Integrating Live-Content in to Your Course Design Process with Brennan Dunn

07/30/22 • 40 min

"You can't buy cameras and become a better photographer. You have to take pictures to become a better photographer."

Brennan Dunn says this when referring to his tendency for purchasing the best tools before even starting a new hobby. Equipment is no substitute for real experience.

Gathering real experience is critical when it comes to creating a recorded course. It will be very likely that you have gaps in your teaching if you go straight to recording your course and releasing it without getting any kind of feedback.

This is why Brennan likes to host live workshops when planning a recorded course. They're perfect for being able to immediately see where learners are getting stuck, what questions they're asking, and learn why they're trying to learn what you are teaching.

And while the personalized experience of live-content can be the most valuable to the learner, it does come with some tradeoffs. On your end, you lose time by having host the workshop consistently, and your reach is more limited to the amount of seats in the workshop. And for learners, they lose the ability to go back and reference the content of the workshop, and they also aren't able to learn at their own pace.

But, a lot goes into creating a course. And one of the more difficult decisions will be deciding on a platform. There are some significant disadvantages to using an existing platform. Weaker marketing features, inflexible payment models, and a rigid lesson first structure to your content.

All of this added up to Brennan deciding that he would build his own platform. He wanted to be able to take a learner first approach when designing the content, have teaser lessons in courses, and build better marketing pages. It was the right choice to make for what he needed.

And so remember, before jumping right into recording a course, try to teach in front of a live audience. You may be surprised on how much you might be missing. And, when you do finally have something solid, make sure to weigh your options when picking a platform. Making your own might be right for you depending on your content and marketing needs.

Links and Socials

"You can't buy cameras and become a better photographer. You have to take pictures to become a better photographer."

Brennan Dunn says this when referring to his tendency for purchasing the best tools before even starting a new hobby. Equipment is no substitute for real experience.

Links and Socials

Previous Episode

Build a Thriving Business without Custom Software with Ben Tossel

Ben Tossel created Makerpad, which seeks to teach that you don't need to spend years learning to code or spend 100s of thousands of dollars on expensive engineers to start a business.

A core part selling educational content online is that platform. Whether it's Youtube, a multi-million dollar site filled with custom functionality, or somewhere in-between, you'll need ways to share your content to your learners.

You can also avoid spending a lot of time and money on your platform by researching the UX other platforms have implemented and repurposing it for your own needs. They have already done the R&D so you don't have to. But, make sure that you are repurposing the features and making them your own and not just copying one-to-one. It's very important that you do not steal.

The point of all this is to say that you don't need to build something completely custom. It's tempting to think that you need something that can't be found anywhere else, but more than likely this part is used as a means of procrastination from actually launching a course.

Shipping and iterating on your content comes first.

No-code can take your business to the point of several million dollars of revenue even. When it comes time to build your platform, ask yourself what you actually need out of your app. More times than not there will be an existing solution!

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Next Episode

Creating an Excellent Learning Environment with Eman Zabi

Terrain was founded out of a frustration with the e-learning industry.

There are a lot of courses out there with great marketing but lack good learning environments, expertise, and instructional design. Eman Zabi set out to change that with Terrain. The idea was to create a platform with high quality vetted courses that are actionable and designed to actually get people to finish them.

A number of solutions were implemented by Terrain to ensure that all of its content is extremely high quality. They reach out to vetted creators, have them create an outline and write a script, and then Terrain has the script peer-reviewed by a diverse panel.

An excellent learning environment is another key feature of Terrain. Distractions are minimal and note taking is at the forefront of the design.

Terrain was built with no-code using the bubble.io platform, Circle for the community, and Zapier to handle all of the integrations. No-code was an excellent choice but came with its own unique challenges, such as Zapier not having a needed integration for example.

They've also taken a unique approach to marketing. Eman built a chrome extension that brings the learning environment from Terrain into Youtube, allowing the learning to stay within that optimal learning context. The extension and word of mouth have both been effective in bringing in new learners.