Behind the Launch: What It Really Takes to Teach Online

In this honest, behind-the-scenes episode, Kaylie and Delores unpack what really goes into launching and teaching online — beyond the polished social media posts.

They share recent experiences from their own course launches, including:

• The emotional rollercoaster of selling while caregiving or managing health conditions.
• The terrifying tech glitch that deleted 170+ students from Delores’ course platform — and the ripple effects.
• Why both hosts are rethinking their platforms (Teachable and FEA Create) and what they’re switching to.
• The vulnerability of launching, comparison traps, and how to keep going when it feels like everyone is ahead of you.
• Why student wins — even small ones — make it all worth it.

Whether you're thinking of teaching your first class or are deep in your 10th launch, this episode offers encouragement, real talk, and gentle reminders that you don’t need a huge team to start making an impact.

📣 Coaching and Support
Need help mapping out your first or next launch?
🔹 Work with Delores: New Coaching by Delores | Delores Naskrent/DeloresArt School
🔹 Contact Kaylie for Strategy Session: kaylie@spellweavercreativestudio.co.uk

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Kaylie Edwards - Instagram - Website - Facebook - Threads

• 5 Day FREE Email List Kickstart Challenge
• New Handmade to Scalable Beta Course

Delores Naskrent - Website & Digital Art School - Instagram - Facebook - Pinterest - Youtube

• Procreate Foundations Course
• Affinity Foundations Course

Transcript

Kaylie Edwards and Delores Naskrent

 [00:00:00] 

Kaylie Edwards: Hey, creative souls. Welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy podcast. I'm Kaylie, and today I'm here with my brilliant co-host, Delores. We've just wrapped up some pretty full on course launches and felt this was the perfect time. To pull back the curtain and talk about what really goes into being a teacher in today's online marketplace.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah. Hi everybody. Yes. This topic has been on my heart. I wanted to do an episode like this because so many people see the polished end result, a new course announcement, maybe a few Instagram posts, but what they don't see is the behind the scenes reality. We were just talking about this, the stress, the tech, the overwhelm, the juggling.

So let's unpack it all.[00:01:00] 

So people don't often realize how much invisible work happens. All the lesson planning, the recording, the editing, the uploading, the writing emails, the dealing with glitches, and when something goes wrong like it did for me this time around, it can really throw everything off. Like I accidentally deleted 172 students from.

My entire teachable school. Yes, you heard me right? No backup. No way to restore. I literally lost sleep for days. It was gut wrenching. Just gut wrenching.

Kaylie Edwards: And that mistake created ripple effects, didn't it? Delores had to reach out to students to get them to check their teachable accounts and make sure they still had access. And if they didn't, Delores had to send them instructions [00:02:00] to get them back in. And restore their access. Students also had to go through checkout process again to recreate their accounts.

Most of the students that were deleted were luckily recovered ish by them noticing they had lost access and getting in touch with Delores first as when a student user is deleted from Teachable, as we found out. The transaction history also changes in teachable to a deleted user, so their email address and name are also deleted.

So you have no idea who purchased previously and no way to contact them. It was a nightmare.

But before the launch, we decided to extend the cart open, period, this time around to almost two weeks. And in doing so. We hit a new sales goal with this launch, so silver linings, [00:03:00] but wow, what a ride we had. And beyond the tech stuff, it was just so much, especially when you're balancing caregiving like I am with a toddler.

Life responsibilities for the both of us. My own office timeline stretches unexpected, always pops up.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I mean, we're just talking about this and honestly there's, there's that emotional side.

About it too. Like teaching is so vulnerable. Like I am constantly second guessing myself over everything. Everything like pricing, my offer, my content. I'm always wondering, is this enough? Am I good enough? Especially when I'm launching something new and gosh, committing to. Putting out a lot of money for paid advertising like I did this year.

Oh my [00:04:00] goodness. It's so scary. This year I've spent so much on advertising. You're often not. I'm gonna see a huge return the first time around, especially if you're paying someone else to manage those ads. 'cause I'm not able to do it myself. I just don't have the time, the mental bandwidth or just, I just can't handle it.

So it's definitely a long game, not a quick win by any means.

Kaylie Edwards: Yes. , I help out behind the scenes for Delores, so I do the building of the launch calendars, planning email sequences, writing the emails, fixing tech issues.

Created sales pages. But even with all that support, she's still doing her own classes, student support, social media. She also has to check everything I do and make her tweaks and edits.

It's still a lot for her. And if you're doing this alone like I do with my [00:05:00] own launches, it's even more of a mountain. So don't let those perfect looking launches, fool you. There's always a mess underneath the hood. Marketing is such a full-time job in itself. We're expected to be copywriters, video editors, social strategists, content creators, all while staying creative.

And then there's the comparison game. I will leave that to you.

Delores Naskrent: Absolutely. I mean, I follow a lot of different artists, so when I open my in inbox, like there's not a day that goes by that I don't see another creator in my niche launching something really similar.

And maybe they do it like a day before me or like a month before me, and I'm suddenly just spiraling, you know, just like, am I too late? Or should I even bother? All those little, little, I dunno, sneaky [00:06:00] thoughts come into play. Like just, it's so hard. It really is. Especially when you're exhausted.

Kaylie Edwards: Yes. Like I get emails from you sometimes and like, oh, this person's done this,

and I'm like, it's okay.

We can still launch. I know how hard it is, like I get this feeling myself, especially with all the noise from six and seven figure businesses. It's easy to feel drowned out, but what I always remind myself and my audience as well as Delores, is your people are looking for you. Your story, your style, your voice, that's what cuts through.

Delores Naskrent: And thank goodness you're there to keep me from jumping off the ledge, honestly. And this really kind of. There's so many things, first of all, that I could thank you for because of all the stuff that you do behind the scenes that nobody [00:07:00] is aware of. All, you know, we first started our relationship because of marketing, like literally just because of marketing.

But I don't think either of us realized how much tech there was involved and how much, right? Like how much tech there was. So let's talk about tech, because platforms really matter. I've been using now Teachable for three years, I guess since I started and it's been, it's been okay. I mean, this is probably the worst day for you to ask me about Teachable or this week in general, but that latest big mistake showed me something critical and that's, that Teachable doesn't back up student data.

I had no idea. Like, would, would you have thought that? Who would've thought that? Right. If you accidentally delete, if I, as I did accidentally delete something, it was literally completely gone. And really the support was not there, in my opinion. First of all, [00:08:00] it took them. A week of sort of putting me off before they finally said to me, no, we can't help you.

You know? So I was scrambling and gosh, like it's really tough right now because at the same time there's this huge hike in their price that's coming up. So I've gone until February, but the rising costs have almost. For me doubled what I'm gonna be, have to be paying for the subscription or the platform to host the classes.

And I've got a 200 class limit, which I have exceeded at this point. And it's really pushing me right now to consider moving platforms. But like. When, how, like in between what launches, where, how are we gonna do it? That's what's tricky and that's a lot of [00:09:00] stuff. Like it's taken me three years to build that up.

So that's, that's the tricky bit.

Kaylie Edwards: Yeah. Been nudging you about that FE ages,

Delores Naskrent: Yes, I know, I know.

Kaylie Edwards: and I get it. I recently decided to move away from my platform that I was on FEA, create for similar reasons. Too much friction with setup unanswered tech questions, affiliate marketing features that weren't working for me. And I need the automation and speed like right now. So before my holiday, I moved to.

Net Tams, no hassle. Platform 4.0, and what that is is a WordPress setup with custom plugins that her team helped get it ready for me. I still need to do like the backend setup and things and still move all my business from my other platform over, but it should in theory, [00:10:00] be smoother. Easier to use and I moved back to mailer light for my email marketing and a few small annual plug plugins, but it'll save me about 30 pound a month,

Delores Naskrent: That's awesome. Maybe more.

Kaylie Edwards: maybe more.

And I have way more flexibility now, and there's no risk either. So if like I miss a payment. Then at least I can still work on my website. It's still a learning curve. Even if password press and website design experience I have, as with any tech, there is updates and changes you need to get on top of. So I know that Delores will have a big job when we do move platforms for her

and.

You have, if you are going to do that yourself, you have [00:11:00] to really think about it as well and make sure you are moving to a platform that has all the features that you want.

So let's talk about why we still do this.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah. You know, like at the end of the day, it's really all about the students, right? Even one message from someone who finally understands something or who gained confidence that makes the whole launch feel absolutely worth it. One of the examples that I had, it's not quite like that, but it's something that really.

Warm My heart was that one of my students is in another membership. And in the membership they were talking about the difference between Adobe Illustrator and Affinity Designer. And should people be considering Affinity Designer, could they do everything that they wanted to in Illustrator and she.

Right there in the conversation on this other person's platform said [00:12:00] Yes, you could do everything that you can do in Illustrator, in Affinity Designer, and I know somebody who does this, teaches this, and. name is Delores Nasrin, and apparently I haven't gone to look at it 'cause it's, this just happened yesterday.

I gotta go look at it. But apparently a whole bunch of people then started to comment about, yes, I know her. She does great. I love her teaching and all this great stuff. So that was one that just really just gave me such a real boost of confidence about. Just every, you know, the fact that I'm teaching Affinity Designer is a little bit out there.

A lot of people don't think that it's, you know, an industry standard, but it is becoming one. And even Bonnie Christine mentioned it in one of her emails recently, and so it, it means that Affinity Designer is finally, you know. Gonna [00:13:00] be recognized as something that is a good alternative to Adobe Illustrator.

And this is something that just came about because of a conversation in another community. And thank goodness, you know, that was a student who has done this for me, has mentioned me, and who is, um, endorsing me. I. I can't believe, like, I'm so humbled by the fact that A, I'm known, you know, as an expert. Yeah.

And b, that, you know, this could happen. This, this could really start happening for me now. Like it is starting to be something really tangible. So at the end of the day, like I said, it's about the students and the fact that. You know, this kind of success that the students are having and talking about are, are things that are going to [00:14:00] affect my business in the future.

So it's so worth it. Despite all of those tech issues and all the stuff that we've gone through with this launching. It's worth it.

Kaylie Edwards: Yes. I always come back to like that ripple effect that you get one person learning from you can go on to create something amazing or start their own offer or just feel seen. It finally clicks for someone and they make progress all down to you. Teaching online gives us freedom and impact, but it is so much more,

Delores Naskrent: Yeah,

Kaylie Edwards: and you don't have to go big right away either. You can start small, run a mini workshop, you know, you could even pre-record a class and test it with five people. Every launch teaches you something like this. Last one for Delores and me worked well. [00:15:00] Of all the lessons from previous launches we've done it's tweaks, experiments, experience that build momentum, not just the magic behind it.

Also working on launch content months in advance,

Delores Naskrent: Months, months, and months.

Kaylie Edwards: Oh yes.

If you are solo, give yourself grace. Double the time you think you'll need. Maybe even triple it and do seek help as well, like a coach or use launch templates, checklists, even just an accountability buddy will help.

Delores Naskrent: Exactly. You don't need a giant team to be a teacher. I mean. I do all of the actual teaching and creating of the courses, creating of the projects myself, but you do need a plan and a realistic view of what's involved.

You'll get lots more value than [00:16:00] you realize, especially if you've taught in a classroom or guided others in your craft or just been a student. Honestly, you learn a lot that by just being a student in someone else's classes. Or if you have skills or a process, you can share. I have a student who has just launched her YouTube channel and has just recorded six classes already, so.

Baby steps. You know, she, she went, she's been in my membership pretty much from the start and has been learning and learning and doing and doing, and now she's at the point where she feels confident enough to create classes and put them out there. You only need to be a few steps ahead and show the way for others.

Kaylie Edwards: Yes, so, so true.

So tell us, what are your teaching dreams? Do you have any, have you launched something recently or are you thinking about. But [00:17:00] feeling stuck. I hope this episode hasn't put you off launching. We want this to help you know that there are others out there doing it, and it doesn't go well all the time, but you learn from it.

It's still worth it. If you have doubts, you can reach out to us. We can guide you and help you start small. Delores does group and one-to-one coaching for creatives. You can find the link in the description and also I do coaching as well for creatives to help out with the marketing and strategy. You can email me at Kaylie at spell weaver creative studio.co uk.

If you want help to map out a launch or your offerings.

Delores Naskrent: Yeah, we would absolutely love now done how many launches? Probably eight. Eight or nine launches, and yeah, we've, we've [00:18:00] learned a lot from doing that. And I also want you to know that as a coach, I have also. Taken and been involved in a lot of other coaches' works, you know, so I'm involved in coaching groups.

I am being coached. So coaching is something that at any stage of your learning you can really benefit from. And if you've made a launch mistake like mine, you're not alone. Come share with us. On Instagram or through the podcast site and keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process.