Danielle Leslie will teach you a new way of launching a course which she claims doesn’t need an email list or a bunch of subscribers. Danielle claims that this business is beginner-friendly, and it’s even suitable for moms who are minding toddlers.
As a stay-at-home desperately looking for a side hustle, Danielle’s offer sounds like the perfect business-from-home opportunity. Her marketing approach is so believable because she even shared the story of a mom who (she claims) to have made $5,000 just 4 days after implementing her strategies. Is the course creation biz a good opportunity for moms? I’ll share what I found out in my research in this review. I’ll also answer if there’s truth in her explosive income claims based on recent industry statistics.
Course From Scratch is an accelerated course creation program for entrepreneurs and experts who want to launch a masterclass. This course includes modules that will help you launch a course in just 60 days. Students get access to live Q&A workshops and are paired with an accountability partner inside the community. The step-by-step module is hosted by Danielle Leslie herself. Students are also provided with scripts and templates to help create their first online course. It costs $2,497 single payment or you can also pay in 6 installments of $499.
Who Is Danielle Leslie?
Danielle Leslie calls herself the “Millionaire Maker” because she has helped hundreds of individuals monetize their expertise. She is the founder of Course From Scratch and Course Alchemy, and the CEO of Culture Add Labs. She earned her degree in B.A Rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley. Danielle has a vast experience in digital entrepreneurship. She co-founded GenJuice, a content and media site for Gen Y entrepreneurs. Do Love Project was also one of her first businesses which she designed to help individuals create a business with their passions. She also became the Growth Marketing Manager for Udemy, an e-learning platform for almost three years. This is probably where she learned and mastered course creation. In 2015, she founded Culture Add Labs to help entrepreneurs, influencers, freelancers, and professionals generate income from their professions and expertise. Danielle Leslie is a successful entrepreneur who made over 20 million dollars in sales. She also developed a substantial following on social media. Her Instagram has over 157K followers and 11K YouTube subscribers.
Course From Scratch: The Online Course Creation Business
Danielle believes that launching a course isn’t personal, it’s math. Her role is to help entrepreneurs get sign-ups for their courses and exponentially increase their sales. After working with different course creators over the years, she realized there’s no need for an email list to successfully launch a course. Instead, her strategy is to create what she calls “tasty” content with just one asset posted on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Danielle claims that her strategy is unique and practical because it doesn’t need a huge audience.
Course From Scratch is among the more popular online course creation programs. Their Instagram shows “proof” of people making money from course creation and monetizing their expertise. These social proofs are supposed to make people believe that this system is making money. However, discussions on Reddit reveal that many entrepreneurs consider it sketchy.
I found a Reddit thread that talked about how it's impossible for Danielle to generate over 7 million in sales considering she only has 150K followers on Instagram and very low social media engagements. This anonymous poster claims that it’s very likely she’s only over-hyping the course to get more sign-ups. Another red flag that this commenter pointed out is Danielle’s official site which only ranked 570,000 worldwide, and only 63% of its users are from the United States. This Reddit comment made a good point. For Danielle to keep this course up, she must be offering something really good or she continuously buys ads on social media to maintain her traffic. So, her proirity is to get people to sign up. Teaching them how to become good course creators only comes second.
A Reddit user with the handle “Present_Fact8309”, claims to have signed up for Danielle’s $10K masterclass and said he didn’t learn anything substantial from it. He argues that this course was extremely vague and all you’ll learn from it is how to hire and pay people. He also warns about another upsell inside the program which costs another $15K. People on Reddit hate that she creates fake hype on her courses. Even the background on her videos wasn’t spared. The Reddit commenters even noticed “cheap home decor” in the background of her videos. As per these commenters, she wouldn’t have lived in that house in the first place if she was making the millions that she claims.
Course From Scratch Review On YouTube
Mike Pitt reviews Danielle Leslie’s Course From Scratch based on his personal experience being in the program. He started by discussing Danielle’s background and he specifically mentioned that she previously worked for Udemy where she gained experience in course creation and marketing. He also explained what to expect inside the program including the modules that were covered. According to Mike, Danielle’s marketing approach is to highlight her success story and make it the benchmark for everyone. It’s a common strategy among course creators and almost everyone does this.
He questioned the course’s actual success rate and revealed that only 500 of the 3,000 members of the Course From Scratch Facebook group reported positive results. Mike pointed out that Danielle’s lack of direct communication with Danielle and ineffective management were the reasons why 83.4% of the students turned out to be unsuccessful.
People in the comments seem to agree with Mike Pitt. This woman even thanked him for saving her from buying the course.
Is It Worth Getting Danielle Leslie’s Course From Scratch?
It could be worth getting Danielle Leslie’s course from scratch if you’re an expert in a certain niche/industry or you’re a professional with valuable knowledge to share. Online course creation is not for everyone. It’s only for people who have substantial background and experience, and have the passion to teach beginners. Moms who want to monetize their expertise could take a chance on this course. However, keep in mind that this business needs substantial time to set up. It’s quite tedious to start because you should be hands-on with your virtual team and students to ensure customer satisfaction. Launching an online course Danielle’s way may also require huge upfront capital, mostly on paid ads and content creation. It’s not an easy business, especially for busy stay-at-home moms.
On top of these challenges, the course creation business also has a low success rate. Danielle said that only 2% of your email list will end up buying the course. In this case, you need to constantly build and engage your email subscribers and hard sell the course to increase conversions. Interested students should also be careful in believing Danielle’s income claims. Statistics show that the average annual income of course creators is only around $97,000, while Danielle claims to have made over 20 million dollars from creating and selling online courses. Course From Scratch costs $2,500, so she should have sold over 8,000 to match her claim. As expected, the actual number of members in the CFS private Facebook group is much lower, only 3,000. This could mean she exaggerated her actual income as a marketing strategy to attract more signups.
My suggestion for stay-at-home moms is to build digital assets instead of creating online courses with no guaranteed chance of success. Building digital assets generates long-term passive income. Course creation, on the other hand, is temporary. It’s a high-maintenance business that could get stressful and demanding because you constantly need to manage and update the courses.
Owning ranked digital assets places you in front of a global audience who may be looking for the products and services you’re selling. These assets generate leads you can sell at 85% margins. You can also rent sites to local business owners and generate a monthly rental fee. Local lead generation has been my business model of choice since 2014 because it’s low-maintenance, stable, and predictable. One of the sites I built 7 years ago still makes $2K monthly on autopilot. It’s my most recommended business model for stay-at-home moms.
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