Classes that do well on Skillshare

The best type of classes for Skillshare’s audience offer a specific niche skill that is related to a larger broader skill that they already do or are interested in.

Here are some actual titles from successful Skillshare classes so you can see what I mean:

Character Animation: Creating Authentic Facial Expressions in Adobe After Effects

Illustration in Photoshop: Professional Work From Your Sketches

Animation for Illustration: Creating Layered GIFs with Photoshop & After Effects

These classes do well because they teach a specific skill companent, not a broad topic. Skillshare students seem to love classes which don’t seem too intimidating (like a three hour course), and teach him something they’ve always wondered about (like a new PS technique they see popping up in trending art).

This is better for you as a teacher, because you can make several courses much easier and more quickly than you could do if you were trying to teach one giant course on a big topic, say character animation. In fact, Skillshare students prefer shorter courses in general. Skillshare says their average course is 30–40 minutes in length.

What Skillshare wants in your course.

Skillshare’s standards for course creation are lenient for the industry, but they have recently implemented higher quality standards to combat low-quality courses flooding the marketplace. Now, you must have your course reviewed before posting. They also removed some low-quality courses from their marketplace. They also removed one of my courses called “Introduction to selling on Redbubble” I guess because it was too basic. So be sure your courses teach a “skill” not just introduce a concept you will expand on in later courses (like I did there).

Photo by John Schnobrich

Skillshare Success Formula

Get good at a skill — Really good

Identify one critical component of this skill that you believe is important and beneficial, and you excel at.

Outline the skill component. Create an outline of all the major parts and details

Convert outline into script, or free speak it from the outline

Just Do It! — Filming (or screencasting), editing, everything. Just do it, don’t strive for perfection, focus on the student’s learning, do your best and publish the course!!

Before we move on

I want to stress the importance of step 3 to course creation: outlining. A solid outline is the foundation of a professional course. I like to start a Google Docs outline that I can then add to anytime via my phone. I find myself writing the scripts for courses anytime I have some spare time, on the bus, waiting for food, etc.

When going to step 4, whether or not you write out an entire script is up to you. If you feel comfortable talking with authority, you don’t need to. I have done courses with and without a script (but I prefer with). What you DO need is practice. Read the lesson all the way through (or free-speak) at least twice before filming. Keep reading until you stop making changes to the script. Read it aloud so you know it sounds natural. You can also read it in the chair you will be recording in, which will help you feel comfortable when the mic is on.

My experience on Skillshare.

I started making courses for Udemy 5 years ago. I released a course called “Start an Online T-Shirt Business at Zero Cost”, which was making a couple hundred bucks a month on Udemy tops. I forgot about the course, and got discouraged I wasn’t making much money with so much effort to create the course. That’s when I uploaded it to Skillshare. The first month I made $285 on Skillshare, and the second month I made $445. That was more than I had ever made in a month on Udemy, and I did absolutely nothing to promote my Skillshare class.

For nearly four years following that initial upload, I have had consistent income from Skillshare, but I am still shy of $1k a month. I am looking forward to crossing $1k and beyond soon!

My biggest lesson I want to share

When I am making a course, I often want to include literally EVERYTHING I think would help the student. My outline becomes 10 pages long. My last course was nearly 4 hours of high-quality content, but it would have been better financially as 6 courses, each 40 minutes long. So I will say it again, for your and my sake, pick a specific skill component and make a class just about that! No more no less. You will do better financially, and be less stressed than you would be putting together a monster course.