Knowledge

Can You Potentially Make Good Money With An E-Learning Business?

Yes, there is potentially good money to be made with an e-learning business. According to the industry reporting company, Statista, the e-learning industry is projected to reach US$ 166.60 billion in 2023 with an annual CAGR of 9.37% from 2023 to 2027. The industry is projected to reach US$ 238.40 billion by 2027.

As we can see, the e-learning industry is so big that it even beats out more capital and labor intensive industries such as those involved in the machine industry like the power hammer, baling, winch and similar industries whose market sizes are just between US$ 10 billion to US$ 20 billion and even less.

What’s the reason for this? For one, education especially continuing education as a product could almost be sold to anyone from the very young to the very old. Many people are now taking additional courses not given in conventional schools to increase their competitive edge.

Many already know that conventional brick and mortar schools have become very expensive to avail, but the quality of the education you get is more often than not, lacking. This is because many of these schools are “generalists” when it comes to teaching when many now require specifically tailored educational courses.

Another reason for the growth of e-learning is that many high paying income opportunities have sprung up today that don’t require a high degree of schooling or education. Many young people today are becoming rich in jobs and careers that don’t require college degrees.

And e-learning companies are most often the go-to destination when it comes to learning these “little education but high paying careers”. For example, there are e-learning courses that teach how to become an online dropshipper or an influencer which are both potentially lucrative careers.

It is no big secret that most if not almost all of the biggest e-learning companies in the world are American companies. After all, it is the Americans who invented the internet and the biggest online tech companies are also from America.

Here is a short list of the biggest e-learning companies in America:

Absorb, Activitica Elearning, Adobe, AllenComm, Aptara, Bizlibrary, Blackboard, Collabor8 Learning, CornerStone, Coursera, edX, eLearning Brothers, eLearning Company, Elearning Delta, Epignosis, lllumina Interactive, Infopro Learning, Instructure, iSpring Solutions, LinkedIn Learning, Skillshare, Skillsoft, Traliant, Udemy, Versant Learning Solutions…

As you can see with the exception of such companies like SkillShare and Udemy who heavily advertise online, almost all of these e-learning companies have virtually very little online presence. This is in itself a good thing, these e-learning companies must have a lot of clients already and are continuing to attract more without reliance to heavy marketing.

If you want to get to know these e-learning companies a little bit more. I suggest you visit the website of David Brant at LmsChef. He provides a short introduction as well as the website links to these companies.

Many of the top e-learning websites offer “interactive” learning. For example, W3 Schools provides lessons in website programming among others. Not only do they supply source codes but they also for example, allow the client to see the actual results of the source codes they enter.

Another variant to the offerings of e-learning websites would be video tutorials. Depending on your course subject, this might be one of the most easiest e-learning course that you can do. It’s as if you’re just making a YouTube video.

Another type of e-learning website that you could setup would be a “reviewer” e-learning website. This especially appeals to clients who are about to take their board exams. Your reviewer website can be as simple as multiple choice type questioners.

Then there is one of the oldest type of e-learning website: the early education websites which targets children still learning the alphabet and numbers primarily. Setting up this website doesn’t require a high education but must be visually appealing to appeal to young children.

One thing to note about starting a website is this: you need to pay for website hosting and domain fees. Fortunately, the costs for these two digital services is quite affordable. They can be as cheap as less than US$ 200 combined.

But if you don’t want to spend money outright or want to try first if your e-learning digital products actually has a market, you can try the YouTube platform first. You can create video courses around a certain subject. The beauty of YouTube is that you can post videos to it for free with no limit.

There are also e-learning websites that offer partnerships with course creators. For example, Skillshare accepts partnerships with course creators. This way, you can concentrate on creating courses without putting heavy emphasis on website maintenance.

Perhaps you can also start by being an online tutor. For example, there is a thriving demand for online English tutors. The demand for English tutors is good enough that for example, Japanese and Chinese schools even hire foreign English teachers.

There is a high temptation for startup companies, even those involved in e-learning products and services to seek funding from venture capitalists, angel investors, and the likes or to take up loans so they can have a lot of capital to start a “big” e-learning company at the onset.

But as many thriving YouTube e-learning channels for example would show, you can end up being very profitable and even popular even without a lot of investment money from professional investors.

For example, the YouTube Channel AsapScience was founded by a duo in 2012 and as of 2022, has managed to earn US$ 7.5 million. A simple calculation would reveal that each of the duo earns around US$ 375,000 per year by only uploading a YouTube video once a week.

Of course, there is nothing stopping you from trying to be a big company at the onset and becoming instantly big in the process as well. For example, Masterclass an e-learning website which offers courses taught by celebrities started out with a profit of US$ 8.9 million in 2015 and by 2022, their profits were up by US$ 94.9 million.

This is a company which took professional investor’s funds, started out big and has been growing ever since. Then again, this company could have started out big but also fail spectacularly. Nothing is assured in the world of business and life for that matter.

One of the biggest advantages however, of not taking investor money is that you get to keep all the profits of your e-learning business or any of your business for that matter. Another thing to consider is that when you take in professional investors, you lose a part of your company to them. This includes profits and decision making. You might even end up being booted from your own company.

As already said before, Masterclass is financed by professional investors and is actually a good example of an e-learning business. This is because before Masterclass, very few if ever, e-learning companies offered courses by celebrity teachers like James Patterson.

In a short time, Masterclass has gained a very profitable niche in the e-learning industry. They have proven that there are many customers that are willing to pay good money for the perceived high reputation and quality knowledge of a teacher.

But adopting this e-learning strategy or model does have it’s drawbacks as well. For one, celebrities don’t come cheap. It is reported that Masterclass often has to pay upwards of US$ 100,000 just to get a celebrity to teach. These celebrities are even paid cash advances even before they start teaching.

One thing to note though is that according to the management of Masterclass, they still have to reach financial “stability”. So much so that they have to let go some of their employees to possibly reach their financial goal.

You eyes might be watering now because you have seen the tremendous earning opportunity that can be potentially had with an e-learning business. But as said, test the online market first.

For one, create a free blog or a YouTube channel just to see if anyone would actually read your blog or watch your YouTube videos. The online digital industry is very competitive that many online content creators fail or struggle to build a following or take a very long time if they ever do so.

By having a free blog or YouTube channel, it also allows you to test which of your topics are popular so that you can build an e-learning business around it. Only by knowing which of your topics are popular enough that they can be made into an online course will you stand a chance at having a successful business.

Even when you have already identified which of your topics are good enough to be turned into a course, observe first which of your introductory courses are really popular. This enables you to zero in on the courses your customers really want.

Once you already have a profitable course, don’t let them stagnate. Improve your top courses so that they can be the best ones in the market. For example, if you have a text only course online, make them interactive.

The e-learning business can be very profitable as shown by the ever increasing global market size of the industry. You don’t have to have a lot of capital to start one, depending on your business luck, even your small e-learning business can become very big and profitable.

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