My Biggest Lessons from Creating 6 Online Courses

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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?

And if you’re building your own online course business – I’m cheering you on every step of the way 💛

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