Creator Stories:
How Joe Natoli Taught 300,000+ Students: with Courses on UX Design
Joe Natoli is a UX Consultant, Speaker and Author. He is also the founder of the UX 365 Academy, hosted on Heights Platform, where he sells online courses helping UX designers improve their work and rise within their organizations.
Over the years, Joe has taught more than 300,000 students with his UX design courses, which are now sold using Heights Platform!
The idea for UX 365 Academy was born out of necessity. Joe realized that there was a lack of meaningful learning programs in the UX industry that offered a solid foundation for UX designers and helped them thrive in a corporate environment.
"The real goal here was to make UX and design education palatable and affordable, and more inclusive for a lot of people who are typically pushed out of the equation."
Here, we share Joe's success story. You'll find out how he impacted so many students, why he chose Heights Platform to host his courses, and what Joe's business is all about.
How Joe Became a Course Creator
They say that "behind every great man, there is a great woman," and that is surely the case for Joe, who - in our interview - could not stop thanking his wife for her help in starting and growing his business.
Before Joe found success as a course creator, he worked as a UX consultant. A big part of his job was giving presentations to clients, speaking at conferences and events - educating people about UX design principles and how UX design could improve their business.
The idea for teaching online came from Joe's wife, Eli, a business consultant herself. Looking at all the content that Joe had accumulated over the years, she realized that he could simply put it together to create a course.
This was back in 2013 when online courses weren't as popular as they are now. Without thinking it over too much, Joe decided to take his wife's advice and signed up for platforms like Udemy and Skillshare.
Eli's idea proved to be a good one right at the start: Joe's courses were a huge success! 10 students, 50, 100, 500, 1000, 3000... the numbers kept going up and up.
This was great. Joe was working as a consultant, and with minimal effort, he managed to secure an additional revenue stream by putting together a course that was attracting thousands of students.
However, he soon realized that the marketplace model used by platforms like Udemy and Skillshare came with a few disadvantages. First, the marketplace would keep a big chunk of his revenue. That's because these platforms operate with a different business model compared to Heights Platform. While they offer creators visibility through the marketplace, they also charge a revenue share and take a high percentage of your earnings.
"It's not sustainable. I don't really know how anybody does that and sustains it as a business."
Another issue that Joe faced was the way these marketplaces decided to promote his courses. Visibility is not assured on such platforms, and creators often find themselves at the mercy of the algorithms. Being fed up with this model, Joe started looking for an alternative way to teach UX design online.
He knew that his competition outside of the marketplaces was bootcamps, in-person courses where students paid a hefty price tag for the promise of finding a job as a UX designer immediately after.
Joe realized that, in many cases, these bootcamps were overpromising and underdelivering, while charging thousands of dollars to their students.
This was when he realized that there was a gap in the market of UX design online education. If someone wanted to learn practical UX design skills, they would have to either settle for basic marketplace courses that cater only to beginners or invest a large amount of money (sometimes even taking out a loan) to participate in a bootcamp.
Around the time when the pandemic of 2020 hit, Joe found a perfect solution: selling courses from his own website. This approach allowed him to be in charge of his business, without depending on an algorithm. He could charge what he wanted, contact his students, grow his business at his own pace and become the true owner of his content.
Another thing Joe couldn't do before is sell membership access to his courses. Today, building a membership allows Joe to offer a better product at a lower price.
On top of this, Joe offers group coaching calls to his students as part of the membership, which allows him to deliver high value to a lot of people.
By positioning his courses as an affordable and valuable way to learn practical UX design skills, he gained his competitive advantage, while still doing what he loves: helping people.
"I just wanted to do something that would help the most people possible and would give them something that was practical, that was real."
Why Joe Switched to Heights Platform
Joe discovered Heights Platform after he had been selling online courses for a few years. Before the switch, he was using Teachable to manage his business. Needless to say, Joe was not happy with his previous course platform, citing its limitations, high fees, and poor customer support.
When he decided to quit Teachable, Joe tested many other course platforms, but none satisfied his creative needs as much as Heights Platform!
In an interview, Joe told us that:
"[Heights Platform] Is a fantastic platform. We looked at platforms for a year and a half before we decided to migrate. You are far and above everything else."
We are so glad to hear Joe's kind words about Heights Platform!
The Challenges of Entrepreneurship
We would be lying to you if we said that Joe's journey to success was always a smooth one. As you probably know, starting an online course business is not always easy, and Joe did encounter some challenges along the way. Today we are going to share the biggest roadblocks that Joe faced, and how he overcame them, so you can learn from his experience.
Switching from marketplace courses to his own business was a great move, but Joe had to learn to adapt to the new business model.
When Joe started his own courses after parting ways with Udemy, he realized that he was now catering to a different audience. The people who would buy his courses now were not the same people who he taught before.
His new audience was more experienced, had different sets of problems to solve and required a different approach.
Instead of being complete beginners, his new students were people who were already working in the UX design space, and wanted to advance their career. Joe quickly realized that if he wanted to sell his courses, he had to change the way he was communicating to his target audience.
The solution came, once again, from Eli, Joe's wife, whose experience in digital marketing helped the UX 365 Academy change its messaging and attract the right kind of customers.
From this story, we can learn how important it is to understand who your audience is and how to communicate with your ideal customers in the right way.
But what if you don't have an Eli in your life? Well, the good news is that today, there are so many resources out there to help new entrepreneurs figure out how to market a business.
For instance, if you are a Heights Platform customer, you get access to Creator Climb, our community of 10,000+ creators, and a collection of courses, events, and learning resources designed to help course creators succeed!
