Building a Courses Business with a YouTube audience with Kevin Powell
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Brian: [00:00:00] You're about to hear my conversation with Kevin Powell. He returns to the show. We continue our conversation about YouTube. And this time we focus on building a business and monetizing off of that audience. Let's get into it.

So Kevin Powell returns to the show and we continue our conversation about how he grew his YouTube channel to over 800, 000 subscribers. We actually covered that in depth in the previous episode with Kevin. In this one, we dive into the business side of what he does, and that's primarily. Uh, he, he teaches courses on front end web development and CSS specifically.

It's a really great conversation. I learned a ton. This one was recorded on December 7th, 2023. I think you're going to like it. Here's my conversation with Kevin. Enjoy. So we'll just kind of roll right into it here. Uh, we're, we're, we're back with, with Kevin Powell. Welcome back [00:01:00] to the show, Kevin.

Kevin: Yeah, thanks for having me once again.

Brian: Um, so, you know, in the last episode that we did together, we did a deep dive into your YouTube channel and, um, and how you've grown to over 800,000 subscribers on YouTube over many years.

You're, you're focusing on CSS and front end development. Um, so a lot of really, uh, great information on, I, I guess in terms of your overall business. That's probably like the primary, like top of funnel audience driver distribution channel, if you will. Um, in this episode, I wanted to kind of dig into everything that comes after that, right?

Kevin's ideal customer journey
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Brian: So, uh, somebody discovers you on YouTube, they're enjoying your, your videos, they're getting value from them. Maybe they're subscribed you on YouTube. Um, maybe they're catching you your YouTube shorts or your long form. Um, where do, where do you want your audience to go from there? Like, do you want them to come to your newsletter?

Do you want them to come to your website and [00:02:00] check out your courses? How are you thinking about that?

Kevin: I mean, if they go to my website and buy a course right away, I'm happy . Um, but my, my primary, yeah, as you said, that's the top of my funnel. And from there, my goal is usually to try and get them onto the newsletter, um, which is easier said than done, but , it's, that's, that's the, the first place I usually try to get them.

Brian: Got it. And your YouTube, so your newsletter is like, you're sending that on a weekly basis. That's like a, what, what's, what is the, the content of your newsletter?

Kevin: Um, so my newsletter, uh, these days is, um, just sort of whatever I'm thinking about in any given week, uh, that I, it tends to fall into like some sort of random general advice that would be related to someone who's, you know, a front end developer of some sort. Um, sometimes it's just general things on learning.

Sometimes it's, uh, I'm trying to think of other topics that I've done. Sometimes it's very specific on CSS, um, and it sort of varies. Sometimes it's , [00:03:00] 2000 words long. Sometimes it's 500 words long. Um, it's whatever I sort of feel like in the week. And then I also end up doing a section that's just where I link to the videos that I've done in that week or any other content that I've done.

Um, and then also another section that's sort of, I call it other awesome stuff from around the web. So any interesting links and articles and resources and whatever, um, that I have in that have come across in the last week, I'll link off to as well, just to try and make sure there's, you know, value that people are getting from it as much as possible.

Using call-to-action cards on YouTube
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Brian: Yeah. Sounds like a lot of, lot of value kind of packed into each individual newsletter that that's cool. Um. One thing that I've, that I'm sort of curious about is I'm, as I'm planning out my YouTube channel for 2024, is, you know, I've been learning a lot about kind of like the call to action near the end of your videos.

The, the general strategy that I've heard about. I'm, I'm curious if you actually do this or not. Like, do you send, like, somebody has finished watching your video or near the end of it, are you sending them [00:04:00] to another video on your channel to sort keep them on there? Like, if, alright, you've just watched this now watch this video on, on this similar

Kevin: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I do. Yeah. Basically every video will end with me saying, you know, if you enjoyed this, you'll probably like this one too. Uh, a lot of the time if I mention something, like a topic along the way that I'm not specifically diving into, I'll be like, and you know, . Here's that video that I'd mentioned, uh, along the way.

Um, or sometime, you know, anything that I think would be if I didn't talk about specific topics. So I can't point to like this one other video. It'd just be like, if you thought this was cool, you'll probably like this too, or whatever. Um, and I have seen, 'cause YouTube prioritizes watch time so much. So if you can get people watching more than one of your videos, that's a super strong signal for them.

Um, and I have like, you get the analytics on the click through rates on the end screen cards. And if you do, like if I look at my early stuff where I wasn't doing that, it's probably, it's like five to 10 times higher. If I point out a specific video,

Brian: Yeah. Do you ever do uh, [00:05:00] uh, like point people to your newsletter or to your website and bring them like it? I, I mean, like in the content of your video,

Kevin: yeah, I will. Um, it depends on the video and it's something I'm trying to do more often, um, whether it's either specifically mentioning a course, uh, or mentioning my newsletter, the podcast, uh, whatever it is. Um. So it, again, if it, I'll try and talk about it. sometimes earlier on, um, or maybe like, I've done ones where it'll be a topic that I've actually covered in the newsletter that was sort of like sparked an idea.

So I'll be like, this idea came from my newsletter, if you'd be interested in that. Not missing out anything. Um, I do less of that just 'cause again, YouTube prioritizes watch time so much that it, some I'm always like concerned like, is it the video not gonna do as well If I'm getting people offsite, even though I haven't seen like major drop-offs.

Um, it might, I don't know if it would prevent a video from like actually taking off or not, um, like, you know, going viral or something. But performance, I've never seen like a huge hit. Um, yeah.

Kevin's channels of revenue
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Brian: Yeah. Interesting. [00:06:00] Um, alright, so let's like talk about the business side a little bit. Um. So can you maybe like, run down, like what are the different channels of, of revenue that you have? From what I can see that, you know, there, there are courses. Um, I don't, I don't know. Do you do any like sponsorship stuff?

Um,

Kevin: Yeah, my main, my, so my main income is from courses. Um, then it would be the YouTube channel monetization, which , if anybody's hoping to like start a YouTube channel and make money from it, it's not gonna come from YouTube. Um, it's there. It's nice that you get money from it, but, uh, it also depends on your niche, right?

Because ad rates depend on topic and web development. I think there's, well, these days maybe it'll go up 'cause they're starting to stop ad blockers and stuff. But when you have a tech savvy crowd, I think that doesn't help with your ad rates. , um, uh, compared to some other topics that are out there. Um, so it depends on that.

But, uh, yeah, it's, that's comes in there. I have a Patreon, um, that makes up a small amount and I haven't done sponsors [00:07:00] in at least four years now. Um, but I am . I just agreed to a sponsorship actually. Um, one of the reasons I don't is 'cause, or I haven't been doing them, is 'cause I already have trouble marketing my own products. Uh, it's just like, I'm, I'm the opposite of a, like a used car salesman type. Like even if I believe in the product, I have trouble marketing it. Uh, so even if it's something I made, like I just feel icky advertising. Um, so I was always really picky. And then working with when the channel was smaller, working with advertisers, like the amount of work you'd have to do even on like, you know, a 32nd shout out this sponsor, this video's brought to you by, it tends to be a decent amount of work and if you don't have a big channel like the income from, it's not fantastic anyway.

Um, but I've been getting lots of requests and these days it seems to be more, well there's still like the random, you get companies emailing you and you're like, you really think my channel's the right fit? Like, I don't, there's no lineup, but there's been a lot more products that [00:08:00] actually my audience would be interested in.

Um, and so. If I see it as something that like my audience would actually be interested and this is what happened with this last one, this last company, and I think we're gonna get it to work out. I'm like, oh, that's cool. And then like, can I, I need to try your product. I'm gonna play around with it, see if I like it.

Um, and if it's something that I like that I would actually use Day-to-day and that I think my audience would benefit from, then let's move forward with it. Um, but it's still something that I'm gonna be super picky with. Um, just 'cause I don't have to and

Brian: Yeah, I was gonna say like, so, so the, it sounds like the bulk of your revenue comes from courses,

Kevin: yeah, exactly. Yeah. The large majorities for my courses,

Brian: got it. And is there anything else that might be like, invisible? Like, like, I don't know, like consulting or like, um, other, other kind of teaching stuff?

Kevin: yeah, there is a little bit, but it's not enough. That's really worth talking about , um, just because I was doing more consulting, um, earlier on and it was just, it, it. Tended to be like the, the return on [00:09:00] investment wasn't enough to be able to justify it. Um, I just got off. I might be doing something coming up just 'cause I do like doing it every now and then just to sort of be like keeping my hands in the, in the industry a little bit.

Uh,

Brian: were this previous episode. I like really you like staying up to date on this stuff? Obviously you, you, do when you're researching teach topic, but I mean, I know that I have always learned the most from. Needing to learn something so that I can build something real,

Kevin: Yeah. And I don't want to be like that university professor who's been teaching something for 20 years and hasn't actually had any practical experience like that. Doesn't help people either.

Brian: Yeah. But I have, like, forever, I've, I've always wanted to, to like take my real work, like in my business or my products, and what can I film here, what can I like, cut out and, and use as a tutorial? And that never works. 'cause in the real world, like everything is so messy and like, unorganized and like, not a teachable, not in a teachable form, you know?

Kevin: Yeah.

Running a Discord community
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Brian: Um, [00:10:00] yeah. Interesting. All right. So, so the courses, I, I mean, the other thing that I wanted to ask you about also actually before we get into the courses is the Discord community. and I guess this sort of gets back to like how you spend your entire week. I know a lot of it is, is on research and creating YouTube content.

Um. So tell me about the Discord community. I, I assume it's pretty active and you've got a lot people in there. How, how involved are you in there? Are you spending a lot of time like engaging in there?

Kevin: most of the time. Yes. Uh, but it depends on how busy I am, because it definitely is, it's a little bit like social media. Like if I end up going in, I, I end up wasting time in a sense. And I don't wanna see it say it as wasting time, because at the same time, I think it's valuable, uh, in the sense that like.

It's a awesome way to interact with my community. Um, you know, people like ask me questions and comments on YouTube videos. I'm like, I can't have a technical discussion here about anything

Brian: what I was gonna ask too is like, when [00:11:00] you're teaching technical topics, I, I, I've even, I have rarely posted some videos on technical topics and I've, and I've received some like technical support for those, for those topics. Like, do you have like general, excuse me? Do you have a general policy on, like, you, you, you know, you can't answer every technical question or like. people debug things.

Kevin: Yeah, I usually, these days I usually just say like, if, if you're having trouble like head on over the discord, it'd be a lot easier. You'll get a faster response. Um, 'cause even the problem with YouTube as well, like if I reply to someone, if they reply back to me, chances are I won't see it. Uh, you know, I'm getting tons of comments and the defaults sorting behavior is just to show you the newest ones that don't have a response first.

Um, so it's just things get lost. Like I'm, and, and I'm not gonna remember usually, um, even if people, I get a lot of emails too, of people asking me for stuff. And unless it's a really easy answer, uh, it's usually like, you know, can you go to the Discord and ask there? 'cause again, you'll get a faster [00:12:00] response.

You can share code in there. Um, uh, you know, I have multiple heads looking at it too, which is usually useful. . Um, so yeah,

Brian: But those are just community members. You don't have anyone like on your team who's working in there you.

Kevin: No, not right now. Uh, it's something that I have thought about, um, but I have, there's a few, uh, Amy, you always see it. There's a few members that sort of lead the charge on some stuff, and there's even, like, I'll see questions come up in the help forums and I'm like, oh, I wanna answer that one. And it's already been answered by someone.

I'm just like, oh, okay, thanks. But , it's, uh, um, yeah, it's the, the channel. The, I will say if anybody's interested in starting a discord, like it took a long time to get to the size where it was actually. Because I think what happens with a smaller one is like, there's not a lot of activity. So people come in and it's basically a ghost town, so then they don't really stick around.

Um, so it, and even with like tons of members, most of them aren't active. Like most people are lurkers.

Brian: just

Kevin: Um, or they come in and they ask a question, they get their answer, and then they're gone. So like, [00:13:00] even though I have a ridiculous, I can't remember how many people it is, but it's over 10,000 people that are officially in the server.

I know most of the com, like the people that post the most, I know all. , right? So it's, um, yeah.

Pricing and course organization
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Brian: All right. So like, tell me about the courses. Like are, um, I, I was browsing your like, catalog of courses. Looks like there, there free ones and then you've got these premium ones. Um, even the premiums seem very low priced for, I didn't check all of them, but, um, uh, how do you think about like, pricing and, and the, and your lineup of, courses?

Kevin: Yeah. So one of the problems I've had is not being very intentional with organizing my courses in a sense of like, you know, making like a natural flow. Like I'll get even get emails, people being like, what order should I do your courses in? And I definitely have like, there's no overlap between the content or anything.

So it's like definitely this one to this one to this one, but it's not really this like . Very clear, you know, thing. So I, I didn't, on a business sense, I didn't do that very [00:14:00] well, but I think that's partially 'cause I never planned on this being my business until it was a little bit too late. Um,

Brian: I think the breakdown of like free to pay does make sense for the most part. Like I saw. I think one of the free ones is like intro to HTML or

Kevin: yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Brian: beginner free course, but like something like Flexbox that, that's a premium course, right? Yeah.

Kevin: Um, and then, so when it comes to pricing with the paid courses, um, that's something I always struggle with because I don't know how to price things. Um, the one thing I will say is not to go too low. Uh, the Flexbox course is my cheapest one by far . Um, and it does decent sales volume, but if it's a low, like price point course, um, but I did that on purpose.

It's a small course. It's I think four hours of content, um, which. I, it is pretty decent, but, um, I guess I wanted to make something fast, easy. People could just consume quickly, but, you know, not have it sort of that next [00:15:00] tier after the free course, um, was how I thought about that one. Um, and then I also, at that time I already had another course that was bigger and I think it was at $50 at the time.

So I'm like, it has to be less than that one 'cause that other one's like a bigger course. Um, as time's gone on, uh, I've sort of gone up in my price points. So my course that I'm working on right now, uh, which is available the, it's in three tiers, so it's a hundred, two 50 and four 50 depending on which tier you get.

Brian: mm-Hmm.

Kevin: Um, and the top tiers on sale for three 50 'cause that's the one that's not finished yet. And I know people in general say like, having tiers is a good way to sort of get sales. I don't know why . Um, but I have seen it the way I've always seen tiers.

Brian: anchoring happening

Kevin: you have the price anchoring, which comes in. Um, the way I've seen it though is like.

I don't, like a lot of people might not be able to afford $450 for a course, so I don't want my low tier, which is at a hundred to be like, oh, I'm getting part of a course. I still see that as like, [00:16:00] you're getting this full course for a hundred dollars and then the other tiers on top are adding, like, let's take a whole new level and stack it on top of that.

But you're not, you're not gonna finish the first tier and be like, oh, now they're, I, you know, I don't, I'm missing something. Yeah. So that's, for me, that's really important. And it also gives, as I said, it gives me a way of making sure that like if somebody's interested in that topic, they can still sort of get into it at a more accessible price point.

Brian: Mm-Hmm.

Kevin: Um, so that's why I start that one there. And I think going forward that would sort of be my base, um, for pricing. Um, it's hard though, like you have Udemy, which sells courses for five or $10 or whatever it is. Uh, and then you have everything in between. Um, do,

Brian: there's always a premium on. trust you, They, and, and I mean, I've, I've learned, uh, I, I, about five, five or six years ago, I spent the year really going deep on learning Ruby on Rails, trying to go from being a front end, just h Tmm, LCSS person to being able to build a SaaS [00:17:00] product myself.

I spent about a year on it and, and I learned like the same concepts and the same courses from like three or four different people. And it's just like in the way that one or two people explain it, just connects, you

Kevin: Mm-Hmm.

Brian: it's interesting,

Kevin: Yeah. The other way, it is my most advanced course in terms of content as well. Like what it's covering is not for somebody who's just starting off. And I try to make it really clear in, in the marketing and everything like this is, if you've been around for a while, it's, it's called Beyond css. So it's like you, you've gotten through everything else, you're ready to take that next step.

I also see it as like, you know, it's generally marketed towards people that are working in industry, so you should have disposable income to be able to afford it and other things as well. Um, so that's the other reason that I thought that I, you know, I think it's the pricing there is fair and again.

It's hard to, like, what's the real value of this? But at the same time, like I do think I wouldn't price it at that if I didn't think that the value of it wasn't there.

Once off vs Memberships
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Brian: Um, have you gotten into like, subscriptions at all or like a, a price to get all the courses or anything like that?[00:18:00]

Kevin: No . Um, that's subscription's something that I know some people have done successfully, um, and other people have struggled with. Uh, and it scares me a little bit just 'cause I feel like if I had sub, like if somebody subscribes and just dealing with churn and like trying to keep people subscribed and all of that, to me seems really hard.

Uh, from the people I've talked to. Again, I know some people who have done it really successfully and it's the base of their business and others who've tried. And it actually, I know somebody who had really hurt their business by making that change.

Brian: mm-Hmm.

Kevin: Um, so it, it, it's a hard one to sort of

Brian: I too question it. I see, I see that most course, sellers tend to move toward that direction. Like they, they tend to have, like, they sell one-off courses from a collection, and then eventually they, they add a membership. Like you get all of them, but the membership can't be like super expensive.

And if, if that's at a heavy discount, you theoretically you could subscribe for one month and get everything and then cancel. Um, and that always [00:19:00] sort of scares me about it. Um, so I, I, yeah. I don't know how I would think about that either, but I, it does seem like a lot of people tend to tend to that

Kevin: Yeah.

I think it's once you've sort of hit that critical mass of content that you have available, my, my problem is it takes me so long to create a course that by the time, like right now, I'm looking . And my current plan is once I finish the current one I'm working on, which is already taking me way too long to do, I sort of want to actually, instead of like, let's expand my catalog even more, I wanna go back over and like, my, my, that beginner h two months, it, it's still a good course.

I would tell someone to do it today or it's perfectly fine, but there's new stuff we can do. There's easier things to do or, you know, different approaches that we could use. And, um, you know, so I, I plan to actually just go back through a lot of the existing catalog and then eventually I have one course that's sort of my intermediate one that I'd probably break up into smaller bits.

And then that's where I might start thinking maybe not about, um, subscription, but just doing more like bundling of, of different things instead.[00:20:00]

Deciding what to create next
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Brian: Um, so we'll start to wrap up here. I, I guess I have like one more main question and that that's around, uh, again, like choosing. Because you have multiple courses that you sell. So how do you decide on what the next course should be? Um, and how often are you creating and releasing new courses? Like is it a pretty frequently throughout the year or how do you think about that?

Kevin: Yeah. Uh, ideally it would be, but it takes, the only course I ever did quickly was that Flexbox one, and the whole reason I made it was I said, I, I've, I've spent so much time on big courses that have taken me forever to create I wanted to do something on a topic I knew really well that I could get out quickly.

I, I created it in a couple of months. Um, it went really well. Uh, I was super happy and then the plan was to keep doing that and instead I made an advanced course that was really big, and it's about two years in the making now . Um, yeah, most of my, my three big courses that I've done have each taken me about two years to make

Brian: Oh wow.[00:21:00]

Kevin: Yeah.

Brian: crazy. I didn't realize took, that long. And it, it seems like it's so much more work to create a course than to create these, like, pretty well produced YouTube videos, but the, uh, but the courses because it's like, there's so much more like riding on the content and, and people have to be able to learn from this, right?

Kevin: Yeah, my, I have like as much like any individual YouTube video, I have a standard that obviously I want to keep, but when it comes to like a paid product, I do want to make sure that it works. Um, I also, like, I have for the courses now, like there's the written aspect that I have along with like, it's not just video, it's like the video lesson plus the written content, plus there's like the projects to follow along with.

Plus there's extra challenges and so like, there's a lot more on that side that sort of goes into it. And of course you're doing all of that while also still having to keep making regular content

Brian: Yeah.

Kevin: Um, so it's finding the time to like, you know, be able to balance everything, um, which sometimes gets a little bit tough as well.

Kevin's 2024 resolutions
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Brian: So, I think you told me in the previous one that you've been at [00:22:00] this, at least on YouTube, uh, since 2016. uh, this episode is coming out in, at the beginning of 2024. What are you looking ahead to this year? Are, are there any, like, changes in strategy or things that you're really excited about that you're, uh, that you're trying to move toward as, we start to wrap here?

Kevin: Yeah, I think that, I mean, I mentioned in the last one I think that, um, I'd hired an editor last year. Um, so I do think maybe next year I'll start expanding the team a little bit. Um, trying to bring in more people just so I can actually get more done , um, and, and without, or it's not get, not me get more done, but be able to like, get more created without having to like sacrifice other things that I'm doing or anything.

Brian: Where, where do you see like the other low hanging fruit to start to delegate? Like you have editing taken care of? like the next piece that you'd like to

Kevin: I mean, one of the ones that you'd mentioned was, um, sort of somebody to deal with the community in a bit more of an official capacity. Um, I'd also [00:23:00] potentially see somebody who could help with . On the content creation side, but like sort of those early stages of like, here's the thing I'm learning, or here's the, I, I don't think I would do it for topics where I'm like learning something I'm not familiar with.

But if I had, like, I know this topic really well, uh, I just need to have like a demo that would work. Like, here's the demo I need, like, can you make that for me? And then I can use that as sort of like a rough draft. I'd probably modify it a little bit from there. But just getting like that certain parts of things done where I, you know, I'm, I'm spending two hours working on creating something that I, if again, if I didn't know the topic, I need to spend that time on it because it's and I need to learn it.

But like, if I'm doing something on grid or, or Flexbox or something that I'm super intimate with, like just building out the demo is a little bit of a time suck for me at the stage. Um,

Brian: super interesting employment opportunity, you know, job position for someone who, who is, I don't know, maybe like, probably junior is the wrong level. They, they'd probably be, [00:24:00] need to be a little bit more advanced, I would think. But some, it's, that's like an all, like some working with someone like you on that type of, types of projects, like preparing educational material for a YouTube channel, that's an interesting career path.

Al alternative to going and working for a company or, you know, uh, freelancing as a web designer or something like

Kevin: Yeah.

Brian: know.

Kevin: Yeah.

Brian: it.

Pretty

Kevin: so I, I think that's where I'd be starting with. Yeah.

Brian: Well, Kevin, you've been really generous with your time. Um, I, I've learned so much in, in just these two episodes that, that we've done. Um, I'm subscribed to your YouTube channel, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep learning and, and your podcast as, well. So, um, this has been awesome. Thanks for, uh, thanks for joining me.

Kevin: Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was fun.

Brian: All right.