What if you didn’t even need a blog or audience of your own to bring your courses to the masses and earn a living from them?
What if you could earn six figures teaching to a quarter million users on a single online learning platform?
Well, people are doing just that with Udemy.com.
Corbett had a chance to sit down and interview the VP of Marketing at Udemy, Dinesh Thirupuvanam, in San Francisco to find out how it can be done.
In case you are unfamiliar with Udemy, it is a website that enables anyone to teach and learn online. Launched in 2010, Udemy tries to democratize online education by making it fast, easy and free to create online courses.
And check this: you keep 70% of the revenue from your courses (or 85% if you directly refer the customer to the course).
In this interview find out how Udemy:
- Gets over 500,000 unique visitors a month
- Has over 250,000 users in under 3 years
- Can help you deliver your own course (free or paid)
- Is redefining learning online
(If you are reading this in an email or via RSS and can’t see the video above, click here.)
Head on over to Udemy.com to check out one of the free courses and brainstorm how you could use the site to grow your brand.
How Could You Use a Platform Like Udemy?
How do you think you could use Udemy to help reach a broader audience or monetize your blog?
Let us know in the comments below this post.
Cheers!
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Wow great idea! Great idea can really make you millions. Heading over to Udemy to see how it works.
Udemy is a great platform which is also good for aspiring Internet Entrepreneurs. If properly used, a good IM business can be set up on it.
I’ve read lot of case studies on how people made money with Udemy and the back end is also something we must consider in anything we do online – try get the people to your mailing list through udemy and your next course will be yours 100% revenue and profit.
Sheyi
This reminds me a lot of Learnable from Sitepoint, with the only difference that Udemy looks a lot better and it has a lot more courses.
Just from looking at the WordPress courses, they have a few thousand subscribers there, WOW… definitely a fantastic resource, going to check them out in detail now. ;-)
Thanks Caleb and Corbett!
Sergio
Nice! I’ve come across the site before, but I had no idea people were having this kind of success with it. Good to keep in mind. They did a great job with the redesign too.
This is absolutely fabulous. I’m on the cusp of building a “next product” (strategic job search) and want to try my hand in video courses. I’ll seriously consider using Udemy so that I can ease my way into this new learning format. Awesome tool.
Hey Everyone – Glad y’all enjoyed the interview and great to hear that some of you are considering teaching on Udemy!
If anyone has questions or wants to discuss more – definitely don’t hesitate to drop me a line – [email protected]
dinesh
Aw man… I’m about to tear this up. I really don’t know what else to say. No one is teaching what I want to teach. Game on.
Looks like Udemy definitely has some potential to be another great way to spread the word about your brand and gain some new followers! Awesome to see how much success it’s having right now – may have to jump on board and start creating a course myself ;)
Thomas
Wow, its a great idea and I would definitely work on it and see how it goes.
But I had a question about it is udemy paying to the person who brings new visitors to their site?
Thanks for providing a great info though!
Wow Awesome,
thanks for bringing this to our attention Corbett – I hadn’t heard of Udemy but will definitely check it out more having seen this!!
thanks & best wishes,
Alan
@SeanDavies – you and me both dude. I bet I know what subject you’re planning on teaching. I too am working on a course on how to do stuff with Thesis. Good luck dude and see you on udemy… peace!
I have always been a fan and subscriber to Lynda.com, but I am loving the Udemy platform. They have some cutting edge tutorials!
Interesting interview, any views on putting a course you already are selling yourself on udemy. Could it get confusing for potential buyers, and could udemy outrank you on google:) Maybe changing the name of it could help differentiate. So have a Udemy version?
Never heard of this before, sounds like a great idea. Going to check it out now because there are a few courses I’d love to set up. Thanks for the info!
Some thing new for me. Never heard before about Udemy. It’s a great Idea. Thanks for sharing information about Udemy.
No I want to teach! Udemy has some great potential, looks like another great way to promote a new brand. 500,000 unique visitors a month? Crazy! I need to jump on the bandwagon before the amount of teachers on there makes it hard to compete. I’m not sure what to teach yet though…
Corbett,
Was just researching Udemy today as I begin creating my new course for beginning independent language learning. Thanks for a great interview! I had loads of questions answered.
I also used to be a Lynda.com subscriber, but once I found Udemy, I quit – sorry, Lynda.. What I like about Udemy is that once you subscribe to a course, you can come back anytime. With Lynda.com, once my subscription expired, I wasn’t able to go back to the courses I took before. If you teach on Udemy, or plan to teach there, I just started a blog for Udemy instructors. I evaluate Udemy courses and give advice how to enhance your course to help students learn. Great job, Udemy! Lovin’ it..
I’ve been enrolled as a Udemy Instructor for almost a year now. However, I never finished creating a course. Why? Because, I originally thought the percentage split was too much. Since, then I have reconsidered, and now have around four courses.
I absolutely love Udemy and the income it has helped me generate in just a couple of months. Furthermore, it has totally professionally my programs. My clients love the platform as do it.
As a adjunct professor who now primarily teaches online courses at a local community college, I’m quite familiar with creating and delivering online courses. And, I’ll tell you, the basic tools and general feel of Udemy is nothing short of AMAZING!
Hi Michael –
I was wondering if you could give your current thoughts on Udemy – I think the revenue split is fair, but I also have heard most sales are made through coupons, meaning that when you see a course has 5,000 students at $97 each — it’s really more like $19 each split 25% to the instructor. I saw one revenue report of an instructor who was happy but had made $5,000 with 4,000 students. Those numbers don’t add up. My fear here is diminishing the value of the teachings. What has your experience been?
Michael, can you share what kind of income you were talking about? Thank you.
Hello,
Nice coming across this article. I just finished a review about Udemy at 21st Blogger dot com and passing by this, I thought it is great having a head-up.
Udemy has earning potential that needs to be harness.
Corbett
I have really enjoyed making my courses on Udemy. One of these is called Udemy – understanding strategic course design and it contains my in depth analysis of the Udemy platform. I have created 10 free coupons for the Think traffic community to benefit from the course. Just click on this link. https://www.udemy.com/strategiccd/?couponCode=Thinktraffic0
Best regards John
This sounds like a really interesting platform. I’m looking for ways to sell an online course. Does anyone know any other platforms which I compare udemy to?
Best
Sue
Sue, there is Learnable, Wiziq and Skillshare. These are the biggest competitors but Udemy is the best.
appreciate your invaluable tips. many thanks.
I’m now working on my first course and am so excited!
If you are interesting in these things : programming , marketing , seo , make money , webmaster, clickbank strategies, adsense …
AND if YOU know this site => http://www.udemy.com absolutely this offer is for you https://www.fiverr.com/s/7iicb7
The one issue with Udemy is that they have a $10 sale almost every month. As a customer why pay full price for a course when you can simply wait 4 weeks and buy it for $10? I have never paid full price for any course I am enrolled on and no one has ever paid full price for my course. The only sales I get are for $10. I have no control over my course price. I am am making my second course now and I’m not sure yet if i will put it on Udemy. The other thing is they are getting greedy as a company so we’ll see.
wow after reading this it makes me not want to even go to udemy. i just spent the last 2 hours getting so excited and started building my content but i think for now i’m going to try and sell it through my own chanel or network
Hi John sorry for the late reply. Yeah I know what you mean! I say try it on your own first as you have nothing to lose. If it works great, if it doesn’t work then try Udemy but I’ve kind of lost the Udemy faith to be honest! I am however making it all up as I go along so take my advice with a pinch of salt and see what works for you.
Hi John I’ve recently updated my information on this!
Check out Nuvola Academy. We stick with our 70/30 split, do not host sales and allow you to set your price. We are a very young site so our UX is a bit lacking but that being said, I will personally help you setup your courses. We are focused on empowering the instructor by allowing to develop your own branded portal.
Disclaimer I work at Nuvola.
Cool! Will look into it!
Great info. Thanks. What did you teach?
Hi David..I never really use Disqus so another late reply…I’m teaching radio. (Well trying to!)
I’m not sure it is. The counter argument is they host your course and promote your course for free. They have access to a hell of a lot of students, numbers taht I could never reach on my own so maybe you could make more money at $5 a pop x 10,000 etc. I don’t know but I hate the fact that my course price is effectively redundant. If they only had 3 sales a year fair then enough but I believe they make more money ironically with these cheap sales. I am going to try other platforms for my 2nd course and see which is best overall. Also once you’re locked into Udemy you are effectively stuck. If someone finds my course on Udemy or on my own website well they know all they have to do is wait a bit and pick up my course for $10 on Udemy rather than it’s cost price on my site. I’ll try my own way for my next course, it will be a good test to see which way is better! Maybe Udemy is better? We shall see!
Thanks
for sharing your valuable information on your site, I will share your article
to my friends also so that they can understand about the this huge market
That’s interesting about You Tube actually
For me Udemy can market your course very well, but when It comes to the revenue commission, it’s not fair. This COURSE https://www.udemy.com/make-money-teaching-online/?couponCode=earn100 taught me how I can build my own website, redirect clients from udemy to my website and earn 100% revenue share by offering a lower price!
For me Udemy can market your course very well, but when It comes to the revenue commission, it’s not fair. This Course https://www.udemy.com/make-mon… taught me how I can build my own website, redirect clients from udemy to my website and earn 100% revenue share by offering a lower price!
Since I posted about course prices 6 months ago I need to now update my information in the interests of fairness. When I initially signed up I wasn’t offered an opt out of “promotions” (this was a bug on Udemy’s part) I have recently since opted out. (Long story) In theory this now means I can set my course price and keep it at the price i want, this is a good thing so we’ll see if this happens now. I am now more inclined to put my second course (being built now) on Udemy if I can control my price although I’m not 100% sure yet if I will. Udemy do take 50% per enrollment though the hosting is free (looking into hosting and websites myself it is quite expensive) they have access to more students but on the other hand competition on Udemy is massive now. Sorry for the non decisive argument..but I’m not sure yet myself! LOL!
Hi Mav I’ve recently updated my information on this
Don’t waste your money in buying Udemy courses , Click here and Get it for free ! : http://www.udemyforfree.info
We have had a terrible time with Udemy and I’d never recommend them to any other training professionals. Upon uploading material that has a high training value, Udemy then proceeded to sell it way below market value and without consultation with ourselves. When we tried to raise this and discuss it our emails were completely ignored. I feel strongly that students may benefit but that trainers who are hoping to run a professional online campaign cannot do so with a partner that devalues the relationships that they have with their trainers. I have learned from my mistakes. I only hope that others strongly consider other options before entering into a venture with Udemy.