The online training world is heating up. Recently, Lynda.com the large online course provider was acquired by LinkedIn for the staggering price of $1.5 Billion.
Billion!
Are we entering a new online education bubble?
Too soon to tell, but it has been quite exciting to those of us in the online training space. In 1999, I created and posted my first online public speaking and media training course. It went nowhere.
in 2006 I invested heavily in developers, research, production and promotion for several online public speaking and media training courses I created. I sold, maybe three courses, and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So for years, I would just cover my ears when people mentioned the phrase “online training.”
But in late 2013, I started to hear a number of colleagues from the speaking world talk about Udemy.com. My first thought was “Great, another way to lose time and money.”
But I reluctantly created a course and was pleasantly surprised to find that I wasn’t losing money. Gradually, I created more courses and, over time, began making low four figures of income per month from course sales at Udemy. It’s hardly what I call “passive income.” (Side note, anytime you hear someone talking about “passive income” hide your wallet and run, you will never work as hard for so little money as you do for the elusive “passive income.”)
However, I had to agree that the courses were taking little of my time, no ongoing expenses, and sales and revenues were coming in daily. Exciting!
That’s when I decided to make a real business out of this online training thing.
Now, I have more than 100 online courses on my own site at https://www.mediatrainingworldwide.com/online-training.html
My goal is to become the undisputed worldwide leader in online training for my niche of media training and public speaking. I want to have the very best courses and the most courses on these topics (and I think I already do.)
I also want to have the most students and help the most people around the world on how to become better communicators. Where will all this end? I don’t know. As long as my online division grows in revenues and helps more people, I am happy. But I’d also be happy to sell out to LinkedIn or any other large business or training site (for a very large sum).
It’s too early for that now, but it’s never too early to plan. So if you are in acquisitions and are looking for the online leader in media and presentation training, please take down my name and number for future reference: TJ Walker 212.764.4955