This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, hello, what's up, my friends? We have just finished week number 37 of season three. This is your host, Chris Guillebeau, for Side Hustle School. Now, this past week featured a dance teacher who launches a toe-tapping online course, as well as personalized hand-drawn greeting cards that tell your story through the mail. Among others, of course.
Now, I'm excited about tomorrow's story. It is a big case study all about two guys who hit a massive Kickstarter success, raising funds for a simple camera accessory they designed. They wanted to raise $100,000, which of course is a lot of money, but they ended up doing much, much more than that. It's one of my favorite stories that I've worked on in a while. It's got a lot of details, a lot of really interesting learning points, so I look forward to bringing it to you.
But for now, and speaking of learning points, let us follow up on that story of "The Tap Dancer." That was episode 982. As well as the most popular story from the past two or three weeks, episode 961 featuring Paula Pant. I've talked a bit about that one already. It was a real estate course she made that did phenomenally well. She actually sold $140,000 of revenue in that course before it actually launched, through this really clever pre-launch method, and then did something like $200,000 more once she actually did launch.
So I think two weeks ago in the weekly recap entitled, "Why Do a Product Launch Only Twice a Year?" I went into that a bit about, why does she actually shut down the product launch? Why not just keep it up all the time if people are eager for it? So I actually thought about that and I was like, well, between that mega successful course and "The Tap Dance" one from this week, which is not hundreds of thousands of dollars all at once, but it is also very successful. It's now this guy's primary means of income. I realized that a lot of our listeners are trying to pursue the online course model, and we featured online courses from time to time throughout the three year archives of the show.
So that's what I'd like to focus on a bit today. What can you do from the outset to design a profitable online course, not just what is your best product launch secrets or tactics or hacks, but how do you actually design that profitable online course from the beginning, and what mistakes could you perhaps avoid altogether if you knew what you were doing when you started? So these days, there is no shortage of entertainment and education and even edutainment options. Like there are all kinds of ways to learn something or at least distract yourself if nothing else. So your competition isn't the other online course that teaching people how to tap dance or whatever it is that you're trying to show people.
It is everything else that takes people's time. I mentioned this before about being an author. I don't see my competition as being other business authors. I see it as being Netflix and every other thing that people spend time on these days that's not reading books in my case. So for you to stand out, you need to first and foremost make sure your concept is easy to understand and has a clear benefit.
Your online course concept has to be easy to understand and has a clear benefit. So easy to understand, simple enough. You don't want it to be complicated. You don't wanna be like, hey, I've got this online course, what's it about? Oh, well, it's all about how to be a better employee at work and to get more done and to also like negotiate your salary and to do a better job for your boss, for your colleagues.
It's just, you start getting into that and you're like, well, that's just complicated. That's a lot of stuff that's just kind of vague. That's general. You wanna have something specific and easy to understand. It's simple with that clear benefit.
So if it was one of those things, for example, like you're gonna take this course and you're gonna learn how to negotiate your salary and you're gonna go away with a 25% increase. On average, everybody who takes the course has a 25% increase in their salary. In fact, if you don't get a 10% increase, then you get your money back, something like that. Easy to understand clear benefit. Next, you need a logical structure for the course.
Presumably this isn't something that can be taught in 10 minutes. Otherwise, it probably shouldn't be an online course. It isn't something that can be taught in a single PDF or document or similar. It's something that requires a series of modules usually. And those could be designed in different ways, but the point is you have to go from A to Z.
You have to say, okay, to master this concept, you can learn the fundamentals of tap dancing by watching a 15-minute YouTube video. But if you really wanna learn how to do it, well, you're gonna have to go through all these different lessons. You're gonna have to learn, I don't know, whatever it is, you have to learn how to tap dance. But I imagine that there is a sequential number of steps, no pun intended in this case, at least, sequential number of steps that you have to take to master that skill or any other skill. So you wanna think through the flow of the course and then you wanna make sure that's communicated as well to potential buyers so that they understand, oh, when I buy this course, I'm gonna get module one, which is about this.
And then with that knowledge, I'll go on to module two and module three and so on. So again, logical structure for the course, it has to make sense, and your customer has to believe that it makes sense. Your customer has to have faith in the process. They have to have faith in you that you have designed this in a way that if they follow it, it will help them. And then last, at least in terms of the basic, basic requirements, easy to understand, clear benefit, logical structure, you also need a compelling reason to sign up.
Why should I take action on this now? Why is this relevant to me? Why should I, again, not watch Netflix? Why should I spend my money on this and spend my time going through these modules or whatever it is? One of the most common, because it's one of the most effective ways to do that is by having your course only open for a certain period of time.
So the compelling reason could be something else. Doesn't have to be this scarcity of like it's only here for a couple of days. But the point is you need to think through, why should someone care enough to do something about it right now? So notice what is not on this list, all right? I gave you a few things there, but here's what's not on the list.
I didn't say anything about how your course has to be something no one has ever done before. I didn't say it has to be something completely and wildly innovative or original. I didn't say it has to be 10 times better than your competitor, none of those things. I mean, if you have them, that's great, you know? Like if you do have something that is 10 times better than the competition, fantastic.
But if not, it just needs to be different somehow. You know, your course could actually teach the same material as someone else, but in a way that connects better to some people than others. Or alternatively, let's say for some reason there's a subject in which there is only one way to teach it. Well, maybe somebody else hasn't done a good job communicating the clear benefits, or maybe they've made it too complicated on the front end, or they don't have a logical structure for the course or a compelling reason for people to sign up. Well, if you have thought those things through, then you're gonna be ahead of them, all right?
So don't worry about doing something no one's ever done before, completely wildly original or 10 times better, but do think about something that's easy to understand with the clear benefit, the logical structure and the compelling reason. I'm gonna include all those characteristics for you on the show notes page in case you missed it, or in case you just wanna copy and paste and have it somewhere in your Google Docs, your Evernote or wherever you keep your notes. All right, in just a moment, I'm gonna go to the audio update from a previously featured case study. This one comes to us all the way from Amsterdam. So you'll hear from him, got some comments on that as well.
But first, here is a thank you to our sponsor or shout out a message on their behalf. I really appreciate them allowing us to bring this program to you completely free. So here's a message from them and then we'll hear from Marin. [Music]
Hey everybody, this is Marie here in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. My company DULO where we make performance best shirts was featured on the Side Hustle School episode 383.
Since the launch, we've been working very hard to put DULO on the map and dress as many doers in DULO as possible. After almost two years since we opened for business, we've sold out our most popular styles and sizes, generated over 30,000 in revenue and learned so much in the process. The biggest challenge we've had since the launch has been to build a consistent brand and keep attracting new people to give our performance dress shirts a try with a very limited budget since we're so funding the business and relying only on the revenue we earn. One piece of advice I have for other listeners is to start thinking about your distribution channels early on. For e-commerce brands in the apparel industry, this is even more important.
I believe that a physical retail presence is very important in the early days and your e-commerce store is more of a nice to have. Following this advice, we're now networking within the industry to establish partnerships with physical retail locations. But what's more exciting is that we're already working on the next series of DULO shirts which will have a strong focus on sustainability next to the great and familiar features our shirts already deliver. If you want to know more about it and to know when the new shirts are ready or you want to get your hands on one of the DULO originals, go to wheredulo.com/shs. That's W-E-A-R-D-U-L-O.com/shs.
There's a special surprise for you there as well. Thanks so much. Bye bye. [Music]
Thank you so much for that update. I appreciate it.
Like he mentioned, that was episode 383. Two Bulgarian guys launch apparel company with no experience. They are selling performance dress shirts. This is not an easy industry to enter especially when they are relying on the revenue that they earn. So not taking investors, they're just trying to do it on their own which I really, really respect.
It is a Side Hustle School model. And then his advice there is to start thinking about your distribution in the early days. And some of that is kind of contrarian, I think just suggesting that you focus on your retail as opposed to your e-commerce. That could be a bit of a difference from Europe compared to the States or maybe particularly in the fashion/textiles industry. But still always good to have different perspectives and advice.
And then I also love the discount code or whatever special offer he has for you. We don't have anything to do with that. He just put that together on his own. So that link again is wheredulo.com/shs. Always love to support the businesses that we feature on the program.
More of these updates to come and also I haven't mentioned in a couple of weeks that if you have a question or comment you can give us a call on the Hustle Hotline 8449 Hustle. Leave us a message that is 8449487853. Or you can also just go to sidehustleschool.com and scroll down on the about page and there's a place where you can send a voice message from your computer. [Music]
We have a lot more coming up in the days to come as we approach episode 1000. It's gonna be here actually very, very soon in the next two weeks, I believe.
So I'm excited about that. I'm also feeling very grateful to you, our listener, our listeners, everybody out there. You are the reason we make this show. Every week I always mention this because it's just, it's so important to me. Here we are episode 988.
So for 987 days and counting, we've been putting this together because we wanna help people create freedom, opportunities, possibilities for themselves without necessarily becoming a full-time entrepreneur, without necessarily quitting their job or taking a huge amount of risk. But just from considering the skills they already have without spending a lot of money. And as you hear every day, there are just so many success stories, lots of different industries, different people, backgrounds, countries, just people everywhere who are taking action. And I'm so grateful for it, as I said, so it is for you. I wanna say thanks as well to our team, including producer Chuck Reed, everybody else from Cadence 13, Jed Chang, Tina Hart, and of course the official show cat, Libby Gillibough.
All of us here are part of the Onward Project, which is led by bestselling author Gretchen Rubin. Be sure to check out her program, Happier, as well as Happier in Hollywood and the program from Melissa Urban, Do The Thing. All those podcasts are available wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can also learn more at theonwardproject.com. If you're enjoying the show, I'd be super grateful for your quick five-star rating in Apple Podcasts. It just takes a second and helps other people discover the show.
You can also tell your friends or show them how to subscribe. That is how we have grown for three years, all organic, no strategic marketing. So wherever we grow or succeed is from you. So thank you for that. I hope you'll join me again tomorrow and every day next week.
More stories and ideas coming up. Consider this a short daily investment in yourself. 10 minutes long. Our episodes go online at 6.01 a.m. Eastern Time.
Once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau, and this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
