In 2022, Viktor and I kicked off our first co-founded online project, LifeEarners. It was an LMS (learning management system) website built using WordPress. Within the first month, we made N160,000. After which sales dwindled rapidly until it eventually halted within a few weeks getting one or two signups a month. In total, we made N226,000.
Here’s the story.
How it started?
In October 2021, Viktor approached me with the idea of building a website for him to mine Tron cryptocurrency. At that time, he was outsourcing WordPress website designs from his international contacts to me. I was doing that as a side hustle while teaching in a secondary school.
While discussing and trying to figure out the best way to ensure his proposed Tron mining website didn’t fail and put him in debt, I shared a project idea I once kicked off on my own post-covid19 which failed miserably – without bringing in even a kobo because I was the only one involved in the process.
Just after the covid19 pandemic, I felt there was a need for people to learn digital skills like Web Design, Blogging, Graphics Design, Digital Marketing, etc, and so I built an LMS WordPress website where people could pay a one-time fee (N1,600 naira) to have access to learn various digital skills.
To spice it up, I integrated an Affiliate system into the website where learners could earn N1,000 in commission from each friend or family they referred to the platform—while I kept N600 naira.
The Challenge
I was able to create the website. The problem was I couldn’t create the video courses myself. I didn’t have all the digital skills to create all the courses. I tried to reach out to a friend of mine from my previous NYSC year to create the graphic design course but he couldn’t commit.
I wanted to outsource the video creation to people who knew each skill very well, but neither did I have the money to pay nor get people willing to pay first and then wait for the courses to be created. Moreover, I didn’t want to do something that would end up with me being tagged a “scammer.”
Thus, I failed. I packed up and archived the website files and write-ups. I downloaded it, and kept it dormant on my laptop.
A New Partnership Formed
Viktor was sold on the idea and offered to create the video courses. He abandoned the Tron mining idea and together, we embarked on a new project (LifeEarners). We gained another partner (Gift) to handle customer relations, video editing, and uploading.
Although, we were interested in making money. We also wanted to help people. At the time, Expertnaire’s 50k affiliate marketing course was trending and we wanted to build a more authentic and affordable affiliate marketing course that rivaled Expertnaire.
I recreated the WordPress LMS site from the ashes of my first failed and archived LMS website, Viktor created some video courses while Gift edited and uploaded the videos on YouTube. Viktor provided the funding for domain and hosting and a little bit of Facebook advertising, and we eventually launched the website with a few available video courses, and a couple of pending ones.
We eventually launched LifeEarners in April 2022 (with 8 completed and 7 incomplete courses) with an all-access signup fee of N2,000 naira only. We established an affiliate (or referral) system for our students to invite others to learn too and offered N1,000 commission per invite. We started seeing income almost immediately.
In the first month, we gained 80 signups which accrued N160,000 naira, and in the second month, we gained 20 signups which approximates N40,000 naira, making a sum of N200,000 naira. We got a few more signups earning a total of N,226,000. We paid our affiliates N66,000, leaving us with a profit of N160,000 naira.
Unfortunately, our success was short-lived. We didn’t get any traction after 113 total users because we abandoned the project to face other personal projects before it could take flight.
Eventually, we moved the website and courses to Viktor’s website as TubeMoneySecret Academy, and left it solely under his care.
Some Lessons I Learned from LifeEarners Project
LifeEarners was the first LMS website I built and experimented with hands-on. Although short-lived, it proved that online courses can easily make you 6-7 figures monthly income, passively, even in Nigeria.
Looking back, here are some ways that I believe the three of us failed with the LifeEarners project.
Lack of Collaboration
This was the main cause of LifeEarner’s downfall – no teamwork. LifeEarners could have earned us more money if we had devoted our focus, time, and dedication to continually market and grow the website. But, we couldn’t find time to meet, plan, and execute. We didn’t take care of our paid members by answering their questions. Rather, we focussed on personal hustles. We couldn’t succeed long-term because we couldn’t work together.
Cashing out Early
We were flat broke and needed money. So instead of reinvesting the initial earnings on ads and promotional content, we shared all our dividends immediately at the end of each month. Bad idea!
No Blog Content
When we launched, we didn’t have any blog section or content content marketing strategy. We eventually launched the blog section months later, but as the popular saying goes, this was medicine after death. Even after setting up the blog, nobody was willing to show genuine interest in the business let alone write for the blog.
As a business, providing valuable blog content can encourage your target audience to enroll in your courses. You can also use SEO writing to rank on search engines and gain tons of organic traffic that will become potential students of our courses.
No Abandoned Cart Recovery
Since it was my first time getting into e-commerce, there were tons of features that I wasn’t privy to, one of which was Abandoned Cart Recovery.
I remember whilst building a website for a publishing startup, the CEO shared screenshots of emails he’d gotten after abandoning his cart on a particular website. I never knew that it was available to WordPress so I assumed it was either a different kind of e-commerce (e.g. Shopify) or a premium WordPress plugin.
If you look at the screenshot above, you will see that we lost 669 orders. It’s obvious they were willing to pay (but something stopped them) because they already filled out the checkout form – providing their name, number, and email which are just about enough to send automated emails and texts with a persuasive copy to find out what stopped them, and convince them to return and make the payment.
Who knows what percentage of those 669 lost orders we could have recovered and how much more money we would have made if I’d known about and implemented cart abandonment recovery from the beginning.
That’s why here at FiveDigital, we make it a priority to include abandoned cart recovery in all our customers’ e-commerce websites.
Here’s a screenshot of the revenue recovered by one of FiveDigital customers just one month after implementing abandoned cart recovery feature in his online course website.
Final Word
I shared this personal case study to prove to you that online courses can easily make you 6-7 figures monthly income, passively. I have also shared the lessons we learnt from the failure so you can avoid them.
Even though we didn’t take it seriously and failed as a result, we still profited from LifeEarners and also gave some persons the opportunity to earn some money on the side through affiliate marketing.
So, If you are already a content creator (whether a blogger, social media influencer, YouTuber, etc) or skilled in a niche (be it craft making, soap making, digital marketing, etc), you can start an online course around your interest or specific niche and earn passive income from it.
At that time of creation, Viktor was an affiliate marketer and YouTuber and used Canva to create his thumbnails and graphics. I was a blogger and website designer. We created our first few courses on these interests. One of our pending courses was on Facebook digital marketing, a skill I was honing at the time. I was in charge of running Facebook ads for LifeEarners and wanted to use the results to gain the authenticity to create that course.
Jon Morrow a renowned American blogger and public speaker makes up to $100,000 monthly from sales of his courses thanks to the recognition and trust he has accrued over time from his blog smartblogger.com. Maria Killam a popular interior designer has quite a few courses and workshops in her catalog.
If you can’t create courses on your own, you can look for someone who can, and partner with them, and have a healthy collaboration. Then go on and produce video courses, set up an e-commerce website to sell the courses, and split the profits. Part money is better than no money, as the adage goes—half bread is better than none.