“We thought our course would be a big success if we got 20 students. Then, Coronavirus happened. But we launched anyway and ended up with 95 paying customers and made $33,000 US dollars!! WHAT?!”

Results are not guaranteed. Please see earnings disclaimer for more detail.

I’ve had a film business since 2009 where I shoot, edit and design live action and animation video for clients in Belgium (where I live). I do copywriting and translation work as well for video related projects.

The business has grown over the years, and I have freelancers who help me with the stuff I don’t like to do, but I’ve always wanted to scale my income to a whole other level.

The thing, though, is that in order to do that with THIS business, I’d have to build a big agency. This would mean I’d have to bring in lots more clients, hire lots more freelancers, have more paperwork and invoices to deal with…

That just didn’t sound appealing to me at all.

But a digital product business, now that would allow me to scale WITHOUT having a huge team or lots of done-for-you service clients!

I was telling a friend about this when she recommended Amy Porterfield’s podcast. (Which led me to joining Digital Course Academy.)

What’s funny is that digital courses just aren’t as big in Belgium as they are in America. When I told people I wanted a digital course business, they just looked at me blankly…

“You want to do what? You won’t be face-to-face with your customers? How does that even work?”

My obvious first thought was to turn my current film business into a course, BUT I’ve had this hobby of throwing pots for 3-4 years now. I knew there was an audience for both course ideas, but going through DCA, I realized I was way more enthusiastic about the idea of a pottery course.

Workshops that teach how to throw pots are always booked weeks and months in advance. The demand is really big, and there aren’t enough places to keep up with all the interest.

The only problem is that I’m not advanced enough to actually teach pottery. I’m still learning myself! So, I made a pitch to my pottery teacher to join me on this venture of creating an online course, From Clay to Bowl: Learning to throw pots on the wheel.

She is a bit older and knew nothing about online marketing or social media, so the arrangement was that I would film, edit and produce the course, handle all communication and everything launch-related, and she would just do the teaching.

“Let’s try it,” she said.

Following Amy's formula, I started with creating a simple lead magnet and showing up where my audience hangs out online and in just 1-2 weeks, my email list went from zero to 700 people!

And then coronavirus happened.

We thought with the pottery shops closed and our customers needing a wheel, a big oven, etc. to be able to practice throwing on their own (which costs thousands of euros) no one would join our course — simply because they didn’t have access to the right materials and supplies.

Apparently, I was dead wrong. Because suddenly, we had 95 students!

(And 28,500 euros in revenue—almost $33,000 US dollars!)

The vibe in the live webinars was amazing. People were so enthusiastic. During the Q&A at the end, they even reached out to us to say, “Can you check if my money went through? Did I buy it? Am I in?”

As a European, I thought that Amy's system maybe was ‘too American', and that it would be too salesy or pushy for Belgians, but boy, was I wrong. It totally works!