Online Course Business

[Cilo]

Hi All,

I am a PhD student currently studying engineering (just began year 1/4). I have just started uploading videos to Youtube, where there is a need on the market for engineering simulation tutorials. Here is my most recent video. It has 400 views after a month.

This is already a market for this kind of content, such as this youtube channel, but I think I could couple value skewing and sales funnels to create a profitable online course business, and I think I could do this over the course of my PhD, educating others on what skills I learn over the next 4 years as a student.

I also think there may be room for other courses such as getting a job as an engineer, writing CVs, improving your profile, getting experience, etc., all of which I have done before and which my friends and colleagues often ask me about.

What are peoples thought on this business model, is it fastlane?

My evaluation is:
Control: Youtube would be a big controller of advertising the content to sell courses, which is a shame, but getting my own website up ASAP will mitigate this reliance. Control seems moderate.
Entry: It is quite easy to start a Youtube, harder to start a website and build courses, and harder to get the experience and learn the information as an engineer (you cant be an average Joe, I have industry experience, and I worked my a$$ off to finish top of my class in undergrad!). I would say entry is moderate.
Need: There is a demand for this content. The channel I linked above has almost 40k subscribers, and uploads once a month. My video got 400 views in a month. My friends and colleagues are always asking me for help with simulations and career advice. I can sense a high need!
Time: If I can create courses that are solve passively, I will have passive income. Regular uploads would be required however to keep the business alive. Moderate time.
Scale: Online businesses will scale to every undergrad/graduate engineering programme all over the world. This has the ability to scale big!!

If anyone has any counter arguments against this being Fastlane, or agrees it is Fastlane, I would love to hear your two 'cents' .

Cheers
Cillian

 

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[Happyheart]

Hi All,

I am a PhD student currently studying engineering (just began year 1/4). I have just started uploading videos to Youtube, where there is a need on the market for engineering simulation tutorials. Here is my most recent video. It has 400 views after a month.

This is already a market for this kind of content, such as this youtube channel, but I think I could couple value skewing and sales funnels to create a profitable online course business, and I think I could do this over the course of my PhD, educating others on what skills I learn over the next 4 years as a student.

I also think there may be room for other courses such as getting a job as an engineer, writing CVs, improving your profile, getting experience, etc., all of which I have done before and which my friends and colleagues often ask me about.

What are peoples thought on this business model, is it fastlane?

My evaluation is:
Control: Youtube would be a big controller of advertising the content to sell courses, which is a shame, but getting my own website up ASAP will mitigate this reliance. Control seems moderate.
Entry: It is quite easy to start a Youtube, harder to start a website and build courses, and harder to get the experience and learn the information as an engineer (you cant be an average Joe, I have industry experience, and I worked my a$$ off to finish top of my class in undergrad!). I would say entry is moderate.
Need: There is a demand for this content. The channel I linked above has almost 40k subscribers, and uploads once a month. My video got 400 views in a month. My friends and colleagues are always asking me for help with simulations and career advice. I can sense a high need!
Time: If I can create courses that are solve passively, I will have passive income. Regular uploads would be required however to keep the business alive. Moderate time.
Scale: Online businesses will scale to every undergrad/graduate engineering programme all over the world. This has the ability to scale big!!

If anyone has any counter arguments against this being Fastlane, or agrees it is Fastlane, I would love to hear your two 'cents' .

Cheers
Cillian

While I don‘t think an engineer will pay for a course on writing c.v. as there are many free resources available, there is always a need for continuing education content. In fact I offer such courses and this will probably be something you can do quote well during your PhD.

 

[Andy Black]

Go for it. Don't worry so much about CENTS and over analysis.

Document as you learn. Answer common questions with video and direct people to those videos.

Figure out what people want to watch and create videos answering that.

Imo, the journey of figuring out YouTube and how to make better videos will make you a better entrepreneur.

 

[Cilo]

While I don‘t think an engineer will pay for a course on writing c.v. as there are many free resources available, there is always a need for continuing education content. In fact I offer such courses and this will probably be something you can do quote well during your PhD.

Thanks for the input. The idea behind the CV/jobs getting school was to try to resolve the actual 'pain' of the consumer. Most of those coming to learn courses are not doing it for the fun of it, but doing it for experience and/or a job, so I figured there may be a market to help other get a job.

 

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[Andy Black]

I think you could have a free and paid courses or newsletters helping people get engineering jobs. When you've got to a certain point there'll be people willing to get there faster.

Check out "Who have you helped?" in my signature.

 

[Cilo]

Go for it. Don't worry so much about CENTS and over analysis.

Document as you learn. Answer common questions with video and direct people to those videos.

Figure out what people want to watch and create videos answering that.

Imo, the journey of figuring out YouTube and how to make better videos will make you a better entrepreneur.

Thanks Andy, I will document it here. I seen your post about maths grinds before, and that is something I already do in my spare time at home, but If I were to continue it I would try make it a passive form of income.

 

[Andy Black]

Thanks Andy, I will document it here. I seen your post about maths grinds before, and that is something I already do in my spare time at home, but If I were to continue it I would try make it a passive form of income.

Put it all on a personal branded channel. That way you can twist and turn and try different things before settling on something you can go all-in on.

Don't forget to post to LinkedIn and Facebook too. Build up your personal brand and profile with regular little posts, maybe even daily.

Consider short videos too. They're quicker to create so you could publish daily which means you iterate faster. They can also get a lot of views.

Shorts can get you in front of new people, and those interested enough can go watch your longer videos. TikTok allows 10min videos now btw.

@ZCP runs and engineering company and has a progress thread about how he's growing his YouTube channel. He's doing daily shorts I think.

@Fox just hit a 1m view TikTok. I think he's documenting his journey growing an education business in an INSIDERS progress thread.

I've an INSIDERS progress thread but not updated it in a while. I'm more focused on consulting work at the moment, and trying to figure out how to "sell the sawdust".

I fell off my daily shorts schedule but will get back on it soon. I'm doing a daily posting schedule on LinkedIn and Facebook at the mo... but written content. I've been surprised at the opportunities it's brought even when I get barely any views or engagement. I've dropped Twitter for now as the engagement is so low there.

 

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[Andy Black]

Changed from an IDEA thread to a PROGRESS thread. Hint hint @Cilo

F*ck ideas. Make progress instead.

 

[Cilo]

Put it all on a personal branded channel. That way you can twist and turn and try different things before settling on something you can go all-in on.

Don't forget to post to LinkedIn and Facebook too. Build up your personal brand and profile with regular little posts, maybe even daily.

Consider short videos too. They're quicker to create so you could publish daily which means you iterate faster. They can also get a lot of views.

Shorts can get you in front of new people, and those interested enough can go watch your longer videos. TikTok allows 10min videos now btw.

@ZCP runs and engineering company and has a progress thread about how he's growing his YouTube channel. He's doing daily shorts I think.

@Fox just hit a 1m view TikTok. I think he's documenting his journey growing an education business in an INSIDERS progress thread.

I've an INSIDERS progress thread but not updated it in a while. I'm more focused on consulting work at the moment, and trying to figure out how to "sell the sawdust".

I fell off my daily shorts schedule but will get back on it soon. I'm doing a daily posting schedule on LinkedIn and Facebook at the mo... but written content. I've been surprised at the opportunities it's brought even when I get barely any views or engagement. I've dropped Twitter for now as the engagement is so low there.

Sounds good! I have been good at Linkedin posts (see here), and I made a personal website with blog posts which I have been very poor with keeping up at (see here). Its all about documenting my journey, so I would like to keep up posts in both front.

Tik Tok looks like a great medium to advertsing content, my question is I wonder if there is a demand for engineering education content there? Nonetheless it seems @Fox has had great success, so maybe I need to look into TikTok too...

Thats a great point about short videos/shorts. My biggest issue with regular posting is that getting big long problem solving/simulation videos up takes about 1 month to get a case up and running...

 

[Andy Black]

Sounds good! I have been good at Linkedin posts (see here), and I made a personal website with blog posts which I have been very poor with keeping up at (see here). Its all about documenting my journey, so I would like to keep up posts in both front.

Tik Tok looks like a great medium to advertsing content, my question is I wonder if there is a demand for engineering education content there? Nonetheless it seems @Fox has had great success, so maybe I need to look into TikTok too...

Thats a great point about short videos/shorts. My biggest issue with regular posting is that getting big long problem solving/simulation videos up takes about 1 month to get a case up and running...

Don't talk yourself out of things. @ZCP has videos helping engineers and others get jobs and improve their careers. I think he had a 1m view TikTok too.

People are people no matter what platform they're on. Sure, there's skews and idiosyncrasies but there's also opportunities.

The best bit about short video is you can create it and post it unchanged to each platform.

 

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[informedconsent]

With YouTube, something I've heard is to post regularly and consistently. It does take a long time to create one video and for me, it's exciting to post it up as soon as I've created it, but a strategy I've heard in terms of really wanting more views and subscribers is to make a few videos and put them out regularly (not sure what that exactly is but perhaps 1-3/week?). Congrats on your channel and video--now at over 600 views! It does look like there's a market!

 

[heavy_industry]

If anyone has any counter arguments against this being Fastlane, or agrees it is Fastlane, I would love to hear your two 'cents'

As always, it depends entirely on how well you manage to implement the idea.
This business is CENTS compliant, but this doesn't have any predictive power over the outcome of this project - it just means that it has good potential.

The biggest mistake you can make right now is to fall into analysis paralysis.
Just do the thing, and see what happens. Adjust the plan as you go.

Good luck.

While I don‘t think an engineer will pay for a course on writing c.v. as there are many free resources available, there is always a need for continuing education content.

I'm not sure if a course on writing a CV would do well on its own, but it could be included as one of the modules in a bigger course that teaches a broader subject.

It's interesting how in today's world all the information is free and easily accessible on the web, yet people (including me) still keep buying courses and educational stuff. If you structure a course very well and offer plenty of extra features (e.g. homework, projects, tools, community etc.) there will be many people that will find it very valuable and enjoyable.

 

[Cilo]

Hey Everyone, heres an update.

Over christmas, I starting thinking about other ways to make money online. I wanted to become time, location, and financially free pretty bad. I invested 1500 in a digital marketing course, and founded a company. It went well, and I got my first client after about 2 months of starting my company, for 900 euros per month + ad spend.

I realised shortly after I gor payed that this business model was good and all, but it is not how I wanted to spend my time. I decided that since I have been studying engineering so long and it is my skillset, passion, and purpose, I should start doing my course business again.

Nonetheless, I learned a HUGE amount about myself by starting an agency, and I learned many skills such as sales funnels, marketing, advertising and more.

Anyways, I'm back on my youtube grind, and will keep you guys updated on this thread.

Recent video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i9Ryq-m1HA&t=36s



I'm thinking my first goal should be to get montized, then afterwards to use a free e book as a lead magnet to sell my first course. Udemy is also an option to gain some status before I build a course on another platform.

 

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[informedconsent]

I'm thinking my first goal should be to get montized, then afterwards to use a free e book as a lead magnet to sell my first course. Udemy is also an option to gain some status before I build a course on another platform.

Honestly, I think you can do both free ebook and monetization at the same time. I don't think YT monetization makes as much money as it seems until you get into the higher leagues which may not be possible since you're not a MrBeast/mindless entertainment type of channel. I'd focus more on making that free ebook and first course over the monetization at this point. Just my two cents tho.

 

[Cilo]

Another video

View: https://youtu.be/OjC0H8Kl0fE

 

[informedconsent]

Another video

View: https://youtu.be/OjC0H8Kl0fE

Congrats on over 100 subscribers!! Comments are reflecting that you're making really valuable content!

 

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[Kung Fu Steve]

To sell something to a market, you must first determine if that market a.) has money to invest... and b.) is willing to part with said money.

There are only a handful of audiences that are desperate to hold onto their money... and engineers are one of them.

Good luck getting them to spend anything.

(I say this only partially tongue & cheek... it's a tough market to sell to)