Welcome to The Thought Process, where we explore how successful experts build profitable online learning businesses.

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Kat’s journey is an inspiring example of turning one’s expertise into a profitable business. With her distinct brand voice and engaging, informative content, she’s built a global community of learners eager to master workplace tools, empowering them with skills that can change their careers and lives.

Wondering how she did it? Below, Kat shares 10 practical tips for building a successful online education business and scaling it for growth. 

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1. Just start, even if you think you’re not ready. 

When starting an online learning business, a common challenge is standing in your own way by waiting for perfection. Kat’s advice? “Take messy action.” This philosophy is what gave her the initial spark of confidence she needed to start building and selling her online courses back in 2020.

2. Build an audience first.

A key reason for Kat’s seamless and scalable business journey is that she grew an audience before selling her courses. She started by delivering free value and sharing Excel tips on social media, quickly gaining thousands of followers. Not only that, but she actively listened to what her audience needed. 

“A lot of people were asking for a course on Excel,” Kat says. “For me, it’s all about helping people... The online course route was the obvious way to go.”

By transforming her Excel expertise into online courses, Kat has built a business that now generates $3-4 million in annual revenue.

3. Streamline your course creation process.

Kat was able to create her first 10 courses in just a few months by getting her course creation process down to a science. She’d spend one day on creating an outline, two days filming, and three days editing – a repeatable process that allowed her to build new courses with remarkable speed and efficiency. 

This systematic approach has helped Kat rapidly expand her product offering and grow her revenue. Today, she uses Thinkific to offer 12 courses – on how to use Excel, other Microsoft and Google tools, and even AI – and has over 28,000 paying learners.

4. Prelaunch your offer.

Prelaunching is Kat’s secret to validating an idea, creating momentum, and generating early revenue. “Whenever I make a new course, I sell it before it’s complete,” she shares. Kat recommends setting a launch date for your offer and sticking to this deadline. “That will really put the fire under you to actually get that out,” she says.

5. Find your pricing sweet spot.

“Founders are naturally going to underprice their courses,” Kat notes. “I definitely did that too at first, until a business coach told me that I had to price my courses higher.” 

Kat’s advice is to look at what’s around the market and decide if you want to position yourself as either an undercutting model or a premium product. She’s found that a premium product with occasional discounts gives potential customers a strong sense of value perception, which helps motivate purchases.

6. Drive sales with free webinars.

Kat credits webinars as a “big cash driver” for Miss Excel. These free live lessons are an effective way to create value for your audience, while drawing them to your paid offers. 

Even better (and more time-saving), you can offer evergreen webinars by repurposing recordings from previous sessions. “This allows people to play the recording multiple times, and in their own time zones,” Kat adds.

7. Scale your business with affiliates.

To draw even more people to her free webinars, and eventually her paid courses, Kat has built her own affiliate program. She collaborates with a network of newsletters and individual affiliates who promote her webinars. For every sale generated through their referrals, her affiliates receive a generous 50% commission.

“What I'm excited for next is really scaling out our affiliate partnerships,” Kat says. “I think that’s the way we're going to scale even more massively.”

8. Grow your revenue by selling B2B.

To really scale your online learning business, look beyond individual learners and sell B2B (business-to-business). 

According to Kat, Miss Excel now partners with over 350 different organizations, including Salesforce, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Big Four accounting firms, as well as colleges. Her B2B division is a huge revenue driver, and she's been able to scale her corporate offerings by making bulk course sales through Thinkific. 

9. Outsource strategically. 

As you continue to grow your business, you’ll have to stop trading time for money. As Kat explains, “I now outsource 90% of the business, so that I can work in a more strategic position.” 

By hiring a team of trainers to do live custom training events for Miss Excel, Kat has been able to focus on what matters most for scaling: partnerships and growth strategies.

10. Focus on impact, not just income.

For Kat, the true measure of success isn't just revenue, but the impact her courses have on her learners’ lives. As she shares, “I get messages every day in my DMs and emails from students of my courses. They’d tell me, ‘I got a promotion!’, ‘I got a raise!’... Getting that love lights me up so much.” 

She adds, “I understand not everybody loves Excel like I do – I mean, a lot of people do after taking the courses – but it just makes me feel so happy and fulfilled to help people become more confident and feel good at work. To be able to clear someone else’s anxiety when they open these programs, that’s what keeps me going.”