Picking your first product
How to choose what to sell when you have 10 ideas and no audience. The 5-question filter.
Skilldera
Build your digital creator business.
Free playbooks, case studies, and masterclasses on selling courses and digital products, written for African creators, by African builders.
- 100% free
- No email gate
- WhatsApp & MoMo playbooks
- Updated monthly
What we cover
Eight skills. One outcome: your first paying customer.
We don't pad the curriculum to feel impressive. These are the eight things every successful Skilldera creator gets right.
Pricing for African buyers
Why "what works in the US" usually doesn't. Pricing tactics that move XAF without leaving money on the table.
Selling on WhatsApp
WhatsApp is the dominant African channel. The exact 4-step funnel that converts a status view into a sale.
Recording courses on a phone
No studio, no expensive gear. The phone-only workflow used by creators making 500k+ XAF/month.
Your first 100 customers
The launch playbook that doesn't require ads or virality, just a list and a calendar.
Building an affiliate army
Recruit and pay affiliates without dropping a single line of code. Skilldera handles the rest.
Using AI to outline a course in 5 minutes
Skip the blank page. Tell our AI the topic, get back a 25-lesson outline ready to film.
Discount codes & flash sales that actually move product
When to discount, when to hold price, and how to use scarcity without burning out your audience.
Video lessons
3 free video lessons
We're recording every lesson live, then publishing here. Subscribe and we'll email you the moment each one goes live.
How to validate products ideas
This video features Alicia, who shares a five-step framework for validating digital product ideas before selling them on Etsy. The guide aims to help creators avoid spending time on products that lack market demand by using data-driven research. Key steps include: 1. Defining the idea (1:24): Clarifying what the product is, who it is for, and the problem it solves. 2. Checking demand (2:38): Using the EverBee Chrome extension to analyze sales trends and revenue on Etsy. 3. Analyzing competition (8:33): Reviewing top-performing listings to understand titles, trends, and design styles. 4. Identifying gaps (12:12): Finding opportunities to differentiate your product by targeting overlooked audiences or formats. 5. Making a decision (13:40): Choosing whether to move forward, pivot, or abandon the idea based on the gathered data.
All lessons are free. You don't need a Skilldera account to watch, but you'll need one to apply what you learn.
Why this academy is different
No fluff. Built for the way you actually sell.
Real African creator examples
Every case study is a real Skilldera creator, not a US guru you can't actually copy. We show the numbers, the messages, and the screenshots.
Step-by-step playbooks
Each module is a hands-on guide you can finish in one sitting. No theory dumps, just "do this, then this, then this."
100% free, no email gate
No "sign up to access". Open the page, watch the video, screenshot the parts you need. We make money when you make money.
Built for the African buyer
Mobile Money, WhatsApp, XAF pricing, low-bandwidth video, every lesson assumes the realities of selling here, not in San Francisco.
Be the first to watch every lesson.
Subscribe to the Skilldera newsletter, we'll email each lesson the moment it goes live, plus monthly case studies from creators making real money on the platform.
No spam. One email per published lesson + a monthly creator case study.