Teach What You Know

Nathan Barry (founder of ConvertKit) is a big advocate of teaching what you know to grow an audience and make money online 📈

He gives the example of Chris Coyier who started a site called CSS-Tricks.com, sharing fairly simple tips on CSS and HTML. Nathan didn’t think it was anything special, and was blown away when Chris raised $87,000 for his site via Kickstarter.

(That was back in 2012. As of 2017, Chris said he was taking home $100,000 per year from the site.)

Glen Allsopp put together an excellent article detailing more examples of people making money online by teaching 👩‍🏫

Headlines:

• $3 million a year teaching people how to use Infusionsoft
• $13,000 in 3 days teaching modeling software
• 260,000 subscribers teaching photography on YouTube
• $1 million a year teaching Microsoft Excel
• $35,000 a year reaching JavaScript
• $2 million teaching Evernote
• $2000 in first month teaching school librarians
• $4.4 million teaching ACT prep
• 400,000 visits per month teaching landlords
• $1 million in a year creating lesson plans for teachers
• $1000 a month helping architects pass an exam
• Up to $297 per customer teaching Scrivener
• 90,000 visits per month teaching landlords how to use AirBnB

After all those examples, Glen goes on to share a smart strategy for building your own online teaching business.

Related: 10 most popular niches from several top course platforms