Hi all, I have been struggling to make a decision on a small business that I have and I'm wondering if any of you experts can share some advice 
Some background info:
I teach a programming language online and I have this online course that's generating about $500 a month. The sales is quite consistent since I launched it earlier this year. My students like it and I have got some word of mouth referrals.
The course setup is definitely top notch. I use a similar model as Codecademy which is one of the best programming training website online. They don't teach the language that I teach so I was trying to take advantage of the gap there.
I'm selling my course on a subscription basis at $30 a month and I got about roughly 15 paying students a month. It's not a lot of money but it's pretty good money considering there isn't much support that I need to do beside marking some homework.
I have been thinking about making this course totally free. That will hopefully generate more traffic for me and I can then sell affiliate products instead. There are a few reasons here:
1. Although I have got some consistent sales, the sales and traffic haven't grown for 8 months already. If I make the course free, I can likely raise the traffic quite a bit.
2. The competitive advantage of my course over my competitor is that it is very well designed and people can literally learn the programming language without help from instructors. If you tried Codecademy, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. My course is definitely unique in the market. I have tested the response for the entire year and people do really like the setup.
However, I don't think this is a stable competitive advantage as someone else can crease something similar and all of a sudden, I'll lose my edge. I don't see this happening anytime soon but sooner or later someone else with a deeper pocket is gonna do it.
If I make the course free and say, if I get about 50K monthly traffic, I can always sell affiliate products and the business will be more stable. If one affiliate product is outdated I can always sell another one.
On top of that, there will be a wider range of products that I can sell than selling the one course that I have.
3. My course is fairly elementary. I feel like although it is well made, people aren't willing to pay a substantial amount of money for this. I can add the more advanced topics but there are many other professionals that have more specialized knowledge in their fields than I do. Building and testing a course takes a very long time. I feel that it is better to leverage their knowledge (affiliate) than spending the time to learn and build the course myself.
My brain tells me I should give up the $500 a month revenue so that I can grow the traffic and have a more stable business model. However, it's hard to give up a pretty stable and consistent passive income at the same time.
What do you think? Do you think I should make the move? Or I should stay put and milk this course for as long as I can?
I have been thinking about this for weeks. If any one of you can share some advice, I'd very much appreciate it.
Some background info:
I teach a programming language online and I have this online course that's generating about $500 a month. The sales is quite consistent since I launched it earlier this year. My students like it and I have got some word of mouth referrals.
The course setup is definitely top notch. I use a similar model as Codecademy which is one of the best programming training website online. They don't teach the language that I teach so I was trying to take advantage of the gap there.
I'm selling my course on a subscription basis at $30 a month and I got about roughly 15 paying students a month. It's not a lot of money but it's pretty good money considering there isn't much support that I need to do beside marking some homework.
I have been thinking about making this course totally free. That will hopefully generate more traffic for me and I can then sell affiliate products instead. There are a few reasons here:
1. Although I have got some consistent sales, the sales and traffic haven't grown for 8 months already. If I make the course free, I can likely raise the traffic quite a bit.
2. The competitive advantage of my course over my competitor is that it is very well designed and people can literally learn the programming language without help from instructors. If you tried Codecademy, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. My course is definitely unique in the market. I have tested the response for the entire year and people do really like the setup.
However, I don't think this is a stable competitive advantage as someone else can crease something similar and all of a sudden, I'll lose my edge. I don't see this happening anytime soon but sooner or later someone else with a deeper pocket is gonna do it.
If I make the course free and say, if I get about 50K monthly traffic, I can always sell affiliate products and the business will be more stable. If one affiliate product is outdated I can always sell another one.
On top of that, there will be a wider range of products that I can sell than selling the one course that I have.
3. My course is fairly elementary. I feel like although it is well made, people aren't willing to pay a substantial amount of money for this. I can add the more advanced topics but there are many other professionals that have more specialized knowledge in their fields than I do. Building and testing a course takes a very long time. I feel that it is better to leverage their knowledge (affiliate) than spending the time to learn and build the course myself.
My brain tells me I should give up the $500 a month revenue so that I can grow the traffic and have a more stable business model. However, it's hard to give up a pretty stable and consistent passive income at the same time.
What do you think? Do you think I should make the move? Or I should stay put and milk this course for as long as I can?
I have been thinking about this for weeks. If any one of you can share some advice, I'd very much appreciate it.
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