Wow, great write up. Thanks a lot for taking the course and talking about it, perhaps it was because you went into it willing to burn $500 but many would stay silent.
I can't believe at the missed business opportunity here. It sounds like she could have easily pulled 7 figures from running those classes. Even if she hired a "business manager" of sorts for a cut to grow her lessons, it would have been a really financially rewarding endevour.
One thing that boggles the mind is how many people were not planning to request a refund! I couldn't imagine spending $500, not receiving what I paid for, and being okay with that.
Honestly, it still surprises me how much some Instagrammers make. A friend of mine runs a food IG (~3,000 followers local to the area) and pulls in 1-2 free meals a week, effectively funding the content creation costs. Another friend is in the ~40,000 follower range and gets paid something like $50-$200 + meals for each event -- you just go and book a time slot on their website.
Yet for me, IG feels so fake, but there are enough repeat advertisers that there must be real users out there who follow and purchase influencer recommendations.
>It sounds like she could have easily pulled 7 figures from running those classes.
That's what blows my mind. She had 500 people sign up for the course, obviously there is demand. I don't feel like it would be too hard to put together a 12 week course and have people feel like they got their money worth. Then just simply rinse and repeat. Heck, she could have even found the real die hards from the original 500 and offered a special one-to-one course for $5000 and had weekly one on one's with her. Sounds like it could have been a cash cow.
> I can't believe at the missed business opportunity here. It sounds like she could have easily pulled 7 figures from running those classes.
You seem to be overlooking that she already made up to $225,000 for doing close to nothing.
Plus up to $25,000 for making the first assignment "Start building a pyramid scheme for me." And that's gravy on top of however many new rubes signed up for the next course for which she "solved" the refund problem with a third party payment service.
Part for that is because web advertising in general sucks. You have fraudulent clicks all over the place, banner blindness, adblockers and whatnot etc. So brands are looking for new venues to reach consumers and influencers/celebrities are a good match. Probably this will also die down soon than later but until then the smart ones will make a good buck.
I can't believe at the missed business opportunity here. It sounds like she could have easily pulled 7 figures from running those classes. Even if she hired a "business manager" of sorts for a cut to grow her lessons, it would have been a really financially rewarding endevour.
One thing that boggles the mind is how many people were not planning to request a refund! I couldn't imagine spending $500, not receiving what I paid for, and being okay with that.
Honestly, it still surprises me how much some Instagrammers make. A friend of mine runs a food IG (~3,000 followers local to the area) and pulls in 1-2 free meals a week, effectively funding the content creation costs. Another friend is in the ~40,000 follower range and gets paid something like $50-$200 + meals for each event -- you just go and book a time slot on their website.
Yet for me, IG feels so fake, but there are enough repeat advertisers that there must be real users out there who follow and purchase influencer recommendations.