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Comment by dbetteridge | Hacker News Reader

> I would seriously suggest anyone thinking about creating courses to avoid using any type of course marketplaces (ACG is especially bad too). It's worth it to build your own audience

- Youtube + mailing list

- Build your own site

- ??

View on HN

- Blog on the niche and build reputation It's amazing to see how instructors like Wes Bos, Kent C Dodds and Josh Comameu's CSS Course pulled off.

- Create youtube channel and drive traffic from their to your course

YouTube has a lot of the same issues as Udemy with regard to creator treatment. Building your own audience sounds like the ideal, but obviously there are network effects to being on a platform and those can’t be simply written off.

I agree 100%.

What does, in your opinion, an ideal course platform look like though?

Genuinely curious.

I’ve never been a course instructor, but I imagine the best would be something where the creators own a slice of the overall pie (share in the company).

Yep. Udemy is just a different game and if you don't play their game, you're gonna have a bad time. Same story with YouTube.

I do think Udemy is an easier path to meaningful revenue (courses are tedious and less glamorous so less competition) than YouTube, whereas YouTube has much higher potential upside. People can spend years grinding on YouTube before ever making anything meaningful, whereas most instructors who take Udemy seriously can get there within a year. It took me 9 months to get to about $4k a month recurring earnings, for example

Thanks for the shout-out!

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