Run a creator side hustle with Learnomy

Turn on Solo Academy mode immediately. Run a solo creator academy, Phase 1, covers this as step one for a reason: it hides the instructor application queue, commission and earnings screens, and the admin Instructors menu, none of which apply when you are one person testing an idea. Turn it on before you build anything else. See Solo Academy Mode.

Launch on the Test gateway, then switch. The same guide's Phase 2 lists four gateways: Test, Stripe, PayPal, and WooCommerce. A side hustle should not let real-payment setup block launch: build and publish the course with the Test gateway enabled first (a real Stripe or PayPal account, its API keys, and its webhook wiring can all wait), then switch to Stripe once you are ready to actually take money. The course itself, its pricing, and its checkout page work identically either way -- only which gateway processes the charge changes.

Pick the simplest pricing model to start. Pricing and Access Models lists eight models. For a first course, One-time payment (lifetime access) is the right starting point: no subscription billing to manage, no membership catalog to build first, and it matches how a single course is normally sold. Do not reach for Recurring or Members only yet -- both assume an ongoing catalog or a subscription business you have not built, and Learnomy locks a course's pricing model the moment it has a paying customer, so getting this simple choice right the first time avoids having to clone the course later just to fix it.

Grow into more structure once the first course sells. Once you have proven the first course and have a second or third one ready, two upgrade paths open up: keep selling additional courses one-time each, or move to Membership Content Library once there is enough of a catalog to justify an all-access plan. Because the pricing model locks after a purchase, relaunching an existing course under a different model means cloning it rather than editing the live one -- plan the switch as a new course listing, not a setting flip on the original.

Keep the certificate on from day one. Run a solo creator academy, Phase 2, covers turning on Award a certificate on completion. It costs nothing extra and gives an early student something concrete to show for finishing, which matters more for a new, unproven course than for an established one with its own reputation already doing that work.