The Art of Selling Online Courses 241 Meet the Piano Teacher Who Built a $2M Online School
Joseph Hoffman was halfway through a conducting degree when he started teaching neighbourhood kids piano to pay the bills. He fell in love with it, pivoted his whole career, and eventually moved online with a pretty unconventional idea... give every single lesson away for free.
That decision led to Hoffman Academy reaching over 200,000 students across 115 countries, $2M a year in revenue, and a team of 15 people building one of the most recognised online piano schools in the world.
In this episode Joseph shares how the freemium model actually works in practice, what he's learned about converting free users into paying members, why a 30-day free trial completely flopped for them and what they did instead, and how he's thinking about growing the business in 2026.
Really enjoyed this conversation. Joseph has built something genuinely special and there's a lot here for anyone running or thinking about running a subscription-based online course.
🔗 Check out Hoffman Academy: https://www.HoffmanAcademy.com
🔗 Find Joseph on social media: @Hoffmanacademy
#OnlineCourses #SalesFunnels #CourseCreators #DigitalMarketing
🤝 Get In Touch
If you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.