My Biggest Lessons from Creating 6 Online Courses

Heads up: I use affiliate links for my fave products. If you click and purchase, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Over the years, I’ve created six online courses – each one teaching me something new about content, marketing, and how to show up for my students.

In this post, I’m pulling back the curtain and sharing the biggest lesson I learned from every single one.

Hit play or read the post below:

1. Website That Wows

Lesson: Marketing matters more than you think

This was my very first course – teaching entrepreneurs how to build a beautiful, client-winning website using Squarespace. I poured everything into it: outlining, filming, editing, and figuring out the tech.

But when I launched?

Zero sales.

That experience was a turning point. I realized that it’s not enough to just create a great course – you have to know how to market and sell it too. I had only sent two emails before launching, and I expected magic. Now I know that success lies in building systems for visibility and conversion. And yes – marketing yourself can feel uncomfortable at first, but it gets easier with practice.

2. Uplevel with Asana

Lesson: Your growth creates new courses

As my business expanded, I realized sticky notes and notebooks weren’t going to cut it anymore. That’s when I discovered Asana – and once I streamlined everything inside that tool, I created a system I had to share.

Uplevel with Asana was born out of necessity. The big takeaway?

Keep growing, and you’ll always have something valuable to teach. Every lesson you learn can become a future course.

3. Scale with Kartra

Lesson: Pre-selling and showing your work builds momentum

This course taught people how to use Kartra – one of my favorite all-in-one tools for digital entrepreneurs. But this time, I took a new approach. I documented the entire course creation process publicly and invited people into the journey.

Not only did this build excitement, but I also pre-sold the course before filming a single lesson. This gave me the validation I needed to invest time and energy into the program – with confidence.

I now recommend this strategy to everyone.

Build in public. Pre-sell your course. It’s efficient, exciting, and validating. Learn how in Sell Before You Create.

4. 90-Day Growth Strategy

Lesson: Live programs are powerful – but not perfect

For this course, I wanted to experiment with a live model. I taught alongside my students and released content weekly.

The upside? I got to go deep with students and coach them in real-time.
The downside? Some students fell behind and felt discouraged.

Here’s the truth:

Live and Evergreen both have pros and cons. Live isn’t necessarily better – it just serves a different type of learner.

5. YouTube Sprint

Lesson: Short, specific courses can be wildly valuable

This course teaches entrepreneurs how to use YouTube to grow their businesses – but it’s not massive. It’s short, actionable, and gets results.

That’s the lesson here:

Don’t be afraid to go narrow. Not every course needs to be a huge signature program. Bite-sized courses can deliver big transformations.

6. Passive Profit Accelerator (PPA)

Lesson: What works can be reused and refined

By the time I launched PPA – a course on creating and automating your own online course business – I had systems in place. I had emails, sales pages, launch content.

So I didn’t start from scratch.

Instead, I reused what worked and made it stronger – adding more testimonials, refining the copy, and optimizing the funnel.

Lesson learned?

Repeat and refine. Don’t reinvent the wheel every time you launch.

Final Thoughts

Each course brought new insights – some hard-earned, some surprising. Whether you’re creating your first course or your sixth, I hope these lessons inspire you to keep learning, experimenting, and sharing your expertise.

Let me know in the comments:

Which of these lessons do you most relate to right now?

Building your own online course business? Join me for my upcoming Create Your Course Bootcamp and let’s bring your course to life together! 💛

Pin this post!