How to Make $2,000,000 From Courses and Quit Your 9-To-5

Here are the top 10 key takeaways from Nathan Barry's podcast episode with Aaron Francis on scaling a course business from $350K to $2M annually.

1. Build a hub and spoke content strategy with email at the center

Email should serve as the hub of your content distribution system, with all other platforms acting as spokes that drive traffic back to your email list. This approach maximizes your control over audience relationships since email is the only platform you truly own. Unlike social media platforms that can change algorithms or ban accounts, your email list remains under your direct control.

YouTube and other social platforms excel at discovery but struggle with long-term connection building. Email excels at nurturing relationships and allows for personalized messaging based on subscriber behavior and interests. By focusing on growing your email list rather than just social media followers, you create a more sustainable foundation for your business.

The key is designing each piece of content to serve dual purposes: providing value on the original platform while also driving subscribers to your email list. This creates a flywheel effect where your content marketing efforts compound over time rather than requiring constant manual effort.

2. Create lead magnets using existing course content

Rather than spending time creating entirely new lead magnets, extract valuable lessons from your existing courses to use as free offerings. This strategy leverages work you've already completed while providing highly relevant value to potential customers. The approach works because people who consume free course content are pre-qualified prospects for your paid offerings.

Structure your lead magnets around the principle of "in the video, I'll show you what to do, in the free resource, I'll do it for you." This creates clear value differentiation between your free and paid content. For database courses, this might mean providing query templates or cheat sheets. For screencasting courses, it could include equipment recommendations or editing shortcuts.

This method allows you to create multiple targeted lead magnets from a single course, each tailored to specific YouTube videos or topics. The high perceived value of actual course content as a lead magnet typically converts better than generic resources, while requiring minimal additional time investment.

3. Implement multiple pricing tiers to increase average order value

Adding a second pricing tier to your courses can increase revenue by 30-50% without requiring significant additional work. Most developers and professionals are spending company money on education, making them less price-sensitive than individual consumers. This presents an opportunity to capture more value from customers willing to pay premium prices.

The key is identifying what additional value you can provide beyond the core course content without adding consulting time or ongoing commitments. This might include additional resources, tools, templates, or companion courses that complement the main offering. Avoid the trap of putting expert interviews behind higher price tiers if those experts donated their time.

Team pricing serves as an excellent anchor to make individual pricing appear more reasonable. Even if team sales are infrequent, they can generate substantial revenue with minimal additional effort. Focus on creating value-added tiers rather than simply restricting access to existing content.

4. Master YouTube to email conversion before scaling product creation

Converting YouTube viewers to email subscribers should be your primary focus before creating additional courses or products. This conversion represents the biggest opportunity for immediate impact with minimal time investment. Most content creators focus on growing their social media following while neglecting email list building, creating a massive gap in their marketing funnel.

YouTube's algorithm rewards videos that generate direct traffic from other sources, including email. When you email your list about new YouTube content, those subscribers arrive with high intent and watch time, signaling quality to YouTube's algorithm. This creates a compounding effect where email marketing actually improves your YouTube performance.

The sample course content strategy provides an ideal solution because it requires no new content creation while offering high perceived value. You can create targeted landing pages for different video topics, each offering relevant course samples that directly relate to the YouTube content your audience just consumed.

5. Focus on audience growth and conversion rate optimization over product expansion

The path to significant revenue growth lies in improving your fundamental business metrics rather than simply creating more products. Three key levers drive revenue: audience size, conversion rate, and average revenue per user. Most creators default to adding products when they should focus on optimizing these core metrics first.

Growing your email list from 8,000 to 40,000 subscribers while improving conversion rates from 2% to 4% will have a much larger impact than creating five additional courses. This mathematical reality means that product creation should be secondary to audience building and conversion optimization until you've maximized these foundational elements.

Successful creators like Kent C. Dodds and Wes Bos demonstrate that significant revenue is possible with relatively few products when you have large, engaged audiences and optimized conversion processes. Focus on becoming exceptional at audience building and sales processes before expanding your product catalog.

6. Develop cross-selling capabilities with existing products

Before creating new courses, maximize revenue from your existing products through strategic cross-selling. This approach tests your ability to move customers between different offerings while providing valuable learning about customer behavior and preferences. Even seemingly unrelated courses can cross-sell effectively when you understand your brand's broader appeal.

Start by identifying the overlap between your existing course audiences and create targeted email sequences that introduce other offerings. Use behavioral triggers like engagement with specific email content to segment subscribers and deliver relevant cross-sell offers. This might involve adding cross-sell opportunities directly within your courses or creating dedicated email campaigns.

The key is treating cross-selling as a skill to develop rather than a natural outcome of having multiple products. Study what messaging resonates, which offers convert best, and how timing affects results. These insights will prove invaluable when you do expand your product line, as you'll understand how to effectively connect different offerings.

7. Define your brand narrative and content strategy

Successful creator businesses require a clear brand narrative that explains why different products exist under the same umbrella. Without this clarity, both you and your audience will struggle to understand how various offerings connect, making cross-selling and brand building much more difficult. Your brand should provide a logical framework for your content and product decisions.

Take time to articulate the through-line connecting your different interests and offerings. For a developer educator, this might be "helping developers master both technical skills and the meta-skills needed to communicate and teach effectively." This narrative helps audiences understand why someone who teaches databases also teaches screencasting.

Document this brand strategy clearly enough that you could explain it to your audience in a "master plan" style video. This exercise forces clarity while creating content that helps your audience understand your vision. Clear brand positioning also helps with decision-making as you evaluate new opportunities and partnerships.

8. Hire virtual assistance to handle operational tasks

Creator businesses quickly become bogged down in administrative tasks that drain energy and prevent focus on high-value activities like content creation and strategy. Hiring virtual assistance for customer support, email management, and content administration becomes essential for scaling beyond solopreneur levels.

The key mindset shift involves becoming "Teflon for tasks" - developing the discipline to delegate operational work rather than handling everything personally. This requires overcoming the impulse to personally respond to every customer email or handle every administrative detail. Your time is better spent on strategic work that only you can do.

Start with 20 hours per week of virtual assistance focused on inbox management, customer support, and content calendar organization. This investment pays for itself by freeing up time for revenue-generating activities while providing better customer service through dedicated attention to operational details.

9. Bundle complementary courses to increase transaction values

Creating course bundles allows you to increase average order values without dramatically expanding your content creation workload. Focus on courses that naturally complement each other, such as combining philosophical teaching with platform-specific implementation guides. This approach serves customers better while generating more revenue per transaction.

For screencasting education, bundle the core philosophy and techniques course with specific software training for Premiere, Resolve, or ScreenFlow. For database education, combine the core SQL concepts with framework-specific implementations like Rails or Laravel. This structure allows customers to buy exactly what they need while encouraging larger purchases.

Partner with experts to create complementary courses rather than trying to become an expert in every area yourself. Pay flat fees rather than ongoing revenue shares to maintain control over your business model. This approach allows faster expansion while leveraging other people's expertise and time.

10. Study successful creator business models for guidance

Rather than trying to invent new approaches, study creators who have successfully built similar businesses. Kent C. Dodds, Wes Bos, and Adam Wathan provide proven models for developer education businesses. Understanding their strategies, pricing, and product structures gives you a roadmap rather than requiring experimentation from scratch.

Analyze both their content strategies and business models to understand what problems they solved at different stages of growth. This helps you anticipate challenges and identify solutions before encountering problems yourself. Successful creators are often willing to share their strategies publicly, providing valuable learning opportunities.

Focus on creators whose businesses align with your goals and market rather than trying to copy every successful approach. Each market and audience has unique characteristics, but the fundamental principles of audience building, value creation, and effective marketing remain consistent across different niches and specialties.