Why I'm leaving Udemy as soon as I can
It's one thing to provide a platform and entirely another thing to lock creators in completely.
Hey there, welcome to another issue of the Minty Analyst newsletter.
Today, I want to share my thoughts on using platforms to deliver targeted content, especially selling courses on Udemy.
I've been a massive fan of Udemy for so long. It was the first such platform I discovered, and living in Eastern Europe, the prospect of cheap online courses was amazing.
The Complete iOS 9 Developer Course by Rob Percival was the first course I purchased and completed on the platform. I just checked my certificate, and I completed the course on Nov. 30, 2015.
Over the years, I've taken more than 50 courses on Udemy. I took many development and design courses as I developed my hobbies. On the other hand, many were BI, Excel, and other business courses I have used at work.
Before I go any further, I want to clarify that I love the platform. I believe it's a fantastic place to get cheap access to niche education. However, I no longer feel it's a good platform for creators.
My Creator Journey
I published my first course on Udemy in May of 2020. Over the last 3.5 years, it has generated me almost $4k. It's not much, but it is a pretty niche Excel budgeting course that I didn't market much, so I take it as a win.
In October 2022, I published my second niche Excel modeling course again. It has generated $1k in 15 months.
Here are links to the two courses for reference (don’t buy them; read below):
These numbers don't look impressive, but they are the reality for most creators on Udemy.
For me, it's a pretty good result. I put in around 200 hours to develop both courses (11 hours of video content), which equates to around $25 per hour. It's not bad for a side thing, especially given that it was a great learning experience for me.
Problem
Now, you might be wondering. If I am so happy with my creator journey and the courses I've taken over the years, why am I talking about quitting?
There's one big issue with Udemy. You are not allowed to promote to your students. I've even had problems sharing links to free resources that expand on the knowledge provided within my courses.
I fully understand Udemy is trying to protect its students from spam and sales emails. However, I still believe I, as someone my students have listened to/watched for 5+ hours, should be able to share free complementary resources with them with no limits and even the occasional promotional message.
Over the past few years, I've grown accustomed to being able to download the contact details of people who subscribed or that I sold to. Gumroad allows it, Substack allows it, and it makes a lot of sense. I generated these students with my content. Udemy already got their share of the pie but also wants to keep all the contact details.
I guess I no longer feel that this is fair.
Decision and Need
I want to have access to my students. I want to be able to send them additional relevant resources. Additionally, whenever I have a product that matches their profile, I want to be able to let them know about it.
Therefore, I have decided to take my paid courses off Udemy and offer them for free. I won't have access to the same exposure as on Udemy, which immediately means selling my courses will be immensely more complex. That's why I will offer both courses for free, intending to provide maximum value to the largest possible audience.
Reliably hosting hours of video and offering some form of a platform to access the courses and relevant resources is not easy. I don't want to use another platform similar to Udemy, as it will eventually pose the same issues.
I considered listing the courses as free resources on Gumroad. Still, there's not enough space to upload all the video lectures in a Gumroad product.
Solution
So, I will upload the videos to YouTube and organize them in playlists. This will take care of my hosting issue and help with distribution. I have a small following on YouTube (a little shy of 5k subscribers) and believe the courses complement my regular topics.
However, I still want to have a structured platform where students can track their progress in the course and have easy access to all the course resources. And another important thing, I don't want to pay for a platform to build this site.
I thought about building a static page on my WordPress site (MintyAnalyst.com), but I wanted something a bit more dynamic, where I could easily add lectures and resources.
I bought lifetime access to Frontly.ai on AppSumo a while back. It's an easy way to quickly build small apps using Google Sheets as a backend. So, I decided to give it a try and see if I can build something simple that I can use to organize my courses.
So, this is the stack I ended up with:
YouTube for hosting
YouTube playlists for attracting users
A simple platform built on Frontly.ai that allows access to video lectures and course materials
Google Sheets to organize the video lectures and additional resources
There's something I want to clarify. I am fully aware YouTube doesn't give me access to my subscribers' contact info. But they allow me to communicate freely and offer free and paid resources. It's not ideal, but it's a much better option (and the potential reach is disproportionately massive compared to Udemy).
Why publish for free?
Don't get me wrong, $5k over 3 years is good pocket change. But, honestly, I think I can benefit more from providing the courses for free. I can reach more people, offer more value, and grow my email list faster. Also, I expect the ad revenue from my YouTube channel to offset most of the income I lose from Udemy.
Additionally, I plan to add a BuyMeACoffee.com link to the course pages so that people who find the content valuable and want to support me can do so directly without any platform taking a massive cut. You can do so here:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mintyanalyst
Btw, if you create free content and have no option for people to donate to you, you should take a look at Buy Me A Coffee.
So, this is my strategy for getting more people to see my courses and potentially extract more value. Of course, I believe I can eventually generate more value for myself by relying on YouTube ad revenue and any contributions through my BuyMeACoffee link.
What do you think? Is Udemy still the best option for easily publishing your courses? Do you believe another approach makes more sense than my somewhat convoluted solution?
Hit reply, and let me know your thoughts.
This is all I wanted to share today. Thank you for reading, especially if you made it this far.
As always, extra brownie points go to those who share the newsletter with a few friends and colleagues.
Till next week,
Dobri