
Ask HN: Making money teaching Programming online - trabador
There are a lot of people who just need the initial push to plunge head first into programming.
 i.e Learning Git. Using the right editor. Learning basic concepts. They just need the right amount of help to get them done with a basic first project.<p>Let&#x27;s say you have 25 people interested in learning Python from you. 1 hour a week each Sunday for 10 weeks. i.e around 2 months should be enough.<p>If you charge just $250 per student. If you take 25 students per cohort and you take in 4 cohorts every 2 months, you make 4 * 6 * 25 * 250 = $150,000 for less than 10 hours of work.
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greenyoda
> There are a lot of people who just need the initial push to plunge head
> first into programming. i.e Learning Git. Using the right editor. Learning
> basic concepts. They just need the right amount of help to get them done
> with a basic first project.

I'd disagree that learning Git or using the "right editor" are prerequisites
to learning how to program, or learning the basic concepts of programming. You
can learn a lot of useful things about Python (or another language) without
getting bogged down with this stuff. You really don't need Git or a fancy
editor to write your first 50 programs that have 10 or 200 lines of code. It's
just a lot of extra stuff to keep in your head while grappling with
programming concepts that may already be new or difficult for you.

If you decide you like programming and want to get a job doing it, sure, learn
Git. But learning how to program is more fundamental.

> If you charge just $250 per student. If you take 25 students per cohort and
> you take in 4 cohorts every 2 months, you make 4 * 6 * 25 * 250 = $150,000
> for less than 10 hours of work.

If it's really 10 hours of work (only about a half hour per student), then
you're clearly not offering any significant personalized instruction. Would
that really add $250 of value over just watching free tutorials on Khan
Academy or YouTube?

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trabador
What am I missing?

~~~
brudgers
Finding 600 people willing to pay $250 for a part time course is likely to be
non-trivial. Getting those people to sign up at a regular rate will be harder.
Assuming those things are possible, there will be less revenue while growing
to that point and the growth phase is probably many months even if working
very few hours was not in the mix.

