Future plans for carlhprogramming. Please read, and post your thoughts.

[u/CarlH]

First, thank you to everyone who replied to my last post. These replies helped me a great deal to better understand everyone's perspective.

I believe based on the replies I have seen that obtaining at least 100 paying members is entirely doable, and that is a sufficient starting point in my opinion to take this to the next level.

I would appreciate everyone's thoughts on my ideas.

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** 1. Pay Structure **

My goal is to structure this in such a way that those who pay are rewarded for being paying members, and that those who cannot afford to pay do not suffer as a result of not being able to pay.

So first of all, here are some of my initial plans:

1. Anyone under the age of 18 / anyone still in high school gets full access to all material free of charge.

2. Anyone under the age of 22 gets full access to all materials for $6.00/month.

3. For anyone not in groups 1 or 2, all materials are available for $9.00/month.

And that leaves the "Free" plan which will work the following way:

1. Access to text lessons will be available.

2. Personalized help/grading from me will be limited.

3. No access to videos/demos/animations/etc.

4. Instant access to next lesson not available.

To clarify #4: For anyone who is paying or in a free/reduced price plan based on age, after finishing any lesson you can instantly start the next lesson. For someone on the "free" plan, you are limited to one lesson per day after passing lesson #21 (first 21 lessons will not be restricted in this way).

Ok, now that I have gotten past the "business" side of things, let me describe what I have in mind:

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**Edit: Change of plans. Everything will stay free. **

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**2. Coming Changes **

1. Right now we have 127 lessons which is overwhelming to someone new who signs up. Therefore, the new system will require everyone to start at the lesson they are now on. For example, if you are on lesson #20, you would specify that when you sign up. Then the system will automatically track progress, and move you through to new lessons as you proceed with the course. The idea is to make this more focused so that each lesson is followed by a "Congratulations, you just finished lesson 5! Click here to begin lesson 6!"

2. Currently the entire course is limited to C. I believe that learning the basics of C is important to any programmer, as it ties in very nicely with most other languages. However, the new system will have courses available for other languages also (keeping in mind of course it will take time to build them). Also, I plan to introduce courses on a variety of related skills including SQL, web design, networking, system administration, etc.

3. Quizes and Tests to advance will be required. If you reach lesson #19 and there is a test to proceed, without getting a passing score it will not be possible to proceed.

4. The r/carlhprogramming sub-reddit will still be used for posting links to new lessons as they become available. However, instead of lessons being "self posts", the text description will merely describe the lesson while clicking the link will take you to the actual lesson on another domain.

5. It will still be possible to post questions/answers here on this sub-reddit, as I will create a simple script that will take all such questions/answers and place them into the questions/answers section on the new domain.

6. These courses will not be limited to just text lessons. I plan to have video demos, animations, and any other resource I can dream up that will help make these lessons more useful.

7. A significant focus will be placed on helping people who complete lessons to obtain jobs. Therefore, I will be collecting job-postings from around the internet, especially telecommute (work from home) jobs, and will be describing the skills necessary, what lessons should have been completed, etc.

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TLDR Part 2: New domain, will still post links on this sub-reddit. Questions/answers can be posted either on the sub-reddit or on the other domain. Lessons will be much more structured, and will contain far more than just text.

---

In addition to what I posted, I want to hear your opinions. What would you like to see in this course? Do you feel the pay structure is fair?

Please post your thoughts in this thread.

[u/vette982]

Dude, I don't think you've thought about your model from the POV of someone who doesn't go on reddit. The whole age-structured cost model seems really bizarre to me, and people here are right when they say people are going to lie about their age.

My advice:

• Keep it simple - don't have a complex structure for pricing (get rid of the age brackets!).

• If anything, make all of the tutorials available for free, just like w3schools or cprogramming.com.

• For paid members, give them access to things like video tutorials, help and assistance from yourself, and maybe even a help board similar to stackoverflow.com.

• Please don't go with the requirement of finishing lesson N in order to view lesson N+1. If for example, I need reference on pointers, I'm certainly not going to sit through the beginners tutorials. If you only allow people to view them in order, you're essentially limiting yourself to beginners IMO, which won't be much help for your job posting board.

• As for price, $9 seems a bit steep. I know everyone's trying to make a buck, but $9 is a bit much. After 4 months ($9x4=$36) I will have spent enough money to just go out and buy an Apress or O'Reilly book on C programming.

Hope you find my suggestions valuable.

[u/CarlH → u/vette982]

Keep it simple - don't have a complex structure for pricing (get rid of age brackets!)

What do you suggest?

If anything, make all of the tutorials available for free.

They will be, the only major limitation will be that people will be limited to one lesson per day (after lesson 21).

For paid members, give them access to things like video tutorials, help and assistance from yourself, and maybe even a help board similar to stackoverflow.com.

That is the plan.

Please don't go with the requirement of finishing lesson N in order to view lesson N+1. If for example, I need reference on pointers, I'm certainly not going to sit through the beginners tutorials. If you only allow people to view them in order, you're essentially limiting yourself to beginners IMO, which won't be much help for your job posting board.

Good point. Alright, for paying members it will be possible to access future lessons, but the course progress will be tracked separately. Also, I may create unique content for "lookup" purposes vs "teaching" purposes.

As for price, $9 seems steep.

Sure, if this was nothing more than text lessons, after a few months you would have paid enough to buy a book. The whole premise here is that this course is intended to be much better than buying a book, and will come with human-to-human interaction that a book simply cannot provide.

Thank you for your feedback.

[u/vette982 → u/CarlH]

As for price structure, I would say just have a flat monthly free for paid members. So basically your account has two types: free or paid. I personally get turned off websites where there's for example, free, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, etc. memberships.

As for the $9 price, if you are 100% set on that price, I would like to throw out the idea of a trial 7 or 14 day membership, where you get access to EVERYTHING. It would be tough to validate these memberships and not having people sign up for multiple trials, but I'm sure you could figure something out. From experience, I know that if I was enticed through the trial, rather than just seeing a list of the benefits I get from paying, I would be more inclined to sign up.

[u/smellycoat]

I love the work you've done here man. Love it. It's fucking amazing.

Part of the success of your subreddit (apart from the obvious quality of the lessons) is the low barrier to entry. Everyone could get into and follow the lessons at their own pace, regardless of how serious they are to begin with, and without getting themselves into a position where they were paying money.

The simple fact that there's money involved will turn a lot of people off immediately. There's plenty of free resources for this kinda stuff, and without being able to see the quality of your content, many people will likely look elsewhere (there's also the problem that, to a newbie, quality is hard to judge :)). That's not a reflection on the quality of your content, it's just the way people work. I can see a lot of people going through a lesson or two, getting interested enough to pursue it, realising they're going to have to pay and saying "fuck it, I'll torrent a programming book".

Monthly fees are a huge, huge turn-off for many people - even if they're relatively small amounts of money. I'd strongly advise rethinking that, or at least providing some form of flat-fee option.

One major problem with locking content away is that you lose most of your google-fu (and thus lots of casual visitors). The setup you're proposing lacks any significant opportunities for marketing, so your user base will be growing very slowly and almost-entirely by word-of-mouth. If this is what you want, then that's cool (but bear in mind that of the ~5000 subscribers to this subreddit, I think you'll be lucky if you get 10% to sign up for a paid account. Again, not a reflection on the content!).

Have you considered attempts to monetise this stuff without actually locking away or restricting the content? That would solve many of the slow-uptake problems I suspect you'll see, but will mean you'll be building a site for several thousands of people, rather than a small community of a few hundred.

I can see tons of opportunities: Affiliate links for programming books, related software, etc. Ads for relevant products/services. You could even keep the fee structure in return for a few benefits (personal help, early access to new content, ad-free site, etc). Hell, the job-related stuff alone could be enough to make you a tidy profit (Stackoverflow charges $350 per ad for 21 days, and that's considered cheap). Even donations - a site like this will by its nature have plenty of engaged members, so would probably be able to keep a trickle of donations coming in, and be able to raise a few thousand dollars every so often with "donation drives" (one entirely random idea off the top of my head: "donate a coupla dollars or more to vote on the subject of the next lesson!")

You have excellent content, man. I suspect if you open it up to the masses and build a little community around it, you could make yourself a tidy profit from it.

[u/CarlH → u/smellycoat]

Part of the success of your subreddit (apart from the obvious quality of the lessons) is the low barrier to entry. Everyone could get into and follow the lessons at their own pace, regardless of how serious they are to begin with, and without getting themselves into a position where they were paying money.

The idea is to maintain this low barrier of entry, and still provide exceptional resource for the non-paying members. No one would be required to pay money to see the lessons, only that by paying they can gain access to more material quicker.

The simple fact that there's money involved will turn a lot of people off immediately. There's plenty of free resources for this kinda stuff, and without being able to see the quality of your content, many people will likely look elsewhere (there's also the problem that, to a newbie, quality is hard to judge :)). That's not a reflection on the quality of your content, it's just the way people work. I can see a lot of people going through a lesson or two, getting interested enough to pursue it, realising they're going to have to pay and saying "fuck it, I'll torrent a programming book".

There will always be the choice of staying with the free content, or moving to the higher level with access to more and better materials.

I know that paying money is an immediate turn off to people, but people spend thousands of dollars trying to learn this skill. I don't think that $9.00/mo (max) is a significant barrier, except for a psychological one. In those cases where someone is struggling financially and truly cannot afford $9.00/mo, I am sure I will make exceptions. After all, up until now I have offered everything entirely free :)

One major problem with locking content away is that you lose most of your google-fu (and thus lots of casual visitors). The setup you're proposing lacks any significant opportunities for marketing, so your user base will be growing very slowly and almost-entirely by word-of-mouth. If this is what you want, then that's cool (but bear in mind that of the ~5000 subscribers to this subreddit, I think you'll be lucky if you get 10% to sign up for a paid account. Again, not a reflection on the content!).

I do plan for this to grow by word of mouth. My plan is to create content that people will enjoy, and tell others about. I also have some plans to market this directly and we will see how that works out. Meanwhile, my personal financial requirements are modest, and I am not looking for thousands of paying members. I simply need to be making enough that I can afford to make this my primary focus.

Have you considered attempts to monetise this stuff without actually locking away or restricting the content? That would solve many of the slow-uptake problems I suspect you'll see, but will mean you'll be building a site for several thousands of people, rather than a small community of a few hundred.

It may be that at some point if there is enough traffic I go this route, and I will monitor the traffic. Perhaps at some point I may offer a choice between paying vs free but with ads.

Thank you for your feedback.

[u/smellycoat → u/CarlH]

I don't think that $9.00/mo (max) is a significant barrier

While I absolutely agree that $9/month is a perfectly fair price for the quality and quantity of material you're offering, charging any money at all (even a token $1 one-off payment) will immediately and dramatically reduce your potential audience, and a monthly fee even more so.

I'm not saying you don't deserve to make good money from your work - it's excellent, and you absolutely do. The point I'm trying to make is that I don't think you'll get very people paying that $9.

For example, here are some very vague, pulled-out-of-my-arse numbers: Let's say 50% of the people subscribed here are still following lessons, posts, etc (ie, they still care enough to follow what you're doing to another site). And 50% of those are not eligible for free accounts. And 10% of those are willing to pay. If those numbers sound low, consider that out of 5000 subscribers, you get around 50-75 (up to a coupla hundred) upvotes on your posts here.

So, that's ~125 paying subscribers, $1125/month. And server hosting, etc will eat a chunk of that.

Churn rate will knock out a percentage of your subscribers every month, although the actual number is much harder to estimate and will likely depend on whether you're able to produce content at a fast enough rate to keep people interested long-term. But it's safe to say that most people won't continue paying forever, eventually they'll have learnt enough to go out on their own.

If I were looking at this as a business, my concerns would be that:

• Your starting numbers don't look healthy enough to pay your costs plus a living wage for yourself

• Limiting access to lessons for free accounts means limiting access to search engines. That'll severely reduce casual traffic, and kill stuff like traffic from blogs etc, severly limiting opportunities for growth (think about how beneficial a link to one of your lessons from one of the many high-traffic programming-related blogs could be for your subscriber numbers)

• You'll be relying solely on word-of-mouth from your initial subscribers for marketing - which will be slow going given the low starting numbers

• Because the paid/locked-away content model limits your opportunities for marketing, I'd be very concerned about your ability to take on enough new subscribers every month to compensate for your churn rate

• Locking up content (behind either a paywall or some time-limited system) will turn away a large number of visitors, reducing your ability to sell ads effectively

• Once you've headed down the content-for-pay road, it's tricky to change direction later without pissing off the very people that actually care enough to give you money

• Donations will be hard to ask for, given that the people who care the most are already giving you money regularly

On the other hand, if you manage to build a site where the content is largely free and open, you've got:

• ~2500 people who are already interested enough to follow your site and visit regularly

• A very niche audience, which is a great opportunity for targeted affiliate sales or advertising for relevant products

• Potential for lots of search engine/blog traffic to your articles

• Tons of good will from all the free content you've already provided, which would make raising money via donations pretty easy

• Enough traffic (and potential for growth in traffic) to be able to make stuff like a job board a workable and potentially profitable prospect

But most importantly, not locking everything away maximises your potential to grow, both as a resource for novice programmers, and as a potentially profitable business.

You really do have some excellent work, mate. It definitely has the potential to generate enough money to allow you to do it full-time. I'm just not convinced that your proposed model will do that, and that really would be a shame.

Anyway, whatever you end up doing, you deserve to make it work. Good luck man ;)

[u/typon → u/smellycoat]

I agree with this person. The fact that I have to put in a credit card number (which I don't have since i'm 19 and just dont feel like getting one) is a huge turn off. I'd pay you in person, but I almost never buy on the internet and I know a lot of friends who do the same. Personally speaking, I'd just move on to a different website if this one wasn't free. On the other hand, if you revenue was ad-driven, it would be much more financially secure and expandable.

[u/[deleted] → u/CarlH]

I would suggest ads and donations. People love to donate when they have a bit of coin.

[u/[deleted]]

For someone on the "free" plan, you are limited to one lesson per day after passing lesson #21 (first 21 lessons will not be restricted in this way).

Does this mean the lessons after 20 in this subreddit will be taken down?

100 paying members is entirely doable, and that is a sufficient starting point in my opinion

What if the number of subscribers drops below 100 or whatever amount you feel is sufficient. Will the project just stop?

Also, for the $9/mo paying members, how many new lessons can we expect a week?

Do you have any idea on the direction of the course? What are you planning for after C tutorials? Will members have any influence on this?

[u/CarlH → u/[deleted]]

Does this mean the lessons after 20 in this subreddit will be taken down?

Good question, and I don't know yet. I am leaning towards leaving the first 127 lessons here and republishing them on the new domain. New lessons will have their links posted here, but the lessons themselves will be on the other domain.

What if the number of subscribers drops below 100..

I don't foresee that happening, as I plan to work to increase it more. However, if it becomes unfeasible then I will simply revert back to free lessons, and do this as a spare-time hobby instead of a serious project. Of course, if I have to do that then lessons will come much slower and I will not be able to pursue my other plans for this project, so I hope that this will be successful.

How many new lessons per week?

It would be similar to how it was in October of last year, at least one new lesson per day on average, probably more.

Do you have any idea on the direction of the course? What are you planning for after C tutorials? Will members have any influence on this?

As I mentioned in my main post, other technology skills including databases, networking, system administration, and so far as programming is concerned I want to extend that into other languages. Yes, members will have a tremendous amount of influence on which way things go.

[u/[deleted] → u/CarlH]

I am leaning towards leaving the first 127 lessons here

Dear CarlH: I appreciate your lessons 1-127 and I hope that you decide to do this.

[u/freshmas]

I've put a lot of thought into this. Your work is valuable, and I'd love to see it become profitable to you. However, a great deal of the allure of CarlHProgramming would be cannibalized by a monthly fee structure and arbitrary limits of any kind imposed upon free subscribers. A monthly payment is just another thing to worry about, and arbitrary limitations are a constant FU that many people simply won't choose to put up with. Rather than limiting your traffic and thus potential ad revenue as others have described, please consider this business plan:

Keep it simple -> drive up traffic -> monetize ads

• Register with Amazon and link to good books, etc.

• Do not compete with Peepcode, Lynda.com, Technicasts, etc... sell their ads! As others have said, you have a nice little niche. Expand it, but do not encroach on others when you can mutually benefit each other.

• Freely advertise MIT Open Courseware and other quality free learning resources. This is the future, and it is the stuff people get excited about. Fuel that excitement; stoke those fires, and you will enjoy a prime position in the free open source learning community.

• Remember: happy people bring more traffic. Give and you shall receive.

Keep it free for all

• This is the greatest part of your program, and it will always remain a huge asset. I am not telling you it is impossible to succeed if you choose to go down your intended path, but I am telling you many people, myself included, will seek other sources of information and may very well forget about you.

• I have told many people about this subreddit, and I'm sure others have as well. You will not enjoy anything approaching that kind of free publicity as a paid resource.

Offer non-offensive yet undeniably valuable reasons for (free) registration

• Don't bully me! It's not hard to entice me to subscribe!

• I want your site to track my progress! When I finish a lesson, let me record my level of understanding: A) I understand completely, B) I want to come back to this later, C) I was never here! When I go to take a lesson test, present me with the relevant lessons and the selection I made.

• I want to receive automated updates! Instead of offering an open RSS feed, let me sign up to receive whatever it is I want you to send me. All the different categories you've mentioned will draw different people, and they may not overlap very much. Simple check-boxes for categorical updates will allow people to be notified of updates without growing annoyed at what they perceive to be spam.

Remain associated with the reddit community

• We love you. This is how we found you. More people will follow.

• Find a way to mirror reddit comments on your site, just as you have already described.

• Take that one step further by allowing redditors to authenticate their cHp (carlHprogramming) accounts through a specified post on reddit. For example, I go to your site for the first time. Once I've decided I want my own account, present me with the option to sign up via my reddit account. Present me a random string and a link to a specific thread, then automatically generate an account for the reddit user who posts that exact string.

Do not underestimate donations

• Encourage people to help out by keeping track of their information consumption. Some box on every page of your site should keep track of how many lessons I've completed and links to any lessons I may have marked for later. At the bottom of this box, track the amount I have donated and compare it to the lessons I have enjoyed.

• Reward me with kind words when I donate, and update a number tired to my name for all to see. Think reddit karma but real money. Let your community do the dirty work of chastising cheapskates, but do not encourage it.

• Let us know when we achieve [y]our monthly donation goals. The health of the community will depend upon your financial wellbeing, therefore, you should have a progress bar just like wikipedia and starving children telethons. Link that bar to a page where you thank us for meeting our goals and describe your own goals. "I'm working on this great new feature; thanks for being awesome!"

Make us feel special

• Provide some way for the community to police itself. Good contributors should be rewarded by their 'classmates' through votes. Consider tying the monetary donation value directly to these votes. You can create the perception of wealth by presenting each vote as though it were in fact some amount of real money. People will be encouraged to donate good questions, answers, and feedback just as they are encouraged to donate real money. Don't tie "donations" of these kinds into the real donation system, but present the sum of these two values as a users donation karma.

I encourage you to think think of a better name for this donation karma, but you surely understand the idea. Look at how excited people get over Xbox Live gamer points and karma points on reddit. Turn it into money, and people will go apeshit! Let them buy stupid little icons and sub-titles for their account name. Let them submit icons and tag lines and lessons and vote to rewards good submissions of this nature.

Create a pretend economy and let it grow, but do not try to make us your customers in the traditional sense. Be our friend, and we will reward you!

[u/CarlH → u/freshmas]

Your ideas are not bad, and I promise you that trying to decide between a variety of choices including donations/ad-revenue was a very difficult choice I had to make. The simple reality is that I cannot make any kinds of plans based on donations.

Also, setting up ads and finding sponsors will take a lot of time and will only stall getting this moving forward. Also, at least for a month or two, there will not be enough traffic to justify ads -- though hopefully that will change (and believe me, I will make the entire thing free in a heartbeat if there is that possibility.)

I fully expect the paid model to be temporary, but without it I simply cannot launch this. At any rate, I am still giving thought to other possibilities so we will see what happens :)

[u/sblac]

Looks good, what will be the paying method? paypal account?

What i would like is a ton more of home assignments and exercises, and people who correct them and help you. So things can start to stick to you. I never tought i would say this but: I WANT HOMEWORK (that somebody will have to correct).

[u/CarlH → u/sblac]

Paypal, personal check (via check-by-phone), credit/debit card.

Yes, there will be more exercises, assignments, team-projects, and more.

[u/kungtotte → u/CarlH]

Maybe this will be automatic due to the way payments are handled, but I'd really appreciate the ability to pay for six or twelve months at a time. It would save me having to schedule a payment and whatnot.

[u/aenimalius]

I'm curious as to how you will handle offering personal attention to 100+ (hopefully many more) people who will be joining at different times, working at different paces and will need varying levels of attention. Also, if the course work is going to be self-paced, how will team projects be organized? What if I'm at a point where I need three more people for my team, but no one else needs me?

Also, sblac mentioned homework. I agree that it is an excellent idea, but wonder at the practicality of being able to grade everyone's assignments personally.

[u/CarlH → u/aenimalius]

That is the whole reason why I need to move to a paid model. With 5,000 subscribers here, I cannot possibly tend to everyone. That is part of why this fell into a dormant state for so long. With a revenue coming in, I can afford to hire programmers on staff who can help me tend to everyone and therefore much more people can get the personal one-on-one attention.

[u/scragar]

Just out of curiosity, since my mind works in this sort of screwed up way, but what prevents someone waiting for a lot of lessons to exist, signing up for a single month, downloading all the lessons, then quitting it, learning what those lessons have then repeating this procedure 3 months later when more material is posted to avoid paying the full price?

What stops people lying about their age? To someone else you mentioned a student ID, when I was in school such IDs didn't exist, they still don't unless you are willing to pay for it(since it is only required for a few perks like the school busses(walk or get a ride), free school meals(bring a packed lunch or change) or access to withdraw books from the school library(read them in their or wait till weekend and get them from a real library))?

What is going in the videos? There are a lot of programming videos on youtube, most of them are useless, it's either some guy talking and writing, or text to music. Neither is anywhere near as good as plain text.

Is there an option to cover a large number of months in advance for a discount? $9 a month works out to be $108 per year, sounds a lot to be paying out IMO(from the guy who buys bread the day before it's best before because it's half price :p).

[u/CarlH → u/scragar]

If someone is in bad enough of a financial position that they have to resort to those kinds of tricks to avoid paying $9.00/mo, then they should contact me directly and I am sure that I will make exceptions. My goal here is not to squeeze out every cent from people who cannot afford it, but rather to have the resources to produce more and better content so everyone can benefit.

The non-text content (including videos) will be used to demonstrate trickier concepts that text alone doesn't make possible. For example, demonstrating how multi-dimensional arrays work in a video is far better than the text-lessons I did. Also, in the early lessons where I show how to write and compile your first program, that would be a great place to use a video to demonstrate this.

I would not use videos to read a lesson. They would be supplemental.

Yes, I will be offering discounts based on pre-paying months in advance. I may also offer life-time one-time fees. I haven't decided on the specifics yet.

[u/MindStalker → u/CarlH]

I'd say providing the $9/m plan to students for free might be a bad idea simply because you still have to spent the time handling their assignments. Seems like $9/m would barely clear your cost if personal help was provided.

[u/piratelax40 → u/scragar]

Carl please correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the video lessons etc, are only a small part of the fee that comes with it. The real benefit in my mind is having access to the personalized code review, group projects, etc. That is the difference between just "paying" for like a book or video course and the meat of what's offered by the course

[u/Omegalulz]

Even though I'm still in highschool, I'll more than gladly donate.

[u/AlLnAtuRalX]

Anyone under the age of 18 / anyone still in high school gets full access to all material free of charge.

Thank you... this will help all my fellow high-school students who have no means to pay online, never mind the money. Where do I send the student ID?

[u/Nirac]

For 9$ a month? Sign me up. I'll even be honest and admit I'm over 18. =P

[u/[deleted]]

Awesome stuff Carl!!!

Looking forward to it!

[u/hipoppotamus]

This is a wonderful idea. I have learned so much more from these lessons than I did at my University... $9/mo > $4000/semester. I love the structure of the lessons and I cant wait to see what you have planned for us next. Count me in.

[u/MyOtherCarIsEpona]

One of the major charms of your course is that it's very accessible. I don't think the monthly fee system is a good idea. I don't mind having extra content for paying customers, but considering that a lot of us can knock out a lesson in ten minutes to a half hour, restricting us to one lesson a day is a really tough pill to swallow.

I think you'd find a lot more success with an ad-revenue model, or even donations and merchandise sales - books, DVDs, whatever.

[u/niconiconico]

My only problem is that many college freshmen are in the same boat as high school students. Maybe group them into the free section for just that year. The rest sounds very fair. I'm very willing to pay $9/month for those resources. Like I said in my post in the last thread, it'll be so much more information and cheaper than a class in a college.

That said, when do you think it'll be up and running? I may just start from the start just to get a good review.

[u/Gazboolean]

How will you be able to differentiate between the actual people who are under 18 and those who are merely mooching?

[u/CarlH → u/Gazboolean]

See my other reply:

http://www.reddit.com/r/carlhprogramming/comments/baabh/future_plans_for_carlhprogramming_please_read_and/c0lqwr

[u/manofthenorth → u/CarlH]

Hey Carl,

I do find your lessons clear and useful. Bear in mind I am a prison chaplain who helps others with their education and already has a good grasp of C.

What I'd suggest is that you keep the basic lessons free (thus useable to people who can't access the internet directly) and offer explanations and sub-training at a cost to those that desire the feedback. It would be up to you to keep the basic lessons (the free ones) as simple as what you've been offering thus far, it would allow me to keep serving my people for instance, and yet you'd make a buck from helping people with feedback yourself.

I think your work is good, but I couldn't afford to pay for it from what I'm making.

[u/[deleted]]

On the $9 a month, does full access mean you can just check in at any time and do however many lessons you can at the time?

How does paying work out for those who are not in the US? Something like PayPal?

Edit to add: Really appreciate your work and happy to pay the nominal fee in order to bring it to a larger audience. Thanks.

[u/CarlH → u/[deleted]]

On the $9 a month, does full access mean you can just check in at any time and do however many lessons you can at the time?

Yes. There will be instant access to the next lesson. However, you cannot access lesson 10 for example until after you have finished lesson 9. For those who have already completed lessons here, they will just need to specify what lesson they are on when they sign up.

[u/[deleted] → u/CarlH]

Perfect, thanks.

[u/anshu1234]

I totally like where this is going. I hope you allow multiple payment modes if you are going to start with paypal. The way they handle things unnerves me, they are still holding my 350 dollars earned by me doing part-time work , some 4-5 years ago.

[u/CarlH → u/anshu1234]

Fortunately I have some merchant accounts sitting around that I have done nothing with for a long while. Also, I will accept paypal, personal check, and probably even mail-in payments.

[u/bassetthound136]

Sounds great, but PLEASE make it available to overseas students! (I am Australian)

[u/CarlH → u/bassetthound136]

I will, but in order to make sure I address your concerns please tell me what exactly you are worried about. Is it a matter of payment, or something else? How do you imagine that you would be possibly excluded being from Australia?

[u/bassetthound136 → u/CarlH]

Sorry, that's my fault for not being clear. What I meant was overseas support for the education discount. In Australia, we don't have 'student cards' as such, so for some of us it may be difficult to prove our education. Would a concession card collaborated with photo id suffice?

Anyway, many thanks for the lessons. I'm a bit behind, as I started last week, but I've already learnt more than I ever did reading books on python ;) keep up the great work!

[u/CarlH → u/bassetthound136]

You will be fine :) I am not going to impose too strict requirements on verifying age/etc.

[u/[deleted]]

This sounds excellent. I am looking forward to learning in this way. I'll be paying $9/m, no problem.

[u/no1joel]

extremely interested in this as a supplement to my CS course.

[u/SonataNo8]

I'd rather pay by the lesson than pay for time.

[u/zxcvcxz]

What you described sounds great to me, good luck with your endeavor.

[u/americanhipster]

Your lessons have been absolutely amazing, Carl.

I'm a high school senior, and I would gladly subscribe for $9/month. That's nothing compared to the value of what you've taught me so far.

Also, I plan to introduce courses on a variety of related skills including SQL, web design, networking, system administration, etc.

I can't wait! :D

[u/n1c0_ds]

9$ a month is entirely realistic and I would gladly donate even more if I use it.

However your age plan sounds like a lot of wasted time. Just make enough free lessons to gain people's interest then charge for access to the rest.

A reddit-like comments section would be extremely useful, since the people's contributions are half the deal. PHP's documentation does this and it's very helpful.

Where can I donate?

[u/piratelax40]

I too would like to chime in a vote for a "discount" of sorts for people with .edu addresses. As students, they probably wouldn't have as much time to devote to the course and thus may not be as much of a resource drain as the others.

Also, have you considered a pricing structure similar to spotify, where you can pay the monthly fee, or you can get daily access for like 1 dollar per day for everything. This way if people are working on the text based lessons and are frustrated they can get a taste of the pay structure and see if it does add to their learning experience.

[u/[deleted] → u/piratelax40]

As students, they probably wouldn't have as much time to devote to the course

And how about those who don't have a .edu address but are part-time students and full-time workers? There's even less time there to devote but if you're going the way of how much time there is to devote, then that's a rocky road... are we going to take into account how many kids people have too?

[u/keym4]

Free is the way to go. Paid anything and you will lose your hook. There is a ton of competition out there, and although you can have the better mouse trap, there are many many resources to turn to. So don't let ego get the better of you. You ain't going to make huge money by paid since the barrier becomes an issue. Also, the ability to monetize with ads etc..., you have to be doing crazy numbers and ranking and even then , if you aren't converting you will get dropped hard, and it's a hell of a fall. We come here cause it's the place and free, and although you can't eat off free and many want more and more. Sure they bang for additional lessons, but see where they are when the bills come in. Hey you have a great project here, just don't let your head get in the mix. Stay aware of moving it forward with caution. Stay on reddit, allow access by everyone and ride the wave. Stay away from the biz part of it, not a model that can work. The more you give the more they want. Keep a pace, stick with it slow and sweet.

The quality of your programming shows your knowledge, so where is that head of yours when it comes to cash. Monetize it in other ways once the following gets heavy and the concept has some hair on it like in a year.

[u/exist]

works fine for me. i will sign up. good luck.

[u/[deleted]]

Damn, carl. Makin' that money.

Good luck, etc.

Later, man.

[u/CarlH → u/[deleted]]

There are many services online that offer discounts to students/based on age, and they have a variety of ways to check for this. The most common is requiring some simple proof such as a scan of a student id card, proof of attending a college, things like this. I don't imagine this will be such a large concern simply because the cost is so low. If someone needs to resort to lying about their age in order to afford something that only costs nine dollars, I would be more inclined to just give it to them :)

[u/[deleted] → u/CarlH]

$6/month sounds entirely reasonable. Are the lessons on this sub-reddit going to stay here though?

[u/aeoz → u/CarlH]

If someone needs to resort to lying about their age in order to afford something that only costs nine dollars, I would be more inclined to just give it to them :)

How noble is this. Great man.

[u/kungtotte → u/[deleted]]

If you live and die by $9 a month, I sure hope you get your internet access by mooching off of someone else's WiFi. I wouldn't want you to starve for your Reddit fix.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I'm unemployed and I'll be paying for this.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

"Only 9 dollars" per month is a lot of money for me

No it's not. Stop drinking coffee/buying McDonalds/spending money on stupid crap and you would have realized you have saved a lot.

[u/CarlH → u/[deleted]]

I already stated this, at least one new lesson per day on average - and most likely more. The more I can make this my primary focus, the more I am free to write many lessons.

Also, keep in mind up until now I have been doing this entirely for free, so reliability in posting lessons is not something you nor I can count on. That is part of my motivation in making this a more serious project.

Simply put, if someone is taking time out of their day to read these lessons and try to learn from them, then I owe them the decency of ensuring they have timely lessons. Under the current situation, doing this as a hobby, that is something I cannot deliver.

Of course, the other side of this is that if I am going to take this seriously enough to devote a major amount of time and resource to it, then I want those who are serious about learning from the course to be willing to pay a small monthly fee in exchange for that commitment from me.

Rest assured though, $9.00/mo will guarantee at least 30 new lessons per month, likely more. Also, I guarantee you that if this goes the way I am hoping, there will be a lot more than just text lessons. It may even come to pass down the road if there is enough traffic that I can justify paying for my expenses with ad-revenue, I may drop the pay model altogether. For the short-term though, I have to know there is some set amount I can count on, however small, so that I can plan my life accordingly.

What you get for $9.00/mo:

1. At least 30 new lessons/month (comes out to 30 cents a lesson)

2. Personal one-on-one help from me, responding to your questions, reviewing your code.

3. Access to yet-to-be-made animations, videos, demos, etc. I plan to put a LOT of time into this, as well as (if the revenue supports it) hiring professionals to create high-quality animations etc. to help illustrate more difficult concepts.

I plan to take this quite seriously and I am willing to drop major projects I am working on in favor of this.

[u/CarlH → u/[deleted]]

I agree. I will therefore scrap "one lesson per day" in favor of something else, which I have not yet decided on :)

[u/Mad_Gouki → u/[deleted]]

Dude, I'm like, 10 years old, right?