Find the business model that works for you and diversify your income by selling online courses

Squarespace Mastery, my small but mighty web design class, celebrates its 2-year anniversary this June. To somebody, having almost 400 students (and sales of a $67 product) might seems like too little. All and all, we are all listening to business coaches who preach “scaling to 6 figures” and “having 10k months” left and right. In my past two years of getting almost daily sales, I learned that scaling isn’t the point.

In my Ph.D. program, I taught a class of 30 awesome Canadian students for a whole school year back in 2016-17. With my pre-recorded online class, I taught 14x that with way less effort on my part – isn’t it amazing?

For me, it’s not about selling (although making about $500-1000 extra each month is great) – it’s about serving my clients and forming deep relationships. I have connected with many amazing people over this course. In the past two years, I only had two refunds for the class although I offer a full no questions asked refund guarantee.

Why and how I created this class

Back in 2020, I started selling Squarespace templates and was constantly recording tutorials and talking to my clients – I saw a need to have a dedicated but short web design class. I am an avid online course purchaser myself and I benefited the most from short masterclasses – the ones that I can finish in a weekend, implement and get a quick result. I like binging classes about digital marketing, Facebook ads, and design – like Netflix!

Fitting all the theory and practice in 4 hours is quite a challenge. It requires a lot of writing, editing, and polishing of the material.

I launched the first iteration of the class in June 2020 and immediately got a great response. Moreover, the process of writing and recording the class was so exciting and thrilling that I immediately started planning another iteration of the course.

Back then I sold the class (which was just $37) through conversion-based Facebook ads. It worked like magic – we got a 37-dollar sale with every $14 we would put into ads. We had no upsells, just the class!

My priority was setting these sales on autopilot and prioritizing my client work and template launches. Back in May 2021, an iOS update came out and ruined the whole idea of profitable retargeting and conversion-based ads. My ads would never get out of the learning phase and totally flop.

The next iteration of the class had a totally new curriculum. I decided to teach not just the ins and outs of the platform but a little bit of basic web design and brand strategy as well. When I re-launched the class, the feedback was amazing! I believe the third iteration will be much better than this (so maybe by the time you’re reading this, I have already launched!)

Below are a few points I wanted to share with you – what I learned and realized after creating this class and having so many amazing students.

Define your business model and charge what you want

I’ve been called a fool for selling this class for such a low price multiple times by different people. But you know what? I think every one of us should have our own definition of success. Instead of launching a $2000 class and having it flop and hearing crickets (maybe), I chose to grow my business one step at a time. The fact that I have a 67-dollar product doesn’t cancel the opportunity for me to launch another product at a higher price point.

A 67-dollar class is a part of my business model. The majority of my revenue comes from template sales and custom work. Squarespace Mastery is my side project which is diversifying my income streams a little bit. I am a web designer who is actively working with clients and in my class, I teach what I know and what I use daily in my work.

Let’s look at the online teaching landscape. I see a lot of web design teachers whose business model is based on selling courses and not designing custom sites. They did design sites in the past but now they focus on selling classes entirely. Do you want to learn from somebody who is actually working with clients daily? Because I have so much client work, I chose to build a class that would sell on autopilot – hence, the low price and I don’t have to launch it, ever. I’m quite happy with the situation as my sales page converts at a whopping 10%.

Someone who is selling a $1000-2000 class (with some exceptions) is probably running an educational business. I run a web design agency. Running an online course business involves creating a lot of content – blog posts, podcasts, social media posts, etc – and a lot of hype. Honestly, I don’t have time for this because I am focused on my client work.

I don’t like teaching as much as I love web designing.

So, define your business model – do you want to run a service-based business? Or a product business? Or have some of the two worlds (like me)?

Generously teach what you do

I just recently came across the book called “Company of One” by Paul Jarvis. In this book, the author argues that instead of scaling our businesses no matter what, we, creators, should be striving towards a better quality of our products. We should focus on doing more with less.

A lot (and I should say – a lot!) marketing coaches teach a tactic where you sell a $37 product with a $19 upsell and $159 order bump, etc. with a series of annoying newsletters. The idea is to break down your initial offer into chunks and give them away step by step in a “sales funnel”. I consumed every bit of information I could find about sales funnels.

You know what – people are getting more and more aware of that. At one point, I got really tired of a $37-$19-$159 paradigm. Why can’t you just name the honest price and not play these tricks on me?

I want to create honest products instead of manipulating my customers – so that’s why my offer over-delivers. It’s intentional. Quite intuitively, I did what Paul Jarvis taught in his book – I created a product that teaches it all, without holding anything back (as much as you can fit into 4 hours of material). And on this blog, I’m trying to teach it all too!

Why do we have to stick to some price matrix? I think in the times when the market is oversaturated with these funnels, a way to stand out is to go against what everyone else is doing. So my 67-dollar class is THE offer, with no additional tricks! There’s only one $19 upsell which is a fun and valuable PDF that probably could be expanded into a whole another small class.

Don’t be afraid to pivot

I started Applet Studio because I love designing websites. I like the creative and the technical part of it. I love connecting all the dots and how marketing informs web design decisions.

Yet, in the past three years, web design was just one of the things that I’ve been doing in this business.

At one point, I thought that I was wearing too many hats. A designer, a copywriter, an ads strategist, a salesperson, an accountant, a manager, and an email marketer – the list is long. Spontaneously, I decided to launch a course – and do the exact same thing I was running away from – teach.

I didn’t hate teaching students in my Ph.D. program. I hated teaching a subject I had no idea about. Yet, I loved teaching what I know and love doing!

As you start a business, you discover new information about yourself and your clients. For me, it was my rediscovered love of teaching.

You will pivot in your business – that’s inevitable! Your idea of success will change, and that’s OK! A year from now, you might be doing something else entirely – it means you are growing.

My growth has been happening in many areas – because of this class, we completely rebuilt our checkout system and implemented some backend systems that help us manage this business daily. While I was working on the curriculum, I delved deeper into the use of mood boards and started using them in my work more actively. And the most important part, I had an opportunity to connect with many awesome business owners and designers who inspire me daily to move forward.