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51 Unique and Inspiring Online Courses Changing Lives and Creating Income
If you’re thinking about creating an online course, you may have noticed just how many are in the make money online or business markets. There are a lot of courses in markets like these because there’s a need for them. Plus there’s a high return on investment in these markets.
But online courses are not only for make money online type courses, they’re for all kinds of opportunities! Unique, inspiring courses exist out there (as shown in this list) and often these are very profitable too.
There are all types of skills you can teach people. And there are all types of course creators you’ve never heard of creating courses in unique markets outside business and making money online.
I know this since I’m one of those people. I’ve made right around 6-figures per year selling a test prep course in an obscure market just about every year since 2001.
Since I’ve started interviewing online course creators I’ve found a lot of people making money in all kinds of topic areas. Many of which are downright inspiring.
I’ve put this article together to help inspire you that you can be a successful provider of digital training in a unique market. From breakup recovery to anticancer living there’s quite a variety here to help spark ideas. This list will also help you see that whatever course idea you might have may be something people actually need.
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Beauty
1. Natural Facelift Method by Anne Hilarius-Ford
Anne created the Natural Facelift Method, which is a course designed to help erase the signs of aging. The biggest benefit is being empowered to look refreshed and rejuvenated just using your fingers and a little tool. No expensive products are required.
- Learn more about Anne’s first course launch where she earned $1,000 …
2. Online Eyelash Courses by Yegi Beauty
Apart from products and on-site classes, Yegi Beauty offers online training courses for those interested in pursuing a career in the beauty industry. Yegi currently has over 70K YouTube subscribers and over 36K followers on Instagram.
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Cooking
3. Raw Dessert Chef Certification with Crystal Bonnet
Crystal started a course called the Raw Desserts Chef Certification Course. The course is for anyone interested in making healthy, nutritious, no-bake, plant-based desserts for their family or as a business.
4. Children’s Cooking Workshop
Karen M. Ricks, head chef at Our Kitchen Classroom, created The Ultimate Cooking with Children Workshop. This course is a fantastic way for busy moms to learn how to show their children the world without ever leaving their home kitchen!
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Health & Wellness
5. Breakup Recovery with Lee Wilson
Lee went from helping people one-on-one to creating YouTube videos watched by the tens of thousands. Once he realized the need, he created the Emergency Breakup Kit to coach more people on how get their ex back.
6. Fairy Tale Transformational Courses with Faithaline Hippolyte
Faithaline created courses based on lessons drawn from fairy tale stories to help women improve their minds and lives. Her products are unique and inspiring. Each lesson is based on themes drawn from beloved fairy tale stories. Also, in addition to being transformational and helping women improve their minds and lives, the fairy tale connection also makes them fun!
7. Cheerleading Dance Fitness by Flavia Berys
Flavia Berys created PomFit so people could follow along with her cheerleading dance fitness classes from anywhere.
8. YogaFaith with Michelle A. Thielen
Michelle founded YogaFaith which offers Christian based Yoga training. Many of her courses are for people who want to become a Yoga instructor based in faith.
9. Health Transformation in 49 Days with Tehzeeb Lalani
Tehzeeb created Scale Beyond Scale to help people become the healthiest, fittest version of themselves in just a few weeks.
10. Anticancer Lifestyle Program Founded by Meg Hirshberg
First established at Concord Hospital in N.H., the Anticancer Lifestyle Program is now adapted into an online lifestyle transformation course for cancer survivors, and those interested in prevention, who seek to adopt healthy habits that reduce their risk of cancer and other chronic illnesses.
11. Mindfulness Immersion with Erin Sharaf
Erin offers a 10 week online Mindfulness Immersion course because she believes world peace starts with inner peace. It’s geared toward leaders who want to bring more kindness and compassion to their existing work.
12. Mind Into Motion Weight Loss with Gretchen Gegg
Gretchen Gegg created an online course called The MiMo Method. It is a transformational program teaching women a lasting way to lose weight by putting the MInd into MOtion! The course teaches cognitive behavioral techniques. It is about making healthy changes in a body-positive environment!
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Arts & Hobbies
13. Digital Photo Organization with Caroline Guntur
Caroline runs several online courses in the field of family history, photo organizing, and digital organizing. Her bestselling course is DPO PRO: The Ultimate Photo Organizing Masterclass. It helps learners consolidate, organize, and preserve digital photos so they can be enjoyed again for future generations.
14. Create Children’s Picture Books with Laura Backes
Laura Backes created an online course that lets anyone – regardless of their previous experience to create an awesome children’s picture book. Her Writing Blueprints series take people step-by-step through the process of writing all kinds of books, revising them and getting them published.
15. Calligraphy with Nicki Traikos
Nicki runs online courses at Life I Design targeted towards creatives and those who want to work from home or start a side hustle. She offers about 7 courses related to lettering, digitizing and how to make money from calligraphy by working from home.
- Learn more about Nicki’s online course business which brings in $1,000/month …
16. Refinishing Furniture with Kristin Smith
Kristin sells BB Frosch painting products and online courses covering chalk painting and cabinet painting. Topics include the Ultimate Guide to Painting Cabinets, the Ultimate Guide to Chalk Painting, and How to Paint Vintage and Antique Furniture.
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Language
17. English Speaking Courses with Shayna Oliveira
Shayna helps people learn English with practical lessons that only take a few minutes a day. She offers well over a dozen English speaking courses from Espresso English which specializes in teaching English as a Second Language.
18. Greek Lessons with Vasiliki Baskos
Vasiliki runs an online school where she teaches modern Greek, one-to-one via Skype. She started teaching Greek online in 2012, when a student of hers moved far away. The lessons were a success, the student improved, and more students became interested.
19. Learn Spanish with Dr. Morton
Dr. Morton’s course, Learn Spanish The Smart Way helps students carry on a simple conversation in 30 days. Learners gain a basic understanding of Spanish culture, vocabulary, and grammatical concepts.
20. Learn Languages Online with Albert Learning
Founded by Jinesh Kawa and David Ansellem, Albert Learning allows students to start their language learning journey with just an internet connection and a laptop, computer, phone or tablet. Learn English, Spanish, French, Russian and German from anywhere around the world.
21. Learn French with Angel Pretot
Angel Pretot created the French Fluency Accelerator, an online course and community experience that helps English speakers develop the French skills they dream of using in their real life. Thanks to a unique process, inspiring and actionable live workshops, and a very supportive global community of English speaking French learners, students make progress faster than ever – even if they had been trying to learn French for years and falling short.
22. Learn Latin with Jonathan Roberts
Jonathan, Director of The Ancient Language Institute, develops and runs online courses for all levels of Latin students – from middle school students to college professors. The goal is for students to have fun while they learn Latin.
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Music
23. Electric Guitar Lessons with David Wallimann
David created Guitar Playback, an online learning school providing courses for people wanting to learn how to play and improve their electric guitar skills. He serves electric guitar players interested in developing their musical personality.
- Discover how David Earns $40/month teaching guitar …
24. Jazz Guitar Lessons with Marc-Andre Seguin
Marc’s courses allow students to improve their jazz guitar playing with a real instructor on camera. His courses serve guitarists that can already play at an intermediate or advanced level. The biggest benefit is his courses eliminate the “overwhelm” people get when they learn jazz.
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Corporate
25. Pest Control Training for Pest Exterminators with Foster Brusca
Foster helped create the Pest Posse Academy which provides training for the small to medium size pest control company as well as individual pest management professionals.
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Education
26. Calculus Courses with Jenn Stull
Jenn created Calcworkshop to help students turn their calculus grades around. She offers step-by-step instruction in over 150 HD videos designed to help students learn faster than in the classroom.
27. Teaching Kids to Read with Lauren Goldblatt
Lauren created the online videos at Kickstart Reading designed to help kids ages 3-6 read with 2 minute videos.
28. Online Science Courses for Students with Jonathan Polley
Jonathan runs Make Science Easy where he provides online science courses for high school students and home-schooled kids.
29. Middle and High School Coursework with Damian Creamer
Damian created StrongMind, an education technology company that produces digital curriculum for thousands of middle and high school students across the U.S.
30. Most Affordable University in the U.S. by Fadl Al Tarzi
Founded by Fadl, Nexford University is a new type of online university, created in Washington DC. It’s designed to help students gain their degree in less time and with less expense.
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General Career
31. Leadership Skills for Introverts with Scott Asai
Scott Asai offers information on developing leadership skills, especially for introverts. He offers courses to help introverts develop leadership skills including, “Career Pivot: How To Plan Your Next Career In 30 Days Or Less”.
32. Online Salary Negotiation by Lauren Hasson
Lauren is the Founder of DevelopHer which features an award-winning, online salary negotiation course. Women who have applied her framework and taken her salary negotiation course have earned $25K, $65K, $80K, and more in just a single negotiation.
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Presentations
33. Brain Friendly Presentations with Melissa Majors
Melissa created How to Design and Deliver Brain-Friendly Presentations, a micro-course covering vitally important tips for all presenters. Storytelling, analogies, and the use of context setting imagery are just a few of the brain-friendly topics discussed in this game-changing course.
34. Public Speaking with Dee Clayton
Dee created courses to maximize communications. Her courses include public speaking training and most recently a course on communication styles training.
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Professional Development/Certifications
35. C# Training by Andrea Angella
Andrea created Productive C#, a training membership for anyone who wants to become a master and productive C# developer. Productive C# is the only learning platform on the planet completely dedicated to serving professional C# developers.
- Learn more about Andrea Angella’s 5-figure Productive C# membership …
36. Project Management Certifications with Resit Gulec
Founded by Resit, Master of Project Academy prepares professionals for their certification exams. Since 2012, his company has helped more than 100,000 professionals in more than 180 countries pass their certification exams. Courses offered include PMP, CAPM, PMI-ACP, Prince2, Agile and many other certification courses for professionals.
37. Storyboarding with Mr. Mo
Mr Mo, (Jeong Mo Yang) offers the Storyboard Masterclass for aspiring Storyboard Artists who want to work in the entertainment industry. The course teaches all the fundamentals needed to become an efficient storyboard artist, plus it shows learners a proven way to break into the entertainment industry.
- Learn more about Mr. Mo’s $12,907 Storyboard Masterclass launch …
38. Professional Development for Teachers with Shayna & Adam Pond
Shayna & Adam created Model Teaching to provide professional development courses to teachers and other educators. Teachers get everything they need for implementation including tons of resources for the classroom, an action plan based on the course content, and follow up support.
- Discover how Shayna & Adam used backward design to make their online courses as effective as live training …
39. Improve Engineering Skills with Pedro Santana
Pedro created SolidProfessor, an online learning platform for engineering design teams, professionals, and instructors at K12 and post-secondary schools. Their Library includes 340+ on-demand video courses in CAD, CAM, BIM, engineering methods, and more.
40. Evaluate Google Search Results with Danilo Godoy
Danilo Godoy, founder of the Search Evaluator Academy created a course on how to evaluate the relevance of web search results, called the SEA Model. Although the course is primarily tailored to people who want to prepare for the search engine evaluator exam, it’s also suitable for anyone who wants to learn how to measure the relevance of a web search result.
41. Professional Development & Certification Prep for Teachers with Mary Stephens
Mary Stephens, founder of PrepForward offers online courses to prepare educators for success. PrepForward’s courses are designed to help teachers at all stages of their career, from helping prospective teachers pass their certification exams to existing teachers seeking professional development.
42. Pass Career Assessments with PrepTerminal
PrepTerminal is a platform providing new aptitude and assessment tests for a variety of careers. They also offer courses on how to improve your IQ, become a better leader, and prepare yourself for hands-on work.
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Skills
43. Driving Certifications with Darren Cottingham
Darren’s courses on DrivingTests.co.nz consist of over a dozen courses on driver training including Forklift Operator’s Certificate, Logbooks & Work Time: Heavy Vehicle Drivers, and Driving in Difficult Conditions.
44. Virtual Assistant Training with Hannah Dixon
Hannah is the Founder of the Virtual Assistant Starter Kit. This course helps people start and grow their virtual assistant business.
45. College Prep Courses with Shaan Patel
Shaan Patel offers college prep courses through PrepExpert. He is the winner of a Shark Tank deal with billionaire Mark Cuban. Shaan worked hard to get a perfect score on the SAT and has perfected his online course to help others greatly increase their scores and get into the college of their dreams.
46. Learn Bookkeeping with Kristin Ingram
Kristin Ingram helps moms work from home with her Bookkeeper Training School. It provides students with everything they need to learn the skills, learn the software, and provide bookkeeping services to others.
47. Learn Microsoft Excel with Sumit Bansal
Sumit Bansal runs TrumpExcel.com, a website including courses helping people master Microsoft Excel. Learn how to use Excel to make advanced spreadsheets with Sumit.
48. Explore Robotic Process Automation with Sergey Yudovskiy
Sergey’s course explores the basic ideas of RPA as a technology and as tools that help companies and employees around the world to be more productive. You don’t have to be a coder to understand the course.
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Writing
49. Make Money Ghostwriting with Joshua Lisec
Joshua helps people earn money as ghostwriters through his Ghostwrite & Prosper course. He has earned as much as $35,000 to $100,000+ per book project and helps students do the same in his course.
50. Storytelling for Digital Nomads with Liz Rae
Liz offers her Storytelling for Digital Nomads course. It’s your creative space to learn how to tell stories in an impactful, meaningful way in both a self-paced online course or through monthly live sessions. The course teaches how to generate an idea flow, the structure of a story, how to present a great story, and challenges to test story creation through different mediums such as photo, video, and writing.
- Learn more about how Liz has grown her business with her online course …
51. Learn How to Become a Writer
Bryan Collins offers his Become a Writer Today video masterclass. He offers proven writing prompts to help learners write better.
Conclusion
That’s it, the 51 unique and inspiring online courses outside the make money online and business markets. One thing I should note is that I found these courses really easily. I’m sure I could find 500 more, but for now, hopefully, this shorter list will help inspire your next online course idea!
If you need more ideas, take a look at our niche ideas article. There are 287 hot niche ideas there!
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Leave any comments or further suggestions on creative, unique online courses you’ve seen or taken below …