This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, thanks for tuning in today. My name is Chris Guillebeau, your host of Side Hustle School. And this program, every single day, is all about helping you create extra money without quitting your job. And we're talking about not just, you know, being part of the gig economy. It's not just, you know, how can I drive for Uber and make a few extra dollars.
It's how can I create an asset for myself? You know, something that can go on to earn money, you know, potentially while you are sleeping or while you're doing something else. Or even if it's not 100% passive, it is something that has potential to not just make a small amount of money, but make a good amount of money. And also be something that you enjoy, that you find value from. That is the message I've been sharing in different forms for nearly 2000 days in a row.
Now today's question from one of our listeners, it's a deceptively simple question. Why do people buy courses when YouTube is free? Like why would you pay to learn something when you can go on YouTube and learn it at no cost? So interesting question. It's gonna help us kind of think about buyer psychology or market fit or, you know, just the process of making a purchase and why we choose to exchange money for something that we find to be valuable and how you can apply this in your own way when you're thinking about your own ideas.
So I encourage you to think about the answer as not just knowledge, but potentially some brainstorming material for you and those ideas of yours. So why do people actually buy courses when something like YouTube is free? That's the question coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hi Chris, this is Rob. And I've been following your work since attending WDS a couple of years ago.
It's amazing what you can find on YouTube. Pretty much anything you wanna learn about, there are experts producing high quality training videos on YouTube and all for free. If you want to learn a language, for example, you can pay for a tutor or a language app where you can just watch free videos. Even for pricey exercise equipment like Peloton, there are free alternative classes you can watch. These videos have hundreds of thousands of views, so clearly they're popular.
With so much available for free, why do people buy online courses? I wanna make one of my own, but I have no idea how to compete with free. What are your thoughts about this? Thanks for your help. [Music]
Hey Rob, thanks for the question.
Thanks for being out there. I think the best way to answer this question is to think about your own life and the things that you pay for. So not just Rob, but perhaps you, our listener, I'll think about it too. Have you ever paid for education in any form? Have you ever paid for knowledge for something to learn?
And if so, why did you do that? And let's leave college or university, let's leave that out of it for the moment because people go to college for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with learning, right? You want the degree, you want a credential, you're not sure what to do with your life. Hopefully you learned something there as well, right? But you've got multiple motivations.
But just for your own learning, have you ever subscribed to a magazine or a website? Have you ever taken any kind of class? Have you ever purchased a book? Let's say a book, an audio book, a print book, an ebook. You know, that book in one form or another is probably available at a library for free, but yet you purchased it.
You can probably tell where I'm going here. Just because something is freely available in one form doesn't mean people won't pay for it in another. So yes, there are so many things you can learn on YouTube. It's a great resource, it's a wonderful resource. I have learned a lot of stuff there, but there's also lots of content that I continue to pay for.
And as for Peloton and similar, another good example, there are so many exercise videos for free, as Rob mentioned. So the challenge for those companies is to create community, a common culture, a standard of quality and excellence, consistency, and so on. That's the value that they provide. And obviously they provide a lot of value since they have, I don't know, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of customers. In fact, you can look to the existence of all those videos as validation of a need, a business need, one that you can provide, one that you can create something for sale.
Here's one more example for you, cooking videos. They are extremely popular on YouTube. Yet many cookbooks, like actual cookbooks that you can purchase, including ones by social media stars, some of those same people with lots of free videos, those cookbooks sell very well, sometimes hundreds of thousands of copies. So don't be deterred by creating something that is also available on YouTube or somewhere else. Okay, it can actually point to market demand as opposed to, oh, I shouldn't do that because it's also available for free.
So I hope that encourages you. I hope that kind of nudges someone along, especially if you've been holding back. If you've been holding back on making something, don't hold back, right? If there's a demand for it, if people are watching those videos in large numbers, I guarantee there's a way to provide something that is a paid resource as well. All right, listeners, if you've got a question, if you're selling something or you wanna be selling something, trying to figure it out, sidehustleschool.com/questions, we will continue to feature them throughout the year, along with updates from listeners as they launch their projects.
Let me know what you're up to. I'll be here every single day. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
from The Onward Project.
