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I made $3,016 in 24 hours from my first online course ever!

One of my goals for 2021 was to monetize my blog and newsletter, not to make money (I mean of course) but to see whether it's possible.

Yesterday, I launched the pre-orders for my first online course ever. It's called Learn Programmatic SEO.

Stats after 24 hours:

  • 144 pre-orders
  • $3,016 in sales
  • 77 FREE access coupons shared
  • My mind exploded about a dozen times

I tweeted these stats just now.

Here's why I think this really took off:

  • I've been writing consistently on my blog since June 2020, and have only missed 1 weekend where I didn't publish.
  • I've sent out 32 issues of my newsletter to a total of 564 subscribers. It's a tight community based on value and being real/human, vulnerable and transparent with what's going on in the life of an entrepreneur. I think this resonates with people because we entrepreneurs aren't only about WORK. We have a LIFE too. And that's why I think my newsletter open rates are >50%.
  • I focus my content on aspiring entrepreneurs or people who are in the journey, somewhere around my stage or maybe 1-2 steps behind. This is intentional because I'm in a good position to provide actionable advice to them, since I was JUST there not too long ago.
  • People on Twitter know me as someone who always cuts the fluff and provides actionable value. I've been doing that since nearly 2 years (started taking Twitter seriously in April 2019).
  • I share insights about things I have experienced or learnt by myself. The most recent one was about growing DelightChat from 600 to 240,000 monthly impressions on Google search in 90 days, which got covered on the Webflow blog.

That's it. Now you know my secret!

What particularly blows my mind is, this is a pre-order. I only have an outline and I'm still creating the course. The deadline for me is Jan 31st because I've told EVERYONE they will get the course on Feb 1st, haha (haha?).

If you're in the beginning of this journey (me on June 2020), then here's 2 takeaways for you:

  1. Pick an audience for whom you want to provide value. It should be someone who you can actually help from your experience. And decide what you want to help them with (if you say everything, that means it's nothing). You have to be specific. Mine is - helping you grow your business, while living a good life.
  2. Be consistent and keep showing up. Do it for yourself, then do it for others. People will see the consistency and follow you in the long-run.

✌️

  1. 3

    Stealing this: helping you grow your business, while living a good life.

  2. 2

    Preetam, thnx for sharing! Love your takeaways!

  3. 2

    Ahhh, I love everything about this post! Thank you so much for sharing, and a HUGE congrats to you and your first online course 🎉

    1. 1

      Thank you for the positivity and kind words :)

  4. 2

    Congrats! Course looks awesome!

    Independent courses seems like a growth area right now. So many of might be interested to hear what were some notable difficulties or challenges that you might have encountered while making this course?

    1. 2

      Hey! Great idea for a future post, I'm noting this down thanks :D

      I'm in the process of creating the course content and editing it. I will share my learnings and takeaways after the course goes live :)

  5. 2

    Congrats, just ordered!

    1. 1

      Thanks for your support :D

  6. 2

    The website copy is great!

    1. 1

      Thank you! I recently got slightly better at copywriting through a lot of work with Deb, who leads marketing at DelightChat :D

  7. 2

    Wow, amazing. Did you measure where those people come from? Was it Twitter? Your email list?

    1. 1

      I did not. But reading the emails and messages, it's perhaps 60% twitter, 30% newsletter and 10% my blog's organic traffic.

  8. 2

    You're a legend! Sounds like all that hard work is now paying off!

    Thanks for sharing along the way and inspiring people like me.

  9. 2

    Pre-ordered! Looking forward to seeing the course, congrats on the launch 👍

    1. 1

      Thank you so much :)

  10. 5

    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

    1. 1

      💪

      I like telling everyone that nothing I did here is genius and they can do it too. Consistency and hard work over time. Pays off :)

  11. 2

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

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