What's the best platform for selling online courses in 2020?
September 9, 2020 3:19 PM Subscribe
I've done some successful print books / ebooks about technical topics, and I'd like to try expanding them into online courses. What's the right platform?
I write programming books, and I've got a lot of content I could put into online courses. I've looked at Udemy and Teachable and the like, and the process of converting my books (from LaTeX) by typing and clicking buttons on a slow web site seems very tedious. I'd rather just write my lessons in HTML/Markdown on my own computer, and embed my own interactive widgets. Not that I want to write yet another e-learning platform, but heck, I can do it, I guess... I have my own blog and online presence already.
Why would someone buy a course when a book is available? is the big question. I think the ability to learn on a mobile device is important, but I really can't see someone writing code on their phone. Quizzes might be useful, but I think easy access to a tutor/coach would also be important (which could be me, or someone else).
I'm also unsure of the role of video; I think I can use it to get people excited and to demonstrate programming concepts, but I'm unsure what kind of production values will be expected.
Anyone whose done a similar thing, or pivoted from books to courses, let me know your experience and your favorite tools. Some of the elearning platforms seem a little MLM-ish which gives me pause. I don't see a bunch of innovation in the space since 10 years ago, but maybe I'm not looking in the right places.
I write programming books, and I've got a lot of content I could put into online courses. I've looked at Udemy and Teachable and the like, and the process of converting my books (from LaTeX) by typing and clicking buttons on a slow web site seems very tedious. I'd rather just write my lessons in HTML/Markdown on my own computer, and embed my own interactive widgets. Not that I want to write yet another e-learning platform, but heck, I can do it, I guess... I have my own blog and online presence already.
Why would someone buy a course when a book is available? is the big question. I think the ability to learn on a mobile device is important, but I really can't see someone writing code on their phone. Quizzes might be useful, but I think easy access to a tutor/coach would also be important (which could be me, or someone else).
I'm also unsure of the role of video; I think I can use it to get people excited and to demonstrate programming concepts, but I'm unsure what kind of production values will be expected.
Anyone whose done a similar thing, or pivoted from books to courses, let me know your experience and your favorite tools. Some of the elearning platforms seem a little MLM-ish which gives me pause. I don't see a bunch of innovation in the space since 10 years ago, but maybe I'm not looking in the right places.
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Let me try to answer your "big question" first: "Why would someone buy a course when a book is available?"
Some answers in no particular order:
- Learning preference differs from person to person. I know many people who hate video-based learning and prefer books, and then there are those who prefer the opposite.
- Even if you have a book, the ability to see the process in real-time via video helps a lot of people. You can pause, rewind and remain visually engaged in a way that books don't offer.
- Online courses can also have interactive element(s) real-time quizzes to reinforce learning, community forums, live chats, etc. All these can be useful for some students.
In the web design/dev world there are a lot of authors who supplement their books with courses simply because they have done a lot of the hard work already, as seems to be your case. Some examples off the top of my head:- Rachel Andrews' "The CSS Workshop"
-
Scott Jehl's Lightning-Fast Web Performance online course
- Brad Frost's "Digital Product Design" course on Skillshare.
The platform that I have seen straddle the world of automation and DIY (for those like you with technical skills) is Thinkific. It allows you to host a course under your own brand (Scott Jehl's course linked above does this) but it takes care of a lot of the heavy lifting of the course production and features a nice, clean and performant UI. They also provide integrations with various services for marketing purposes (email, coupons, etc.) IMO, I would *not* try reinventing the wheel by building your own e-learning platform.Skillshare is another option, their model is different in that they will host the courses for you, and provide video production help. As in, a production team will show up, film you and they have a template of sorts to help you structure your content. The tradeoff here is they generally work on a royalty model, so your course needs to be popular enough to make it worth it.
In terms of production quality, "talking head" video has become an expectation for many students. However in the world of programming, I think there is far more acceptance of slide and screenshare based courses. The folks at Egghead.io do this very well, most of their JavaScript courses are 10% video bumpers with "average" production values, and the other 90% is a combination of slides and voiceover on top of screenrecordings.
Lastly, here is some free marketing advice for you: there is a HUGE and somewhat untapped market of people who have access to training budgets from their companies, it's essentially free money for keeping their skills current. My company has a "lifelong learning reimbursement" somewhere in the neighborhood of $5-8k year per employee and I bet less than 10% of my colleagues ever use that full amount. So if you can offer a certificate and directly market to folks with those funds at their disposal, you could rake in lots of dough, IMO. For tips on how to position this marketing, take a look at the altMBA "Tips for Reimbursement" page.
posted by jeremias at 5:52 AM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]