stats to update on. Still on day 2.

It's great that you already have a good plan.
Looking forward to your success.

GenesisOne said:

It's great that you already have a good plan.
Looking forward to your success.

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Thanks!
Having a general plan is always a good idea. Sucks because now I have to sit and wait to see what happens, keep refreshing the performance dashboard haha.

I earned $xxx/day with Udemy before, it's a good place to have a passive income.
My tips: "You can easily rank your course on the Google!"

Good luck with this journey keep us updated.

Cool G, I like how you test the waters quick, defo Udemy are good courses revenue. I bought lots of courses that are mediocre, and yet, get many 4 star ratings, and 10's of thousands of students. I'm interested in watching this thread, as I want to do the same, I already do tutorials through a youtube channel, so I would like to expand the branding on udemy too. Best of luck!

TheBlackDragon said:

I earned $xxx/day with Udemy before, it's a good place to have a passive income.
My tips: "You can easily rank your course on the Google!"

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Good money you were making, did you stop doing it or just left as is? The google ranking is a good one, there is most likely a keyword I can rank the video for.

bonzo90 said:

Good luck with this journey keep us updated.

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Thanks, will keep everyone updated

Panther28 said:

Cool G, I like how you test the waters quick, defo Udemy are good courses revenue. I bought lots of courses that are mediocre, and yet, get many 4 star ratings, and 10's of thousands of students. I'm interested in watching this thread, as I want to do the same, I already do tutorials through a youtube channel, so I would like to expand the branding on udemy too. Best of luck!

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Thanks! I've always been that way when testing things, I personally find it best just to dive in and release something then see how it goes. We sounds pretty close in market, I also do youtube videos etc, and the course is really just another thing to add to that.

Excited to see the updates for this journey.

Good luck and i hope you reach your goals

Awesome, please don't give up.
You got this.
And keep us posted.

AlbinKurti said:

Excited to see the updates for this journey.

Good luck and i hope you reach your goals

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Thanks for the support. Been fun so far, just have to wait and see the stats.

VIRUS_ said:

Awesome, please don't give up.
You got this.
And keep us posted.

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Thanks man! No given up, its an attachment to my core business so will be there to stay.

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DAY 3:

The course was approved yesterday as mentioned in a previous post. Sadly it takes 2 days for the performance metrics to kick in, so I am operating blind right now.

Although no students have signed up yet, it has shown 1 minute watch time by someone, so I'm guessing someone used the "preview" function.

I made one small edit to the course description, this was a strategic move to rank for a specific keyword on Google.

Summary:
Journey Days: 3
Total Time Spent: 8 Hours
Total Expenses: $0
Total Income: $0
Released Courses: 1
Total Course Length: 1 Hour, 20 Minutes
Total Students: 0

DAY 4: Update
Alright so today I did some research on another mini-niche within the main Niche. Luckily after my searching I found the new mini-niche has 0 videos on Udemy about it.

I got to excited a knew I had to get a new course up quickly on the newest mini-niche before someone else does. All in all I spent about another 3 hours building the second course, it is only 1 hour long but completed and submitted. I have high hopes for the new mini-niche I added. It is currently in review and will hopefully be approved soon.

Summary:
Journey Days: 4
Total Time Spent: 11 Hours
Total Expenses: $0
Total Income: $0
Released Courses: 2
Total Course 1 Length: 1 Hour, 20 Minutes
Total Course 2 Length: 1 Hour, 3 Minutes
Total Students: 0

I'm hoping there will be more updates soon when the latest course is approved.

DAY 4: Second update

It worked! - I'm pumped

I got my first student. This was for the second mini-niche that I released today, only a few hours ago it got accepted and approved.

I'm unsure on how much was made as it shows the new student but it doesn't show how much has been made. Regardless I'm excited as all hell.

I'm hoping more will come over night.

DAY 6: update

okay so that first student disappeared from my stats strangely enough but the great news is someone else has signed up for the course.

It was the second mini niche I just created in the previous update. Hopefully will see some more students jump on over the next few days.


Summary:
Journey Days: 6
Total Time Spent: 11 Hours
Total Expenses: $0
Total Income: $18.81
Released Courses: 2
Total Course 1 Length: 1 Hour, 20 Minutes
Total Course 2 Length: 1 Hour, 3 Minutes
Total Students: 1

DAY 6: Second Update

A little more has happened since the last update, along with that a few learnings for others.

Learning: - Tax Is Important: Now that there is revenue coming through, Udemy asked me to fill out the Tax forms. I am not based in the US, so should be little tax. After filling out the form, it got to a section asking if my country has a tax treaty with the USA, I hadn't heard of this before so marked it as "No". After finishing the form I was going to be taxed 30%, that didnt seem right. I searched online and turns out my country does have a tax treaty, so I re-did the form, selected "yes" for tax treaty, and completed. Now the tax is only 5%.

Learning from this, pay attention to the tax forms you fill out on online platforms.

Back to the interesting stuff:

Now that stats are coming through, I can see what has happened with students/purchases etc.

Officially I've had:
- 5 people purchase a course
- 3 people refund a course

Earned: $34.16
Refunded: $12.37
Total Earned: $21.79 (usd)

Here is where it gets interesting: So I was thinking, why have 3 people refunded so quickly without even looking at the material. All 3 of those refunds came from what looks like the same Udemy promotion campaign, the discounts are massive (couple dollars for the course), and they are all using the same coupon code format. So it seems what ever promotion they are running there, they do not like my course.

The two that have not refunded, one came from my own traffic source and the other from a different Udemy promotion. The reason I know it is a different promotion is because this one does not have a coupon used and also in the higher normal promotion price.

I'm going to change how I do the summary to give better stats each day.

Summary:
Journey Days: 6
Total Time Spent: 11 Hours
Earned: $34.16
Refunded: $12.37
Total Income: $21.79
Total Students: 2
Released Courses: 2
Total Expenses: $0

how do u make the videos, what soft do u used?.. are the videos are faceless?

BornTobeatTheSystem said:

how do u make the videos, what soft do u used?.. are the videos are faceless?

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No special software being used. I use a Macbook, so all I'm using is the built in quicktime video recorder. It provides high quality format, simple and easy to use. I just record, then upload straight to Udemy.

For the videos, it is not Faceless. My face/voice are in the videos explaining everything.

JNinja said:

No special software being used. I use a Macbook, so all I'm using is the built in quicktime video recorder. It provides high quality format, simple and easy to use. I just record, then upload straight to Udemy.

For the videos, it is not Faceless. My face/voice are in the videos explaining everything.

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GL with ur journey!

Elaine12 said:

Good Luck On Your Journey Mate

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Thanks mate, been fun so far. (You from down under side of the world?, you don't have to answer, it's just the 'mate' being used )

BornTobeatTheSystem said:

GL with ur journey!

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Thanks!

Sales coming in already dude, thats great and looks good. we're defo inspired, keep at it!