Educational product development needs a clear plan, vision, scope, topic, venue, and timeframe for success.

<div className="with-first-letter">
  Developing and marketing educational products is fundamentally a business
  endeavor.
</div>

A well-researched plan is helpful for any business, whether you're a solo entrepreneur or part of a team.

Consistently setting and revising expectations is important.

<DecoratedList color="white" type="flash">
  <li>
    **Vision:** Define the mission and the overarching summary. What's the mood
    board like? The general ambiance?
  </li>
  <li>
    **Scope:** What's the magnitude of this project? Its boundaries? Who's
    responsible for what?
  </li>
  <li>
    **Topic:** What's the specific subject matter? Who's the intended audience?
  </li>
  <li>
    **Venue:** Where will this course be hosted? Which platform or domain will
    be used?
  </li>
  <li>
    **Timeframe:** When does it start and when is the launch planned? How will
    updates be managed? Is there an end date?
  </li>
</DecoratedList>

<SkeletonHandSeparator id="vision" number={1} title="Vision" />

The vision serves as the bedrock, the central idea. The vibes that fuel all that follows.

A moodboard can be a useful too for drawing the initial map for what this product wants to accomplish.

<SkeletonHandSeparator id="scope" number={2} title="Scope" />

Consider the course product's overall scope as dictated by the vision.
Is it a single course, a series, or a collection?

<DecoratedList color="white" type="flash">
  <li>Is it a single course, a series, or a collection?</li>
  <li>What is the size of the marketplace initially, and how can that grow?</li>
  <li>
    Is this a solo creator project, or are there multiple instructors involved?
  </li>
</DecoratedList>

<SkeletonHandSeparator id="topic" number={3} title="Topic" />

Topic choice is about understanding the audience's needs and interests. It should be clear and precise.

Who's this for? What skill level? Their current knowledge? Why would this matter to them?

A broad, all-encompassing offer can lead to disconnection with the audience, affecting sales negatively.

Focus on concrete solutions to real problems, avoiding hypothetical scenarios.

This requires research. We like Amy Hoy's sales safari in this house. Also see The Mom Test and Deploy Empathy.

<SkeletonHandSeparator id="venue" number={4} title="Venue" />

Scope and Topic usually dictate the venue choice. Where's the construction site? What's the domain?

Selecting a domain name is crucial but don't let it hinder progress. It's better to choose one and proceed, keeping in mind that changes are possible but can be cumbersome.

<AccentedTitle text="JFDI" color="green-alt" />

Short and as topical as possible is the optimum. Something easy to remember and type.

Come to a consensus, try a few on, and pick the one that matches the vision, scope, and topic so this decision is in the rear-view mirror.

<SkeletonHandSeparator id="timeframe" number={5} title="Timeframe" />

Set the kickoff date, milestones, launch date, and future launch plans.

Expectations evolve over time and each of these provides an opportunity to reflect and revisit.

The vision and scope massively influence the timeframe.

Viewing courses as one-time projects can often produce an initial sales spike, followed by an inevitable gradual decline.

A long-game approach with sustained growth and regular updates can be an alternative.

<ImageWithCaption
  src="https://res.cloudinary.com/badass-courses/image/upload/v1708044980/articles/5-early-decisions-of-a-course-business/neither-is-better_q7capq.png"
  width={1536}
  height={1210}
  reducedMargins
/>

Neither is "better" - but it's important to understand where on the one-off to long-game gradient the scope and vision of this product lies.


5 Early Decisions of a Course Business

Matt Pocock and Joel Hooks discuss how Total Typescript was created.

How we Shipped Total Typescript with Matt Pocock

The Process 🌀 we use to build Badass courses: Research, Design, Production, and Delivery

<div className="with-first-letter">
  We've produced a lot of courses. Hundreds. They've generated 10s of millions
  of dollars in revenue and helped hundreds of thousands of learners level-up as
  web developers. From the beginning we've focused on quality and being
  consistent, and to do that it's important to have a process.
</div>

Not to much, not to little. Just enough process to get everybody on the same page and speaking the same "language".

<h3 class="text-badass-yellow-300 font-condensed">
  Our process has 4 distinct phases:
</h3>

<DecoratedList color="white" type="flash" reducedSpacing={true}>
  <li>**Research**</li>
  <li>**Design**</li>
  <li>**Production**</li>
  <li>**Delivery**</li>
</DecoratedList>

These phases are repeated, as needed for any given project. For example, the first iteration of a new course product might be a simple landing page. The goal of the landing page is to gauge interest.

<SkeletonHandSeparator id="research" number={1} title="Research" />

<div class="clear-both">
	<FloatedImage
        src="https://res.cloudinary.com/badass-courses/image/upload/v1708030663/articles/the-process/research_fimu7v.png"
        width={752}
        height={752}
        alt="Research chapter image"
        floatSide="left"
      />
	
We will research the market, understand our audience, work with our subject matter expert partners, and do enough research work to provide a clue. Something to go on.

Sales Safari is an online ethnographical research method invented by Amy Hoy that continues to be an amazing source of research for our products. Here's a quick ["in a nutshell" summary of the Sales Safari method](https://egghead.io/learn/30x500/sales-safari). For a deeper dive, we also love Amy & Alex's [Sales Safari 101](https://shop.stackingthebricks.com/sales-safari-101).

Sales Safari is interesting because it focuses on "customers in the wild" where they are comfortable and discussing their pain and solutions with peers, using their "local" jargon.

Another approach is the one described in The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. In many ways this is the opposite of Sales Safari, because you are actively interviewing to learn more about the struggles, pain, and solutions that your audience of potential customers might have.

This is dangerous, because what people say in interview situations is often not what they actually do IRL. They aren't lying, they are just having a conversation. There's a power dynamic at play, and they will say what they think you want them to say trying to give the "right" answer.

It's called The Mom Test because if you explain your idea to your mom and ask her what she thinks about the idea, there is a better than good chance she will tell you it's "great!"

The Mom Test structure focuses on the interviewee and says that we won't go into pitch mode or start explaining our idea. We are interviewing THEM to learn about THEM.

It's not about you is a tough pill to swallow, but it's essential to getting at the truth underneath the conversational BS.

Beyond those methods we scour the internet, analyze existing solutions, and generally consider the problem space while taking notes and building shared context.

</div>

<AccentedTitle text="Research never stops" color="yellow" />

<BodyImage
  src="https://res.cloudinary.com/badass-courses/image/upload/v1708030656/articles/the-process/charlie-day_mrnahs.png"
  width={1760}
  height={1174}
  caption="Charlie Day in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. FX Networks"
/>

But it's very important to stop researching and start doing. That's why we think about The Process as cycles instead of a linear start to finish. 🌀

<SkeletonHandSeparator id="design" number={2} title="Design" />

<div class="clear-both">
  <FloatedImage
    src="https://res.cloudinary.com/badass-courses/image/upload/v1708030658/articles/the-process/design_yj53qc.png"
    width={752}
    height={752}
    alt="Design chapter image"
    floatSide="right"
  />
  The most common first thought when you hear "design" is probably visual design,
  but for us design encompasses more than just the visual aspects of a project, though
  those are very important too.
  <DecoratedList color="white" type="flash" reducedSpacing={true}>
    <li>**Visual design**</li>
    <li>**Instructional Design**</li>
    <li>**Learner Experience Design**</li>
    <li>**Product Design**</li>
  </DecoratedList>
  It's the capital-D Design that leverages the context that we've built during the
  Research phase and previous cycle of The Process and shape it into something interesting
  and valuable for learners.
</div>

<SkeletonHandSeparator id="production" number={3} title="Production" />

<div class="clear-both">
  <FloatedImage
    src="https://res.cloudinary.com/badass-courses/image/upload/v1708030661/articles/the-process/production_ktvetq.png"
    width={752}
    height={752}
    alt="Production chapter image"
    floatSide="left"
  />
  We know what we are building and why, so this is the "roll up our sleeves" and
  build. In a practical sense, for us, this is web development. We are building online
  learning experiences, and that means we are building websites.
</div>

<SkeletonHandSeparator id="delivery" number={4} title="Delivery" />

<div class="clear-both">
  <FloatedImage
    src="https://res.cloudinary.com/badass-courses/image/upload/v1708030657/articles/the-process/delivery_a7otmr.png"
    width={752}
    height={752}
    alt="Delivery chapter image"
    floatSide="right"
  />
  "If you build it they will come" is a crock of shit. It's just not true, and a recipe for failure. You have to share it. You've got to let people know.

Call it marketing, or a "launch", but once you've researched, designed, and produced something valuable and/or interesting for your audience it's time to let them know.

Once you've delivered something to your audience, something as small as a Twitter thread or landing page, or a full-fledged 60-hour video course you've finished a cycle of The Process.

Good.

Now you can start The Process again, using your new customers and everything you learned from all previous cycles as input for the Research and Design process.

It's a loop. Or better yet a spiral 🌀

We start loose, with a lot of unknowns and circle around the problem at ever increasing resolution, sharing what we learn, building valuable resources, sharing what we build, applying principled work, building trust, building relationships, and often thankfully earning a living.
</div>


The Process

Launched Total TypeScript pre-release in Dec 2022, earning $415,000 from 1200+ learners by refining a collaborative process with Matt Pocock.

$415k Pre-Release Launch of a Developer Education Product

Matt Pocock uses a DAG to structure Total TypeScript workshops, organizing modules by dependencies and natural teaching groups.

<div className="with-first-letter">
  **Matt Pocock explains how he uses a directed acyclic graph for creating a
  workshop for Total TypeScript**
</div>

<EmbedVideo
  playbackId="Pb4CZg4pOv2STlT2I1VUO02ReK00uTrZ1cYcHAq9EacNY"
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/>

<FancyTitleWithSubtitle subtitle="Full" title="Transcript" />

<FullTranscript>
I wanted to break down some of the process that I've been using for building out total type scripts here. What I like to do is take all the information that I want to include in a module and put it into a dag, a directed acyclic graph. The reason I choose a DAG is because, You know, first of all, it kind of looks nice, right?

You get to sort of say, Okay, I want to include all of these pieces. And then you work out which bits of information, each piece of information depends on. So I know that k and k of our depends on, you know, like, um, to understand why it's useful, you probably need to know a little bit about template literals to understand why.

Um, Why it even works. You need to understand key and key of, to understand how that works. You need to understand key of, then you need to understand unions at the base of it. There's probably more information, I'm, I'm sort of forgetting there or aligning, but this gives you a sense of it. And so basically all of this stuff then, um, gets put all together and then I divide it into groups, you know, groups that feel natural to teach together.

And like the first groups that I'm sort of looking at, you know, Kind of like unions, discriminated unions. Then I've got this sort of index access type object values, and these are groups that I'm sort of finding in my head to, You know, like it's good to have groups in general, like chunks of information that people can walk away with that's all connected.

If you trying to teach this all sort of too disparately, then. The connections might not be made that well. So once you've then got the groups altogether, then you can then just order the groups. So what I've done is I've just taken all of these different colors and I've just put them to the side here, and I've now got the list of all of the things I want to teach.

This last one here, challenges. Some of the stuff just doesn't really fit into groups, right? Like in order to understand object to discriminated union, you need to be able to understand quite a lot of information. I generally like to sort of take those really, really big leaf nodes at the end and stick them in one big block.

So we've got basically a challenges section is what I like to call it. And this I think actually is the genuine, or very close to the, the way I landed on this for this module, like the, the format for this module. So this is pretty nice. Um, there's one more thing to discuss, which is obviously, Stuff you need to know before you even get to the module.

And I like to have this sort of double red line here and have a few things in the DAG that are above that line. And that line is basically prerequisites. In order to understand this module, you need to understand what is generics and tax and types and what is a union. And both of those I think are covered in my beginner's course.

So you probably need to take the beginner's course before you take this, but it's really. Two, to just to map out the things that you want to, that you know you're not going to cover. And sometimes I'll even have another one down the bottom, which is gonna be like, uh, future material, you know, stuff that I'm not even going to cover in this section.

And that gives you a really nice window into what you are actually covering. And make sure that when you structure it, you are structuring it with those ideas in mind. And you don't need to re-explain them.

</FullTranscript>

Use a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) to Structure Developer Focused Content

Working with an info architect improved how we structure educational content, emphasizing simplicity and viewing everything as a resource or a collection.

<div className="with-first-letter">
  Working with a world class information architect is a treat and has helped
  steer our thinking about how we structure educational content for the past
  three years. It's been a challenge to migrate. These core data decisions have
  a way of locking you into previous, sometimes poor, decisions. We did an
  engagement with [Lisa Maria Marquis](https://twitter.com/redsesame), author of Everyday Information
  Architecture, and [LMM looked at our lessons, courses, playlists, series, and other media](https://egghead.notion.site/Content-Analysis-by-LMM-227060f2f49c4d1082980131fcde12f3) and came back with a simpler, straight forward way to think about
  them.
</div>

<ImageWithCaption
  src="https://res.cloudinary.com/badass-courses/image/upload/v1708288966/articles/information-architecture/data-types_md2drz.png"
  width={1536}
  height={956}
  reducedMargins={true}
/>

Early on we were overly specific at the database level and described database tables as they were used or labeled in the user interface (UI). In retrospect, starting from more generic building blocks and working towards more specificity would have been a better approach for us, and thinking about structured content as data instead of UI makes a lot sense in practice.

There were a lot of take-aways from LMM's awesome presentation, but the main one was...

<SkeletonHandSeparator
  id="everything-is-a-resource"
  number={1}
  title="Everything is a resource"
/>

Some resources are a collection of other resources.

It's either a `Resource` or it's a `Collection` of resources.

LMM included "special" which in practice turns out to be a collection as well, which led us to solidify our own implementation.

<SkeletonHandSeparator
  id="naming-is-hard"
  number={2}
  title="Naming is hard"
/>

<DecoratedList color="white" type="flash" reducedSpacing={true}>
  <li>
    **Resource:** a video, article text, file, or other atom
  </li>
  <li>
    **Lesson:** a collection of learning resources
  </li>
  <li>
    **Section:** a collection of lessons, and sometimes additional resources
  </li>
  <li>
    **Module:** a full workshop, typically a 1-day workshop or shorter presenting a collection of sections or lessons (if sections aren't needed) and often additional supplementary resources
  </li>
  <li>
    **Product:** one or module modules in a collection
  </li>
</DecoratedList>

The atomic `Resource` is generally a direct reference to media. A resource is an interface or base type for specific kinds of resources. All resources share common properties such as `id`, `title`, `description`, and `type`.

In our domain, with use a `VideoResource`. This type of resources also has `mediaUrl`, `transcript`, and `subtitles` properties. Additional metadata that describes or belongs to this type of resource.

These atomic resources can be combined into a variety of collections. It makes things easier for us to think about if we give the collections names and use those to build consumable structures.

At the lowest level we have the `Lesson` which is a collection of resources that delivers a unit of learning. This is similar to building a page in Notion or other type of block editor. Stack, structure, move stuff around, edit, and present something that is coherent and meets the learning goals of the lesson.

It's great when a lesson stands alone, but they are often combined together into a `Module`. A module is like the chapter of a book, and might also contain other atomic resources like a project, overview video, or other supplementary/complementary resources.

If there are a lot of lessons, they might be divided into `Section` collections. Instead of directly adding lessons to the module, the lessons first get added to sections, which are then added to the module.

This is "chunking" and helps orient and provide structure for learners.

Finally modules, lessons, and other resources are combined into a `Product` which includes a price and can be purchased or shared with learners as a full learning experience.

<SkeletonHandSeparator
  id="implementation-in-sanity"
  number={3}
  title="Implementation in Sanity"
/>

The tool that we love to use to implement structured content is Sanity. It provides a delightful environment to design your content model and query it through a fast CDN for delivery to learners.

We aren't inhibited by an overly specified content model and can think and rethink what the shape of a lesson or module is based on the content, the instructor, and what the students expect in the context of the domain being taught and not the domain we used to store shit in a database.

It's great.

Information Architecture for Courses and Educational Products

"The Workshop Survival Guide" offers a blueprint for creating engaging workshops focused on learner outcomes, utilizing diverse teaching formats and breaks.

<div className="with-first-letter">
  The Workshop Survival guide by Rob Fitzpatrick and Devin Hunt delivers the step-by-step blueprint for designing and delivering a successful live workshop for a paying audience. This summary focuses on the first half of the book which covers the design and production of your workshop. The second half of the book focuses on the delivery and facilitation of your workshop and is great as well.

A successful workshop is focused on learner outcomes and facilitates those outcomes for the learners that participate. It's your job as the facilitator to design an experience that will engage and energize learners.

</div>

<SkeletonHandSeparator
  id="your-job-is-to-help-learners-achieve-their-outcomes"
  number={1}
  title="Your job is to help learners achieve their outcomes."
/>

You'll design a Workshop Skeleton that focuses on learner outcomes and iterate on that skeleton.

The workshop will consist 60-90 minute segments that are filled with 5 teaching formats: lecture, small group discussion, question and answer, "try it now", and scenario challenges. These segments will be punctuated with generous breaks to allow learners to recharge.

What you will not focus on is creating elaborate slide decks, and instead you will use slides sparingly to enhance and clarify the various learning formats.

Workshops are different than a classroom in two important ways.

<DecoratedList color="white" type="flash" reducedSpacing={true}>
  <li>
    **It's your responsibility to design a learning experience that will renew
    and refresh learners and keep their energy and attention.**
  </li>
  <li>
    **You are not limited in any way or stuck with the binding constraints of
    the typical classroom lecture format.**
  </li>
</DecoratedList>

Your workshop will leverage the the most appropriate style of teaching and interactive exercise for the subject you are teaching.

To ensure that your workshop is a success, you have to do the work beforehand. You aren't winging it or delivering an off the cuff lecture.

Your workshops depends on you delivering a series of [[trail of value nuggets]] that give learners tangible "a-ha" moments. Every one of these is like a gold coin in Mario increasing your goodwill score as your learners level-up.

Every droning boring lecture or arbitrary questions that result in an ever decreasing number of hands going up depletes your goodwill health bar and spends the a-ha tokens you've worked so hard to gain.

When they signed up for your workshop the learner agreed to give you a significant block or their time, attention, and energy. It's a contract between you, the facilitator, and the learner. When you violate that contract by being boring, or asking the learner to do low-value tasks they will start to distrust you. For the learner, if they aren't receiving a constant flow of value, they will assume they've wasted their time and check out completely.

You've lost them.

They show up with faith in your ability to deliver value and if you don't deliver that goodwill quickly fades and they will be on their phones before you know it.
To create a trail of value nuggets you've got to [[design a trail of value nuggets]]. This doesn't mean the final deliverables like slides or exercise. Those are important too, but here you'll be focused on the fundamentals, the outline, the big picture, or what Rob calls [[The Workshop Skeleton]]

<BodyBlockquote color="cyan">
  Making slides first is a huge mistake and will ruin your workshop be trapping
  you in the details before you’ve figured out the fundamentals.
</BodyBlockquote>

Understanding and designing for the [[learning outcomes]] that your learners want to achieve is the most important activity that you should be working on when you sit down to research and design your Workshop Skeleton.

Rob's other book, The Mom Test, is an excellent resource for researching learner outcomes. We also really like Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman's 30x500 and Samuel Hulick's Value Paths framework.

The Workshop Survival Guide describes three pillars of a successful workshop.

<SkeletonHandSeparator
  id="the-audience-profile"
  number={2}
  title="The Audience Profile"
/>

You've got to understand who you are designing the workshop for. This is how you know what to include and what to cut. Be specific. Be crispy.

Why are they showing up to this workshop?

What will they be able to take away with them?

How will they "win"?

You've got to understand your audience if you have any chance of developing strong learner outcomes.

<SkeletonHandSeparator id="the-schedule" number={2} title="The Schedule" />

DO NOT underestimate the importance of coffee breaks.

Breaks are critical to your workshops success. For every 60-90 minutes of content you need to give learners 15 minutes to unwind and process what they've just taken in. Stretch their legs. Get some caffeine flowing. Chat a little. Ask casual questions.

Design your workshop around the breaks.

<SkeletonHandSeparator
  id="learner-outcomes"
  number={3}
  title="Learner Outcomes"
/>

What can they do now that they couldn't do before this workshop.

Designing learner outcomes is the absolute 100% no-question most important job you have as a facilitator.

Not vague outcomes or loose objectives.

Concrete, no-bullshit, "this is your new super power" learner outcomes.

With a half-day workshop you can expect to get roughly 6 learning outcomes accomplished. That's about 30-45 minutes per learning outcome, but the goal isn't to hit the "perfect number" or cram as many outcomes as possible into a day of learning.

<BodyBlockquote color="cyan">
  spend more time per Learning outcome as opposed to trying to squeeze in more
  of them.
</BodyBlockquote>

Learner outcomes are a cluster of ideas. They are the thesis of your presentation composed of sub-outcomes the come together to form the basis of what the learner needs to know, believe, or be able to do.

It's a fact that you'll have way more ideas and content than you can possibly hope to cram into a single workshop. Your job is to curate resources with a hyper-focus on learner outcomes. Not deliver some vague topic, but a clear set of high-value takeways.

The first draft of the Workshop Skeleton should take about an hour to create. Review your research, think about the learners that will be at your workshop, and most importantly capture the absolutely essential learner outcomes that you can think of.

Stop there. Sit with it for a few days.

Spending time focused on the Workshop Skeleton will allow you to iterate and think more deeply on the value that you'll deliver for learners in the form of outcomes. Keep your Workshop Skeleton close at hand so you can simmer with it, stare at it on your phone or in your favorite notebook, and work it like a piece of raw value clay that will be modeled into crispy learner outcomes.

This rough skeleton is probably shareable. You can get feedback extremely early. You can ask collegues or potential learners what they think.

"how does this feel?"

<BodyBlockquote color="cyan">
  much of becoming a better facilitator isn’t actually about getting “better”,
  but rather about doing stuff ahead of time which makes your life easier on the
  day-of
</BodyBlockquote>

Your workshop will consist of a flow between 5 [[essential teaching formats]] that support the learner outcomes within your Workshop Skeleton. The formats are the building blocks of your workshop and should allow you to effectively fill in the space between coffee breaks with crispy value nuggets that keep your learners active and engaged.

<AccentedSubtitle color="cyan">Lectures</AccentedSubtitle>

**Lectures** should support your Learning outcomes and help extract lessons-learned from other Teaching Formats, but shouldn’t overstated their welcome

Your workshop is not a series of lectures that talk at the learners until they are all staring at their phones or glazed over asleep with their eyes closed.

Lectures should start with a sections key learner outcome, add a few supporting arguments, and not meander into anything that isn't related to the learner outcome.

<AccentedSubtitle color="yellow">
  Small group and pair discussion
</AccentedSubtitle>

**Small group and pair discussion** allow students to wrestle with clear questions with ambiguous answers

This format is challenging but can be the ultimate teaching format that allows learners to engage and more deeply consider the core learner outcomes of your workshop.

Being able to design and facilitate small group (and pair) discussions is a workshop super power and spending time developing these skills will allow you to deliver successful workshops on almost any topic.

Small group discussions are facilitated and have a purpose. They aren't vague soft questions. They are crispy essential questions that dig into big ideas. These discussions are brief, 2-5 minutes, but the overall exercise will take 10-15 minutes of actual workshop time.

The discussion prompt must support the current learner outcome.

Really great discussions happen when there is no right answer and the question is very clear.

It's your job to facilitate the discussion by instructing learners explicitly and specifically about what they are supposed to be talking about.

Not just saying it out loud, but presenting it visually on a slide that clearly states the question and goals of the discussion.

<BodyBlockquote color="cyan">
  Good prompts allow for good conversations, and it’s your job to figure them
  out, in advance, and ensure that they’re clear, interesting, and relevant.
</BodyBlockquote>

if you're lazy in the design of the discussion prompt you'll lose credibility with learners.

<AccentedSubtitle color="green">Q&A</AccentedSubtitle>

**Q&A** has a ton of problems, but should still be included after each Learning outcome (or before each break) to catch misunderstandings and act as a schedule spring

Unstructured Q&A sucks. Only confident learners will participate and it's just generally a bad teaching format. Q&A does NOT make your boring lecture interactive.

They do sometimes reveal overall structural flaws in the material.

Q&A is the first thing you'll delete if you are running late. Q&A gives you wiggle room in the schedule.

<BodyBlockquote color="cyan">
  Instead of vaguely asking if anyone has “any questions"”, be more specific and
  encourage them to ask questions which are relevant to exactly what you just
  talked about (and include a helpful reminder about what those things are)
</BodyBlockquote>

An alternative is the "Post Up" where everybody writes down a question on a post-it note and puts it up on the front wall. This provides you with a mind-reading super power as a facilitator!

**“Try it now”** builds skills through a bit of hands-on practice, though the prompt must be carefully refined to be neither too easy nor too hard

Learners need to DO something to really internalize the learner objectives where learners will form groups, work from a clear prompt, and then discuss what they've done.

The task needs to be right-sized.

Goldilocks. Not too hot and not too cold. Just right.

Assistance can be baked into the exercise providing clues, waypoints, hints, and how-to so that learners will be able to succeed even when the task is slightly too difficult.

Avoid making them **[[draw the rest of the fucking owl]]** with a far reaching task and instead consider how you will divide the exercise up into clear achievable sub-tasks in a step-by-step way.

Sometimes learner objectives will require several related try it now exercises.

<SkeletonHandSeparator
  id="try-it-now-exercise-build-skill"
  number={4}
  title="Try it now exercise build skill."
/>

**Scenario Challenges** help foster judgement and critical thinking be asking students to understand, evaluate, and decide how to act in a difficult situation

A scenario challenge requires learners figure out what they they need to do. They provide learners with the opportunity to gain experience which leads to better judgement ant the ability to think about problems related to the learner objectives.

"What would you do if `{BLANK}`?"

"What's wrong with `{BLANK}`?"

The first task is to evaluate the situation and identify what matters with some class-wide discussion. The second task is about deciding what action to take and doing it.

A well designed scenario task can easily act as the structure for a full 45-90 minute section of a workshop and combines many of the formats above into a cohesive holistic format.

One thing that you won't be focused on when designing and producing your workshop is a slide deck. Slides are an important tool, but you don't need a lot of them. They don't need to be littered with stock photos or even have a lot of visual styling.

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You can make them look nice, but this should be well at the bottom of your overall priority list. Instead slides will be very focused on punctuating key moments within your workshop.

Do not spend a lot of time and energy on slide deck presentations for your workshop. This is a mistake that many workshop facilitators make.

Slides are used sparingly and for a very small set of intentional purposes.

There are 3 types of slides that you'll have for learners that will effectively enhance their experience and not drag down the overall flow of your workshop.

<AccentedSubtitle color="cyan">
  Essential slide 1: Learning Outcome summaries
</AccentedSubtitle>

This is a single slide that clearly states the outcome that the learners have or will achieve.

The outcome is the title of the slide. Maybe the only text. Clearly stated and obvious. Any additional text will be minor and support or restate the learner outcome.

<AccentedSubtitle color="yellow">
  Essential slide 2: Exercise prompts
</AccentedSubtitle>

Again these are a single slide, clearly presented that articulate what a learner can expect from an exercise and what they are expected to do. for particularly complex exercises it might be required to orient the learner with the slide and direct them to more detailed instructions within a different document like a README or handout.

<AccentedSubtitle color="green">
  Essential slide 3: Resources lists (and intro/outro)
</AccentedSubtitle>

People LOVE resources and slides that contain additional resources are valuable for the learner. These resources are the source material and next steps from your own research. A curated high signal list of value nuggets that learners can used to take their learning outcomes to the next level beyond what is covered in the workshop.

You should now have a well-scheduled Workshop Skeleton that focuses on learner outcomes. It won't be perfect, but your Workshop Skeleton is an asset and you can deliver this workshop again combining what you know back into the Workshop Skeleton. The first iteration is the most challenging, but if you care enough to put in the up front work, it is sure to be a success.

One of the long term goals of our workshops is often to convert them to self-paced courses that learners can use to achieve the learner outcomes at scale without you being present in the room with them. In our experience the best courses are the result of play testing the material in the workshop format and many topics translate directly to self-paced courses and books.

If you'd like more details check out Rob's awesome book [The Workshop Survival Guide](https://www.amazon.com/Workshop-Survival-Guide-educational-workshops/dp/1071344374?crid=3KY0GBBEXY69M&keywords=workshop+survival+guide&qid=1655835661&sprefix=workshop+survival+guid,aps,126&sr=8-1&linkCode=sl1&tag=joehoobuiblo-20&linkId=e70ed879306501c60c13e7b1db851967&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl). We also think his book [Write Useful Books](https://www.amazon.com/Write-Useful-Books-recommendable-nonfiction/dp/1919621601?qid=1655835947&refinements=p_27:Adam+Rosen&s=books&sr=1-2&text=Adam+Rosen&linkCode=sl1&tag=joehoobuiblo-20&linkId=44f0820228190cde9627a2b40e2fca22&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl) makes an excellent sequel.

Summary of The Workshop Survival Guide by Rob Fitzpatrick

Learn how totaltypescript.com came to be.

Launching Total TypeScript

Learn how testingaccessibility.com came to be.

Launching  Testing Accessibility

Launching Epic React

Learn how technicalinterviews.dev came to be.

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  <TocItem
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<div className="with-first-letter">
  **When Emma set out to write and self-publish her very first ebook within a
  month in the spring of 2020, she was afraid she'd screw&nbsp;it&nbsp;up.**
</div>

**She had been transparently and authentically sharing her knowledge and career experience with other developers for years, but she'd never set out to do a book before.**

**But as she landed her dream job at Spotify, she realized she had accrued a lot of knowledge and experience about technical interviews at companies both big and small that could help others. Even as someone with a degree in Computer Science, Emma found the process to be difficult and anxiety-inducing and felt there was a gap in existing resources.**

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  name="Emma Bostian"
  title="Software engineer, author & instructor"
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<BodyBlockquote color="green">
  "I purchased so many different online courses to help me study," she says.
  "None of them really worked out for me because a lot of the sites are backend
  language focused and didn't cover all aspects of the process like systems
  design and the behavioral conversations. There was no start to finish
  interview book."
</BodyBlockquote>

She opened a pre-sale for De-Coding the Technical Interview Process and shared her progress as she wrote, designed, and marketed the book over the course of 30 days. Despite her fears, her launch went well. The response was overwhelming, with $40k in sales and a ton of feedback from people saying how helpful the book was.

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Having collaborated with Emma previously and seeing how she was nailing a huge pain that many developers experience and the value of what she was creating, we reached out to offer ideas on how she could iterate and build on the material even further to add more value, help more people, and continue to generate revenue.

Emma loved the idea of continuing to build on the work. She was much more interested in collaborating with an expert production team she could trust to support the planning, design, development and distribution rather than continuing to handle everything herself.

<BodyBlockquote color="green">
  "When I did the initial sale, I spent a lot of time marketing, sending out
  emails, answering emails, dealing with payment issues," says Emma. "So if I
  can outsource that to someone I'm a lot happier. I create better content when
  I'm not focusing on all the minutiae."
</BodyBlockquote>

While Emma was interested in designing a full interactive video course, we decided together to first focus on doing a revamp and re-release of the book before building out the Technical Interviews product further.

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Emma did an incredible job with the initial version of her book. The content was strong and she broke things down clearly and in an approachable way. After her initial sale, we supported Emma to elevate and improve the book even further to make it even more valuable and relaunch it.

As Emma reviewed her content, she saw opportunities to elaborate on some areas to add more value.

<BodyBlockquote color="green">
  "For example, I added a ton more content to systems design, more to tips for
  hiring managers, as well as more in the coding project section to talk about
  the stigma behind coding projects and how they can be harmful to some
  candidates."
</BodyBlockquote>

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We worked with Emma to incorporate those changes and provided copy editing, additional reviewing and testing for errors. We also took care of all the logistic details to make the book available in not only a light and dark mode PDF (which was very well received with Emma's first version), but also HTML and epub formats so that people could read the book in the format of their choosing.

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Emma already has experience with visual design and was able to do a lot on her own for her initial sale of the book (including creating the great hand-drawn illustrations in the book to explain some of the concepts she teaches).

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We helped her further elevate the look and feel of Technical Interviews with a punched up and captivating design — creating new branding, [a new custom website](https://technicalinterviews.dev/), and a new design for her book, including the gorgeous 3D illustrations used throughout the book that add a special touch. Emma was involved in design decisions to make sure we came up with a visual experience that reflected her light and friendly vibe and style aesthetic.

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Knowing how valuable design is, Emma appreciated how our collaboration allowed her to have the higher-quality visuals that not only improve the experience and make it more delightful for learners, but also help build trust and communicate the value of the product.

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<BodyBlockquote color="pink">
  "Users expect high fidelity — if a user is paying money for something, they
  expect a high caliber of product," she says. "I'm not saying all pretty
  products should be trusted, but subconsciously, something looks and feels
  elite, people are more likely to purchase it. There was a limitation to what I
  could deliver as a self-producing engineer so having investment in branding
  and marketing is absolutely invaluable."
</BodyBlockquote>

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As Emma and the team worked on revamping De-Coding the Technical Interview Process, we helped Emma deliver a self-paced email course to provide more even more value to people eager to learn what she has to teach as well as offering a demonstration of what she has to offer.

Emma wrote the content, while we provided guidance on structure and editing support based on our previous experience building email courses to help her make it as effective as possible. We also handled setting up the structure and automations in ConvertKit, setting up the quiz functionality on her website so people could test what they learned at each step, and fixing any technical issues that were revealed as the course rolled out.

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The course was a hit and generated a lot of feedback. Within the first week of launching the email course, more than 200 people who took the course emailed to both share their appreciation of how deeply helpful it was and also to share their experiences with technical interviews.

<TweetEmbed tweetId="1333124495675158535" />

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We handled all the development and infrastructure work to create the components to handle the selling and access to the book directly on Emma's website.

As part of building the site, we handled setting up the eCommerce components (e.g. integrating Stripe Checkout, invoicing, purchasing power parity) and authorization routes. We used a template we've developed for these functions that still allowed us to tailor the design and copy to Emma's needs and style. After the checkout process we made sure that customers could quickly and easily access their content and handled any issues they might run into.

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We synced all the previous purchases from Gumroad and single-use links to make sure the nearly 4,000 customers that bought the first version would get free access to the updated version.

<BodyBlockquote color="green">
  "It's been so much less stressful not having to deal with the technical
  aspects of physically handling the asset management, the payments, the
  distribution pipeline," says Emma. "That's been so nice to pass off to the
  team and they've done a really, really great job handling all of that. I've
  also seen a lot of feedback how people are so happy about the pricing parity.
  That was a big win."
</BodyBlockquote>

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Throughout the process, we collaborated with Emma to set priorities and provided guidance on what would be most valuable to focus on delivering for a high-quality experience and a successful re-launch of the book and what ideas would be good to explore down the road.

<BodyBlockquote color="green">
  "I have all these ideas in my head and it sometimes can just be like one big
  void of ideas and trouble focusing," says Emma. "It's helpful having someone
  to bounce ideas off of and to help keep me accountable while still not being a
  hard ass about it. If something comes up in life, they're like, 'oh, we're on
  your timeline,' which I needed."
</BodyBlockquote>

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  />
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We planned and implemented a phased roll-out with previous purchasers and the people who most engaged with the email course so we could catch any technical issues before it went live to everyone. We also created promo assets (e.g. share cards) and made any last needed tweaks to the website.

We gave Emma a framework for which emails to write to get people excited and let them know about the launch and where to focus her efforts for marketing and community building (e.g. doing a YouTube livestream during launch week and using Circle as a community platform for people who purchase the product to share their experiences with technical interviews).

<BodyBlockquote color="green">
  "I don't feel like I had a lot of anxiety about the launch, just because Joel
  and the team were so organized," she says. "They basically told me what we
  needed and took a lot of the burden off of me in terms of having to generate
  ideas and to having to know everything about the launch process."
</BodyBlockquote>

<SkeletonHandSeparator title="Launch Results" id="launch-results" number={7} />

On March 15, 2021, sales were completely opened for De-Coding the Technical Interview Process to anyone who wanted to purchase it, and a special discount was offered to anyone who purchased during the first week.

<LaunchResults firstDay={768} firstWeek={1861} firstFourMonths={3265} />

Emma was overwhelmed by the response, with 1,861 people buying the book within the first week. Within the first four months, those sales grew to 3,265 (which are over and above the few thousand copies Emma sold with her initial limited launch at a lower price).

<BodyBlockquote color="green">
  "I feel positively overwhelmed knowing that I am able to share my knowledge
  with the community," says Emma. "I get a lot of messages from people who say
  that this helped them actually get a job, which is so rewarding and why I do
  this in the first place. Just the other day I received an email from a
  colleague who said that he was able to land the job at Spotify using my book.
  There is no more rewarding feeling than giving incredible developers the tools
  they need to pass technical interviews."
</BodyBlockquote>

With so many sales and only so much time to dedicate to answering people's questions, Emma particularly appreciated how we helped handle all the payments and customer support — answering any logistical questions from customers that didn't need to be handled by her personally and clearly bringing to her attention which ones would require a response from her.

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We're continuing to work with Emma to build out Technical Interviews and other projects she wants to create under her own brand, collaborating with her on ideas and providing any needed production and distribution support.

It's a long-term effort and Emma appreciates having close collaboration with the team to help keep the momentum going.

<BodyBlockquote color="green">
  "Sometimes it's also easy to forget why you're doing what you're doing with
  these long evergreen projects and what benefit it can have," she says. "After
  speaking to Joel or Taylor, for example, I get really motivated again, because
  they're excited about it."
</BodyBlockquote>

Some of the things Emma is excited to work on next is a more in-depth course and other projects to help developers succeed in their careers and potentially shifting more on the hiring side of things to help companies improve the technical interview process itself. Emma appreciates having an expert team she can very much rely on to support her in these projects with high-quality work.

<BodyBlockquote color="green">
  "I trust the team to get the work done and get it done to an extremely high
  standard." she says. "If I tell them I need something, they get it for me,
  whether that's setting up the email sequences or creating design assets or
  setting up a blog on the website. I've never had to question their abilities
  of anything. It's so nice. Honestly, I don't think there's a negative side to
  working with them."
</BodyBlockquote>


Launching Technical Interviews

Find out how JustJavaScript.com by Dan Abramov and Maggie Appleton came to be.

Launching Just JavaScript

Testing out your content in some way before a full release can really improve the quality of your final product. 

Matt D. Smith, better known around the internet as MDS, did a beta testing round before he released Shift Nudge. Learners still had to pay to access the beta, which resulted in a very invested group of testers. And, the course is hosted on Notion which gave learners the ability to leave feedback on content inline, and it was easy for Matt to make adjustments and even record new lessons. 

Releasing Shift Nudge was different than the other products Matt has launched. It's more personal, and it can feel like the content is a reflection of you that people will judge. But, the best advice Matt has received about that is that as an educator you are not a grand knowledge holder, bestowing your knowledge upon people. **Your job is to facilitate and guide people from the state of not knowing, to knowing.**

Matt also discusses the lessons learned from the errors he made with offering a design feedback service to learners, and how the idea for Shift Nudge went from being a product design course to a visual design course.

Matt D. Smith (MDS) chats about beta testing Shift Nudge, how launching a course was different than other products, the lessons learned from the errors he made with offering a design feedback service to learners, and how the idea for Shift Nudge went from being a product design course to a visual design course.

Facilitating Learning Over Bestowing Knowledge with Matt D. Smith (mds)

If your main interest is to actually get straight into producing content and start selling it, you probably don't want to jump into developing a custom platform. 

Mark Shust has seen many people get into building there own platforms and have all their time sucked into getting it running, when they could've been delivering a course. 

It can take much longer than you might expect. Over a year even depending on if you are working full-time or not. There's a ton of things that you'll have to deal with yourself such as payments, refunds, subscriptions, upgrades, authentication, streaming video, and more. 

Mark also chats about how he designs his courses by reverse-engineering projects, tax compliance, and how to look beyond what people are saying and figure out what they're needing.

Mark Shust chats about the advantages of using an existing platform, figuring out what content to produce, and designing courses by reverse engineering projects.

Using Existing Course Platforms to Deliver More Content with Mark Shust

Designing courses that are both entertaining and informative is no small feat. But, time and time again, Wes Bos delivers.

There's no secret formula either. The method is simple. Wes takes a project first approach, thinking about the technology he wants to teach and everything a learner would need to know in order to become skilled at it and dumping it all into a mind map.

From there he tries to build three to four different projects of different sizes, covering different areas. One might be heavy on the data, another may be focused on authentication and permissions. Then he reverse engineers his projects and asks questions, "what are the milestones? What are the things you need to learn? What can you build in a course scope?"

Beyond his courses Wes also has built his own platform and co-hosts the wonderful podcast Syntax.fm with Scott Tolinski. 

Building the platform himself was very important to Wes. It came from wanting to have a sense of credibility, and there just not being anything that had the features he wanted at the time. And it gives him an ongoing project to work on and continue to write production code.

The podcast has also been very successful in its own right. It has been excellent for selling courses and it makes money from sponsorships as well. 

So check out this episode of the Badass Courses podcast to get more insights from Wes Bos including, when he decided to hire employees, dealing with stolen content, managing aging content, and more!

Wes Bos chats about his course production process, when he decided to hire employees, dealing with theft, managing aging content, and more!

Creating a Successful Business with Fun Project-Based Courses with Wes Bos

Quincy Larson, founder of freeCodeCamp, was in his 30's after he quit his job as a school director. After learning how to automate some of the tedious tasks that staff had to deal with, he realized how many people's lives could be improved if they learned how to solve problems with technology.

He spent the next nine months learning to code before landing his first software engineering position. He gained a ton of practical experience on the job and started to think about how to create a path to get people to this point as quickly as possible.

freeCodeCamp was the result.

freeCodeCamp, using game design as its guiding instructional design philosophy, has learners coding with rapid feedback and frequent challenges or "mini bosses". The idea being that a learner can't iterate and improve to their max potential unless the feedback that corrects and guides them is immediate. The idea of the mini boss is to strengthen a learner's problem solving and stop them from getting too overconfident in their abilities.

**Coding is hard.**

And don't let anyone tell you different. Unless the learner understands just how frustrating and ambiguous programming is, they're going to hit a wall once they are confronted with a blank canvas. **Now what?**

**Iteration is critical to the platform as well.** Since freeCodeCamp is well, **free**, they are able to make changes freely without having to worry about wasting anyone's money. This gives them the freedom to get feedback, iterate and build something truly nice

Quincy goes over all of the above and more in this episode of the Badass Courses podcast. Tune in to learn more about the business model, course design, and history of freeCodeCamp.

Quincy Larson talks about freeCodeCamp's business model, course design, and history

Preparing Learners for the Blank Canvas with Quincy Larson

As an independent educator you're going to end up wearing a lot of hats. Development, marketing, support, on top of the work that goes into actually producing the content. 

All of it is essential though if your goal is to actually reach people and help teach them something that's relevant to their goals.

A part of that is finding out what to actually teach. It can sometimes be a challenge finding something that is interesting to you but also relevant to the audience that you've grown. 

Jorge Vergara has found that it's very effective to ask your audience what they're working on and some of the problems they've been struggling with. Asking directly if they'd like a course on X subject might get you enthusiasm but it doesn't actually tell you what they __need__. 

The development side of things is huge too if you aren't outsourcing the platform. It can be very difficult to balance working on it with actually producing content, especially if you have a full-time job. 

There's more value to working on your platform than just setting up a place where learners can watch your videos. You have opportunities to work with and gain practical expertise on technology that you are wanting to teach. You also get full control of the learning experience.

**In the end, It really is up to you to weigh the trade-offs and decide what will work best for your needs.**


Jorge Vergara chats about the various jobs her performs as an independent educator

Balancing Platform Development and Content Creation with Jorge Vergara

Ben Tossel created Makerpad, which seeks to teach that you don't need to spend years learning to code or spend 100s of thousands of dollars on expensive engineers to start a business.

A core part selling educational content online is that platform. Whether it's Youtube, a multi-million dollar site filled with custom functionality, or somewhere in-between, you'll need ways to share your content to your learners.

You can also avoid spending a lot of time and money on your platform by researching the UX other platforms have implemented and repurposing it for your own needs. They have already done the R&D so you don't have to. But, make sure that you are repurposing the features and making them your own and not just copying one-to-one. It's very important that you do not steal.

The point of all this is to say that you don't need to build something completely custom. It's tempting to think that you need something that can't be found anywhere else, but more than likely this part is used as a means of procrastination from actually launching a course.

**Shipping and iterating on your content comes first.**

No-code can take your business to the point of several million dollars of revenue even. When it comes time to build your platform, ask yourself what you actually need out of your app. More times than not there will be an existing solution!

Makerpad not only aims to teach no-code, it was also built with it. Learn more from its founder, Ben Tossel, how no-code can reduce costs and save time when starting an online business.

Build a Thriving Business without Custom Software with Ben Tossel

If you've ever taken a course on the internet you may have come across an exercise or some kind example that just left you thinking

**okay but **why?****

This lack of real-world context is a problem that a lot of courses suffer from.  
Creating examples that are engaging learners, isolates the skill being used, while also showing off the context in which the skill is used takes time and expertise but the payoff is well worth it.

It's not just examples/exercises though. Creating an engaging environment to learn in is important. Angie Jones has a ton of advice in this episode and talks about what she did at Test Automation University to build that environment.

**The true goal of all this work is to improve the outcomes of your learners.** Making sure that you are giving them the means to succeed and stay committed to their learning goals on your platform.

If you stay true to this goal, you'll both improve the lives of your learners and the success of your business.

Angie Jones discusses creating good exercises, pulling in real world context into courses, and creating an overall engaging learning environment.

Engaging Learners with Practical Challenges with Angie Jones

If you are wanting to become and independent educator, you don't have to jump straight into trying to produce a recorded course.

Marissa Goldberg's approach has been to start as a service based business and then use the skills and knowledge that you gain there to transition into producing courses.

By doing it this way you can know exactly what problems people are facing, and you can refine your teaching style since you'll be able to get live feedback and see if people are seeing results in real time.

Marissa also chats about how she is able to effectively build a reputation without doing any kind of hustle culture style marketing, the problems people face when they are promoted from a skilled technical position into a management role, and how she made a sustainable transition into self-employment.

Marissa Goldberg chats about going with a service-based approach when starting her business, focusing on sustainability, and helping students have the environment they need to succeed. 

Starting Your Business as a Service Before Producing Courses with Marissa Goldberg

Terrain was founded out of a frustration with the e-learning industry.

There are **a lot** of courses out there with great marketing but lack good learning environments, expertise, and instructional design. Eman Zabi set out to change that with Terrain. The idea was to create a platform with high quality vetted courses that are actionable and designed to actually get people to finish them.

A number of solutions were implemented by Terrain to ensure that all of its content is extremely high quality. They reach out to vetted creators, have them create an outline and write a script, and then Terrain has the script peer-reviewed by a diverse panel.

An excellent learning environment is another key feature of Terrain. Distractions are minimal and note taking is at the forefront of the design.

Terrain was built with no-code using the bubble.io platform, Circle for the community, and Zapier to handle all of the integrations. No-code was an excellent choice but came with its own unique challenges, such as Zapier not having a needed integration for example.

They've also taken a unique approach to marketing. Eman built a chrome extension that brings the learning environment from Terrain into Youtube, allowing the learning to stay within that optimal learning context. The extension and word of mouth have both been effective in bringing in new learners.

Eman Zabi chats about Terrain's process for producing great courses, building an excellent learning environment, and how the platform was built using no-code

Creating an Excellent Learning Environment with Eman Zabi

"You can't buy cameras and become a better photographer. You have to take pictures to become a better photographer."

Brennan Dunn says this when referring to his tendency for purchasing the **best** tools before even starting a new hobby. Equipment is no substitute for real experience.

Gathering real experience is critical when it comes to creating a recorded course. It will be **very** likely that you have gaps in your teaching if you go straight to recording your course and releasing it without getting any kind of feedback.

This is why Brennan likes to host live workshops when planning a recorded course. They're perfect for being able to immediately see where learners are getting stuck, what questions they're asking, and learn why they're trying to learn what you are teaching.

And while the personalized experience of live-content can be the most valuable to the learner, it does come with some tradeoffs. On your end, you lose time by having host the workshop consistently, and your reach is more limited to the amount of seats in the workshop. And for learners, they lose the ability to go back and reference the content of the workshop, and they also aren't able to learn at their own pace.

But, a lot goes into creating a course. And one of the more difficult decisions will be deciding on a platform. There are some significant disadvantages to using an existing platform. Weaker marketing features, inflexible payment models, and a rigid lesson first structure to your content.

All of this added up to Brennan deciding that he would build his own platform. He wanted to be able to take a learner first approach when designing the content, have teaser lessons in courses, and build better marketing pages. It was the right choice to make for what **he** needed.

And so remember, before jumping right into recording a course, try to teach in front of a live audience. You may be surprised on how much you might be missing. And, when you do finally have something solid, make sure to weigh your options when picking a platform. Making your own might be right for you depending on your content and marketing needs.


Brennan Dunn chats about the importance of getting experience, the benefits of hosting workshops before recording a course, and the reasons he decided to build his own course platform.

Integrating Live-Content in to Your Course Design Process with Brennan Dunn

Running a course platform that not only contains your content, but also the courses of several other third-party creators is an entirely different job than that of the independent creator.

Scott Tolinski, creator of Level Up tutorials has had to learn a lot of lessons as he grew his business and started bringing on guests instructors. The amount of coordination and planning required was a lot. But, they decided to hire a developer who did an amazing job setting up systems that made the flow of connecting with content creators much more manageable. 

A small team of people also work on Level Up and Scott has had to really learn management skills. Being able to have people take on some of the workload is a huge help and has allowed Scott to be able to focus on the work that he wants to do more of. 

Scott also chats more about what went into building the Level Up Tutorials platform, the essential features of a good course, and how he designs good project examples.

Scott Tolinski chats about what it's been like to grow his business and bring on more people, what went into building the Level Up Tutorials platform, the essential features of a good course, and how he designs good project examples.

Learning to Manage a Growing Business with Scott Tolinski

The founder of Notion Mastery, Marie Poulin, knew she had caught lightning in a bottle once she started to get messages from people telling her they would pay real money if she released a course teaching Notion.

There were a number of challenges to work through before and after that point. Growing a dedicated audience while already running a business, getting through the first iterations of the course and figuring out what people needed and the best way to teach them, figuring out what to charge for the content, and hiring new people as the business grows.

Each of these topics comes with a lot of nuance, like how do you incentivize people to actually leave you feedback instead of just never showing up again? How would you go about growing an audience? How do you know when to hire someone? And how would you make sure that they're a good fit?

All these questions and more are answered in this episode of the Badass Courses podcast. Hear from Marie Poulin how she successfully started the business and used constant iteration through learner feedback to design the course!

Marie Poulin, founder of Notion Mastery, talks about how she successfully started the business and used constant iteration through learner feedback to design the course. 

Effectively Using Learner Feedback with Marie Poulin

Once you've got an idea for a course or some other kind of educational product, there are a number of steps you can take to make sure that it's a good idea and to refine the instructional design before you spend the time recording. 

Chris Biscardi uses multiple mediums to try out new ideas. A great starting point is Twitch since the format isn't expected to be as refined and there's more interaction between you and the viewers. 

Next you might consider recording a YouTube video or writing up a blog post. These are more refined but nearly the same level of commitment as a course. You'll also be able to gauge interest based on how people react to it. 

Not only will you be able to gauge interest, you'll also be to use the questions and feedback you might get to adjust the design of the course.

Chris also discusses creating good example projects, course maintenance, thinking about your content as various streams, and how he deals with people finding ways to access his paid content for free. 

Chris Biscardi chats about using multiple mediums to test content, creating good example projects, course maintenance, thinking about your content as various streams, and how he deals with people finding ways to access his paid content for free. 

Researching to Teach and Testing Your Ideas with Chris Biscardi

Online learning has so much potential to be vastly better than traditional in-person education. But, why do most courses miss the mark?

To Greg Róg it seems that most people are trying to create content instead of focusing on the actual action of teaching people. People make courses for themselves without consideration of who the audience is going to be. And, no thought seems to be put into the structure and design of the course itself. 

The instructor must be engaged in not only teaching people, but in the design of their course experience. To Greg, that engagement is the key element that separates great courses from low-quality ones. 

Greg also chats about his learning style that has enabled him to be able to consume and understand nearly 1000 pages of material in only two weeks, how he's designed his platform, and how learning style shifts as you gain more knowledge.

Greg Róg chats about how engagement is the key to producing great courses, his learning style that has enabled him to be able to consume and understand nearly 1000 pages of material in only two weeks, how he's designed his platform, and how learning style shifts as you gain more knowledge.

Raising The Bar For Online Learning with Greg Róg

When you first start your business, the biggest initial hurdle is choosing where your content is going to be hosted. 

If you start building a custom platform from the beginning, it may be months before you ship a single course. And if you have a deadline and need to start making a profit this might not be the way to go. 

Making the decision to use an existing platform might be tough. Chances are it doesn't do exactly what you want it to. But, you are able to entirely focus on producing your content. And, you can always build something for yourself in the future. Tyler McGinnis went this route and it has really worked out for them!

Tyler also chats about compensating employees as a small bootstrapped startup, keeping the core value that they're an education business first and not a software shop, and how they've leaned into their niche and specialized their content. 

Tyler McGinnis chats starting with an existing platform before building something later, compensating employees as a small bootstrapped startup, keeping the core value that they're an education business first and not a software shop, and how they've leaned into their niche and specialized their content. 

Transitioning From Teachable to a Custom Platform with Tyler McGinnis

Creating a course about design has its own unique challenges.

Design is an art, but that doesn't mean it's not quantifiable. With some caveats of course, there are rules you can follow and techniques that you can use to produce designs that are going to look good. Kyle Gill aims to arm learners with these design principles so that they are able to identify what makes up good design and have the ability to produce their own.

Creating interactive examples is also an interesting challenge. In a course about design you probably shouldn't just throw your learners into code challenges, your audience might not just be developers! Kyle has created interactive design examples that animate from a bad design to an enhanced one.

Kyle also chats about the difficulties with measuring learner success, the criteria a good quality course, and the technology behind UI Foundations.

Kyle Gill chats about teaching the principles of design, the difficulties with measuring learner success, the criteria a good quality course, and the technology behind UI Foundations.

How UI Foundations Was Built to Teach Quality Design with Kyle Gill

Making your courses engaging is always the goal, but it's something that's easier said than done. But, Josh Comeau has several strategies that he uses to ensure that his content is as engaging to learners as possible.

There's the element of active practice. A learner shouldn't be able to go through 100% of a course's content on their phone. Exercises are a great way to get the learner involved.  By giving the learner a chance to struggle with something you give them an opportunity to think about what they learned deeper, and potentially reach a lightbulb moment. 

Another technique Josh uses is to make his content multimodal, which is a fancy term for using multiple mediums. His lessons will have both written and video content so that learners switch gears and learn in different ways. 

Josh also discusses how it took him much longer than expected to build his custom platform, how he designs his courses with expanding bullet outlines, the maintenance he's done on his course, and how the strength of his following helped him launch the CSS for JS successfully.

Josh Comeau discusses how he designs highly engaging content, how it took him much longer than expected to build his custom platform, and how the strength of his following helped him launch the CSS for JS successfully.

Engaging Learners with a Chance to Struggle with Josh W. Comeau

Designing a course isn't linear. And it makes sense, since learning itself isn't a linear activity!

We spend years building expertise and gaining knowledge, and concepts don't neatly build on each-other one after another. Our skills end up looking more like nodes on a graph with numerous edges connecting them all.

And Kyle Shevlin knows this well.

Sometimes ideas will live in his head for years before they develop into something more. And developing those ideas involves researching and learning the topic in his own ways.

Once things start to take shape it's important for Kyle to get things out quickly. With his MDX blog he's able to get out quality content for people in a short amount of time.

Getting things out quickly isn't just rushing. A better term would be **optimizing for completion**. Kyle is self aware of his own patterns and knows that what's best for him is to optimize for completion, and spend less time getting bogged down in making other aspects of the course perfect such as the marketing, or the pricing model.

And that's something that you should keep in mind after you've finished listening to his episode. Look back and think about previous projects that you may have left incomplete. Is there a pattern? Try to keep it in mind with the next thing you work on, and optimize for it!

In this episode, Kyle Shevlin discusses his philosophies of teaching and learning, as well as the technical details of building a platform and producing content. 

Designing Courses Nonlinearly with Kyle Shevlin

We can sort of categorize courses and other educational content into two different categories.

The first is a targeted instrumental style, where the learner is taught procedures and technical skills. It's important to learn these skills in whatever subject you are learning but this type of course lacks the greater context and can leave you wondering how everything fits together and where you'd actually apply these skills.

The second type operates on a higher level of concepts and patterns. It teaches the learner mental models and forms the context surrounding the skills of the domain.

It's necessary to learn from both types but you may notice that there are a lot more of the first type. And part of the reason for that is that it's a much more challenging instructional design problem. Both the delivery method and content of the course have to be different.

Which for Josh Kaufman this has meant building a custom platform for his Personal MBA course that he's designing. Some of the challenges have included reducing the cognitive overwhelm that comes with very large courses, structuring the course around a 1to1 asynchronous relationship with the instructor, and designing a system that has the learner revisiting content for spaced repetition.

All of that fits together to create an experience that is more likely to keep learners engaged through to completion and better reinforces the concepts being taught.

Josh Kaufman discusses designing courses that based around mental models instead of specific technical skills, and how he'd build a platform to support this style.

With Badass

We will squeeze every last drop of the secret sauce that goes into producing courses that sell.

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Launching Total TypeScript

with Matt Pocock

Launching Testing Accessibility

with Marcy Sutton