Hey, it's your host, Ellen Yin. Welcome back to another bonus episode of cubicle to CEO, the podcast where we ask successful entrepreneurs, the business questions you can't google to accompany my quarter 120 23 income report that dropped on Monday this week, I wanted to share the story of how I would have missed out on $676,000. Yes, and counting if it weren't for this $55 skill. So what's the skill, understanding how to pre sell an online course that doesn't exist yet, so you actually get paid to create it. This is exactly what we teach you in our $55 live course creation challenge, which I'll share more about in just a moment.
But first, back to this story, here's the truth, your first iteration of your course will not be at your last. If you've been waiting for everything to be perfect. Before you launch your course out in the world, you will be waiting for the rest of your life. Because let's be honest, the perfect course doesn't exist. As you receive data in the form of sales completion rates, success, stories, questions, feedback, etc. Your program will naturally evolve and improve. But you can't make any data informed decisions. If you don't have any data, right, which can only be collected from putting your course out there. This is why I recommend selling a MVP that stands for minimum viable product to allow you to enroll real paying students before you create any content for your course. And then by live teaching the course and getting your students feedback in real time, you will get paid to create the beta version of your course.
So this is exactly what I did in early 2019. And I got paid $2,364 to create my first online course with my 12 Beta students who each paid me $197. So my time my energy and my knowledge were compensated from the very beginning. Throughout the rest of 2019. That same program evolved and made an additional $12,835 before year end, then in 2020, it made an additional $172,000 in my business in 2021. That one product alone made $284,000. And finally in 2022, it made another $200,000. Plus, before we retired it last summer to focus on building our media business. Even so even after we retired it last summer and completely stopped selling it in early August, we've still been paid more than $5,000 in the first quarter of 2023 in residual payment plans that are finishing up this year.
So just think about this for a moment. If I had let perfection hold me back from even starting with this online course that imperfect version that I live taught over zoom to 12 Beta students without any fancy tech, anything created upfront, I would have missed out on more than $676,000 so far in my business from this one program alone. So the best part is right. Once you learn the pay to create method, it actually becomes a lifelong skill that you add to your toolkit. And you can utilize it to create cash flowing assets, aka digital products on demand whenever you want. And the question I want to pose to you today is that skill and the insane ROI it produces for your business, worth $55 to you to learn it. If you're vigorously nodding your head, yes, which I hope is the case. I have great news for you.
We are finally due to high demand bringing back pay to create live. It's been six months since our last live challenge. And we're so excited to open the doors again for our ninth cohort that is so crazy to say it's been such a wild journey these last two years bringing this live challenge to you. And this is your chance to join more than 1000 paid to create alumni who have successfully gone from idea sometimes even a rough idea to pre selling their first online course in just three days. The May 2023 Challenge will kick off at 11am pacific time on Monday, May 22 and it will run for three days straight. So we'll meet at the same time each day from 11am to 1pm. Pacific time and you can use the time zone converter. If you're not sure what that looks like for where you're located.
Replays are available immediately after each live session inside our pop up Facebook community and they'll stay up for a full week. So if you'd love to create your first online course with us, but you're unable to join us live. That's okay. There also is an option to keep lifetime access to all the recordings if you upgrade to VIP. So either way, you get the recordings for a full week, so you have lots of time to catch up on your own schedule. But if you're someone who likes to refer back to the content later on, then upgrading to VIP may be a better option for you. So is this for you? The answer is yes, if you're an aspiring course creator, or someone who has unsuccessfully created courses in the past, and you want to try a better way that compensates you from day one, right? If that is you join our challenge today at Ellen yin.com/paidtocreate Of course, we'll also drop that link in the show notes for you can easily click and go to enrollment is only open for a few weeks.
And as a heads up, once we close the doors, we won't reopen them again until our fall challenge, which will likely be in October or November. Don't miss out on your chance to add this residual income stream to your business before the summer months for only $55. I don't want any of you having to wait another six months before you get the opportunity to hop into this live challenge. Again, here's my ask of you give me two hours of your time each day for three total days. And witness the magic created from this experience together. 99% of people who have completed our challenge shared in our post challenge survey that they would recommend this challenge to appear, and that the value easily exceeded the small $55 investment they made, you can actually hear it in their own words, we have dozens and dozens of video testimonials and written testimonials and screenshots that have been sent to us from the last eight cohorts. All of those are posted on our page at Ellen yin.com/paidtocreate.
I'll also link below podcast episodes with past paid to create students who have successfully created and pre sold their courses through our live challenge. Many, by the way, with online audiences have less than 1000. So if you think your audience size is what's holding you back from creating an online course or being able to sell it, think again, I'll show you proof. So go to the shownotes below if you want to see what's possible there, we only charge a nominal amount this $55 entry fee for this challenge to realistically cover our teams time to run it because it is a very labor and resource intensive project on our side. But more importantly, we actually implemented this $55 admission fee to create built in accountability for you to actually show up and take action. We don't want this to be just another thing you buy that sits on the digital shelf, right. That's why it's a live challenge. It's a time sensitive container. Because we have seen time and time again, that when people pay they pay attention. And when it's time sensitive, and there's an urgency involved, people will actually show up and take action rather than procrastinating even further. And that's what we want for you.
Also, if you are really intrigued by this concept, but you're unsure if creating an online course is the right next move for you. Here are seven easy ways to know it's time to say yes. Reason number one, you're maxed out on one on one clients, you're fully booked out, you do not have the capacity to take on more clients. Number two, you crave more time freedom in your schedule. Three, you answer the same questions over and over again, in DMS emails and in person. Reason number four, you're the go to person for fill in the blank for whatever that may be in your network. Reason number five, you can talk about that said thing that you just said for hours with zero preparation because you love it so much. Reason number six you want scalable residual income, you'll notice I carefully choose not to say the word passive because I believe that's misleading. When it comes to online courses. Of course there is effort and time involved, just like any other stream of income in your business. The difference being that when you create an online course it is something that you can create once and it will continue to pay you for years to come. Reason number seven, your vision is to impact more people through your business, which can only really be done through something that is scalable, and not totally dependent on your limited time and energy as a human being. If you check off any of these boxes, you are a great fit to join us inside our paid to create live challenge.
You don't need to prepare or do anything other than sign up and show up with the knowledge already existing in your brain. I really mean that. Don't go creating a fancy funnel or thinking oh, I need a website or a logo or I need to you know grow my audience first or I need money for ads. No, you don't need any of that. I promise you if you just show up with the knowledge inside your brain will guide you step by step on the rest. So I really really hope to see you inside this challenge group before we kick off on May 22. Again, go to Ellen yin.com/paid to create. If you want to learn more about this challenge, and join us there. We'll also again drop a clickable link in the show notes.
By the way, if you have any unanswered questions, feel free to DM me @MissEllenYin. I'm happy to chat so you can make a competent decision either way. I'd love to continue this conversation with you over on Instagram. All right. Thank you for joining me for another bonus episode. I was just so excited to share this news. I was supposed to open the doors in May. But I told my team I was like this has been something that people have been waiting for six plus months for. I cannot delay another week. I need to let you all know now. I'm so thrilled and I hope to see you inside our night cohort. I'll catch you guys in next week's episode.
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