What is the best platform for online tai chi classes?
Best Software, hardware and platforms for the 21st century teaching community
Part 3
Whether you are teaching yoga to a few friends at home, running a local fitness class from your community centre or holding workshops for 100's of Gung-fu students, Online Platforms have emerged over the last few years as a necessary tool for 21st century teachers. Although the pandemic has reminded us of the unpredictability of life, technology has reminded us that we have the tools to remain flexible and available for our students.
This series of 3 posts began in back in Part 1 by looking at the Basic Hardware needed to setup your recording studio. In the following article, Part 2 I focussed on Essential Software for filming and editing, and in this final article, I am going advise where to store and distribute from, all the content you create. If you haven't given it much thought, then now is the time to gather together what you have. Each year there will be more content for you to share out, so start to think now about the best way to do that.
In this article, I am going to look at the good and bad of 4 leading platforms that have been around for a while. If you want to just jump straight to the results then scroll down to the bottom, otherwise read on.
No that long ago, we all taught locally. Every now and again we did workshops in other areas, but we always returned to our local classes. Now the world has shifted to a new age in which students can look across the world to find the school, the style and the teacher that best suits them. Online schools use Online platforms to host, organise and distribute their content. But even if you do not run an online school and only teach locally, these platforms can help you build a library of resources and tools for your students. Now, with the free pans offered by Gumroad, Udemy and Podia there has never been a better time to jump in.
1. THE TEACHABLE PLATFORM: A GOOD START BUT...
For me, it all started with a book I had written called the Manual of Bean Curd Boxing - Tai Chi and the Noble Art of Leaving Things Alone. A number of readers asked if I could explore the practices and ideas in an online course. So I looked around for a platform. Back in 2015 one platform caught my eye, it was called Fedora - but would soon change its name to Teachable. Then, they offered a free plan (though this has now been ditched). Free always sounds good, but the truth is that there is always a price, and in this case the commission on each sale was pretty high. But the low entry point meant I could try out an idea without committing myself to a monthly or yearly fee.
As I hadn't't taught online previously, I wanted to dip my toe into the online world to see if there was sufficient interest for distant tai chi instruction. One thing that concerned me was the absence of any marketing by the company to find clients, so it would be up to me to bring my own customers to the platform. I had my email list, but that was relatively small. How many of these email subscribers would even be interested in an online course? To find out, I ran a survey amongst them, and found - to my surprise - there was enough to give it a try.
TEACHABLE: TOO USA CENTRIC?
I began to plan out my first course. It was challenging to take on so much creative work, but inspiring too. However, when I began to upload the videos to Teachable there were teething problems. Uploads took forever, and Teachable made a mess of VAT payments and taxes for anyone outside the USA. Eventually they sorted these issues, but they kept changing the goalposts for those on the free plan. Workflows for example - were initially offered but later removed and made exclusive to the paid plans, and customer support was slow and not unsurprisingly - USA centric.
In the end, in order to keep the options I had, I succumbed to their pressure and shifted from free to the paid plan so I could still access the free-coupons, drip-fed courses, use of a custom domain, and to retain access to students directly via emailing. At $30 a month this was not excessively expensive, with an added sales commission of 5% on each sale - but it wasn’t what I signed up for. Plus, I needed to find more students and this was proving difficult at a time when many people still believed (and still do) that you cannot teach an art like Tai Chi online.
WHY I LEFT TEACHABLE
I left Teachable in 2017 because I grew tired of the ever-shifting levels and services on the platform. I also needed to find new clients and so looked around at other platforms. I wanted an established market place in which to sell my courses. Somewhere that directed customers to me. The only real choice back then, was Udemy, so I set about creating some new shorter courses as a trial to assess this other platform.
2. UDEMY: GOOD REACH...BUT A RACE TO THE BOTTOM
Udemy appeared to have just a few tai chi instructors on its books - now, of course it is over-populated. (See the screen grab below from their search bar.) Those that were already on Udemy appeared to offer one of two approaches: The first reasonably good material, but poorly presented. The second, an uploaded old DVD. It looked, felt. and was dated material that did not correspond to a new medium.
Udemy however did offer a lot of help in course construction and good resources for setting up an online course. I learnt a lot from their structuring guidelines and tested them out with a range of short courses. I produced 3 excellent short courses and for a while, I was hopeful.
WHY I LEFT UDEMY
The main reason I left Udemy was that I always felt like it was the platform and not the course that they were selling. Udemy will promote any course as long as they can sell something. This is the same approach that Amazon employs with their online sales. Before purchasing, you are bombarded with "other people brought this course that is similar - but cheaper...". It works as a sales technique for the company, but not so good for the instructor, unless the algorithm suits your approach and you are ahead in this race to the bottom.
Secondly, I was encouraged to offer a free taster course. This was taken up by thousands of people. Very few led to paid course purchases but a lot received negative reviews - and Udemy really encourages people to leave reviews. A few negative reviews (as with Amazon) can quickly pull down your ranking and position in searches on the platform. There is little you could do about this, and so eventually, I decided to remove the free courses.
Finally, in order to access the Udemy marketplace ( the whole reason for being there), you must agree to participate in their course discount promotions. This meant that the average earnings on a course sale dropped to just a few dollars per sale. Not so bad if you are selling hundreds a day, but for most people this wasn't realistic. Of course you could always bring your own customers to the Udemy site and keep your prices high, but then why bring them to the site at all?
I suddenly felt like returning to Teachable, but one thing stopped me. I wanted to sell my books, my audiofiles, my PDFS and other digital content and I couldn't do that on Teachable or Udemy. I wanted a place to be able to create a digital store. After all, this was the 21st century and I had a range of Tai Chi materials to distribute.
One company, caught my eye, I liked their approach, their charges and their sense of doing something different. I decided to move everything over to Gumroad.
3. GUMROAD: GREAT IDEAS BUT...
I have a soft spot for Gumroad. It is a great platform. It offers digital downloads that you can give-away for free, that you can sell or even that you can leave it to the customer to pay what they wish. It does have a rather unique design - that I find a bit confusing for customers and creators - but you get used to it, eventually. It offers a lot for the little it charges you. There is even a free plan, but, as the paid plan is only $10* a month I'd recommend going with that. You'll get drip fed courses, email scheduling, email workflows, sales pages and analytics. Gumroad deals with taxes and has a receptive and supportive help team. And as companies go, they are transparent, something I do appreciate.
*Gumroad is now free to everyone, you just pay a commission on each sale. See below for more info.
WHY I LEFT GUMROAD
Despite bringing in staff from Teachable to work on Gumroad, and despite promoting their online course structuring, they never really delivered a usable product. Customers would complain about the confusing process of signing up, finding files, order of material and completion of files. Gumroad was fine for books and simple content, but as I predominantly sell courses through drip-fed mail out sequences, I got despondent with the lack of good structure.
Then, ideologically, it began to wind me up. Each week they promoted a Gumroad success story - someone who was making a million a week despite only opening their Gumroad account 2 days ago. I found these distasteful given the vast number of Gumroad users struggling to earn just dollars each week. An endless barrage of people parading their wealth and success in your inbox each week was not the motivating prod I needed. I wanted to know about those that were struggling and getting by, or those that were moving forward gradually, realistically, in an achievable way. I wanted to people I could identify with, relate to and maybe even aspire to become. As a content creator I wanted to know about other content creators, not marketeers. So, convinced there was still a better alternative, I went in search again.
*MORE ON THAT UPDATED PRICING FOR GUMROAD 2021
As of Autumn 2021 Gumroad have simplified their pricing structure - now offering access to all workflows and memberships for everyone, though with a 9% fee for all sales up to $1000 - then it reduces to 7% up to $10.000 and 5% to $100.000, 3% to a $1.000.000. This is an interesting development in that now all newcomers can try out everything without the burden of a monthly fee, though of course any sales will carry the heavy 9% commission. For more info on Gumroad updated prices - read this
4. PODIA: A GOOD OVERALL BALANCE
I did not want to lose the digital storefront idea - I liked to link my courses and products. So I gave the Podia Platfrom a try. Podia had been on my radar a while. But there was no free plan (one has been introduced June 2022 - see below for details**) and I wasn't sure if the monthly fee was something I really wanted to return to, after the Teachable experience. But as I looked at the details, I could see that it combined the best of Teachable’s course structuring, with the product sales from Gumroad.
I could even run a basic email program within the platform (and, I emphasise, it is basic), set up workflows, link products and bundle them easily. I could create webinars or live-feed sessions, offer levels of memberships for the more dedicated students and even offer chat messaging on the platform.
SURPRISE
When I did the figures on commissions and year fees, it worked out cheaper than Teachable and provided me with a digital online store. But what about Gumroad? Gumroad charged less each month but it took quite a lot in sales commissions. Podia, charging a relatively higher monthly fee, takes nothing in sales commissions. At the end of the day, the difference was negligible with the sales I had, but I had more possibilities and scope to develop a more cohesive platform with much better tools to play with. I decided to try it out. Podia offer a 2 week - try everything for free - so I tentatively gave it a go.
Their help files, responsive customer support and easy-to-use web-site tools were a relief after the previous platforms. I like the simplicity of the layout and I like the minimalist design. After the end of 2 weeks I signed up and was pretty impressed. But don't take my word for it - try it out. You can access the same trial using this link No credit cards needed, no bank details or nothing. Nada*
Of course, I am always excited with switching to a new program, so perhaps it would be best to ask me again in a years time.
If anything, Podia has grown on me (but with reservations). It has continued to develop as a platform - for example it released a 1-1 coaching sessions built into their two higher plans, enabling embedded calendar booking for private classes. This all points to a hybrid teaching experience that has a very 21st century feel. And as something gets released, you feel part of the project. The people there are accessible, friendly and supportive and you don't wait long for someone to answer a query you might have. If you are a teacher or a creative content provider considering an online platform to host your video work content and class material, to build a library of resources and to be able to offer webinars built-in as well as chat support for your students - all on the Mover basic package then I recommend Podia by far. It works out about $32 a month if you pay a year upfront (About £23 - which is crazily cheap for what you get)
If, you want to go further, build memberships, create blog posts on the platform, affiliate marketing, embed items on your website - then check out the next level called the Shaker plan that works out at about $65 a month (if you buy a year upfront.) As for the next Earthquaker level - unless you are part of a large team organisation then forget it. It's not really aimed at you or me.
One of the things I love about Podia is the simple design of its site. It's so easy to make something look decent with just little work. Have a look at what I have been doing to get an idea - as you will see from the image here of the new 37 Step Tai Chi Short Form Course page.
So there you have it. If I can answer any other questions, then mail me and I’ll do my best to answer.
***UPDATE OCTOBER 2021***
Group Forums: As of October 2021 new changes have been implemented across Podia. A new forum "community" is being offered to all users so that instead of trying to link a Facebook or Slack group to your Podia account, you can build one within the platform so that your users can interact with you and each other. You can see how I use forums here.
***UPDATE 2022 JUNE***
Podia has just announced a Free Plan for anyone to start with. This is somewhat limited and there is a transactional fee (8%) that is absent in the paid plans. There is limited possibilities for course experiments or hosting of files. Find out more here.