Skillshare – Make Money Teaching What You Know

Skillshare.com is a platform where pretty much anyone can teach virtually anything to anyone.  Teachers create classes, decide on a price, and allow students to sign up to take the class.  Subjects taught range from web design to techniques for applying eye makeup, and classes can be taught worldwide through online classes as well as locally.

Who Can Teach?

Anyone that has a skill to share can apply to create and teach a class through Skillshare.com.  For online classes, however, they require proof that you know what you are talking about.  For example, if you want to teach a class on web design, you will have to do a short project to show them that you know what you are doing and are qualified to teach on that topic.

If you are teaching a local class (offline) then there is no application or ‘proof of skills’ required.

 

Does it Cost Anything?

Creating a class is free.  You choose what to charge and you are responsible for getting students to attend.  When applying to teach an online class, a requirement you may see when registering is that you  you must get 200 students to sign up for the class to be held. This caused me to be concerned. What happens if you don’t get 200 people? Will you have to manually refund everyone who signed up? So, I contacted Skillshare via Twitter and they let me know that the 200 students is not actually a requirement. So, maybe that is more of a goal marker?

Skillshare has various marketing tools and tips to help you out however, and they also have tools to help with curriculum planning.  Skillshare receives 12% of the proceeds from the class, so do remember that when setting the ticket price.

 

What about the Money?

Students purchase tickets directly from you and pay you via PayPal for both local workshops and online classes.  This means you get paid per ticket, and then you pay Skillshare their cut.  How much you make depends on what you charge, how many sign up, and how many classes you teach.  You could make $100,000 per year (as some have), or you  may not have anyone sign up.

When choosing your class ticket price, remember to consider the PayPal fees involved. (PayPal fees are 2.9% + $0.30 per successful charge)

 

What Can I Teach?

Local Workshop classes don’t seem to have any limits as to what you can teach. However, since the online learning is still in the Beta phase, they state that the online classes must fit into one of the following categories:

• Design
• Illustration
• Technology
• Film
• Photography
• Fashion

That being said, after browsing through the online classes I was surprised at some of the things that they considered to fit, so check it out before your rule out your idea.  For example, how to apply eye shadow is an online class under fashion.  As for crafting and other similar topics, they can currently only be taught as local workshops.

Another point I found interesting while browsing the current classes is that many of them are set up in a way that allows the teacher to prepare a lesson and then students can go through the class at their own pace, versus it being a live class. So, essentially if you have a really great lesson plan set up- it could earn you revenue for an extended period of time!

 

What Current Teachers Are Saying

The current teachers that are speaking out love it.  However, I could only find where the successful teachers were talking.  I am sure there are plenty out there that post classes which no one takes or they can’t get enough people to sign up for- resulting in not getting paid.  The good thing is, if you are not successful, you are not out anything but the time to create the class. If you are, you only pay 12% of your proceeds.  Most of those that are having success either do it as a side job, or they started out that way and then moved on to doing it full time once they saw they could afford to.  Skillshare does not promise you will make a living or even make a penny, but they do offer the opportunity to try.

 

Skillshare Conclusion

It appears that Skillshare.com is a legitimate way to make money online.  While it is legitimate and it seems there are those making good money, there is no guarantee of a steady income.  It costs nothing to give it a shot, so if you have a skill to share and you want to give it a try, it seems like there is really nothing to lose but a little time setting up the class. 

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