The $275,925 Course Launch Or "The No One Knows You Exist" Case Study

"Attention is all you need."

Here's a creator with 1.5 million YouTube subscribers asking if people knew about their course launch:

79% had no clue. That's your problem right there.

I helped a 700k subscriber YouTuber avoid this fate. Their launch did 5x the revenue of their previous two launches combined. $275,925 in 5 days.

The Problem

My client had:

• 700,000+ YouTube subscribers
• 220,000 Instagram followers
• 120,000 email list

Yet their last two course launches combined barely did $50k.

The issue wasn't the audience size. It was that they were launching courses with a 1-week notice at best - "Hey, I made a thing, please buy it."

"You can never advertise enough"

Here's what most creators do:

1. Work on course for months in secret
2. Announce it exists
3. Give people 3-7 days to buy
4. Wonder why it flopped

We did the opposite. Started teasing 23 days before they could even buy it. Frankly would have loved to have time to advertise 30+ days before because the longer the ramp, the bigger the airplane that can take off.

Anyway, I sent 14 emails before launch. 13 during the 5-day launch. That's 27 emails about one product.

What about unsubscribes? Couple hundred out of 120k. How? Because we told stories and gave value instead of the usual "2 DAYS LEFT!!!" spam. The best story-based email brought in $42k according to Google Analytics.

Actually Talking to Customers

"Half the advice I give to startups is some form of 'talk to your customers.'" - Paul Graham

Unfortunately for all us introverts, he's right :/

I sent personal emails from luka@[clientdomain].com offering course discounts for 15-minute calls. This got me way more responses than needed.

One common theme popped up "I watch all these tutorials but still can't actually build anything myself." That became our whole positioning - project-based learning with interactive lessons. Not just more videos.

The Winning Headline

I tested 5 different headlines with Facebook lead ads before launch. The winner came directly from a customer call:

"Become a Top 1% [Technology] Developer"

Won't win any awards, but it played into the psychology of devs perfectly. So that became our headline.

The U-Shaped Revenue Graph

Most course launches follow an L-shaped curve - huge spike on day one, then nothing. This happens if we:

• price too low
• don't build up demand
• have weak urgency or scarcity

We engineered a U-shape:

Day 1: $42k (started at 6pm, whoops) Day 2-4: $35-45k daily Day 5: $89k

How? By a) building up demand and b) sending 3-4 emails on the last day when everyone else sends one boring "last chance act now or you will never make it aaaa!!!" email. Hate those.

Memes

While everyone else was running boring ads or none at all, we had some fun! Meme and testimonial ads did the best. Our ads got us a 17.56x ROAS ($17.56 back for every $1 spent).

We targeted:

• Warm audiences (email list + IG engagers from last 30 days)
• Hot retargeting (site visitors + abandoned checkouts)

The geographic pricing problem

Fun fact: India had 3.5x more purchases than the US but generated 30% less revenue.

Can't price for India (lose US money). Can't price for US (lose most of the audience).

Solution: Regional pricing. More purchases AND higher average order value.

The results

• Revenue: $275,925
• 5x the revenue of previous launches combined
• 17.56 ROAS on ads

The real lesson

90% of your launch success happens before launch day. If people don't know it exists, they can't buy it. If they haven't been thinking about it for weeks, they won't care when it drops. The goal is to convince them to make a decision to buy or not to buy before they're even able to.

Most creators work in secret then wonder why their audience doesn't instantly throw money at them. Build demand. Then build more demand. Then launch.

I help tech companies make important numbers go up. Sometimes that's 3x conversion rates or 40x UAC reduction. Sometimes it's turning a $50k launch into $275k. I might be able to do the same for you. Email me at hello@lukakalajzic.com if you want to chat. I rarely bite!

P.S. I later learned that creator with 1.5M subscribers did way less revenue than we did even with double the subscribers.