The $6M Course Business Exit, In Brief
An entrepreneur went from broke to building and selling a stock trading course company that made $6 million in just two years.
The journey was messy, full of failed attempts, and almost collapsed several times.
Here’s what turned it around:
- Gave away the entire course for free to build trust and credibility
- Used Facebook and community groups to attract thousands of leads
- Turned a Discord trading community into a powerful sales channel
- Scaled fast after hiring a professional sales team
- Relied on the success of a few standout students to fuel demand
The full story shows how a struggling founder, a risky pivot, and the right team created one of the fastest-growing online course businesses in his market.
On Reddit, a founder told the story of how he built and sold an online course company for $6 million in two years.
It wasn’t an overnight success and it came off the back of multiple failed projects.
But it is a great case study on the power of staying the course, trusting your intuition, and acting on inspiration when it reveals itself to you.
Early Failures & Back Story
He was 25. He had already started and failed at several businesses. The last one was a mobile gaming company.
At its peak, it made $4,000 a day. All the money went back into development.
The next game failed. The business shut down.
He joined a coding bootcamp. He did not want to be a developer. He just needed a path forward.
While visiting his parents, he spoke with a childhood friend.
The friend had made $300,000 trading penny stocks.
His father had made even more. Both learned from pirated online courses.
The founder saw an opportunity. He did not want to trade. He wanted to sell courses.
The First Course
He and his friend made a course. The content was good. The production was poor.
They added a third partner to handle marketing. They made no sales for weeks.
Their first customer paid $300. They offered him 10 hours of coaching. Split three ways, they earned $10 an hour.
After that, sales stopped again. The third partner quit.
Giving It Away
The founder remembered advice from a marketer: give your best content away for free. Sell the rest.
They released the full course for free.
They promoted it on Facebook. The founder even created a fake profile to comment on competitors’ ads and redirect people to their site.
It worked. More than 1,000 people signed up.
They created a Discord group. The friend posted trades and results. This built trust.
Paid Course
With an audience in place, they launched a paid course.
The offer was simple. The free course taught trading. The paid course taught how to profit.
They made $40,000 in a few days. The next month they made $20,000. Then $10,000. Growth stalled.
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Results
The company collected many video testimonials.
One of the top ten soccer players in the country, also a national team player, said on camera:
“I made more money thanks to these guys in the last years than I made as a professional soccer player in the last ten.”
Several students claimed they earned their first million through the courses.
Internally, the team often said they had helped create more than 20 millionaires.
In reality, the founder estimates the number was closer to 10. That figure does not include students who built smaller but steady streams of extra income.
The majority of students did not succeed.
The founder is clear about this.
He says the knowledge was there, but the results depended on the student.
One of the most successful students came from the founder’s own hometown.
At the start, he dismissed the idea entirely. “Nobody will ever buy this. You’re wasting your time. It’s a stupid idea.”
Later, he went on to make millions in profits from the very same program.
Sales Team
The founder stepped back. He was in debt and living with his parents.
Then the team hired an outsourced sales manager named Henry. In the first month he sold $40,000.
In the second month he sold $90,000. Within months the company made between $150,000 and $300,000 a month.
They added more courses. They grew the community to 13,000 members. They reached $6 million in revenue. The company had no employees and operated fully remote.
Conflicts between partners ended the run. The founder sold his shares. Soon after, the business collapsed.
As exits go, $6 million for two years of work is damn impressive, especially since he did it with no employees. It might have been a bumpy ride, but that’s life, right?
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