As you may have guessed, the online course is being created in a pretty open way. This is to convey the challenges faced when creating an online business but also to provide a first-hand account of how rewarding the journey can be (hopefully!).
This will involve providing regular updates as to how things are progressing in terms of course creation, sales, financial breakdown, marketing and whatever other things pop up along the way.
Today’s update discusses:
- the approach I’ve taken with this course compared to previous projects
- speaking to potential customers and how that’s going
- being inspired and upping the rate of progress
- 50% off for life on the course if you confirm your interest before Monday, May 30th
Approach
A “Head Down” approach
Previously when working on ideas, I used to adopt a “Head Down” type approach. This involves limiting all distractions around you and putting all of your focus into building an exceptional platform or website.
Although this meant that I did end up with exceptional looking websites (take trendfriend.io for example), it limits you in other key ways.
Such limitations included:
- I wasn’t building the website with anyone particular in mind. I didn’t know the users’ or customers’ needs in-depth nor had they told me what they would be willing to pay for
- by the time you launch the website or business, nobody else is invested in it yet. It’s only been you involved to that point and you’ve blocked out all perceived distractions, including potential customers. So there’s a great effort required from you now to actually get your product in front of people who may or may not even be interested.
- little accountability. If you progress privately, you’ll be accountable only to yourself. It’s easy to let deadlines and other milestones slip this way.
A “Customer-Centric” approach
When building this online course, I’m taking a far more “Customer Centric” approach. This means that:
- from day one people are telling me what their needs are, what they will and won’t pay for, what they expect in terms of support, what their downfalls have been in the past when trying to build websites etc.
- I’ve promised to deliver the course by June 30th, 2020 to 20 people already, holding me accountable to that date.
- by the time this course is launched, there will already be 50+ plus people on the list waiting to try it out. If they derive great value from the course and build awesome websites, they’re likely to tell their mates about it and start that the customer flywheel spinning.
Speaking to potential customers
Over the last 7 days, I’ve spoken to 14 potential customers of the online course. Thanks again to all of you who gave your time to do so.
This was not a sales pitch but instead an opportunity for people to tell me exactly what they’d like from the course. In turn allowing me to digest that information and create exactly what they’re looking for over the next month.
From these conversations, I learned about the type of people who are interested in building a website using the online course. They value:
- creating freedom in their life. This included the ability to work remotely and earn income passively.
- the ability to decide what they work on.
- answering only to customers and not being overruled by managers or bureaucracy when doing so.
- being involved in the end-to-end process of creating an online business
- high-quality output even if it means spending €55 on a premium WordPress theme rather than using a free one and being left with a basic website
- having a channel to exercise creativity.
- flexibility to quickly change their website based on new ideas or customer feedback
Being inspired and upping the rate of progress
Experiencing excitement for the course in this way motivated me to get it live much sooner than initially planned.
In last week’s post, it was stated that before creating the course:
- “I need confirmation of interest in the course from at least 10 people by June 30, 2020”
20 people had already confirmed by May 25, 2020. So we’re good to go! - “as soon as 10 people confirm their interest in the course, I will begin building the course and complete it by August 31st”
A lot of people said that they want it sooner rather than later and that they’re happy with lower production quality as long as the course still enables them to build a cool website. With this said, I’m going to create the course in one month instead of two. So watch out for the new launch date of June 30th, 2020 🙂
Confirm your interest for 50% off the course
If you’re interested in learning to build a website for future online businesses of yours, please confirm your interest here before 6pm on Monday, May 30 and receive a 50% discount coupon for life when the course goes live.
Please note that there are two third party costs which I cannot discount, these include:
– hosting for your website will cost €3.95/month from Siteground.
– the WordPress theme that we will be using costs €55. This is a one-time payment and you’ll own the license to this theme forever.
