How to Make a Living on Udemy

You may have heard that online learning, or Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) are disrupting the world of higher education. The rumors are true, and it's not too late to get in on the ground floor of this revolution. Instead of investing years of time and tens of thousands of dollars into traditional degrees, you can go to platforms like Udemy.com and learn a specific skill for as little as $10.

Leveling up your skills as a student is only one side of the equation, however. It's possible to live quite comfortably doing nothing more than producing these courses. Anyone can sign up as an instructor; over 10 million Udemy students will surface the good, well-qualified ones to the top pretty quickly through their ratings and their wallets.

In the summer of 2015, Udemy reached out to me to see if I'd be interested in producing a course on Hadoop. "Why not?" I said. I had no idea it would lead to this sort of revenue:

That's right folks, I'm routinely bringing in $30,000 - $40,000 per month from Udemy alone. Those are net earnings, after Udemy and its affiliates take their cuts. That money goes straight into my bank account.

What's even better: this is passive income. Once you record the videos for a course, it's a product that students can keep buying forever. Like any passive income stream, it requires some amount of nurturing - but we're talking about a half hour per day here. You've heard of the "four hour work week?" Yeah, it's a real thing - although you'd be crazy not to spend much of that newfound free time creating even more courses.

So, how can you replicate this? Here are the main things that I did right, in hindsight:

Choose your Topics Wisely

Udemy publishes a hot topics list, and that's the place to start as a new Udemy instructor. First, go through them and find topics that you know about, or topics you're confident you could learn on your own pretty quickly. Then, search Udemy for these courses. Which topics have only a small number of courses available today? Are you confident you can produce a substantially better course than the ones currently offered?

You want to select a topic to teach that is both hot and underserved. For example, some current "hot topics" are Hadoop, Big Data, Apache Spark, Data Mining, Machine Learning, and Python. So, do you think it's a coincidence that three of courses I currently offer are:

Data Mining and Machine Learning with Python - Hands On!

Taming Big Data with Apache Spark - Hands On!

Taming Big Data with MapReduce and Hadoop - Hands On!

Not only did I let the hot topic list inform my choices of courses, I also used the specific keyword phrases from the hot topics in my course titles, and made sure they were used often within the course descriptions as well. This is important from an SEO standpoint; when a student goes to Udemy and looks for "Apache Spark", I want to be sure my course comes up first.

Udemy also offers an "Insights" feature in the instructor dashboard that can give you even more data on the audience for a given search term, and what sort of competition exists in that space.

It's also worth noting that courses aimed at passing some sort of certification exam tend to do extremely well. These courses provide a very well-defined payoff for the student, and ultimately they are looking for a tangible return on the money they are spending on your course.

Make it Hands-On

All of my courses say "hands-on" in the title, because that's how I differentiate my courses from the competition. I don't just blather about concepts into a video camera, I provide students with real source code, activities, and exercises so they can practice the skills I'm teaching, and come away with a library of code they can use for future reference. No matter how many hands-on exercises you provide in your course, students will always be hungry for more.

Courses centered around a larger project that the student builds up as they progress through it also tend to do well.

Make it the Right Length

Even if students are only paying $10 for your course, they are investing their time into it, and they want a good return on that investment. A successful course should include at least 5 hours of video content; 10 or more is better.

An even better approach is to search for your course topic, and look at the top-selling courses that already exist in it. Your course should be longer than they are. Udemy does a lot of fixed-price promotion sales, and if a student is choosing between your 9-hour course and a competing 10-hour course for the same price, they'll lean toward the 10-hour course since it gives them more value for their money.

Stay Engaged

Your students will ask questions in your courses. Respond to them, as quickly as you can manage. You want your students to feel like you have personally helped them further their careers. If you have, they're more likely to reward you with high course review scores.

If your students have problems or criticisms - listen to them! I've re-recorded several lectures based on student feedback, and it can only help my course reviews.

Don't Suck

Familiarize yourself with your own material before recording your lectures. You want to make it look easy, not like you're struggling with the material yourself. Look straight into the camera when recording "talking head" segments, and keep the "um's" and "you know's" to a minimum. If you trip up - pause and collect yourself, try again, and edit your screwup out of the video later.

Use a decent camera, microphone, and screen capture / video production software. I use a Blue Yeti microphone, Logitech C920 webcam, and Camtasia. Good lighting and a quiet recording environment are crucial.

Remember people have short attention spans these days. Your lectures should be only 5-10 minutes each. And each section should start with a "talking head" segment of you introducing the material. Students should feel like you're a real person they can see and connect with, not just a narrator.

Play the System

Things can really take off when you have more than one course to offer, because you can start cross-promoting courses. Udemy allows you to have a "bonus lecture" at the end of every course, where you can promote your other courses to those students. They also allow you to send promotional email messages to your students in order to let students of course A know about your special offer on course B. This can be very effective, and something you should do every month.

The more high-quality, in-demand courses you make, the more money you'll make. It's that simple.

It's Not About the Money, Money, Money

Although it's certainly comforting to know I could pay the bills from Udemy alone in the event my other business ventures were to dry up, the real satisfaction of being a Udemy instructor is helping other people around the world level up their careers.

My courses have reached about 120,000 students in 175 different countries already. Almost all students purchase their courses using coupons ranging from $10 - $20, which makes them affordable to almost anyone, even in developing countries. As an instructor, you really feel like you're - dare I say it? - changing the world!

If you have in-demand skills, Udemy offers another way for you to monetize them - and help people out at the same time. Just don't teach the same topics I'm teaching!