What It's About
A college professor hacks Udemy and makes more than he does at his day job.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
One of the things Jason confessed was that he has to be careful not to neglect his family by focusing too much on his side hustle. That’s easy to do when your project takes off, because as he says, “You want to throw yourself into it more.”
So what does he do to prevent this from happening? He’s found that setting clear boundaries help and recommends that other side hustlers hustling from home create clear divisions between their home and work lives.
Fun Fact
Even though Jason earns more per month in his side hustle than he does in his day job, he has no immediate plans to quit. He’s a couple years away from being fully-vested in his retirement plan….a great reason to stay.
Notes from Chris
Episode 462
Jason Dion is a Cyber Security Planner working for the government in the greater Washington D.C. area. In November of 2016, he uploaded his first online course on Udemy to help people pass their IT certification exam. Sixteen months later, he has fourteen courses and earns more in his side hustle than he does in his day job. We’ll get to the exact figure later. So how did Jason go from being a cybersecurity expert in his day job to running a successful library of online courses? Well, teaching online courses on Udemy was not Jason’s first side hustle. His first was as an adjunct professor at a local community college. While teaching as an adjunct professor, his "day job" switched to one that required extensive travel, often at the last-minute. So teaching in the classroom was no longer an option. During his final in-person course, he recorded the audio of lectures, converted that audio to video by pairing it with a slide deck, and posted those videos on YouTube. The videos were something his students could go back and use as they studied, but he also signed up for a free program that allowed him to earn ad revenue when people watched them. Those videos sat on YouTube for about a year, and he made a whopping $25-50 per month in ad revenue. A friend suggested he turn it into an "online video course" on a platform like Udemy. So, during Thanksgiving weekend of 2016, he took that course from YouTube and converted it to Udemy’s format. Within a month, he made almost $60. The next month $277, the next $582. He realized he was on to something, so he started making more courses. In less than a year and a half since starting—and without quitting his day job—Jason now has 14 different courses on Udemy, and he releases a new course every 1-2 months. So far he’s taught almost 35,000 students in 171 countries. Since that first course in 2016, he has made over $100,000 in profits. That’s $100,000 after Udemy takes their cut. In the last six months, his monthly sales have increased, and he averages between $10,000-$15,000 per month. More than what he makes in his day job!
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- JasonDion.com: Learn more about the courses Jason offers over on his website and Udemy page
- Getting Started—How do I Create my Udemy Course?: If selling courses online sounds like your kind of side hustle, check out this step-by-step guide from Udemy!
- College Student Hacks Into $40,000/Month Side Hustle: When he found himself in need of making car repairs, this student bought a $25 microphone and recorded a course in “ethical hacking.” The course has now served more than 80,000 paid customers
- Published Author Adds Income Source; Makes Additional $21,000 Her First Year: A successful novelist teaches an online course about productivity for writers, reaching 3,700 students in year one
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Resources
CREATE YOUR ONLINE STORE
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Many Side Hustle School listeners are building sites using Shopify's easy-to-learn platform. Try it free today!
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To infinity and beyond,
