Lessons Learned  Background pattern Over the years I’ve built plenty of courses in various forms, but they’ve all been quite small. More like tutorials with some screencasts. Building [Make WordPress Fast](https://withinwp.com/courses/make-wordpress-fast), the first full course I’ve ever launched, and probably the most ambitious solo thing I’ve attempted in a while, has already taught me plenty. If you’ve ever thought about creating a course, are building one right now, or just want a behind-the-scenes peek into what it really takes… here’s what I’ve learned. #### 1. Planning is easy when you don’t know what you’re planning Before I started, I had a clear vision: 25 modules. Full-stack performance. Deep, structured, no fluff. I mapped out what I wanted to teach. I knew the tools, the demos, the teaching angles. What I didn’t account for? * How long good scripting actually takes across close to 100 lessons * How often I’d rework examples to be clearer * How a single fine-tuning can easily cost an entire afternoon * The mental cost of switching between “expert” and “explainer” In hindsight, my plan looked great because it didn’t account for the actual reality of production. It was a blueprint drawn in clean lines, not the mess of cables behind the wall. #### 2. Recording isn’t just talking into a mic I’ve done tons of public speaking. I record screencasts all the time. Still, I underestimated the energy it takes to: * Teach clearly, with structure, while maintaining flow * Keep the tone right for an audience ranging from junior devs to seasoned pros * Nail a screen recording *and* talking head *and* decent audio in one go * Rerecord things you thought were perfect, because on replay, they just weren’t And then there was the thing I didn’t see coming: **Losing my voice.** Completely. For almost a full week. In the middle of my planned recording sprint. No workaround. Just waiting and reshuffling everything. #### 3. Post-production eats time like nothing else You finish recording and think: Great, now I just trim the start and end, throw in a title card, and we’re good. Right? Wrong. Post-production is its own full-time job. Every pause, glitch, “uhhh,” or imperfect cut matters when you’re teaching. Add in transcriptions, accessibility passes, visual clarity checks, and editing multiple camera angles, and suddenly 10 hours of raw video becomes a serious workload. Thankfully, I handed all that off to my editor. But still, **every hour of video equals hours of invisible effort**, and most of it happens after you stop recording. #### 4. Your audience will be more patient and impatient than you think Some people have been incredibly kind, patient, and understanding about the delays. Others… not so much. And I get it. If you pay for something early, you expect it to ship on time if a time has been communicated. And that’s fair. But here’s the unexpected part: The pressure hasn’t come from anyone else nearly as much as it’s come from myself. Delaying something you care about isn’t just uncomfortable, it *follows you*. It follows me. It lingers behind every task, every moment of downtime, every “I should be working on the course right now” thought. You start feeling guilty even when you’re still making progress. That’s been the hardest part. #### 5. The course will be better because of the delays But I’d still do it differently. Every delay has made the course better. More refined. More clear. More useful. But for my next course, Cloudflare for WordPress, I’ll do a few things differently: * Don’t announce a date until the content is recorded * Don’t try to do scripting, recording, and business-as-usual work in parallel * Build in time buffers, and then double them * Only commit to a prelaunch if you’re confident your post-production pipeline is airtight * Assume everything will take longer than you want, because it will #### 6. Never communicate a prelaunch date until you’re damn sure you can hit it This one stings the most, because I knew better. I’ve been in the WordPress space for two decades. I’ve launched products, run events, shipped projects under pressure. And still, I made the classic mistake: **I shared a date too early.** Not because I was trying to create fake urgency. Not because I needed sales fast. But because I *genuinely believed* I’d be done by then. And that belief created pressure. Not just for me, but for everyone who signed up expecting delivery. When things started slipping, I had to rewrite emails, eat some crow, and rebuild trust in real time. That’s not fun. **Lesson learned**: don’t attach a public date to a prelaunch until you’re at the point where the remaining steps are boringly predictable. No blockers. No big unknowns. No “if everything goes to plan.” Just execution. Only then is a date a promise you can actually keep. #### Final thoughts If you’ve been waiting on [Make WordPress Fast](https://withinwp.com/courses/make-wordpress-fast/), thank you. I don’t take your trust lightly, and I’m working hard to make sure this course is worth every minute of the wait. I’ve been blown away with how many people have purchased the pre-launch and I do not take that trust lightly. If you’re building a course yourself, I hope this helps you skip a few of the mistakes I walked straight into. And if you’re just here for the honest version of what course-building looks like behind the scenes, I hope this gave you that too. We’re almost there. And when it drops, it’s going to be solid. It’s going to be worth it. #### Stay in the Loop Whether you’re here for personal reflections or deep WordPress insights, there’s more where this came from. I write two newsletters worth your time. Each serving a different part of my brain (and maybe yours too). If you’re serious about building faster, more secure, and more reliable WordPress sites, this newsletter is for you. I focus on the news around tools, plugins, and practices that power professional-grade WordPress sites. This is my personal newsletter where I share things I blog about, ideas I’m exploring, books I’m reading, tools I’m testing, and the occasional strong opinion loosely held., Lessons Learned, Remkus, 01kdk1p1j2hj56fwzetj471f1e.