I have been earning money from online for more than a decade. I never had any vision or idea towards passive income. I am a software developer. I always enjoy creating software or apps for my clients. But in recent years I have grown some realization that I never built a business that would eventually make money without needing me to work actively.
Since last year I have been listening regularly to Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income podcast. That mainly gave me inspiration towards working hard to grow a business that would generate passive income. I found creating online courses was great way to earn passive income.
I should be honest, it is not easy to create courses as I thought it would be. Sometimes it becomes tedious. But most of the time I enjoy creating courses. Specially after I hit the publish button. It is one of the best feelings. I find the enjoyment is similar to when I finish few miles run. I am not a good runner, I try to run 2-3 days per week for half an hour each time. I hate it so much, specially near the end. But once I am done with my goal for that day, I feel so relieved and refreshed. This is exact same feeling I get for creating courses. For that reason, I forget hard work and start planning for another course next day.
Anyway, it is almost a year since I have released my first course in Udemy. So far I have released 4 courses. In this time I have earned about $5k, which is not a lot. It did not change my life financially. But it did two things. First, I got confident to continue as an instructor and second, I found my way to earn passive income.
If I do the math, on average I earn $100 per month from each course. That means to leave my full time active job, I have to create 40 to 50 courses over time. It is hard, but not impossible. I see people are doing it. I believe if I continue with consistency, my quality will improve slowly and I will reach to my goal faster.
This week I have created a new website for my courses. It is http://CodeWithZak.com. At this moment I will publish courses on both at this site and at Udemy. But eventually my plan is to create exclusive and premium courses for my site. But first I have to build a community around me. I am thinking to add some quality resources into my site, like free source codes, free ebooks. Also thinking to post helpful 5 min videos at Youtube regularly.
Let me know if you have any comments or questions about online teaching or passive income. I will be happy to reply.