How I (Nervously) Launched My First Course in 2016

It has been 8 years since I launched my first course

I wanted to launch a course in 2016. I have never done something like that before. I had an email list and a community of 2,000 members on my Facebook group, but none of them had bought anything from me before.

They paid plenty of attention to the content I published but did not pay me money. I was hesitating to ask for money. I felt that if I did, they would not like me. (Have you ever felt like that?)

I was also afraid to invest time, energy, and effort into making a course. Because if I made a course and it did not sell, it would be a waste of time and effort.

I was stuck in a loop. If I did not create a course I can't launch it. But without launching it, I don't know how many people will sign up for the course - which means I won't make the course in the first place.

One fine morning, I woke up and decided that if I did not take any action, nothing would happen. So I made an outline for the course. A 10-week outline for the "Google Ads Mastery" course. I knew that having an outline was better than not having an outline.

So that was some progress. Next, I sent an email to my email list to see if people were interested in it. Maybe if people reply to my emails that's a sign they want to buy and that might motivate me to launch the course.

So I sent the email to my list (around 10,000 subscribers at that time). A lot of people replied that they were interested. I asked a few people if they would be ready to pre-order the course before it is launched and if they would get it at 50% of the original price, they said yes.

I thought - if a few people are interested in a pre-order, maybe all of them are interested. So I made a payment link on Instamojo and sent the mail to the entire list telling them that I am pre-launching the course at 50% (999 if they are pre-ordered).

I decided that if I get at least 50 sales, I will make the course. If I get 30 sales or less, I will cancel the project and refund everyone. This was a good way to force myself to make the course (because we are all to some extent - lazy).

I did the launch emails for a week and guess what - I made 250 sales, got 2,49,750 in revenue and the course was not even ready yet. Now I am forced to take the course. So I made it in 3 days by locking myself in a 1 BHK apartment. I ordered food from outside and recorded videos from morning to evening.

That kind of deep work was what made me what I am today. Go somewhere, lock yourself, and get work done. Nothing is going to progress until you do.

Back to the story - I finished my course and I did not even have an LMS to host the videos. But it doesn't really matter that much, does it? It's all about the quality of the training. I uploaded all the videos on YouTube and made them unlisted videos. Took all the customer emails (250 of them) and put them on my free Gmail account in BCC and sent a mail with the unlisted links on YouTube.

I was nervous, I thought people might not like it. I was afraid that people might ask for a refund. However, I did not get a single refund request. Everyone liked the course and they sent great feedback. My first customer was Mr. Dinesh who now runs a successful agency called Growth Partners along with his partner (Bharathidasan).

I wouldn't have built the brand Digital Deepak to where it is today unless I had launched that first course. And I couldn't have launched that first course unless I made an outline first and shared it with my audience. I couldn't have done that without blogging and attracting an audience. It all started with content creation, building some attention, building trust with the audience, and then asking for a transaction (CATT - Content, attention, trust, transaction).

I am sure if I can do it, you can also do it. I am not an IIT/IIM. I just passed my engineering. I was an average student in class. But I took action. I overcame my self-doubt and moved. That's what you need to do. Move. Take some action. And sometimes you need a mentor to do that.

Can I be that mentor for you?

In December 2024, I am launching the "Digital Mentor Program" that will help you become a digital coach, and build an ed-tech company in the future.

It's a 10-week program in which I will teach you everything I know about launching courses and building an online community.

Cheers,
Deepak Kanakaraju