154: Running a $2M/yr Online Course Business While Still Working Full Time? (featuring Jason Dion)
We’re back with another “where are they now?” episode, this time with Jason Dion of Dion Training. Time flies: I interviewed Jason for the first time all the way back in episode 79! While many aspects of his business are still the same, he also has brought things forward in some very interesting (and successful!) ways. It was great to catch up with him and hear the latest about his online courses, the future of his business, and how he manages to stay on track while also working full-time overseas.
“There is no magic pill for this online course thing… It’s about student success, over and over again.”
- Jason Dion
In This Episode, We Talked About:
- (0:39) Black eyes and thoughts on truthfulness
- (5:45) Something I realized while doing live training recently
- (6:43) Hitting a new income milestone and perspective on what it means
- (10:39) Working with Nick Loper of the Side Hustle Show to sponsor a series
- (13:30) The Win of the Week
- (15:47) Setting the stage for today’s interview
- (16:33) How Jason works full-time while juggling hugely successful courses
- (18:16) The big tipping point since our first interview
- (20:37) Student success and advertising
- (24:15) The power of automated referrals, or, is Jason crazy?
- (25:32) Branching out from Udemy
- (28:59) How having multiple offers works for Jason’s business on different platforms
- (33:27) His thoughts on competing with yourself on Udemy
- (34:45) Does the 80/20 principle work for Jason?
- (36:45) Platform pros and cons
- (42:12) Course community options on Thinkific
- (43:36) Platforms and their categories
- (48:45) My course platform holy grail and the problem with how companies like Apple handle apps
- (53:39) Jason’s recommendation for my online piano course
- (56:44) What a platform move looks like for Jason
- (1:00:16) How he runs a successful company while working full time
- (1:17:40) Why he’s planning on retiring in Puerto Rico
- (1:07:50) Talking teams and online business managers (OBM’s)
- (1:13:13) An important task Jason’s OBM now manages for him
- (1:15:16) The difference between OBM’s vs. VA’s
- (1:16:39) Unexpected aspects of having a part-time OBM
- (1:20:46) The importance of mindset and timing when hiring
- (1:23:20) Where we found our OBM’s and decided on the right candidates
- (1:26:44) Hiring a second VA and creating more accountability
- (1:29:13) Project management tools
- (1:35:42) How Jason profit-shares with his team
- (1:38:18) Is there anything else Jason needs to turn over to his team?
- (1:40:57) A mistake I made and why my OBM is going to help prevent me doing that again
- (1:41:39) Does Jason recommend people start online courses in more than one place?
- (1:44:39) Thoughts on success and misconceptions in the online course world
- (1:50:08) Changes to my podcast format
- (1:51:42) Jason’s advice for new and aspiring course creators
- (1:53:17) Thoughts from David on Jason’s interview
- (1:54:45) Would I advise people to stick with Udemy?
- (1:58:20) What platform am I leaning towards?
- (2:01:02) Why I want my own piano course app
- (2:02:49) If we could move anywhere, it would be…
- (2:05:16) Hiring my OBM
- (2:08:16) How my team is evolving
- (2:10:19) Our thoughts on Jason’s profit-sharing model
- (2:14:49) Getting the right people “on the bus.”
- (2:16:42) Wrapping up
That’s all for now, folks! See you on the next episode of The Online Course Show.
