I Made It: What Joy Cho dreamed up and started her online course

Learn from Joy Cho's tips on growing your brand, soliciting feedback from your audience and managing your creative process as a maker or entrepreneur.

Revolutionary products are usually linked to one guy that made the decision to design the one product that no one was ever aware of before.

One man decided to cut bread; it spread like wildfire.

Another decided to test growth in mold. It changed antibiotics as we know these.

It's just not that easy. This hasn't been the case.

These singular choices were results of a hundred little choices that were made. The makers don't wake up and produce an item by the time they eat the time breakfast is served.

They tinker. They toil. They create something with some love and a lot of labor.

Think of Joy Cho , founder of Oh Joy! , as an example. The founder didn't hire an extra set of hands on the spur of a moment She made hundreds of choices along the way and finally decided to build a dream team .

It was only a one-time decision for the moment, however it was it was the culmination of every growth and development before it.

The decision that ultimately put her company's name on the Target shelves . This led to appearances in major medication publications such as The Times, Fast Company, Oprah Magazine and Good Morning America, too.

It also proved instrumental in the development of her very first online course, Growing the Team of Dreams. Team .

Let's start unpacking, beginning by describing how she built the most popular account on Pinterest.

How Joy makes use of social media in order to increase her followers (and the size of her business)

Owning the most followed account on Pinterest, Joy is no new to social media. Joy created her Pinterest profile in 2010 when it was still in beta and built on an invite-only account.

The account of Joy is the biggest on the entire platform with ~5.3 million followers when we were writing.

The reason she gained her acclaim was not just being involved from the beginning, however.

The content she posted was one that was published on an older model of social media: her blog.

She explains, "Because we started doing social media through a blog in 2005, by that point, we already had a decent social media presence through blogs."

So, as one of the 100 first Pinterest users, sharing content via the platform seemed like a natural choice.

More crucially, Joy was able to remain authentic on Pinterest. "It's an amazing idea . . . Because we actually use it. We're like actual users and . . . super users, if that."

After working involved in social media for 14 years, what's the greatest lesson?

She's learned to diversify her marketing avenues. Joy knows that there are ebbs and flows to all social platforms and she's seen the peak and valleys with the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Periscope.

"I've discovered that I shouldn't put all my eggs in a single basket,"" she reveals. "So even though our Pinterest following is large but we also are focused on a lot of different areas."

This is the way Joy handles her business as well. Although her company is a design studio first, her team has diversified her products to include many products that are design-related, like Oh Joy! Academy. Oh Joy! Academy .

Take a look:

Her huge following on social media which led to that one idea to develop an online course -- and what a decision that proved to be beneficial to her company.

The idea for Joy's online course was inspired by her students

The notion of developing the online course was a result of her students rather than just a spark of inspiration.

As she grew her business and fan base, she continued to receive queries from her customers and fans, including:

How are you doing this?

How are you finding great people?

How do you keep these?

The course concept was a no-brainer. Joy wanted to include everything she'd learned about herself, as well as her failures, and "put them in a course to help people who are nearing or are ready to start growing an organization."

"For me it was an opportunity to help share everything I've learned with others out there that are eager to take their business to the next step."

How did she go about providing what the audience would like to be taught in the shape of an online course?

A potent blend of previous experiences, creative constraints, and the spontaneity.

What Joy explained, documented her, and recorded her first online class

Due to the fact that Joy had written three books, including two of which were business-related, Creative, Inc. and Blog, Inc. -- before launching her first online course, she started her writing method for the online course like she were outlining a book.

"I really structured it like chapters of books in terms of knowing the topic of each chapter to cover and what the major points of each chapter are," she divulges.

Book-outlining was not her primary element in creating a course. One of the most crucial aspects in creating the course online was her target audience.

Once she had written down the key points of her course after which she worked for a couple of months developing the content by getting feedback from her students and small-business owners.

To ensure that she was covering everything her audience wanted to learn, Joy asked them details about what they wanted to know and what they were looking for in terms of growing the team they envision for themselves.

The feedback she sought didn't stop there. Then, Joy took it to another level, and she held private beta classes in person in LA.

For the live-streamed event, she simply published a questionnaire related to her course in an Instagram story, inviting her nearly half a million fans to take the Google Form.

The course was attended by about 180 people and used Facebook to ask those same folks to an in-person edition of the course in the event that they are in LA at the time of the live class time -- out of which 15 people took her up on the invite.

But not any 15 people however, instead, the best 15 people. Joy describes her approach, "Even if I could get a diverse mix of 15 people, it has allowed me to run the spectrum of types of people I'd like to be able to watch this and benefit from it."

Even though the in-person course was basic with no screens or slides however, it helped in guiding the direction of her course the content.

One idea for content she gleaned from her live class was including experts in the videos she made.

"By simply having fifteen individuals here and me to share that knowledge it was what gave me the information to invite the experts involved," Joy explains.

In her finished product, Joy features experts in her videos on accounting and legal topics.

However, even an experienced artist such as Joy faced obstacles during her creative process. Beginning with an eye for designPerhaps a bit too too much eye.

How Joy did it over her creative challenges with her online class

In the process of creating her online course, Joy encountered a few of hiccups, one of which was putting together the graphics.

Since her business is foremost one of design, Joy puts a lot of focus on getting her designs. Every aspect of her advertising, to her videos had to be flawless.

As you can imagine, the quest for perfection morphed into a major time sink.

Though, seeing her attractive advertisement of her online class, it's hard not to feel that it was a good investment of time:

However, Joy set such high standards for graphic elements including pop-up dimensions and time in her videos, that she needed to go through five revisions.

The process was so drawn out, she had to think:

"Joy, are you getting too involved in this? And are creating this as if you are doing more than you really need to and nobody would even care that you have graphics on the screen?"

Another issue for Joy was the time of launch. Because launching an online course was an untested territory that she was unfamiliar with, she felt forced out of her comfortable zone.

"Launch was the most difficult task for me since I'd never ever launched an online class," she admits. "I've launched many different products . . . We've completed dozens . . . Of collaborations between products and other brands and we know how to market physical items."

The result? It was that she had to get on the books and run.

"I gained so much in all honesty, when I began the project and everything else that were great for me to learn to remember for my next attempt because I can't say that I did it perfectly since I didn't know about what I was doing." Joy muses.

Her greatest learnings came about launching prior to launch.

Her suggestion is to start making hype before the launch date. The pre-launches that strike that perfect balance between discussing it and getting people excited are essential, along with the answer to any question your viewers might have.

"You're trying to respond to questions ahead of time and get all questions answered, so on the day you go, your audience is waiting to buy."

Joy also had to overcome her discomfort of speaking on camera. Speaking on camera isn't something which happens naturally for her. Between television spots and conference public speaking the task was one she had to learn and master over six years.

"I'm not adamant about doing it, but I recognize the benefits and feel confident in doing it certain," Joy reveals.

Her mentality in getting to this level of comfort is one that's centered around her audience. "I don't have the ability to speak for every viewers, but with mine, there was that discussion that I wanted to happen. So I just let that be, and I just realized that I must accept it."

In stepping out of her comfort zone and stepping out of her comfort zone, she became better equipped to meet the needs of her customers with her expertise, which resulted in -- and are -an online class that is flourishing.

Naturally there were other issues that she needed to deal with during the process also.

How Joy along with her team of dreamers handle the process of creation

For logistics, Joy's team uses Basecamp to oversee the entire creation process.

"We pretty much relied on Basecamp for everything. It's how my team members as well as I collaborate . . . I would basically start with a fresh Basecamp message for each component of the process," she says.

Aside from a couple Google Docs from time to time Her team, which includes her production assistant and videographer, references Basecamp to help them work out specifics of the project. The team also communicates via the platform.

In the process of recording the material in her online course Joy as well as her team employed three backdrops at her studio space that fit the brand image she has created. These were natural and authentic settings, also, due to the fact that they're her actual workspaces.

"So you've got the right one . . . It has the desk I'm at right now, which is at the moment, where I job, then there is an area in the front of a sofa which is my office. And there was an additional area front of a bookcase that's also in my office," she says.

The look and feel in her course videos are obviously influenced by her personal workspace, everything captured on film is deliberate -- including her outfits.

"I think that I intentionally contemplated the branding . . . Colors and the color palette is essentially the style guide," she explains.

More specifically, Joy wears one outfit with a background that is used for chapters with odd numbers and another outfit-background comb for chapters that are even-numbered. Details like this help her brand distinct.

"All these things were thought out and were intentional, and that to me is how you know this is an Oh Joy! video. This is due to all those particulars."

Speaking of details, let's close out with Joy's advice beginning with refraining from stressing over the little things.

Joy's parting advice for co-creators

If you want to turn your passion into income the words of Joy are a bit similar to Nike's advice: you have to do it.

If you're afraid of making mistakes, do not be, because they're inevitable.

Joy coaches "I shared with you some examples of things that I've done not do in class, or what I could improve next time. There are always mistakes that will be made."

Instead of fearing the inevitable do what you can to make the best of it. In the event that you fail, you'll be regretting it.

"If you never even consider it to begin with there will be the 'what-if' feeling or that desire at the back of your head for something you wanted to do," she warns.

One of the biggest factors of having no regrets is to move forward with no perfection.

"I would rather see somebody try and just experiment with something and then put it out and try it instead of waiting until all is perfect to them because to you, it's likely to never be 100% perfect."

Your audience on the other hand? This could be. You'll never find out when you're not ready to publish, though, so if you're on the fence of launching your own product, now is the time to move to the other side.