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#126: How Data Analyst Ben Collins Built a $75,000 Side Blog and Course Business

About the Episode:

In today’s episode, we’re talking to Ben Collins, the Google Sheets developer & data analytics instructor who’s turned his blog and online courses into a six-figure business over the past year.

Originally from the UK where he received a master’s degree in mathematics and served briefly in the Royal Navy, Ben’s lived much of his adult life in the U.S. where he’s held a few steady day jobs as a forensic accountant helping firms to audit their financial transactions and investigate everything from money laundering to abuse of corporate expense claims.

It wasn’t until just a few years ago, when Ben both signed up for a web development class and became a data analytics instructor at his local General Assembly, that he got the spark to begin working on building own blog. After teaching data analysis at GA for about a year, he took his learnings about what it takes to build a course curriculum and started applying that to a niche he saw a lot of growth potential in with his blog.

Google Sheets training courses. Now, Ben works full-time on his blog and courses, where he helps people build practical skills and learn techniques to be highly productive with Google Sheets.

In Today’s Episode, We Talk About:

02:27 Where Ben is originally from.
06:40 What a day in the life of a forensic accountant looks like.
[07:21] How he got into General Assembly.
[10:50] What working at General Assembly was like.
[12:56] When he decided to start an online course.
[13:57] How he decides topics to turn into a course.
[15:11] How he prices his courses.
19:30 Why he doesn’t sell on Udemy.
19:59 How he launches his courses.
29:51 The best investment he’s made in growing his business.

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Ben’s Website and Blog

Ben on Twitter and LinkedIn

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Ben Collins Data Analyst to $75,000 Side Blog and Course Business

Hi I'm Ryan Robinson

Blogger, podcaster and recovering side project addict. Head of Content at Close. Join me here, on ryrob.com to learn how to start a blog, make money blogging and grow a profitable side business. Be sure to try my popular free keyword research tool & AI article writer tool, as well. Somehow, I also find time to write for publications like Fast Company, Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Next Web, Business Insider, and more. Let’s chat on Twitter and YouTube about our feelings (and blogging, of course).

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7 replies to “#126: How Data Analyst Ben Collins Built a $75,000 Side Blog and Course Business”

  1. This episode was very helpful for me, thanks for the amazing insights on how you’ve built your community Ben!

    Reply
  2. Love Ben’s journey. I learned a lot from how he launches his courses. Also I just took a look at Ben’s site, and I believe he’s got lots of potential to grow more.

    Reply
    • Agreed! His traffic his definitely moving in the right direction, and looks like it should keep climbing as his organic rankings improve too.

      Reply
  3. Very informative podcast Ryan. Was interested in hearing and learning about “Teachable” as opposed to “Udemy”, which was the one main ecourse platform I was aware of as well.

    Reply
  4. Hello Ryan,
    I want to collect links of best you tube videos and articles, and make a website out of it. I mean putting those links under sub-category.
    How do you see it and if I make such a blog how can I monetize it?

    Reply