As promised, one last surprise before we head into the new season. This week, Danny and Abe offer in-depth insight with answers to some of our most frequently asked questions. Get ready, you’re going to want to hit that repeat button!
We are just about ready to kick off season two of Course Lab. Our next season promises great behind-the-scenes insights from course creators who are doing very interesting course designs and getting really powerful results. We’ll also talk with course builders about business models and structures that are making their businesses more scalable and lucrative.
But before we do that, we thought it would be fun to compile some of the most frequently asked questions that come our way and answer them. If you have ever asked (or wanted to ask) Danny or Abe about course building, this might be your lucky day!
In this episode we discuss:
What makes the difference between a successful course and one that is not?
How can you know if your course will sell?
How much time should you spend on making the course vs. marketing the course?
Do you really need to add coaching or support as part of your course?
How long does it take to go from zero to successful online course?
What’s the one thing Danny and Abe would add to a course to make it better?
…and more!
“And many of the most effective courses that I've seen and participated in are very, very carefully focused and have a minimum amount of content to lead you forward into application and taking action.”
– Abe Crystal
Danny Iny is the founder and CEO of Mirasee and best-selling author of nine published books, including Teach Your Gift, Leveraged Learning, Teach and Grow Rich, The Audience Revolution, and Engagement from Scratch!. He is the co-host of the Course Lab podcast and executive producer of the Mirasee FM podcast network. Danny has developed innovative training programs that have raised the bar for online education. These include the Teach Your Gift Pro, ACES and Something From Scratch.
All of this grew out of humble beginnings. He started out just like most online entrepreneurs, with an idea and message to share, and no idea how to do it. He made several wrong turns, but he’s fond of saying that failure isn’t the end of the story—it’s a “plot twist”.
Back in 2011, he started Firepole Marketing with less than nothing; he had no traffic, no subscribers, no relationships with any influencers in the industry, and over a quarter million dollars in personal debt, left over from his last failed startup.
In just a few short years, he transformed Firepole Marketing into Mirasee and grew the business to multiple-seven figures in revenue. Together with his business partner and talented wife, Bhoomi, he now leads a team of 80+ people spread all over the world, who are on a mission to support a very special global community of 100,000+ loyal and inspired entrepreneurs.
Danny has maintained a passionate commitment to learning and transparency, freely sharing lessons learned from great successes, major challenges, and even his personal life to support the online entrepreneurial community as a teacher, speaker, trainer, and advisor to many of the top leaders in our industry.
Abe Crystal is the CEO and co-founder of Ruzuku, an online course platform focused on student engagement. He’s also a strategic advisor to Mirasee.
Abe helps authors, coaches, speakers, and other independent experts create their own online courses and learning communities. He and his team at Ruzuku are on a mission to usher in a new wave of independent, authentic teachers around the world and invest them with the tools and support to succeed—everything the clients need to create, sell, and teach amazing courses.
Abe is also the author of The Business of Courses, about the process of adding online courses to your product and services offerings.
Abe is an adjunct professor in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He specializes in learning design and user experience research and earned his Ph.D. in human-computer interaction at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Credits: Guest: Danny Iny Host: Abe Crystal Producer: Cynthia Lamb Executive producer: Danny Iny Assembled by: Geoff Govertsen Audio Post Supervisor: Evan Miles, Christopher Martin Audio Post Production: Post Office Sound Music soundscape: Chad Michael Snavely
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Episode transcript: Planting or Harvesting? (Danny Iny) coming soon
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Creators and Guests
Host
Abe Crystal
Host
Danny Iny
Producer
Cynthia Lamb
What is Course Lab: Lessons from Successful Online Course Creators?
Want to create a hugely successful online course, one that has a major impact on the lives of your students? If you want to learn how to create online courses from the best, you turn to Mirasee; and if you want to host that course, you can’t go wrong using the powerful platform, Ruzuku.
Ruzuku co-founder Abe Crystal and Mirasee founder and CEO Danny Iny know what it takes to stand out and be successful in the online courses industry. And now they’re teaming up to share this intel with you in their new Course Lab podcast.
In every episode, Course Lab showcases an entrepreneur/course creator who is nailing it with their online course -- and not because they’re teaching people how to make more money. In fact, most of these creators occupy unusual or overlooked niches, like music, writing for video games, overcoming inherent bias, and finding your life purpose.
Turns out, the key to their success all comes down to their online course design. In this podcast, Danny and Abe reveal the most important design tactics that are making all the difference for these online course creators -- and how you can implement them in your own online course. So if you want to create a successful online course that changes the lives of your students, this is your big chance to learn how it’s done from the best in the industry!