How Jimmy built a 5-figure side-gig income that requires under an hour a week work

• Course Instructor: James Rose

• Website: Zapier Mastery Bundle

• Course Topic: Zapier Automation

• Interesting Stats: 5 figure side gig from just teaching what I know

1. Who are you?

In a previous life I was an automation engineer. When I got tired of cleaning up after people that earned more than me, I got into software development with my business partner. Now, our main business is a SaaS called Content Snare – a software platform that helps companies collect content & documents from clients.

2. What’s your course all about?

My course, Zapier Mastery, teaches people how to use a popular no-code automation platform called Zapier. This tool saves me 150+ hours of my time every month, and I love helping others do the same.

3. What makes you an expert in this field?

Mostly that it saves me so much time. That says a lot in itself. However, I think that my previous life as an automation engineer and software developer has added greatly to my ability to come up with cool, novel automation ideas that can help people automate more than they would have been able to on their own. 

4. What is the transformation your course offers to the students?

The main thing is again is the time saved. I believe many entrepreneurs work themselves too hard, and often on things they don’t even need to do. When you automate your admin work, you can spend the time saved on more important things. 

In one line: I help people save more than 100 hours per month in their business with Zapier, even if they’ve never automated anything before. 

5. Which market does your online course serve and how did you get into it?

The market is really anyone with a small business, but I find online businesses are much more receptive. They are generally much more open to using technology to save time.

I got into it because people literally told me they’d pay me to teach them how to use Zapier. It’s something I spoke about a lot at business events. People got curious and asked if I’d teach them.

Try Thinkific for free here.

6. Why is it important to you to serve this market?

It pains me to see people spending so much time on unnecessary stuff. This became clear to me when I spent an extended period with a group of entrepreneurs who would often end up working past 9pm. I don’t think anyone should work that much, unless you’re one of those people that gets fired up by working more. 

7. Describe the moment when you decided to create your own course. Where were you, what happened and why did you decide to do it?

There wasn’t really a moment. After a lot of people asked me to teach them, I created a landing page to collect email addresses. I directed people to it from Facebook, LinkedIn and other channels where people already knew me. 

Eventually, I asked for a pre-launch payment of $99 to see if people were serious. 

Around 75 people bought it. When I saw ~$7500 before I’d even recorded a video, I realised it was something people wanted. 

8. How did you overcome doubtful moments during your course creation journey?

I didn’t really until actual feedback started coming in. I always thought that it was going to be too hard to follow because it’s such a technical topic. 

Throughout the process, I pictured one of the most “technically challenged” people I know and pretended I was teaching them. 

But I wasn’t convinced my teaching was any good until I got real feedback from students saying that they loved how it started super simple and progressed knowledge in an easy to understand way.

So yeah, I didn’t really overcome them, I just pushed through them. People have paid me money to teach them, and I had to deliver. If it didn’t work, I could always refund them or try again. 

9. What are some of your tricks to deal with imposter syndrome?

I wish there was a trick. Everyone gets it. I interviewed the founder of Freshbooks on the topic because even he still gets it despite running an extremely successful business. 

I think it just comes down to realising that it is completely normal, and everyone deals with it. 

I don’t recommend this for everyone, but here’s a way I deal with it. Think about people who, in your opinion, aren’t very good at what they do, yet seem to get respect from a lot of people. If you think you can create something better than them, you should be fine. 

10. How long did it take you to create your course?

It was around 100 hours, including copywriting, website setup, opt-ins, email system etc. 

11. How did your first launch go?

The pre-launch, before I even started recording, was approximately $7500 USD. I didn’t start with a list. 

12. How do you structure your launches in general now?

I’m not a fan of the launch model. I just announce new things I have created via email and have links to them in my signatures. People sign up in their own time. 

13. Where does your traffic come from?

Content & SEO. I create content around things people are searching for on YouTube and on my blog. That’s where a majority of people find me. 

14. Which content do you like producing the most?

Definitely written content, especially when it’s high leverage content that will continue to bring people in through SEO for years. I like YouTube as a platform and it’s one of my best acquisition channels, but I still don’t like the process of creating and editing videos. 

15. What online course platform are you using?

LearnDash and WP Fusion to control access. 

Try Thinkific for free here.

16. What is amazing about this platform?

It was pretty easy to set up because I have a background in WordPress. 

BuddyBoss has a great styling for LearnDash out of the box. 

WP Fusion is one of the best plugins I have used. I love the fact that people can be pushed directly into the course immediately after the purchase – no checking emails for logins etc. It’s a much better experience. 

17. Which features do you wish this platform would have?

Honestly, I’m fine with my setup. It’s simple and it works. I didn’t want to get hung up on features and complexity.

18. Why did you choose this platform over other platforms?

Because I thought that one day I’d like to customize it, and that’s possible with WordPress based courses. I saw that a few people I respected used LearnDash as well, so it had to be good enough. 

It was difficult to choose though, as many of my friends also use Thinkific and love it. 

Try Thinkific for free here.

19. Which other tools do you use to keep your online business running?

The list is enormous. 

• Active Campaign
• ThriveCart
• Bonjoro
• Buffer
• Feedly
• 1Password
• Loom
• Castos
• Content Snare

The ones we rely on the most are Intercom, Active Campaign, Notion, AirTable, Superhuman, and the Google suite of products.

20. How many students have you served so far?

Just over 400.

21. How much revenue have you created during your first launch, and ongoing?

As above – around $7500 USD on the pre-launch. A similar about on the actual launch and ongoing varies depending on what kind of deals I have going. People buy a lot more frequently during the occasional sale. 

22. What are you running costs to keep the online course business going?

It’s around $700 a year for LearnDash, BuddyBoss, WP Fusion, Active Campaign and hosting. 

23. What are some of the biggest mistakes you made along the way?

Probably not doing it sooner. I put it off for a long time because I didn’t want to go through the process of creating a course. 

Other than that I can’t think of any “big” mistakes. One thing I’d say is that creating a technical course can be a pain because software often changes their user interface. Halfway through recording, Zapier updated their UI and I had to re-record everything.

24. How has your business changed since implementing an online course into the business model?

It’s just taken some pressure off. The extra revenue helps out a lot during quiet periods of the main business.

25. How has your personal life changed?

There’s a difference between business and personal life?

Kidding. It’s honestly the same. Less pressure in business means less pressure in general. 

26. What’s the greatest transformational story you can tell about one (or more) of your students?

My favourite would have to be Gabriel Klingman. In his role, he had some manual tasks to go through that were taking him a full 2 hours every day. No one likes mundane tasks that you do over and over. 

He had no prior Zapier experience, but one day after taking the course he created an 18-step Zapier automation that completely eliminated that task for him – it was 100% automated. 

I don’t know many people that would love an extra 2 hours per day. And Gabriel got that back in a single day. 

27. If you could use a time machine and send yourself back to the time before you started out, what advice would you give yourself, knowing what you know now?

I’d tell myself that Zapier was about to change their UI and to delay recording for a couple of weeks…

Also, I’d probably ask a copywriter to write my landing page.

28. What is your million dollar piece of advice to those who are just getting started in their online course journey OR for those who are looking to scale?

Stick to high leverage marketing. By that, I mean marketing that continues to serve you a long time after you create it. That usually means creating content that people actually search for. I consider it mandatory knowledge to be able to do basic keyword research.