Build In Public: Spotlight Edition (Andrew Barry)
Hey everyone 👋
Hope you had a great week. In today’s edition, I wanted to feature Andrew Barry. Andrew’s a friend/creator/former colleague that you may already be familiar with on Twitter. I’ve admired his work from afar and always enjoy conversing with him on topics of transformational educational experiences. I’ve previously tweeted that it is my conviction that we will see tons of successful teachers making more than $1m in annual income on the Internet by either selling courses or building hyper-engaging communities. And Andrew is on a mission to help become people become superstar teachers. He’s an authority in this space as he himself built several communities and of course taught thousands of people how to create incredible courses and training sessions in his career that spans 15 years.
Recently, he piqued my interest as I noticed him begin a fascinating experiment on Twitter. He’s building and designing his next course in public. So I figured I bring him on here and share what he’s creating with all of us. Stay until the end as he has a special gift for the readers.
Without further ado, here is our text interview:
AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW BARRY
KP: Hey Andrew, why don’t you quickly introduce yourself to our newsletter audience?
AB: Hi everyone, I’m Andrew Barry, and I help people teach on the internet. I’ve been creating online learning experiences for 15+ years and run a company called Curious Lion. We help clients like Pinterest create cultures of continuous learning.
KP: What are you focusing on creating currently?
AB: As a creator myself, I’m building the first “built in public online course” of its kind. It’s called Course of Action. The year-long community-driven program will help creators of all backgrounds package their knowledge into an online course, starting with a single perfect workshop. It’s very meta 😄
KP: What specific inflection point led you on this journey? Why are you building what you are building?
AB: I only started writing online a year ago. My experience in online learning caught on with creators and suddenly I realized my expertise was valuable to more people than I thought. I want to help emerging experts create transformational learning experiences. I want to help create a future in which everyone teaches and education from practitioners is accessible to all.
KP: Who does your current project help/serve the most?
AB: Anyone with specific knowledge, the passion to share that with others through teaching, and the desire to make an impact in the world and generate revenue for themselves.
KP: What are 1-3 killer features/selling points that you believe make your offering quite unique and valuable?
Meta-experience you can join at the ground level: you’ll learn how to build, package and sell online courses in a way that’s easy to get started and quick to validate if you’re on the right track.
First of it’s kind global community: there is no global community for course creators. The Superstar Teacher community (which comes with purchasing Course of Action) is made up of dozens (soon to be 100’s) of aspiring course creators supporting each other.
Forcing function and feedback to take action: the entire course is designed around experimentation: taking action and getting feedback from peers. If you commit to the steps, you will create assets such as landing pages, email sequences, and a workshop you can use to sell your course.
KP: What specific feedback has led to some significant changes?
AB: Originally, I was going to build a community. Ryan Deiss from Digital Marketer told me the Friday before launch to not sell a community only. He told me the story of the Sports Illustrated Football Phone. Back in the 80s/90s Sports Illustrated came out with a phone that looked like a football. Everyone wanted it. But you couldn’t buy it. The catch? It came for free with a subscription to Sports Illustrated. His advice clicked for me and I spent the entire weekend re-working the offer to sell the course as an annual membership. I’m so glad I did.
KP: How has the principle of “build in public” played itself in your story/journey? In what way has it helped you?
AB: It’s been central to Course of Action. I pre-launched the concept to my email list and 40 people signed up. I was like, ok, this is clearly something people want. The funny thing is I’m now motivated to pack it with even more value than I originally had in mind. I really want to make these early supporters proud of taking a chance on me.
KP: What is one tip on building an audience you’d give your younger self from 4 years ago?
AB: Start writing and publishing consistently. I’ve only been doing this ‘creator’ thing for a year and I’ve seen the power of having a small audience of fans. But to build that, you have to create high-quality content, do it consistently, and build relationships. When you apply time to those three things, you build an audience. There is no other way to do it. I can only imagine what would’ve happened had I started earlier.
KP: What is the best piece of advice someone has given you in 2021?
AB: Play the long game. The “infinite” game, as he called it. When you adopt this attitude, you stop worrying about results and enjoy the process. Then you find that creating content has a karmic value. This was advice from KP 🙂
KP: Who is one person in your peer network we should also learn from via an interview?
AB: Will Steiner. The man has a gift for humorous, yet persuasive copywriting. He’s put it in action by pioneering email-based courses. Think online courses, delivered by email, expect emails you look forward to. He’s always incredibly generous.
KP: Where can people find you on the Internet?
AB: Best place is Twitter - @Bazzaruto
KP: Where can people find your project?
AB: You can find more details for Course of Action here.
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CLOSING THOUGHTS
Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoyed this interview, if you did, please hit reply and let me know what parts were great and if you didn’t let me know how I can improve. Appreciate your thoughts and inputs always :)