Online education is massive right now. People are making serious money teaching everything from baking sourdough bread to content writing to graphic design. 

The barrier to entry is incredibly low. If you know something that other people want to learn, you can package that knowledge into a course and sell it.

Most people think you need to be the world's leading expert to teach something. That's not true. You just need to know more than the person who's trying to learn. 

A home baker who's mastered macarons can teach someone who needs help making cookies. It doesn’t take much to get started. First, you need to properly plan your course content.

Before we get into the technical stuff, let's talk about planning your actual course content.

What is the biggest mistake I see people make? They start recording before they know who they're talking to.

Teaching a complete beginner is totally different from teaching someone with basic skills who wants to level up. The beginner needs hand-holding and simple explanations. The intermediate student wants to skip the basics and get to advanced techniques.

So before you touch any recording equipment, figure out your student. Write down who they are. What do they already know? What's frustrating them right now? What do they want to accomplish?

I made my first course for "anyone interested in freelance writing." The people just starting out felt overwhelmed, and the experienced writers got bored. You can't please everyone, so don't try.

Once you know your audience, map out their journey. If you're teaching baking, start with basic techniques like properly measuring flour. Then, build up to specific recipes and then maybe advanced decoration techniques. Each step should build on the previous one.

You need two different types of tools here: where you'll host and sell your course and what you'll use to actually create it.

Teachable is probably the easiest course-hosting platform to start with. You upload your videos, set your price, and you're done. They handle payments, student accounts, everything. You get a simple website for your course without needing to know any code. The downside? They take a percentage of your sales, and their free plan is pretty limited.

Thinkific gives you more control over how your course looks and feels. I like this if you're trying to build a real brand around your teaching. But it's also more complicated to set up, and the good features are locked behind higher-priced plans.

Kajabi is the fancy option. It does email marketing, landing pages, membership sites, the whole thing, but it's expensive. We're talking $149 per month minimum. It’s only worth it if you're treating this like a real business from day one.

For recording, I use Loom for screen recordings. It's free for videos under five minutes. For longer content, OBS is free and works great once you figure it out.

If you're teaching something hands-on like cooking or painting, your smartphone is fine to start. Just get a cheap tripod, so the image isn't shaky.

Audio matters more than video quality. I learned this the hard way when students complained they couldn't hear me. Just get a decent USB microphone. The Blue Yeti costs about $100 and makes you sound professional.

For editing, I started with iMovie because I already had it. But honestly? Keep your recordings tight, and you won't need much editing. Plan what you're going to say, do a quick run-through, then record. This is much faster than trying to fix everything after you've recorded.

Nobody wants to watch hour-long lectures anymore. I tried that with my first course. People dropped off after 15 minutes.

Short lessons work better –  five to ten minutes max. Cover one specific thing, explain it clearly, show them how to do it, and then move on.

People forgive bad video quality, but bad audio makes them leave immediately.

Get your lighting right. Sit facing a window during the day or get a cheap ring light. Look at the camera occasionally, not just at your notes or screen. It feels weird at first, but it makes the course feel more personal.

And please, test your audio before recording a whole module.

This is where you add real value. Every few lessons, give people something they can actually use.

For a cooking course, that might be recipe cards with exact measurements. For a writing course, offer templates for different types of content. For a design course, starter files that they can practice with are helpful. 

I made a "Cold Email Template Library" for my freelance writing course, and people tell me it's worth the price of the course alone.

Add captions to your videos. YouTube does this automatically, but they're not always accurate. I use Rev.com. It costs a dollar per minute, but it's worth it. 

Some students watch with the sound off, some have hearing difficulties, and some just learn better by reading along.

Here's the thing nobody tells you: creating the course is the easy part. Getting people to buy it is the actual work.

I launched my first course to crickets because I hadn't built an audience first. Don't do that.

Start collecting emails at least two months before launch. Create a simple landing page that says what you're teaching and when the course will be ready. Offer something free in exchange for their email – a quick guide, a template, a mini-lesson, whatever makes sense for your topic.

This is where beehiiv becomes incredibly valuable. You can set up automated email sequences that teach people for free while building anticipation for your paid course. I send weekly tips related to my course topic, and every email ends with "Want the full system? My course launches next month."

beehiiv's segmentation features let you tag people based on their interests. Someone who clicked your email about one topic gets different content than someone interested in another. This matters when you're marketing because you can personalize your pitch.

The best email designs keep people engaged. Don't make your emails look like advertisements. Make them look like messages from someone who genuinely wants to help.

You can also use gated content landing pages to offer mini-lessons or resources in exchange for email addresses. This builds your list with people who are actually interested in what you're teaching.

Pick one platform and actually commit to it. I tried being everywhere and ended up being nowhere.

For most course topics, Instagram and TikTok work well if you can show visual results. Think before and after shots of cakes you've decorated, time-lapses of paintings you've created, or quick tips that demonstrate your expertise.

The key is giving away genuinely useful content for free. If your free content is good, people will trust that your paid content is even better.

Find people who already have the audience you want. I reached out to a TikTok creator in my niche and offered to give his audience a 30% discount in exchange for a mention. He said yes, and I got 40 students from that one video.

Look for people who are big enough to have an audience but small enough to actually respond to your emails. The person with 500,000 followers probably won't help you. The person with 10,000 engaged followers might.

Pricing is weird. If it’s too cheap, people will think it's low quality. If it’s too expensive, nobody will buy.

I tested three different prices for the same course: $49, $97, and $197. The $97 version sold the most – not because it was the cheapest, but because it felt like the right value.

Here's what I learned: if your course saves someone from hiring an expensive professional or helps them make money, price it accordingly.

Offer a "founder's discount" for your first students. I sold my course at $67 for the first 50 people and then raised it to $97. The early buyers felt special, and the higher price made latecomers feel like they were getting something valuable.

Offering tiered pricing changed everything for me. Instead of just one option, I created three.

Basic gets you just the course videos for $97. Premium includes the course plus downloadable templates and resources for $147. Coaching gives you everything plus two one-on-one calls with me for $497.

Most people bought Premium, some bought Basic, but the Coaching tier made the Premium look like a bargain, even though I was perfectly happy selling the Basic version.

Why Trust Me: With five years of marketing experience, I've honed my ability to develop profitable marketing funnels and campaigns. I share some of my strategies in this article. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn anytime!

I spent three months creating my first course before showing it to anyone. That was stupid.

What I should have done is sell it before building it. Create a basic outline, charge a lower "pre-sale" price, and use that money to validate that people actually want this. Then, build it knowing you already have customers.

My first version was overcomplicated. I tried teaching everything about freelance writing in one massive course. Students got overwhelmed and quit, so I simplified. I made it just about landing your first three clients. Suddenly, people finished the course and left good reviews.

The best part? My course keeps selling without me. I made it once, and it generates income every month. I update it occasionally when things change in my industry, but mostly it runs itself. That's the actual dream – building something valuable once and getting paid for it repeatedly.

Understanding how to grow newsletter subscribers has been crucial for my course sales. The bigger my email list, the more students I get with each launch. The AI email marketing tools available now make it easier than ever to stay in touch with potential students without spending hours writing emails every week.

Plus, understanding email deliverability ensures that your course promotions actually reach people's inboxes. The best course in the world doesn't matter if nobody sees your emails about it.

Start today. Pick one thing you know how to do that other people want to learn. Map out your first five lessons, figure out who you're teaching, record something, and then market/sell through beehiiv.